The top of a hill soon stood between these children, and the travellers, but in all the vista beyond there was no glimpse of Zene.
Grandma Padgett felt anxious, and her anxiety increased as the dusk thickened.
“There don't seem to be any taverns along this road,” she said; “and I hate to ask at any farmer's for accommodations over night. We don't know the neighborhood, and a body hates to be a bother.”
“We'd need the cover off of the wagon to do that, and kittles,” said Grandma Padgett, “and dried meat and butter and cake and things _out_ of the wagon.”
“Maybe Zene's back in the woods campin' somewhere,” exclaimed aunt Corinne. “And he has his gun, and can shoot birds too.”
“No, he's goin' along the right road and expectin' us to follow. And as like as not has found a place to put up,--while we're off on the wrong road.”
“How'll we ever get to brother Tip's, then?” propounded aunt Corinne. “Maybe we're in Missouri, or Iowa, and won't never get to the Illinois line!”
“Humph!” remarked Robert her nephew; “do you s'pose folks could go to Iowa or Missouri as quick as this! Cars'd have to put on steam to do it.”
“And I forgot about the State lines,” murmured his aunt. “The' hasn't been any ropes stretched along't _I_ saw.”
“They don't bound States with ropes,” said Robert Day.
“Well, it's lines,” insisted aunt Corinne.
“Do you make out a house off there?” questioned Grandma Padgett, shortening the discussion.
“Yes, ma'am, and it's a tavern,” assured her grandson, kneeling upon the cushion beside her to stretch his neck forward.
It was a tavern in a sandy valley. It was lighting a cautious candle or two as they approached. A farmer was watering his team at the trough under the pump spout. All the premises had a look of Holland, which Grandma Padgett did not recognize: she only thought them very clean. There was a side door cut across the centre like the doors of mills, so that the upper part swung open while the lower part remained shut. A fat white woman leaned her elbows upon this, scarcely observing the travellers.
Grandma Padgett paused at the front of the house and waited for somebody to come out. The last primrose color died slowly out of the sky. If the tavern had any proprietor, he combined farming with tavern keeping. His hay and wheat fields came close to the garden, and his corn stood rank on rank up the hills.