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