"I'll try, little masser—I'll do very much to stay in this house when you're gone; but don't be frightened if I come often. Masser," sobbed the negro, "it does me good to say 'little masser,' but to-morrow no one will hear me."
Paul clung to his friend. "But I shall know it. In my soul I shall hear Jube's voice saying, 'little masser.'"
The rattle of wheels disturbed them. Tom Hutchins had driven up in his father's yellow wagon, and sat cracking his whip, ready to convey Paul to the stage house, where the doctor was waiting to see his youthful friend off. There was brief leave-taking between Mrs. Allen and her son's protégé. The sorrows that possessed her were so absorbing that all lesser griefs passed as nothing. She kissed the boy with a mournful farewell, and saw him driven away heavy-hearted and heavy eyed, wondering that any one, even a child, could feel sorrow for so slight a cause.
Jube, poor, faithful Jube, lifted Paul into the wagon, folded the checked blanket which draped the seat tenderly around him, and turned away, covering his face with both hands.
When Paul looked back to wave his last adieu, Jube was following down the road with long strides. He soon reached the wagon, and kept up with it, notwithstanding Tom's splendid driving, till they reached the stage house on the hill at Chewstown.
The stage was not in, and Tom sat in magnificent state by his foreign friend, snapping his whip and holding in his horse, which was made restive by the noise, with great force. What between grief at his friend's departure and the glory of driving a young horse for the first time, that precocious Jehu was in a state of wonderful excitement. But when the stage-coach came in, with its tin horn sounding over the hills, and a crack of whips that startled the whole neighborhood, Tom folded up his lash in despair, and shrinking into the insignificance of a one-horse wagon, gave way to his counter passion and became inconsolable over Paul's departure.
"I don't wonder you look so, Jube," he said, addressing the negro. "The idea of sending him off without you—it's downright scandlous. Now if it was me I'd cut. Catch a chap about this size staying behind to please an old woman! I wouldn't do it!"
"Ha, what is that? What you say, Masser Tom? Cut—what is cut?"
Before Tom could explain his meaning to the negro, the doctor rode up and shook Paul by the hand.
"Come, hop out, my little shaver—seat all ready—driver's got his orders. Here's a letter that you must give Mr. Prior, that's a good boy. Open the door, driver—lift him up, cuffy—ho, heave, ho!"