As the carriage and wagon rolled along the 'pike, they met other
vehicles full of people driving for an outing, or going to afternoon
Sunday-school held in schoolhouses along the various by-roads.
Mrs. Tracy leaned forward every time a buggy passed the wagon, and
scanned its occupants until they turned towards the right to pass
Grandma Padgett.
The first messenger they met entered on the 'pike from a cross-road
some distance ahead of them, but was checked in his canter toward
Greenfield by Zene, who stopped the wagon for a parley. Mrs. Tracy
was half irritated by such officiousness, and Grandma Padgett herself
intended to call Zene to account, when he left the white and gray and
came limping to the carriage at the rider's side. However, the news
he helped to bring, and the interest he took in it, at once excused
him. This man, scouring the country north and south since early
morning, had heard nothing of the show-wagon.
It might be somewhere in the woods, or jogging innocently along a
dirt road. It was no longer an object to the searchers. He believed
the woman and child had left it, intending to rejoin it at some
appointed place when all excitement was over.
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