came back, and said

"You sutinly can plough fer a fac'!"

He was lonesome by noon and had a lonely dinner, during which he could
scarcely realize that it was really he--Chad--Chad sitting up at the table
alone and being respectfully waited on by a kinky-headed little negro
girl--called Thanky-ma'am because she was born on Thanksgiving day--and he
wondered what the Turners would think if they could see him now--and the
school-master. Where was the school-master? He began to be sorry that he
hadn't gone to town to try to find him. Perhaps the Major would see him--but
how would the Major know the school-master? He was sorry he hadn't gone. After
dinner he started out-doors again. Earth and sky were radiant with light.
Great white tumbling clouds were piled high all around the horizon--and what a
long length of sky it was in every direction down in the mountains, he had to
look straight up, sometimes, to see the sky at all. Blackbirds chattered in
the cedars as he went to the yard gate. The field outside was full of singing
meadow-larks, and crows were cawing in the woods beyond. There had been a
light shower, and on the dead top of a tall tree he saw a buzzard stretching
his wings out to the sun. Past the edge of the woods, ran a little stream with
banks that were green to the very water's edge, and Chad followed it on
through the woods, over a worn rail-fence, along a sprouting wheat-field, out
into a pasture in which sheep and cattle were grazing, and on, past a little
hill, where, on the next low slope, sat a great white house with big white
pillars, and Chad climbed on top of the stone fence--and sat, looking. On the
portico stood a tall man in a slouch hat and a lady in black. At the foot of
the steps a boy--a head taller than Chad perhaps--was rigging up a
fishing-pole. A negro boy was leading a black pony toward the porch, and, to
his dying day, Chad never forgot the scene that followed. For, the next
moment, a little figure in a long riding-skirt stood in the big doorway and