"Why, lor, Ma'am, she and her husband a'n't nothing but two babies theirselves. She ha'n't never been away from her folks, nor he from hisn, till t'other day he got bit with the ile-fever, and nothing would do but to tote down here to the Crik and make his fortin. They was chirk enough when they started; but about a week ago he come home, and I tell you he sung a little smaller than when he was there last. He was clean discouraged; there wa'n't no ile to be had, 'thout you'd got money enough to live on, to start with; and victuals and everything else was so awful dear, a poor man would get run out 'fore he'd realized the fust thing; wust of all was, Clementiny was so homesick she couldn't neither sleep nor eat; and the amount was, he'd stop 'long with father in the shop, and I should go and fetch home the two babies. So here I be, and a time I've had gittin' 'em along, I tell you."
"It's hard travelling down Oil Creek, then?" asked Miselle, with a personal interest in the question.
"Hard! Reckon you'll say that, arter you've tried it. How fur be you going?"
"To Tarr Farm."
"Lor, yes. Well now how d'y' allow to git there?"
"I am hoping to meet a friend here who will know all about the way; but if he fails me, I shall ask the people at the railway station."
"No need to go so fur. I kin tell ye the hull story, for it's from Tarr Farm I fetched the gal and young 'un this very morning."
"Indeed? What is the best route, then?"
"Well, you'll take the railroad down to Schaeffer's, and from there you start down the Crik either in a stage or a boat. But I wouldn't recommend the stage nohow. You don't look so very rugged, and if you wa'n't killed, you'd be scared to death. So you'll hev to look up a boat."
"What sort of boat?" asked Miselle, faintly.