contempt in the negro's words that
made Chad think of hearing the Turners call the Dillons white
trash--though they never said "po' white trash."

"Oh!" said the Major. So the carriage stopped, and when a man in a
black slouch hat came out, the Major called:

"Jim, here's a boy who ain't had anything to eat for twenty-four hours.
Get him a cup of coffee right away, and I reckon you've got some cold
ham handy."

"Yes, indeed, Major," said Jim, and he yelled to a negro girl who was
standing on the porch of his house behind the store.

Chad ate ravenously and the Major watched him with genuine pleasure.
When the boy was through, he reached in his pocket and brought out his
old five-dollar bill, and the Major laughed aloud and patted him on the
head.

"You can't pay for anything while you are with me, Chad."

The whole earth wore a smile when they started out again. The swelling
hills had stretched out into gentler slopes. The sun was warm, the
clouds were still, and the air was almost drowsy. The Major's eyes
closed and everything lapsed into silence. That was a wonderful ride
for Chad. It was all true, just as the school-master had told him; the
big, beautiful houses he saw now and then up avenues of blossoming
locusts; the endless stone fences, the whitewashed barns, the woodlands
and pastures; the meadow-larks flitting in the sunlight and singing
everywhere; fluting, chattering blackbirds, and a strange new black
bird with red wings, at which Chad wondered very much, as he watched it
balancing itself against the wind and singing as it poised. Everything
seemed to sing in that wonderful land. And the seas of bluegrass
stretching away on every side, with the shadows of clouds passing in
rapid succession over them, like mystic floating islands--and never a
mountain in sight. What a strange country it was.

"Maybe some of your friends are looking for you in Frankfort," said the
Major.

"No, sir, I reckon not," said Chad--for the man at the station had told
him that the men who had asked about him were gone.

"All of them?" asked the Major.

Of course, the man at the station could not tell whether all of them
had gone, and perhaps the school-master had stayed behind--it was Caleb
Hazel if anybody.

"Well, now, I wonder," said Chad--"the school-teacher might'a' stayed."

Again the two lapsed into silence--Chad thinking very hard. He might
yet catch the school-master in Lexington, and he grew very cheerful at