ord
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."

"Why, Sally, I COULDN'T miss him along the road--YOU know that."

"But oh, dear, dear, what WILL Sis say! He must a come! You must a
missed him. He--"

"Oh, don't distress me any more'n I'm already distressed. I don't know
what in the world to make of it. I'm at my wit's end, and I don't mind
acknowledging 't I'm right down scared. But there's no hope that he's
come; for he COULDN'T come and me miss him. Sally, it's terrible--just
terrible--something's happened to the boat, sure!"

"Why, Silas! Look yonder!--up the road!--ain't that somebody coming?"

He sprung to the window at the head of the bed, and that give Mrs. Phelps
the chance she wanted. She stooped down quick at the foot of the bed and
give me a pull, and out I come; and when he turned back from the window
there she stood, a-beaming and a-smiling like a house afire, and I
standing pretty meek and sweaty alongside. The old gentleman stared, and
says:

"Why, who's tha