“Ooft—gooft! That is all. Say nothing to no one. I’ll sleep here a little, and when the sun gets lower I’ll slip away to the swamp.”
“We are very much obliged to you,” said Sweetest Susan.
“Humph—umph! Humph—umph!” grunted the White Pig. “Nicely said—nicely said! I’m over-paid.”
X.
THE BLACK STALLION’S STORY.
The children were anxious to hear the rest of the story at once, but they were compelled to wait. The White Pig had told all he knew, and Aaron was on the other side of the plantation. So Buster John and Sweetest Susan amused themselves by wondering whether the Teacher was hanged or whether he was rescued. As for Drusilla, she very plainly said that she didn’t much care. It was all past and gone anyhow. Break a pumpkin, she said, and nobody in the world can mend it, not even if people were to come and cry over it.
But Buster John and Sweetest Susan thought it made all the difference whether a man was hanged or saved. They talked about it a good deal, and when they went to the house they asked their grandfather the name of the man who had come from a far country to teach their Uncle Crotchet. The old gentleman leaned back in his chair and looked at the youngsters. He smiled a little, and then closed his eyes and seemed to be thinking. The question had carried him back to the past.
“Have you forgotten his name, Grandfather?” asked Sweetest Susan, after a while.
“Forgotten his name!” exclaimed the grandfather. “Oh, no! No, indeed! His name was Hudspeth—Richard Hudspeth. I remember him as well as if he had been here only yesterday. At bottom, he was a fine character. He came here from Massachusetts, and he went back there.”
The grandfather paused and drummed gently on the arms of his easy chair. Then—