le!"

"Not where I hid it I reckon it won't," I says.

"How'd you get your breakfast so early on the boat?"

It was kinder thin ice, but I says:

"The captain see me standing around, and told me I better have
something to eat before I went ashore; so he took me in the texas to
the officers' lunch, and give me all I wanted."

I was getting so uneasy I couldn't listen good. I had my mind on the
children all the time; I wanted to get them out to one side and pump
them a little, and find out who I was. But I couldn't get no show,
Mrs. Phelps kept it up and run on so. Pretty soon she made the cold
chills streak all down my back, because she says:

"But here we're a-running on this way, and you hain't told me a word
about Sis, nor any of them. Now I'll rest my works a little, and you
start up yourn; just tell me _everything_--tell me all about 'm
all--every one of 'm; and how they are, and what they're doing, and
what they told you to tell me; and every last thing you can think of."

Well, I see I was up a stump--and up it good. Providence had stood by
me this fur all right, but I was hard and tight aground now. I see it
warn't a bit of use to try to go ahead--I'd got to throw up my hand.
So I says to myself, here's another place where I got to resk the
truth. I opened my mouth to begin; but she grabbed me and hustled me
in behind the bed, and says:

"Here he comes! Stick your head down lower--there, that'll do; you
can't be seen now. Don't you let on you're here. I'll play a joke on
him. Children, don't you say a word."

I see I was in a _fix_ now. But it warn't no use to worry; there
warn't nothing to do but just hold still, and try and be ready to
stand from under when the lightning struck.

I had just one little glimpse of the old gentleman when he come in;
then the bed hid him. Mrs. Phelps she jumps for him, and says: "Has he
come?"

"No," says her husband.

"Good-_ness_ gracious!" she says, "what in the world _can_ have become
of him?"

"I can't imagine," says the old gentleman; "and I must say it makes me
dreadful uneasy."

"Uneasy!" she says; "I'm ready to go distracted! He _must_ 'a' come;
and you've missed him along the road. I _know_ it's so--something
tells me so."

"Why, Sally, I _couldn't_ miss him along the road--_you_ know that."

"But oh, dear, dear, what _will_ Sis say! He must 'a' come! You must
'a' missed him. He--"

"Oh, don't distress me any more'n I'm already distressed. I don't k