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The cup Mis' Alice gave him was a-settin' on the mantel, an' Mars' Nat was stewin' up some sawt of cough tonic for him. The white folks up Nawth must a thought a heap of him. He'd just got a lettah from one of the college professahs 'quirin' bout his health. Mars' Nat read out what was on the back of it: 'Rev'und Gawge W. Chadwick, an' some lettahs on the end that I kain't remembah.
Bud squatted at his feet in silence, sticking his little red tongue in and out of the hole where the lost tooth had been. As for John Jay, his hero-worship passed that night into warmest love. From that time on, he would have gone through fire and water to serve his "Rev'und Gawge," anywhere in fact, save one place.
"They isn't any school for cul'ud folks less'n a mile an' a half away, an' besides, you hasn't clothes fitten to wear. The scholars would all laugh at you." Still he persisted. "What put such a notion in yo' head, anyhow?" she demanded. John Jay turned his face aside, and busied himself with taking another reef in his suspenders. "The Rev'und Gawge wanted me to go," he said, in a low tone.
He was used to being scolded for his laziness. He never paid any attention to that; but to have his "Rev'und Gawge" regard him as dishonest as Mr. Boden hurt him more than words could express. Another wagon came rattling up in a cloud of dust. Without waiting to see the newcomer, he dodged around the corner of the house and ran down to the barn.
One by one they came and listened, and went away with a new expression on their faces, and a new ambition in their hearts. To all these people he was "Brothah Chadwick;" to the three old slaves bound to him by ties almost as strong as those of kinship, he could never be other than Jintsey's boy; but to two persons he was known as the "Rev'und Gawge."
John Jay had come past the toll-gate with a hope of seeing the "Rev'und Gawge," as he called him. It had been three weeks since the man had come home, and in that time John Jay's interest in him had grown into a sort of hero-worship. There had been a great deal of talk about him among the ignorant colored people.
In John Jay the man saw his own childhood with all its unanswered questions and dumb, groping ambitions; while the boy, looking up to his "Rev'und Gawge" as the highest standard of all manliness, felt faint stirrings within, of the possibility of such growth for himself.
He do seem so onfeelin'. He loved that man bettah than anything on this yearth, an' I s'posed he'd take his death mighty hard; but what you reckon he said to me this mawnin'. I was i'onin' my black aidged handkerchief to take, when he says to me, sezee, 'What you want to put on mo'nin' for Rev'und Gawge for? He said to tell you all that he jus' gone through the toll-gate."
"Not lame Jintsey's boy! You don't mean it!" "That's the ve'y one," persisted Uncle Billy. "Gawge Washington Chadwick. He's a ministah of the gospel now, home from college with a Rev'und befo' his name, an' a long-tailed black coat on. He doesn't look much like the little pickaninny that b'long to Mars' Nat back in wah times." "And Jintsey's dead, poah thing!" exclaimed Aunt Susan.
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