th that she hastened on, afraid that Bud would offer to
hitch up the roan colt. And she did not want to add to his domestic
unhappiness by compromising him in that way.

It was dusk and was raining when she left. The hours were long, the road
was lonely, and after the revelations of that day it did not seem wholly
safe. But from the moment that she found herself free, her heart had
been ready to break with an impatient homesickness. What though there
might be robbers in the woods? What though there were ten rough miles to
travel? What though the rain was in her face? What though she had not
tasted food since the morning of that exciting day? Flat Creek and
bondage were behind; freedom, mother, Shocky, and home were before her,
and her feet grew lighter with the thought. And if she needed any other
joy, it was to know that the master was clear. And he would come? And
so she traversed the weary distance, and so she inquired and found the
house, the beautiful, homely old house of beautiful, homely old Nancy
Sawyer, and knocked, and was admitted, and fell down, faint and weary,
at her blind mother's feet, and laid her tired head in her mother's lap
and wept and wept like a child, and said, "O mother! I'm free! I'm
free!" while the mother's tears baptized her face, and the mother's
trembling fingers combed out her tresses. And Shocky stood by her and
cried: "I knowed God wouldn't forget you, Hanner!"

Hannah was ready now to do anything by which she could support her
mother and Shocky. She was strong, and inured to toil. She was willing
and cheerful, and she would gladly have gone to service if by that means
she could have supported the family. And, for that matter her mother was
already able nearly to support herself by her knitting. But Hannah had
been carefully educated when young, and at that moment the old public
schools were being organized into a graded school, and the good
minister, who shall be nameless, because he is, perhaps, still
living in Indiana, and who in Methodist parlance was called "the
preacher-in-charge of Lewisburg Station"--this good minister and Miss
Nancy Sawyer got Hannah a place as teacher in the primary department.
And then a little house with four rooms was rented, and a little, a very
little furniture was put into it, and the old sweet home was established
again. The father was gone, never to come back again. But the rest were
here. And somehow Hannah kept waiting for somebody else to come.