"I am glad to be under canvas, and you know my faith in General Grant.
"Tell Aunt Ann I have had three servants in two weeks. These newly freed blacks are like mere children and quite useless, or else—well—one was brutal to my horse. I sometimes wish Josiah was twins and I had one of him.—"
"What's that?" asked Penhallow. "Twins—I don't understand."
"He wishes he had a servant like Josiah, Uncle."
"Well, let him go to John," said the Colonel, with something of his old positive manner.
"But you would miss him, James."
"I will not," he returned, and then—"What else is there?"
"Oh—nothing—except that he will write again soon, and that he met Mr.
Rivers in Washington. That is all—a very unsatisfactory letter."
For a day or two the colonel said no more of Josiah, and then asked if he had gone, and was so obviously annoyed that Ann gave way as usual and talked of her husband's wish to Josiah. The old life of Westways and Grey Pine was over, and Josiah was allowed by Ann to do so little for Penhallow that the black was not ill-pleased to leave home again for the army life and to be with the man whom as a lad he had trusted and who had helped him in a day of peril.
No one thought of any need for a pass. He was amply supplied with money and bade them good-bye. He put what he required in a knapsack, and leaving Westways for the second time and with a lighter heart, set off afoot to catch the train at Westways Crossing. The old slave was thus put upon a way which was to lead to renewed and unpleasant acquaintance with one of the minor characters of my story.