d boy.

"Over here, Sue! Come to me, Bunny!" cried Mrs. Brown. "Walter," she
called to her husband, "look out for Sam and Grace," for the Morton
children were with their friends from the North.

Mr. Brown, with a quick motion, pulled Sam and Grace out of danger as
the runaway mule, hauling the load of cotton, came nearer.

"Maybe Sam and I can stop him, Mother!" cried Bunny.

"Indeed and you'll do nothing of the sort!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown,
hurrying the children behind a row of cotton plants.

"Hi! Hi! Hi!" was all the little colored boy on the back of the runaway
mule could shout. "Hi! Hi!"

"Oh, can't some one save him?" cried Mrs. Brown.

"I'll try," answered her husband, who, having seen to it that Sam and
Grace were safe with Bunny and Sue, started out to try to head off the
mule. At the same time the shrieks of the colored women had called from
a distant part of the field several strong colored men, and one of these
ran toward the mule about the same time that Mr. Brown did.

But there was no need of any one getting worried. Before the mule could
be caught he stopped, and stopped so suddenly that the colored boy was
pitched off the animal's back. Down to the ground the dusky-skinned
child slipped, but, luckily enough, there was a pile of cotton here, and
it was on top of the fluffy stuff that he landed.

There he sat, a splotch of black in a heap of white, and he presented
such a funny picture that Sue and her brother burst out laughing. So did
Sam and Grace. And then Jim, the colored boy, finding that he was not
hurt, opened his mouth and shrieked in delight.

Some of the colored men came up and took charge of the mule, which they
led back to the shed whence he had run away. And one of the fat black
women waddled toward Jim on the heap of cotton.

"Look yeah, yo' li'l hunk ob sticky black 'lasses!" she cried. "Whut fo'
you want to git on dat mule's back an' scare yo' po' mammy 'most into a
conniption fit? Whut fo' you do dat, Jim St. Clair Breckinridge? Whut
fo', huh?"

"Ah didn't go fo' to do it, 'deed an' Ah didn't, Mammy!" said Jim, as he
arose. "Ah wuz jest leanin' ober to knock a fly often dat mule's back
an' Ah slipped an' fell on him. Den he started up, an' Ah couldn't nohow
git offen him!"

And this, it appeared, was how it had happened. The little colored boy
was playing around the shed where the darkies emptied their baskets of
cotton into a bin. There it was piled into the cart to be tak