The Princesses liked to escort Prudy through the streets, and hear her exclamations of surprise. She told them the "Yankees wouldn't 'buze their horses so;" for it seemed to her rather unkind to braid their tails like heads of hair, and tie them up in knots; though Grace assured her this was done to keep them from trailing in the dust. The mules were another curiosity. Prudy was also amazed at the "loads of oxen" driven by men who sat in the carts, and "drove 'em and whipped 'em same as if they was horses." "Yankees," she said, "walked with the oxen, and talked into their ears." She informed the girls that the Hoosier sky was very odd-looking. "It's Quaker color," she said; "but the sky to Portland is as blue as a robin's egg, 'cept when it fogs." She described feathery snow-storms, "frost-bitten" windows, and the nice fishing in "Quoddy Bay;" told her listeners that eastern people "_shave_" their grass in summer, and when it is dry it's good to jump on. For the short time Prudy staid in Indiana her sunny face was a pleasure to everybody. "Why, aunt Ria," said she, "do you think I'm good, though? Well, I'm ever'n ever so much better away from home." CHAPTER IX. BARBARA's WEDDING. Barbara had now been at home for some time making preparations for her wedding, and had cordially invited all the children to see her married,--Grace, Cassy, Prudy and Horace; everybody but little "Ruffle-neck," as Horace sometimes called the baby. They set out in the morning in high spirits, Grace and Cassy walking under one umbrella, Horace and Prudy under another. Prudy was bareheaded, and her "killing little curls" were blown into wild confusion by the breezes. The June air was very sweet, for it was "snowing roses." Prudy asked Horace if he didn't think "the world smelt nice?" Horace put on a look of calm superiority, and replied that "the flowers were very much like essence bottles, to be sure, what we call _odiferous_, Prudy." Some way behind the two children sailed the other umbrella, marked, in white paint, "Stolen from H. S. Clifford;" while under it Grace and Cassy talked confidentially. Prudy had heard they were going to a place called the Bayou, and supposed it to be some sort of a house. But after a walk of two miles, they came to an immense field, where the corn shot up very tall and luxuriant. "There's the bayou over yonder," laid Horace, with a sweep of his thumb. "Where?" said Prudy, straining her eyes. "I don't see a single thing but sugar-canes." "_Corn_, you mean! Well, it's a bayou, and the water runs up over it in the spring, and that makes bottom-land rich as mud." Prudy stared at the cornfield, then at the river. "You don't mean that that little thing went over it," said she, waving her hat towards the Ohio. "Poh! you needn't think our river looks that way," dropping the umbrella over his shoulder. "Tell you what it is: that river rises out of bed every spring, but it's hung out to dry in the summer, Prudy."