CHAPTER X AMOS BECOMES A SANCHO PANZA

“Amos, we’re going traveling,” exclaimed Morey.

“Yo’ gwine run away?”

“I’m going to run away and you are going with me.”

“No, sah. I ain’t done no hahm. I ain’t skeered.”

“I’m not scared, exactly, but I’m going away. I am going to seek my fortune.” The boy smiled as he said it. Could he have seen the black boy’s face he would have been puzzled indeed.

“Wha’ dat yo’ sayin’, Marse Morey?”

“I’m going to leave this place; goin’ away to do something—to help myself.”

“Yo’ is skeered—da’s what.”

“Well, let it go at that. Tonight I’m goin’ to duck—vamoose. I won’t be back here for a good many days—perhaps.”

“Da’s foolish talk, Marse Morey. How come it yo’ gwine away when yo’ all jes’ got home to yo’ ma?”

“You might understand and you might not, Amos. It is a new story but it is a long one already. All you have to know is this—did you ever hear of any one working for a living?”

“Not no white person, ’less’n he wanted to.”

“I want to. I’m in trouble. It’ll be worse if I stay around here. So we’re going to Washington.”

“Yo’ and yo’ ma?”

“You and me!”

“Me?”

“We are going to slip away tonight. If I had money I wouldn’t take you. I’d go on the train. But I haven’t any money. So I’m going to drive there in the surrey with Betty.”

“Me gwine to Whas’ton?”

“Tonight. And we start as soon as we can get ready.”

The black boy had edged away in a state of half terror.

“No, sah, chile. No, sah, Marse Morey. My pa won’t let me.”

“Your father won’t know anything about it. And my mother won’t. That’s the reason we are going. If you speak of it to your father I’ll thrash you. Do you hear?”

“I cain’t go to no Wash’ton now. I’se gwine camp meetin’ Sunday.”

“You’ll probably be camping by the roadside next Sunday,” laughed Morey.

“No, sah, Marse Morey, I can’t do dat. I been to Linden once when de circus show was dere and pa done lambast me fo’ dat. How fur dat Wash’ton?”

“About seventy-five miles.”

“An’ yo’ reckon we gwine git dar wid ole Betty?”

“Or walk.”

“Escuse me. Escuse me. How yo’ mean ’bout dat ‘fortune and wukkin’?”

“I mean, Amos, that things aren’t going right around here. We may have to move away from Aspley Place.”

“Yo’ done makin’ spoht—”

“I can’t tell you about it, but I’ve got to go away to arrange things so that my mother and your father and Mammy Ca’line and you and I can stay here. If you don’t come along and help me and look after Betty we’ll have to find another home.”

Amos was open-mouthed.

“We all ain’t got no other home, Marse Morey. We’s bound to stay here. Who gwine make us go ’way?”

“Never mind, now. But if you won’t go I’ll have to go alone. I thought you’d stick by me.”

“Who gwine do chores fo’ Mammy?”

“Who’s going to look after me?” answered Morey.

The black boy was in a quandary.

“I reckon yo’ ma gwine blame me fo’ dis.”

“Amos, did you ever hear of Don Quixote?”

“Dat a seegar?”

“Don Quixote was a man. He lived a long time ago—before even the Marshalls began to raise tobacco. He was poor as, as, well as we are. But, like a young man I know, this didn’t seem to make much difference to him. He sat, day after day, reading books about impossible things for this was in the time of chivalry—”

“Yas, sah—I knows dat—chivaree. Da’s when yo’ get married.”

Morey laughed, stopped his story and laying his hand on Amos’ arm led him into the dark, silent house, up the stairs to his room and, closing the door, lit his candle.

“Like to hear more about Don Quixote?” he asked, sitting down on his trunk.

“I ain’t hear ’bout him.”

“Well, he was a fine fellow, only he was crazy. He got so twisted in his head that he couldn’t see anything straight. He thought his home and the things about him were all right. But the place was tumbling over his head and he didn’t know it. When his servant stole chickens for him—”

“Who stole chickens? I ain’t steal no chickens. We done borrow ouah chickens.”

Morey held up a warning finger, with a smile.

“He couldn’t even see that the barn was rotten and no use; that there were weeds all over his place; that the house was too old to stand up.”

Amos sighed and knit his brows in an effort to connect the old knight with something he could grasp mentally.

“And that wasn’t the worst,” went on Morey, “when Don Quixote got so bad that he began to ‘see things’; when he was ‘conjured’ out of his wits, he up, one day, and decided to leave his home and seek his fortune in other places.”

“He done gwine to Wash’ton?”

“About the same thing,” explained Morey. “He took his old horse and rode away looking for—well everything he didn’t have at home.”

“Dey gwine to take his farm away?”

“No,” went on Morey, “he just went because he had a foolish idea that the impossible things he had read about might come true.”

Amos sighed again.

“Dey comin’ fo’ yo’ in de mawnin’” he interrupted.

“That isn’t all about Don Quixote. He went away and everything turned out wrong. If it hadn’t been for one thing the old man would have starved. He had all kinds of trouble. How do you reckon he got home again, all safe and sound?”

“How dat?” queried the black boy, straining his wits to understand.

“I say, the old Knight of La Mancha, in other words, Don Quixote, filled with the delusion that the world was really a land of chivalry, which in truth had even then passed away, set forth upon his knightly steed to do deeds of valor in honor of fair ladies and to show his courage. Instead he found only derision, cuffs, kicks and a foodless reception. How then, do you imagine he was able to return home again?”

“Mus’ ’a been dat chivaree.”

“Listen, Amos, this crazy old man got back home because the only person in all the world who really cared for him went with him and looked after him.”

“He done have a colored man?”

“Almost. He had old Sancho Panza. Sancho was his boy, and he never left him.”

Amos was in sore straits. Morey said no more for a few moments, but he began making preparations for his departure. He laid out a few clothes and took down the old, battered traveling bag that he had unpacked but the day before; the black boy’s eyes filled with tears.

“Marse Morey,” whimpered Amos, “yo’ ain’t foolin’ me? Yo’ sho’ gwine away to Wash’ton?”

“As soon as I can pack my grip, write a note to my mother, get together all Mammy Ca’line’s loose food and hitch up.”

“An’ yo’ ain’t goin’ to tell yo’ ma?”

Morey shook his head.

“But she ain’t gwine skin yo’ like my pa trounce me!”

“I’ll see that you aren’t punished.”

Big tears rolled down Amos’ sunken cheeks. Then his big black hands wandered over his patched and tattered garments. As Morey laid some fresh linen in his valise the colored boy looked shamefacedly at his own faded blue calico shirt. Then he dug his shoeless toes into the carpet.

Finally, with a gulp, he exclaimed:

“Marse Morey, I jes’ natchally cain’t.”

“Then I’ve got to go alone and take my chances,” answered Morey, opening his trunk and taking out the blue packet, his father’s “dream,” that was to mean so much to him.

“I ain’t got no clo’es,” almost sobbed the black boy.

“What’s the matter with your meetin’ pants and the shoes you had on last night?”

“Dem’s my Sunday cloes!”

“All right. Goodbye.”

“Sides, pa’s in de cabin.”

Morey turned, smiled and put his arm on Amos’ shoulder.

“Of course you’re going. We’ve lived together all our lives. You go and tell your father I want to see him right away, out on the kitchen gallery. While he is gone pack up your duds. I’ll tell him to hitch up, that we have to go to town. Hide your things in the surrey while he is gone.”

There was no delay in carrying out this plan. By the time Marsh Green had responded to Morey’s summons, hooked up old Betty to the surrey and brought the ancient equipage to the barnyard gate, Morey was ready. His letter to his mother had been written and in the weeds and grass, well down toward the front yard gate was a little pile of baggage, a bulging traveling bag, a package of books and circulars, two blankets and a basket of such food as he could find—two loaves of bread, a dozen cold biscuits, a small paper of sugar, a few pinches of tea, a quart cup, two glasses of jelly, a tin can of some preserves and a half pound of salt pork. Amos’ baggage was not even tied in a bundle.

“Marse Morey,” said old Marsh, as Morey and Amos climbed into the creaking vehicle, “yo doin’ right. Go right to Major Carey. He git yo’ outen yo’ trouble. But don’t yo’ go traipsin’ ’roun’ dat Captain Barber. He ain’ no better dan Jedge Lummix. Go right to Major Carey—he’s yo’ frien.’”

“Still,” laughed Morey, “we might meet Marshal Robinson and he might put me in jail. So goodbye until I see you again.” He held out his hand.

“Go ’long, boy. Ain’t no Marshal Rob’ison gwine git yo’,” and the old darkey chuckled. “Amos,” he added with mock sternness, “don’t yo’ come back ’yar widdout Marse Morey.”

“No, sah, I won’t,” responded the perturbed Amos.

“Anyway, goodbye, Marsh, ’till we see you again. We may not come back right away. Goodbye.”

The old “overseer” turned away with another chuckle.

“Major Carey’ll git yo’ outen yo’ mess. I’ll leab de gate open. Take care ob dat hoss.”

By the time sleepy Betty had reached Morey’s cache of clothing and provisions, old Marsh was well on his way back to his cabin. As Morey stored the valise, basket and blankets in the surrey, his hand fell on a hard round object. Drawing it out into the pale starlight he discovered something tied in an old red bandanna handkerchief.

“This yours, Amos?” he asked, feeling the unyielding contents.

“Das mine, shorely.”

“What is it?”

“Ain’t we gwine to Washn’ton?”

“As soon as we can get there!”

“Ain’t dat officer man dar?”

“Lieutenant Purcell? Yes. But—”

“Da’s my rock.”

“Your rock?”

“Da’s ma rock from de crick. Dat soldier man gwine to git his if we eber comes togedder.”