and after waiting to be sure that the noses of Old Hickory and Old
Henry were following, he jogged between dewy fence rows, and they
came to the broad white ribbon of high road, and in time to the
village of Somerford, having progressed only ten miles that day.

Bobaday and Corinne were so sleepy, and their departure from
Somerford next morning was taken at such an early hour, that they
remembered it only as a smell of tallow candles in the night,
accompanied by a landlady's head in a ruffled nightcap.

Very different was Springfield, the county seat of Clark County.
That was a town with people moving briskly about it, and long streets
could be seen, where pleasant houses were shaded with trees.

Zene inquired the names of all small places as soon as they entered
the main street, and then, obligingly halting the wagon at one side,
he waited until Grandma Padgett came up, and told her. He learned and
announced the cities long before any of them came into view. It was a
pleasure to Bobaday and aunt Corinne to ride into a town repeating
its name to themselves and trying to fasten its identity on their
minds. First they would pass a gang of laborers working on the road,
or perhaps a man walking up and down telegraph poles with sharp-shod
heels; then appeared humble houses with children playing thickly
around them. Finer buildings crowded on the sight, and where the
signs of business flaunted, were women and little children in pretty
clothes, always going somewhere to buy something nice. Once they met
a long procession of carriages, and in the first carriage aunt
Corinne beheld and showed to her nephew a child's coffin made of
metal. It glittered in the sun. Grandma Padgett said it was zinc. But
aunt Corinne secretly suspected it was made of gold, to enclose some