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Updated: May 21, 2025
Bobaday named them; he had read something of English literature in his grandfather's old books. Johnson was a fat black and white dog, who was obliged to keep his tongue out of his mouth to pant during the greater part of his days. He had fits of meditation, when Boswell galloped all over him without provoking a snap.
The man who was sorting his papers at the table, turned an attentive eye and ear toward the children. But neither Bobaday nor Corinne considered that he broke up the family privacy. They scarcely noticed him. "Grandma," murmured Carrie vaguely, turning her eyes toward their guardian by the window. "Yes, that's Grandma," said Bobaday. "But don't you know where your own pa and ma are?"
"We made her open her eyes and take some breakfast in her mouth, but she went to sleep again while she's eatin'." "And we let her sleep ever since," added Bobaday. "It didn't make a bit of difference whether the cart went jolt-erty-jolt over stones or run smooth in the dust. And we shaded her face with bushes." "She's not well," said their experienced elder.
Boswell, on the other hand, was in a state of nerves. If he saw a bank at the roadside he ran ahead and mounted it, looking back into the carriage, demanding to know, with a yelping howl, where Bobaday and Corinne were. When his feelings became too strong for him he jumped at the step, and Grandma Padgett shook her head at him.
"'Twouldn't do any good if the kerns were ripe," said Bobaday, turning his pepper-and-salt trousers up until the linings showed. "This farm ain't ours now, and we couldn't pull them." Aunt Corinne paused at the fennel bed: then she impulsively stretched forth her hand and gathered it full. "I set out these things," said aunt Corinne, "and I ain't countin' them sold till the wagon starts."
Grandma Padgett sat down in a rocking settee, and Corinne and Bobaday on two of the chairs ranged in solemn rows along the wall. They felt it would be presumption to pull those chairs an inch out of line. It was a very depressing room. Two funeral urns hung side by side, done in India ink, and framed in chipped-off mahogany. Weeping willows hung over the urns, and a weeping woman leaned on each.
The dark circles were still about her eyes, but her pallor was flushed with a warmer color, Grandma Padgett pushed the damp curls off her forehead. "Are you hungry, Sissy?" she inquired. "No, ma'am," replied Carrie. "Yes, ma'am," she added, after a moment's reflection. "She actually doesn't know," said Bobaday, sitting down on the lounge near Carrie.
"Why, Bobaday Padgett," exclaimed aunt Corinne, "if there isn't our wagon and Ma Padgett." Both children came running to the carriage steps, and their guardian got down, trembling. She put her arms around them, and after a silent hug, shook one in each hand. The fire illuminated wagon and carriage, J. D. Matthew's cart, and the logs and bushes surrounding them.
But this warned them not to venture too near other fires where other possible dogs lay sentry. "Why didn't we fetch old Johnson?" whispered aunt Corinne, after they slid down the tree stump. "'Cause Boswell'd been at his heels, and the whole camp'd been in a fight," replied Bobaday. "Old Johnson was under our wagon; I don't know where Bos was. I was careful not to wake him."
Perhaps a few children whispered, or a baby cried and its mother took it out. Everybody seemed happy and astir. After church there was so much handshaking that the house emptied very slowly. But on his return he described the Quaker meeting to aunt Corinne. "They all sat and sat," said Bobaday.
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