Mr. Josiah?"

"They do, sir. Wish I'd seen it."

"Damn!" exclaimed John, swearing for the first time in his life. "Cut my
hair short, please, and don't talk."

"No, sir. You ain't even got a scratch."

"Oh, do shut up," said John. There was a long silence while the curly
locks fell.

"You gave it to the Baptist man hot. I don't like him. He calls me Joe.
It isn't respectable. My name's Josiah."

"Haven't you any other name?" said John, having recovered his
good-humour.

"Yes, sir, but I keeps that to myself."

"But why?" urged John.

Josiah hesitated. "Well, Mr. John, I ran away, and--so it was best to get
a new name."

"Indeed! Of course, every one knows you must have run away--but no one
cares."

"Might say I was run away with--can't always hold a horse," he laughed
aloud in a leisurely way. "When he took me over the State-line, I didn't
go back."

"I see," said John laughing, as he rose and paid the barber. The cracked
mirror satisfied him that he was well shorn.

"You looks a heap older now you're shorn. Makes old fellows look
younger--ever notice that?"

"No."

Then Josiah, of a sudden wisely cautious, said, "You won't tell Mrs.
Penhallow, nor no one, about me, what I said?"

"Of course not; but why my aunt, Mr. Josiah? She, like my uncle, must
know you ran away."

When John first arrived the black barber's appearance so impressed the
lad that he spoke to him as Mr. Josiah, and seeing later how much this
pleased him continued in his quite courteous way to address him now and
then as Mr. Josiah. The barber liked it. He hesitated a moment before
answering.

"You needn't talk about it if you don't want to," said John.

"Guess whole truth's better than half truth--nothin' makes folk curious
like knowin' half. When I first came here, I guessed I'd best change my
name, so I said I was Josiah. Fact is, Mr. John, I didn't know Mrs.
Penhallow came from Maryland till I had been here quite a while and got
to like the folks and the Captain."

John's experience was enlarging. He could hardly have realized the
strange comfort the black felt in his confession. What it all summed up
for Josiah in the way of possible peril of loss of liberty John presently
had made plain to him. He was increasingly urgent in his demand for
answers to the many questions life was bringing. The papers he read had
been sharp schoolmasters, and of slave life he knew nothing except from
his aunt's pleasant memories of planta