"No, I didn't see nobody, Aunt Sally.  The boat landed just at daylight, and I left my baggage on the wharf-boat and went looking around the town and out a piece in the country, to put in the time and not get here too soon; and so I come down the back way."

"Who'd you give the baggage to?"

"Nobody."

"Why, child, it 'll be stole!"

"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 warld 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."