第26章

A black stallion with curving neck and red nostrils and two white feet walked proudly in.

"How much am I offered?"

"Five dollars," said Chad, promptly. A man who sat near heard the boy and turned to look at the little fellow, and was hardly able to believe his ears.

And so it went on. Each time a horse was put up Chad shouted out:

"Five dollars," and the crowd around him began to smile and laugh and encourage him and wait for his bid. The auctioneer, too, saw him, and entered into the fun himself, addressing himself to Chad at every opening bid.

"Keep it up, little man," said a voice behind him. "You'll get one by and by."Chad looked around. Richard Hunt was smiling to him from his horse on the edge of the crowd.

The last horse was a brown mare--led in by a halter. She was old and a trifle lame, and Chad, still undispirited, called out this time louder than ever:

"Five dollars!"

He shouted out this time loudly enough to be heard by everybody, and a universal laugh rose; then came silence, and, in that silence, an imperious voice shouted back:

"Let him have her!" It was the owner of the horse who spoke--a tall man with a noble face and long iron-gray hair. The crowd caught his mood, and as nobody wanted the old mare very much, and the owner would be the sole loser, nobody bid against him, and Chad's heart thumped when the auctioneer raised his hammer and said:

"Five dollars, five dollars--what am I offered? Five dollars, five dollars, going at five dollars, five dollars--going at five dollars--going--going, last bid, gentlemen!" The hammer came down with a blow that made Chad's heart jump and brought a roar of laughter from the crowd.

"What is the name, please?" said the auctioneer, bending forward with great respect and dignity toward the diminutive purchaser.

"Chad."

The auctioneer put his hand to one ear.

"I beg your pardon--Dan'l Boone did you say?

"No!" shouted Chad indignantly--he began to feel that fun was going on at his expense. "You heerd me--CHAD.""Ah, Mr. Chad."

Not a soul knew the boy, but they liked his spirit, and several followed him when he went up and handed his five dollars and took the halter of his new treasure trembling so that he could scarcely stand. The owner of the horse placed his hand on the little fellow's head.

"Wait a minute," he said, and, turning to a negro boy: "Jim, go bring a bridle." The boy brought out a bridle, and the tall man slipped it on the old mare's head, and Chad led her away--the crowd watching him. Just outside he saw the Major, whose eyes opened wide:

"Where'd you get that old horse, Chad?"

"Bought her," said Chad.

"What? What'd you give for her?"

"Five dollars."

The Major looked pained, for he thought the boy was lying, but Richard Hunt called him aside and told the story of the purchase; and then how the Major did laugh--laughed until the tears rolled down his face.

And then and there he got out of his carriage and went into a saddler's shop and bought a brand new saddle with a red blanket, and put it on the old mare and hoisted the boy to his seat. Chad was to have no little honor in his day, but he never knew a prouder moment than when he clutched the reins in his left hand and squeezed his short legs against the fat sides of that old brown mare.

He rode down the street and back again, and then the Major told him he had better put the black boy on the mare, to ride her home ahead of him, and Chad reluctantly got off and saw the little darky on his new saddle and his new horse.

"Take good keer o' that hoss, boy," he said, with a warning shake of his head, and again the Major roared.

First, the Major said, he would go by the old University and leave word with the faculty for the school-master when he should come there to matriculate;and so, at a turnstile that led into a mighty green yard in the middle of which stood a huge gray mass of stone, the carriage stopped, and the Major got out and walked through the campus and up the great flight of stone steps and disappeared. The mighty columns, the stone steps--where had Chad heard of them? And then the truth flashed. This was the college of which the school-master had told him down in the mountains, and, looking, Chad wanted to get closer.

"I wonder if it'll make any difference if I go up thar?" he said to the old driver.

"No," the old man hesitated--"no, suh, co'se not." And Chad climbed out and the old negro followed him with his eyes. He did not wholly approve of his master's picking up an unknown boy on the road. It was all right to let him ride, but to be taking him home--old Tom shook his head.

"Jess wait till Miss Lucy sees that piece o' white trash," he said, shaking his head. Chad was walking slowly with his eyes raised. It must be the college where the school-master had gone to school--for the building was as big as the cliff that he had pointed out down in the mountains, and the porch was as big as the black rock that he pointed out at the same time--the college where Caleb Hazel said Chad, too, must go some day. The Major was coming out when the boy reached the foot of the steps, and with him was a tall, gray man with spectacles and a white tie and very white nails, and the Major said:

"There he is now, Professor." And the Professor looked at Chad curiously, and smiled and smiled again kindly when he saw the boy's grave, unsmiling eyes fastened on him.

Then, out of the town and through the late radiant afternoon they went until the sun sank and the carriage stopped before a gate. While the pickaninny was opening it, another carriage went swiftly behind them, and the Major called out cleanly to the occupants--a quiet, sombre, dignified-looking man and two handsome boys and a little girl. "They're my neighbors, Chad," said the Major.

Not a sound did the wheels make on the thick turf as they drove toward the old-fashioned brick house (it had no pillars), with its windows shining through the firs and cedars that filled the yard. The Major put his hand on the boy's shoulder:

"Well, here we are, little man."