Sam, who enjoyed her confidence to the full, suggested that she should feign ill-health, and leave the place under pretence of seeking a residence better suited to her constitution. That was not the way in which Sam expressed his thought, of course, but he made himself clearly understood by saying:
"Tell you what 'tis, Mis' Agatha, you'se jes' got to git powerful sick an' say you cawn't live in no sich a pesky town as dis here one. Den you kin pack up yer things, ef you've got any, an' move on."
Agatha laughed, and answered:
"Why, Sam, I don't know how to be ill. I never had a headache in my life, and I couldn't look like an invalid if I tried. No, Sam, we must just wait here for a time."
"Why, Mis' Agatha, it's de easiest thing in de world to make out as how you'se sick when you ain't. I'se done it hundreds of times, when mammy wanted me to wuk in de kitchen an' I wanted to go a-fishin'. All you got to do is to look solemncholy-like, an' say you'se got a pain in yo' haid an' a powerful misery in yo' back, an' cole chills a-creepin' all over you. Tell you what, it's as easy as nuffin' at all."
Agatha laughed again, but put Sam's plan aside without further discussion, whereat that budding strategist went away sorrowful, muttering to himself:
"I done heah folks say as how 'white man's mighty onsartain,' but Mis' Agatha's a heap wuss'n even a white man, leastwise 'bout some things."
A week later, Sam presented another plan, which he had wrought out in his mind at cost of not a little gray brain matter.
"Mis' Agatha," he asked, "is you got any frien's in New York what you kin trus' to do what you axes 'em to do?"
"Yes, Sam. There's one gentleman there who will do anything I ask him to do. He's the one to whom I sent the papers that I made you carry till we got here."