The caravan moving to this irregular and doleful music, passed
through another little town which Zene said was named Boston, late on
a rainy afternoon. Here they crossed the Miami River in a bridge
through the cracks of which Robert Day and Corinne looked at the full
but not very wide stream. It flowed beneath them in comparative
silence. The rain pricked the water's surface into innumerable
puckers.
"Little boys dancing up," said aunt Corinne, in time-honored phrase.
"No; it's bees stingin' the water," said her nephew, "with long
stingers that reach clear out of the clouds."
These sky-bees stung the dusty road until it lay first in dark
dimples and last in swollen mud rows and shallow pools. The 'pike
kept its dignity under the heaviest rains. Its very mud was light and
plaster-like, scarcely clinging to the wheels or soiling the horses'
legs. Its flint ribs rung more sharply under the horses' shoes.
Through the damp dusk aunt Corinne took pleasure in watching the fire
struck by old Henry and the gray, against the trickling stones. They
pulled the carriage curtains down, and Grandma Padgett had the
oilcloth apron drawn up to her chin, while she continued to drive the
horses through a slit.
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