So he did as she requested, and took his way toward the quarters. Miss Lillie, however, kept up with him, talking and asking questions about the Sunday-school. Tom, however, seemed absent-minded, and finally stopped short in the path.
“Miss Lillie, I wish you would let me go back after that chair,” he said.
“Why, Tom, I don’t care if you want to,” she replied, in a surprised tone, “but Jack can come just as well.”
Tom would not listen, but ran to the school-room, took the chair, and came back to where Lillie was standing, bearing it on his shoulder.
So they walked up through the quarters beside all the cabin doors, at which the people were gathered and watching; on up to the house, on the piazza of which Tom put down his burden, and touching his cap bade Miss Lillie “good-afternoon,” and walked away.
He knew exactly what he had done, and why he had done it. When he had found that Miss Lillie intended coming up with him through the quarters, he knew that among the people, even those that loved Tom best, there would arise a jealousy that Miss Lillie should notice one more than another. The beginning of this he had seen before, and for fear his influence with them might be lessened in the slightest degree, he did the very thing which set it all at rest immediately. And so, as they stood at their doors and watched the two go by, it seemed just as it should be to them. Tom, as Lillie’s servant, bore her chair. It satisfied them entirely, and Tom gained rather than lost in their opinion.
Now, do my young readers understand what I am talking about. Tom felt not one whit above his fellow-servants, but for fear they should think he did, and so the religion he was trying to spread should be hindered, he wished to carry Miss Lillie’s chair. And let me tell you it was an honor to him, for it was what St. Paul meant when he said: “Let not your good be evil spoken of.”
CHAPTER VII.
“Abide with me from morn till eve,
For without Thee I cannot live: