on it and she went on talking.  But only about a minute. Then she took off the hank and looked me straight in the face, and very pleasant, and says: “Come, now, what's your real name?” “Wh--what, mum?” “What's your real name?  Is it Bill, or Tom, or Bob?--or what is it?” I reckon I shook like a leaf, and I didn't know hardly what to do.  But I says: “Please to don't poke fun at a poor girl like me, mum.  If I'm in the way here, I'll--” “No, you won't.  Set down and stay where you are.  I ain't going to hurt you, and I ain't going to tell on you, nuther.  You just tell me your secret, and trust me.  I'll keep it; and, what's more, I'll help you. So'll my old man if you want him to.  You see, you're a runaway 'prentice, that's all.  It ain't anything.  There ain't no harm in it. You've been treated bad, and you made up your mind to cut.  Bless you, child, I wouldn't tell on you.  Tell me all about it now, that's a good boy.” So I said it wouldn't be no use to try to play it any longer, and I would just make a clean breast and tell her everything, but she musn't go back on her promise.  Then I told her my father and mother was dead, and the law had bound me out to a mean old farmer in the country thirty mile back from the river, and he treated me so bad I couldn't stand it no longer; he went away to be gone a couple of days, and so I took my chance and stole some of his daughter's old clothes and cleared out, and I had been three nights coming the thirty miles.  I traveled nights, and hid daytimes and slept, and the bag of bread and meat I carried from home lasted me all the way, and I had a-plenty.  I said I believed my uncle Abner Moore would take care of me, and so that was why I struck out for this town of Goshen. “Goshen, child?  This ain't Goshen.  This is St. Petersburg.  Goshen's ten mile further up the river.  Who told you this was Goshen?” “Why, a man I met at daybreak this morning, just as I was going to turn into the woods for my regular sleep.  H