I stared at him, dazed. I never thought he could get so angry. He looked at me with hostile, indignant eyes. Then he straightened up stiffly and walked out of the stable.
“I won’t stay here any longer,” he exploded, still at the boiling point. “I won’t be insulted.”
“I apologize,” I said humbly. “I spoke in haste. Won’t you please consider it unsaid?”
No, he wouldn’t consider it unsaid. He wouldn’t listen to father’s pathetic plea not to leave him without a helper. We suspected him of being a slacker and that finished it. He would leave immediately. Down the road he marched as fast as he could go without ever turning his head.
A worm in the dust was much too exalted to describe the way I felt. With the best of intentions I had precipitated a calamity, taking away father’s best helper at a critical time, to say nothing of my losing him as a companion. I was too disgusted with myself to live and chopped wood to relieve my feelings. After supper I hitched up Sandhelo and drove to Spencer to post a letter. I am not in the least sentimental—you know that—but all along the road I kept seeing things that reminded me of Justice Sherman and the fun we had had together. Now that he was gone the days ahead of me seemed suddenly very empty, and desolation laid a firm hand on my ankle.
Also, I had an uncomfortable recollection that it was right along here we had met the horrid negro, and I became filled with fear that I would meet him again. The fear grew, and turned into absolute panic when I approached that same clump of bushes and in the dusk saw a figure rise from behind them and lurch toward the road. I pulled Sandhelo up sharply, thinking to turn around and flee in the opposite direction, but Sandhelo refused to be turned. When I pulled him up he sat back and mixed up the harness so he got the bit into his teeth, and then he jumped up and went straight on forward, with a squeal of mischief. When we were opposite the figure in the road Sandhelo stopped short and poked his nose forward just the way he used to do when Justice Sherman came into his stall.
“Hello,” said a voice in the darkness, and then I saw that the figure in the road was Justice Sherman. His bad ankle had given out on him and he had been sitting there on the ground waiting for some vehicle to come along and give him a lift to Spencer.
“Get in,” I said briefly, helping him up, and he got in beside me without a word. We drove to Spencer in silence and he made no move to get out when we got there. I mailed my letter and then turned and drove homeward. About half way home he spoke up and apologized for being so hasty, and wondered if father would take him back again. I reassured him heartily and we were on the old footing of intimacy by the time we reached home.
We found father standing in front of the house talking to a negro whom we recognized as the one we had met in the road that afternoon. Father greeted Justice Sherman with joy and relief.
“You pretty nearly came back too late,” he said. “Here I was just hiring a man to take your place.” Then he turned to the negro and said, “It’s all off, Solomon. I don’t need you. My own man has come back. You go along and get a job somewhere else.”