THE COMMITTEE AT WORK.
Elder Bowen's negro boy Sam, who was working among the flower-beds with his master, sought safety in flight when Bud Goble's coming was announced, and, standing concealed behind an evergreen in the garden, saw and heard all that passed between the minister and the man who had come there to browbeat him. When Bud was ejected from the grounds Sam came out from his hiding-place grinning broadly.
"Marse Joe," said he, as soon as he could make himself understood, "dat beats all de sermons you ever preached all holler. It does so. But, Marse Joe, I 'fraid Marse Gobble gwine make ole Toby trouble all along of dat babolition paper. De nex' time he go dar he ax Uncle Toby whar he got dat money of his'n stowed away. Dat's what I 'fraid of, sah.'
"I didn't think of that, and perhaps it would be well for you to run over and put Toby on his guard," replied Mr. Bowen. "Neighbor Goble is on the war-path sure enough, and he would just as soon rob that old negro as to rob a white man. Tell Toby to give the money into his master's keeping."
Sam obeyed instructions, but we have seen that the suspicious old Toby was not willing to listen to advice. He was terribly alarmed when Sam told him what Bud had been about that morning, and taking advantage of his master's absence, and of his own position as helper about the stables, he dug up his money which he had buried before daylight, and posted off to the academy to have a talk with one of the Gray boys. He kept to the fields and gave the roads a wide berth; but he was obliged to cross one highway during his journey, and that was the time Bud Goble saw him. The old negro's actions excited Bud's interest as well as his suspicions, and having nothing else to do, he rose from his log and followed him.
And right here it is necessary to make a short explanation in order that you may understand what happened afterward. Rodney and Marcy Gray had been studying at the academy for almost four years, and although they were popular among all classes in and around Barrington, there were some, whites as well as blacks, who invariably got them mixed up, and never could tell one from the other unless they chanced to meet them in company. It was Rodney, the rebel, who helped Bud Goble when his family were all prostrated with the ague, and offered him a reward for finding that underground railroad, but it was Marcy, the Union boy, who picked the banjo with superior skill, danced and sung his way into the affections of the plantation darkies, and saved old Toby's melon-patch from being devastated by the students. These two had eaten a good many of old Toby's melons, and more than one Thanksgiving turkey which graced his table had been bought with their money. Believing from what Sam told him that his hard-earned wealth was not safe as long as he knew where it was, Toby decided that one of these two boys, the one he happened to find first, should be its custodian. Dick Graham, who was on duty at the front gate, told him where Marcy was, and the old man lost no time in making his way through the woods to his friend's beat. But Marcy declined to accept the responsibility, as we have seen, and so Toby took the money back and hid it in the ground whence he had taken it. He would have been better off—almost two hundred dollars better off—if he had done as Mr. Bowen and Marcy advised him to do; for Bud Goble dogged his footsteps every rod of the way, and Toby never once suspected it. Bud did not hear what passed between Toby and the sentry—he dared not go close enough for that; but he saw the stocking that went back and forth between the iron pickets of the fence, and he was in plain sight of the negro when he returned it to its hiding-place.
Here again Toby made a great mistake. If he had concealed the money under his cabin, within hearing and scenting distance of the coon dogs that were so numerous in the quarter, it would have been comparatively safe; but he was so very much averse to having it around him that he took it behind his garden-patch, rolled a decayed log from its bed and buried it there, covering it with his hands, and rolling the log back to its place.
[Illustration: TOBY HIDES THE MONEY.]
"Dar now," said Toby, loud enough to be overheard by the man who was crouching in the bushes not more than twenty yards away. "Nuffin can't find it dar 'ceptin' de hogs, an' dey can't eat it."
"That's a fact," soliloquized Goble, chuckling to himself. "But a two-legged hog like me can eat an' wear the things it will buy. Who keers for preachers an' storekeepers now? 'Pears like this mornin's work is goin' to turn out all right after all; don't it to you?"