y, especially as he was to walk the whole thirty
miles to the land of promise. At the last, his feeling of exaltation
gave way to one of sorrow, and as he went down the road, he turned
often to look at the cabin, until it faded from sight around the bend.
Then a lump rose in his throat, and he felt like turning and running
back to it. He had never thought the old place could seem so dear. But
he kept his face steadily forward and trudged on toward his destiny.

The Springs was the fashionable resort of Virginia, where the
aristocrats who thought they were ill went to recover their health and
to dance. Compared with large cities of the North, it was but a small
town, even including the transient population, but in the eyes of the
rural blacks and the poor whites of the region, it was a place of
large importance.

Hither, on the morning after his departure from the home gate, came
Silas Jackson, a little foot-sore and weary, but hopeful withal. In
spite of the pains that he had put upon his dressing, he was a quaint
figure on the city streets. Many an amused smile greeted him as he
went his way, but he saw them not. Inquiring the direction, he kept
on, until the many windows and broad veranda of the great hotel broke
on his view, and he gasped in amazement and awe at the sight of it,
and a sudden faintness seized him. He was reluctant to go on, but the
broad grins with which some colored men who were working about the
place regarded him, drove him forward, in spite of his embarrassment.

He found his way to the kitchen, and asked in trembling tones for the
head waiter. Breakfast being over, that individual had leisure to come
to the kitchen. There, with the grinning waiters about him, he stopped
and calmly surveyed Silas. He was a very pompous head waiter.

Silas had never been self-conscious before, but now he became
distressfully aware of himself--of his awkwardness, of his clumsy
feet and dangling hands, of the difference between his clothes and the
clothes of the men about him.

After a survey, which seemed to the boy of endless duration, the head
waiter spoke, and his tone was the undisputed child of his looks.

"I pussoom," said Mr. Buckner, "that you are the pusson Mistah Ma'ston
spoke to the p'op'ietor about?"

"Yes, suh, I reckon I is. He p'omised to git me a job up hyeah, an' I
got yo' lettah--" here Silas, who had set his bundle on the floor in
coming into the Presence, began to fumble in his pockets for