areful how you treat me, kase I'm a bigger man in this
settle_ment_ nor you think I be. What's that you're shovin' out of sight
behind your cheer? Let me have a look at it."

Uncle Toby was one of the most popular negro preachers in the county,
and had been known to boast of the fact that he addressed a larger
Sunday morning congregation than any white minister in Barrington. Bud
Goble thought he was a dangerous nigger to have around, and often asked
Mr. Riley why he did not "shut him up." But the planter only laughed and
said that if old Toby could preach so much better than the Barrington
ministers, he didn't think he ought to be deposed. So long as the
darkeys who came into his grove of a Sunday had passes from their
masters, it was all right; but there was something that was not all
right, and it was the occasion of no little uneasiness and perplexity to
Mr. Riley. By some hocus-pocus Toby had learned to read his Bible. There
was nothing wrong in that, of course, but a darkey who could read his
Bible would be likely to read papers as well; and from them, especially
if they chanced to be Northern papers, he might imbibe some ideas that
no slave had any business to entertain. It was said, and Bud Goble
believed it, that Toby had a great deal to do with the "underground
railroad" that had carried so many runaway negroes to freedom. You will
be surprised when you hear that Bud was ignorant enough to take this
expression literally. He really thought that some one had built a
railroad under Barrington for the purpose of assisting discontented
slaves to escape to Canada, and some of the wags at the military academy
offered him a large sum of money if he would find it and conduct them to
it, so that they might tear it up. Bud concluded that somewhere in the
woods there must be a ladder or flight of stairs that led down to the
railroad, and he spent days in looking for it. When Mr. Riley, taking
pity on his ignorance, explained the matter to him, Bud was fighting
mad; and ever since that time he had been watching for an opportunity to
be revenged upon the boys who had played upon his credulity.

"Let me have a look at that there thing you was a-shovin' out of sight
behine your cheer when I come in," repeated Bud, striding up to the
fire-place and catching up the article that had caught his eye. "Looked
to me like one of them 'sendiary papers, an' it is too. What business
you got to be readin' like a white gentleman?" he adde