ou'll only pull ahead, and let me heave you the
headline, you won't have to come a-near the raft--please do."

"Set her back, John, set her back!" says one. They backed water. "Keep
away, boy--keep to looard. Confound it, I just expect the wind has
blowed it to us. Your pap's got the small-pox, and you know it precious
well. Why didn't you come out and say so? Do you want to spread it all
over?"

"Well," says I, a-blubbering, "I've told everybody before, and they just
went away and left us."

"Poor devil, there's something in that. We are right down sorry for you,
but we--well, hang it, we don't want the small-pox, you see. Look here,
I'll tell you what to do. Don't you try to land by yourself, or you'll
smash everything to pieces. You float along down about twenty miles, and
you'll come to a town on the left-hand side of the river. It will be
long after sun-up then, and when you ask for help you tell them your
folks are all down with chills and fever. Don't be a fool again, and let
people guess what is the matter. Now we're trying to do you a kindness;
so you just put twenty miles between us, that's a good boy. It wouldn't
do any good to land yonder where the light is--it's only a wood-yard.
Say, I reckon your father's poor, and I'm bound to say he's in pretty
hard luck. Here, I'll put a twenty-dollar gold piece on this board, and
you get it when it floats by. I feel mighty mean to leave you; but my
kingdom! it won't do to fool with small-pox, don't you see?"

"Hold on, Parker," says the other man, "here's a twenty to put on the
board for me. Good-bye, boy; you do as Mr. Parker told you, and you'll
be all right."

"That's so, my boy--good-bye, good-bye. If you see any runaway niggers
you get help and nab them, and you can make some money by it."

"Good-bye, sir," says I; "I won't let no runaway niggers get by me if I
can help it."

They went off and I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low, because I
knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn't no use for me to
try to learn to do right; a body that don't get STARTED right when he's
little ain't got no show--when the pinch comes there ain't nothing to
back him up and keep him to his work, and so he gets beat. Then I
thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on; s'pose you'd a done right
and give Jim up, would you felt better than what you do now? No, says I,
I'd feel bad--I'd feel just the same way I do now. Well, then, says I,