Bobbie was sixteen when his father finally made up his mind to send him to college. It nearly broke his mother’s heart, to say nothing of the terrible blow it was to Peter Black and Sallie Tom, who still kept up their passionate love for the boy; yet it was admitted by all that the going was a necessity. Bobbie simply would not study at home. By dawn of the day he was off on his horse, and every inch of ground for miles around was as familiar as the lawn in front of the house. Every bend of the river with all its fish, every bird that flew, every insect that hummed, and every kind of game in the woods, were as near and dear to Bobbie and Peter Black as old and tried friends; and though his progress with his tutors was not always as great as it might have been, his tall, straight body, his supple limbs, and his clear eyes and bright, clever face more than repaid for the neglect of his books. His father had a serious talk with him before he left, and Bobbie’s face took on a new expression while he listened. “All right, father,” he said when he left him, “I know it’s time for me to study now, and you shan’t be ashamed of me when I come back;” and his father was satisfied, for Bobbie’s word, once given, he knew would never fail. Such a time there was the day he left! Had the sun been in an eclipse, and all the world in total darkness, there could not have been greater gloom than that which pervaded the entire household, with all the cabin contingent, on the morning he was to leave. Bobbie’s heart was out of its accustomed place, and stuck so persistently in his throat that he found talking difficult. The remembrance of his mother’s face, he felt would go with him through life, and the intense dolefulness of Peter Black was oppressive. Sallie Tom was a kind of nightmare. So heartily did she disapprove of this move of the master that she had kept away as long as possible, but now that her idol, her pride, was leaving, she could hold out no longer. Like a cyclone she rushed through the line of darkies, all drawn up by the big gate waiting to see the young master off, and in a minute she had him in her arms and almost off his feet. “Gord A’mighty tek care of my chile!” she sobbed, rocking him backwards and forwards in a way highly uncomfortable to poor Bobbie, who yet had not the heart to rebuff her. “Gord A’mighty tek care of my po’ chile, gwine out alone, all by hissef, and bring him back to his old mammy!” and she strained him passionately to her heart, and with a cry of real anguish she let him go and rushed wildly down to her cabin, and for two days nobody saw Sallie Tom.