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 bluegrass
stretching away on every side, with the shadows of clouds passing 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.