The note she sent by the men, after thanking them, and paying them in
what Robert and his aunt considered a prodigal and wealthy manner.
So large a slice out of the afternoon had their trip to the meeting-house
taken, that it was quite dark when the party drove briskly into
Indianapolis.
It was a little city at that date. Still, Bobaday felt exalted by
clanging car-bells and railroad crossings. It being Sunday evening,
the freights were making up. The main street, called Washington, was
but an extension of the 'pike, stretching broad and straight through
the city. He noticed houses with balconies, set back on sloping
lawns. Here a light disclosed a broad hall with dim stairs at the
back. And in another place children were playing under trees; he
could hear their calls, and by straining his eyes, barely discern
that they wore sumptuous white city raiment. The tide of home-makers
and beautifiers had not then rolled so far north of East Washington
street as to leave it a mere boundary line.
Grandma Padgett and her party stopped at a tavern on Illinois
street. Late in the night they were to separate, Mrs. Tracy taking
the first train for Baltimore. So aunt Corinne and Robert, before
going to bed, bade good-by to the child who had scarcely been a
playmate to them, but more like a delicate plaything in whose
helplessness they had felt such interest.
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