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The tobacco-roller was a taciturn man, and the boy, his son, never thought of disburdening his soul to his father. Each had the power to change for the other the aspect of the world, but they themselves were strangers. Gideon Rand, as he rode, thought of the bright leaf in the cask, of the Richmond warehouse, and fixed the price in his mind. His mind was in a state of sober jubilation.
He sank deeper amid the ironweed, forgot his errand, and began to dream. He was the son of a tobacco-roller, untaught and unfriended, but he dreamed like a king. His imagination began to paint without hands images of power upon a blank and mighty wall, and it painted like a young Michael Angelo. It used the colours of immaturity, but it conceived with strength.
I like the open." "There are walls in the forest," answered the boy, "and I do not want to be a tobacco-roller! I want to study law!" The hunter laughed. "Ho! A lawyer among the Rands! I reckon you take after your mother's folk!" The boy looked at him wistfully. "I reckon I do," he assented. "But my name is Rand." "There are worse folk than the Rands," said the woodsman.
An' I is strong as en ox, don' know 'bout de snaik. Marster, is you gwine tek me 'way from Richmond?" "Albemarle," said the tobacco-roller briefly. "To-morrow morning." Joab studied the vine above the porch. "Kin I go tell my ole mammy good-bye? She's washin' yonder in de creek."
Jefferson rode up to the group about the camp-fire, checked his horse, and gave the tobacco-roller and his son a plain man's greeting to plain men. The eagerness of the boy's face did not escape him; when he dismounted, flung the reins of Wildair to his groom, and crossed the bit of turf to the fire beneath the pines, he knew that he was pleasing a young heart.
But I don't want to be a tobacco-roller like my father, nor " "Nor a hunter like me," the other finished placidly. "Be the Governor of Virginia, then, or come with me and make yourself King of the Mississippi! I've watched you, boy! You're growing up ambitious, ambitious as What's-his-name him that you read of?" "Lucifer," answered the boy "ambitious as Lucifer."
"Challenge that man he deserted in the Indian War! "November the fourth, in the year ninety-one, We had a sore engagement near to Fort Jefferson!" "Here's a traveller who has seen the mammoth and climbed the Salt Mountain!" "Here's a tobacco-roller! Hey, my man, don't you miss old friends on the road?"
"There is prime venison for dinner, and a quince tart and good apple brandy. Ha! I was always glad I was born in Virginia. Here is Gideon swinging down the hill Gideon and his negro!" The tobacco-roller joined them, and with a wave of the hand indicated his purchase of the morning. This was a tall and strong negro, young, supple, and of a cheerful countenance. Rand was in high good-humour.
At times the wind brought a swirl of dead leaves across the ring of light, an owl hooted, or one of the sleeping dogs stirred and raised his head, then sank to dreams again. The tobacco-roller, weary from the long day's travel, wrapped himself in a blanket and slept in the lee of his thousand pounds of bright leaf, but the boy and the hunter sat late by the fire.
The tobacco-roller and his son pitched their camp beneath a gum tree upon the edge of the wood. It was October, and the gum was the colour of blood. Behind it rolled the autumn forest; before it stretched a level of broom-sedge, bright ochre in the light of the setting sun. The road ran across this golden plain, and disappeared in a league-deep wood of pine.
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