“How you do talk, Tom,” said Gladys. “You know you wouldn’t do anything of the kind.”
“Who is Lambo?” asked Ralph.
“He’s a very bad, desperate negro,” said the colonel; “he has served several penitentiary sentences, and a year ago set a house on fire, robbed and nearly killed Mr. Osgood who lives five miles from us. He then disappeared and everybody hoped he would never be seen again. But some of the colored folks say he is back and I suppose we will soon hear of some new act of violence by him.”
“I do hope not,” said Mrs. Bollup. “By the way, Gladys, our cook tells me that Aunt Sarah is sick; won’t you drive over to-morrow and take her a basket of things she would like?”
“May I go too, mother?” asked Dorothy.
“Yes, indeed; I’ll have James get the horses ready early so you can start at nine o’clock.” And then Mrs. Bollup explained to Ralph that “Aunt Sarah” was an old colored woman, now living in a little cabin several miles distant, who had served the Bollup family when the colonel was a boy.
“It looks as if we are going to have rainy weather,” remarked the colonel; “you had better use the closed carriage to-morrow.”
The next morning was threatening in appearance, so the horses were hitched to a very ancient closed carriage and the young girls drove off at nine o’clock.
“Say, Os,” remarked Tom, “suppose you and I go to see Aunt Sarah; we can take a short cut through the woods. I don’t think it’s going to rain; we’ll get there by the time the girls do. Aunt Sarah is a real character, one of the old slavery days servants; there aren’t many of her kind left now.”
“I’ll be glad to go,” Ralph replied.