der. His artless ways pleased the old fellow.

"You haven't told me your name."

"You hain't axed me."

"Well, I axe you now," laughed the Major, but Chad saw nothing to laugh
at.

"Chad," he said.

"Chad what?"

Now it had always been enough in the mountains, when anybody asked his
name, for him to answer simply--Chad. He hesitated now and his brow
wrinkled as though he were thinking hard.

"I don't know," said Chad.

"What? Don't know your own name?" The boy looked up into the Major's
face with eyes that were so frank and unashamed and at the same time so
vaguely troubled that the Major was abashed.

"Of course not," he said kindly, as though it were the most natural
thing in the world that a boy should not know his own name. Presently
the Major said, reflectively:

"Chadwick."

"Chad," corrected the boy.

"Yes, I know"; and the Major went on thinking that Chadwick happened to
be an ancestral name in his own family.

Chad's brow was still wrinkled--he was trying to think what old Nathan
Cherry used to call him.

"I reckon I hain't thought o' my name since I left old Nathan," he
said. Then he told briefly about the old man, and lifting his lame foot
suddenly, he said: "Ouch!" The Major looked around and Chad explained:

"I hurt my foot comin' down the river an' hit got wuss walkin' so
much." The Major noticed then that the boy's face was pale, and that
there were dark hollows under his eyes, but it never occurred to him
that the lad was hungry, for, in the Major's land, nobody ever went
hungry for long. But Chad was suffering now and he leaned back in his
seat and neither talked nor looked at the passing fields. By and by, he
spied a crossroads store.

"I wonder if I can't git somethin' to eat in that store."

The Major laughed: "You ain't gettin' hungry so soon, are you? You must
have eaten breakfast pretty early."

"I ain't had no breakfast--an' I didn't hev no supper last night."

"What?" shouted the Major.

Chad stated the fact with brave unconcern, but his lip quivered
slightly--he was weak.

"Well, I reckon we'll get something to eat there whether they've got
anything or not."

And then Chad explained, telling the story of his walk from Frankfort.
The Major was amazed that anybody could have denied the boy food and
lodging.

"Who were they, Tom?" he asked

The old driver turned:

"They was some po' white trash down on Cane Creek, I reckon, suh.
Must'a' been." There was a slight