"Oh, my God! He's run plumb crazy!" cried Mr. Humphreys, mopping his brow. "I always said that boy wasn't natural!" But Peter, walking home in the bright afternoon sunlight, for the first time in his life felt young and free and happy. He wanted to laugh, to sing, to shout, to skip. Emma Campbell was just bringing the washed-and-dried dinner dishes back into the dining-room when he bounced in. "Emma," said he, sticking his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, and beaming at her, "Emma, I'm out of a job. Kicked out neck and crop. Fired, thank God!" Emma stacked her dishes on the old deal dresser. "Is you?" "I sure am. And, Emma, listen. I--I'm sort of waked up. Even if things shouldn't turn out as I hope they will, I'll manage to go ahead, somehow. I'd get out, now, under any circumstances. Pike's Peak or bust!" said Peter. "When you 'speck to go?" "Just as soon as I can get out. I'm expected in New York within ten days at the latest. And then, Emma, the wide world! No more little-town tittle-tattle! All I've got to do, in the big world, is to deliver the goods. And I'm going to deliver the goods!" said Peter. But Emma Campbell put her grizzled head on the dining-room table and began to cry. "I nussed you w'en you had de croup en de colic. I used to tromp up en down dis same no' wid you 'crost my shoulder. It was me dressed Miss Maria de day she married wid yo' pa, en it was me dressed 'er for de coffin. You en me been stannin' togedder ever sence. How I gwine stan' by my alonese 'f now? I ole now, Mist' Peter." "Emma," said Peter, after a pause, "tell me exactly what you want me to do for you and if I can I'll do it." "I wants to go wid you. I jes' natchelly ain't gwine stay 'yuh by my alonese 'f," wept Emma. Peter looked at her with the sort of tenderness one must be born in the South to understand. Born in the last years of slavery, brought up in wild Reconstruction days, Emma couldn't read or write. She wasn't amenable to discipline. She was, as Cassius had complained, "so contrary she mus' be 'flicted wid de moonness." She wore a rabbit foot and a conjure bag and believed in ha'nts and hoodoos. But, as far back as he could remember, Emma Campbell had formed a large part of the background of his life. He wondered just what he would have done if it hadn't been for Emma, after his mother's death. There slid into his mind the picture of a shabby youngster weeping over a cheap green-and-gold Collection of Poetic Gems; and he reached over and laid a brown hand upon a black one. "Well, and why not?" mused Peter. "You stood by me when I hadn't any money; why should you leave me the minute I get it? But are you sure you really want to go along, Emma? I'm going into a foreign country, remember. You won't be able to understand a word anybody says. You'll be a mighty lonesome old nigger over there." "I can talk wid my cat, can't I?" "Holy Moses! What, the cat, too?" Peter ran his hands through his hair, distractedly.