The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come Part 6

"I reckon I hain't thought o' my name since I left old Nathan," he said. Then he told briefly about the old man, and lifting his lame foot suddenly, he said: "Ouch!" The Major looked around and Chad explained:

"I hurt my foot comin' down the river an' hit got wuss walkin' so much." The Major noticed then that the boy's face was pale, and that there were dark hollows under his eyes, but it never occurred to him that the lad was hungry, for, in the Major's land, n.o.body ever went hungry for long. But Chad was suffering now and he leaned back in his seat and neither talked nor looked at the pa.s.sing fields. By and by, he spied a crossroads store.

"I wonder if I can't git somethin' to eat in that store."

The Major laughed: "You ain't gettin' hungry so soon, are you? You must have eaten breakfast pretty early."

"I ain't had no breakfast-an' I didn't hev no supper last night."

"What?" shouted the Major.

Chad stated the fact with brave unconcern, but his lip quivered slightly-he was weak.

"Well, I reckon we'll get something to eat there whether they've got anything or not."

And then Chad explained, telling the story of his walk from Frankfort. The Major was amazed that anybody could have denied the boy food and lodging.

"Who were they, Tom?" he asked

The old driver turned:

"They was some po' white trash down on Cane Creek, I reckon, suh. Must'a' been." There was a slight contempt in the negro's words that made Chad think of hearing the Turners call the Dillons white trash-though they never said "po' white trash."

"Oh!" said the Major. So the carriage stopped, and when a man in a black slouch hat came out, the Major called:

"Jim, here's a boy who ain't had anything to eat for twenty-four hours. Get him a cup of coffee right away, and I reckon you've got some cold ham handy."

"Yes, indeed, Major," said Jim, and he yelled to a negro girl who was standing on the porch of his house behind the store.

Chad ate ravenously and the Major watched him with genuine pleasure. When the boy was through, he reached in his pocket and brought out his old five-dollar bill, and the Major laughed aloud and patted him on the head.

"You can't pay for anything while you are with me, Chad."

The whole earth wore a smile when they started out again. The swelling hills had stretched out into gentler slopes. The sun was warm, the clouds were still, and the air was almost drowsy. The Major's eyes closed and everything lapsed into silence. That was a wonderful ride for Chad. It was all true, just as the school-master had told him; the big, beautiful houses he saw now and then up avenues of blossoming locusts; the endless stone fences, the whitewashed barns, the woodlands and pastures; the meadow-larks flitting in the sunlight and singing everywhere; fluting, chattering blackbirds, and a strange new black bird with red wings, at which Chad wondered very much, as he watched it balancing itself against the wind and singing as it poised. Everything seemed to sing in that wonderful land. And the seas of bluegra.s.s stretching away on every side, with the shadows of clouds pa.s.sing in rapid succession over them, like mystic floating islands-and never a mountain in sight. What a strange country it was.

"Maybe some of your friends are looking for you in Frankfort," said the Major.

"No, sir, I reckon not," said Chad-for the man at the station had told him that the men who had asked about him were gone.

"All of them?" asked the Major.

Of course, the man at the station could not tell whether all of them had gone, and perhaps the school-master had stayed behind-it was Caleb Hazel if anybody.

"Well, now, I wonder," said Chad-"the school-teacher might'a' stayed."

Again the two lapsed into silence-Chad thinking very hard. He might yet catch the school-master in Lexington, and he grew very cheerful at the thought.

"You ain't told me yo' name," he said, presently. The Major's lips smiled under the brim of his hat.

"You hain't axed me."

"Well, I axe you now." Chad, too, was smiling.

"Cal," said the Major. "Cal what?"

"I don't know."

"Oh, yes, you do, now-you foolin' me"-the boy lifted one finger at the Major.

"Buford, Calvin Buford."

"Buford-Buford-Buford," repeated the boy, each time with his forehead wrinkled as though he were trying to recall something.

"What is it, Chad?"

"Nothin'-nothin'."

And then he looked up with bewildered face at the Major and broke into the quavering voice of an old man.

"Chad Buford, you little devil, come hyeh this minute or I'll beat the life outen you!"

"What-what!" said the Major excitedly. The boy's face was as honest as the sky above him. "Well, that's funny-very funny."

"Well, that's it," said Chad, "that's what ole Nathan used to call me. I reckon I hain't naver thought o' my name agin tell you axed me." The Major looked at the lad keenly and then dropped back in his seat ruminating.

Away back in 1778 a linchpin had slipped in a wagon on the Wilderness Road and his grandfather's only brother, Chadwick Buford, had concluded to stop there for a while and hunt and come on later-thus ran an old letter that the Major had in his strong box at home-and that brother had never turned up again and the supposition was that he had been killed by Indians. Now it would be strange if he had wandered up in the mountains and settled there and if this boy were a descendant of his. It would be very, very strange, and then the Major almost laughed at the absurdity of the idea. The name Buford was all over the State. The boy had said, with amazing frankness and without a particle of shame, that he was a waif-a "woodscolt," he said, with paralyzing candor. And so the Major dropped the matter out of his mind, except in so far that it was a peculiar coincidence-again saying, half to himself-

"It certainly is very odd!"

CHAPTER 8.

HOME WITH THE MAJOR

Ahead of them, it was Court Day in Lexington. From the town, as a centre, white turnpikes radiated in every direction like the strands of a spider's web. Along them, on the day before, cattle, sheep, and hogs had made their slow way. Since dawn, that morning, the fine dust had been rising under hoof and wheel on every one of them, for Court Day is yet the great day of every month throughout the Bluegra.s.s. The crowd had gone ahead of the Major and Chad. Only now and then would a laggard buggy or carriage turn into the pike from a pasture-road or locust-bordered avenue. Only men were occupants, for the ladies rarely go to town on court days-and probably none would go on that day. Trouble was expected. An abolitionist, one Brutus Dean-not from the North, but a Kentuckian, a slave-holder and a gentleman-would probably start a paper in Lexington to exploit his views in the heart of the Bluegra.s.s; and his quondam friends would shatter his press and tear his office to pieces. So the Major told Chad, and he pointed out some "hands" at work in a field.

"An', mark my words, some day there's goin' to be the d.a.m.nedest fight the world ever saw over these very n.i.g.g.e.rs. An' the day ain't so far away."

It was noon before they reached the big cemetery on the edge of Lexington. Through a rift in the trees the Major pointed out the grave of Henry Clay, and told him about the big monument that was to be reared above his remains. The grave of Henry Clay! Chad knew all about him. He had heard Caleb Hazel read the great man's speeches aloud by the hour-had heard him intoning them to himself as he walked the woods to and fro from school. Would wonders never cease.

There seemed to be no end to the houses and streets and people in this big town, and Chad wondered why everybody turned to look at him and smiled, and, later in the day, he came near getting into a fight with another boy who seemed to be making fun of him to his companions. He wondered at that, too, until it suddenly struck him that he saw n.o.body else carrying a rifle and wearing a c.o.o.nskin cap-perhaps it was his cap and his gun. The Major was amused and pleased, and he took a certain pride in the boy's calm indifference to the attention he was drawing to himself. And he enjoyed the little mystery which he and his queer little companion seemed to create as they drove through the streets.

On one corner was a great hemp factory.

Through the windows Chad could see negroes, dusty as millers, bustling about, singing as they worked. Before the door were two men-one on horseback. The Major drew up a moment.

"How are you, John? Howdye, d.i.c.k?" Both men answered heartily, and both looked at Chad-who looked intently at them-the graceful, powerful man on foot and the slender, wiry man with wonderful dark eyes on horseback.