l honest folk were out of bed,
sonny?" enquired a voice.

"I ain't been here mo'n an hour," I retorted, resenting the imputation
of slothfulness with a spirit that was not unworthy of my mother.

The open length of the market, I saw now, was beginning to present a
busy, almost a festive, air. Stalls were already laden with fruit and
vegetables, and farmers' wagons covered with canvas, and driven by
sunburnt countrymen, had drawn up to the sidewalk. Rising hurriedly to
my feet, I began rubbing my eyes, for I had been dreaming of the
fragrance of bacon in our little kitchen.

"Now I'd be up an' off to home, if I were you, sonny," observed the
marketman, planting his wheelbarrow of vegetables on the brick floor,
and beginning to wipe off the stall. "The sooner you take yo' whippin',
the sooner you'll set easy again."

"There ain't anybody to whip me," I replied dolefully, staring at the
sign over his head, on which was painted in large letters--"John
Chitling. Fish, Oysters (in season). Vegetables. Fruits."

Stopping midway in his preparations, he turned on me his great beaming
face, so like the rising sun that looked over his shoulder, while I
watched his big jean apron swell with the panting breaths that drew from
his stomach.

"Here's a boy that says he ain't got nobody to whip him!" he exclaimed
to his neighbours in the surrounding stalls,--a poultryman, covered with
feathers, a fish vender, bearing a string of mackerel in either hand,
and a butcher, with his sleeves rolled up and a blood-stained apron
about his waist.

"I al'ays knew you were thick-headed, John Chitling," remarked the fish
dealer, with contempt, "but I never believed you were such a plum fool
as not to know a tramp when you seed him."

"You ain't got but eleven of yo' own," observed the butcher, with a
snicker; "I reckon you'd better take him along to round out the full
dozen."

"If I've got eleven there ain't one of 'em that wa'nt welcome,"
responded John, his slow temper rising, "an' I reckon what the Lord
sends he's willing to provide for."

"Oh, I reckon he is," sneered the fish dealer, who appeared to be of an
unpleasant disposition, "so long as you ain't over-particular about the
quality of the provision."

"Well, he don't provide us with yo' fish, anyway," retorted John; and I
was watching excitedly for the coming blows when the butcher, who had
been looking over me as reflectively as if I had been a spring lamb
brought to slaugh