ed in toward land as fast as he
could go. In a few minutes, he stood in the midst of the colored family,
his trousers and coat-tails dripping, and his shoes feeling like a pair
of wet sponges.

"Ye ought to have rolled up yer pants and tooked off yer shoes and
stockin's afore ye jumped, Mah'sr Harry," said the woman.

"I wish I had taken off my shoes," said Harry.

The woman at whose cabin Harry found himself was Charity Allen, and a
good, sensible woman she was. She made Harry hurry into the house, and
she got him her husband's Sunday trousers, which she had just washed and
ironed, and insisted on his putting them on, while she dried his own.
She hung his stockings and his coat before the fire, and made one of the
boys rub his shoes with a cloth so as to dry them as much as possible
before putting them near the fire.

Harry was very impatient to be off, but Charity was so certain that he
would catch his death of cold if he started before his clothes were dry
that he allowed himself to be persuaded to wait.

And then she fried some salt pork, on which, with a great piece of
corn-bread, he made a hearty meal, for he was very hungry.

"Have you had your dinner, Charity?" he asked.

"Oh, yes, Mah'sr Harry; long time ago," she said.

"Then it must be pretty late," said Harry, anxiously.

"Oh, no!" said she; "'tain't late. I reckon it can't be much mor' 'n
four o'clock."

"Four o'clock!" shouted Harry, jumping up in such a hurry that he nearly
tripped himself in Uncle Oscar's trousers, which were much too long for
him. "Why, that's dreadfully late. Where can the day have gone? I must
be off, instantly!"

So much had happened since morning, that it was no wonder that Harry had
not noticed how the hours had flown.

The ride to the creek, the discussions there, the delay in getting the
boat, the passage down the stream, which was much longer than Harry had
imagined, and the time he had spent in the tree and in the cabin, had,
indeed, occupied the greater part of the day.

And even now he was not able to start. Though he urged her as much as he
could, he could not make Charity understand that it was absolutely
necessary that he must have his clothes, wet or dry; and he did not get
them until they were fit to put on. And then his shoes were not dry,
but, as he intended to run all the way to Aunt Judy's cabin, that did
not matter so much.

"How far is it to Aunt Judy's?" he asked, when at last he was ready to
sta