d her
ability to train up a boy rightly, and she had wished to refute their
imputations, by making that boy the wonder of the community and their
spiritual leader; and just as she had deemed her work safely done, lo,
it had come toppling about her ears. Even if the fall had come sooner,
she would have felt it less. It was the more terrible because so
unexpected, for she had laid aside all her fears and misgivings and felt
secure in her achievement.

"You ain't a-eatin' nothin', Hester," said her husband, anxiously. "I
hope you ain't a-feelin' bad this mornin'." He had heard her sobbing all
night long, and the strength and endurance of her grief frightened him
and made him uneasy, for she had always been so stoical. "Had n't you
better try an' eat one o' them buckwheat cakes? Put lots o' butter an'
molasses on it; they 're mighty good."

"Ef they 're so good, why don't you eat yoreself? You been foolin' with
a half a one for the last ten minutes." Indeed, the old man's food did
seem to stick in his throat, and once in a while a mist would come up
before his eyes. He too had had his dreams, and one of them was of many
a happy evening spent with his beloved boy, who should be near him, a
joy and comfort in the evening of his life; and now he was going away.

The old man took a deep gulp at his coffee to hide his emotion. It
burned his mouth and gave reason for the moisture in his eye when he
looked up at Fred.

"What train air you goin' to take, Fred?" he asked.

"I think I 'll catch that eight-fifty flier. It 's the best I can get,
you know, and vestibuled through, too."

"You have jest finally made up yore mind to go, have you?"

"Nothing could turn me from it now, Uncle 'Liph."

"It seems like a shame. You 'ain't got nothin' to do down in
Cincinnaty."

"I 'll find something before long. I am going to spend the first few
days just in getting used to being free." The next moment he was sorry
that he had said it, for he saw his guardian's eyes fill.

"I am sorry, Frederick," she said, with some return to her old asperity,
"I am sorry that I 've made your life so hard that you think that you
have been a slave. I am sorry that my home has been so onpleasant that
you 're so powerful glad to git away from it, even to go into a strange
city full of wickedness an' sin."

"I did n't mean it that way, Aunt Hester. You 've been as good as you
could be to me. You have done your duty by me, if any one ever could."

"We