“It’s all right for you to say you’ll stand by me, son,” he said, “but if I go sneakin’ off and hidin’ away, how am I going to be able to stand by you? What will ’come of you, anyway?”
“Now don’t worry about me, sir,” Sam said independently; “I’ll get on somehow.”
“Oh, it’s going to be easy for Sam,” Annie Laurie broke in enthusiastically. “You see it’s this way. Now I have my money I’ll be able to pay for all the work he’s been doing for me, and he’ll keep right on working and saving up his money, and next October he’ll go back to the Rutherford Academy. It’s not so far away but that he can afford to run down here every week or two to go over the books, and he’ll get some good man in to take his place while he’s away. Vacations, he can take charge himself. Oh, we’ll get on now, Mr. Disbrow, both Sam and I, and we’ll have plenty of schooling too.”
Hector Disbrow looked at the tall boy sitting beside him and at the bright-faced girl who had spoken, and started to say something, but thought better of it and put his hand up to his mouth instead.
“Oh, yes,” he heard Azalea murmur. “They’ll get on now. Things are coming all right for them just as they have for me. There’s an end to trouble, isn’t there, if you just hang on and wait?”
“Well, there is, miss,” agreed Mr. Disbrow. “And now I reckon I better take the advice you all gave me and hike.”
“Are you going to walk, sir?” Sam asked.
“No, I’ve got one of the horses hid back here a ways. I’ll slip on him and get up the mountain before daybreak. Your ma and Hannah will be worrying about me, I reckon. Ma’s down on me, but that won’t keep her from worrying about me, you know.”
Sam nodded.
“They’re sleeping in a little tent I rigged up for them—kind of half house, half tent. Durn it, I wish I could buy something to take to ’em. The food supply’s getting mighty low.”