r gran'daddy's
brea'fus'."

"Oh, Li'l' Hannibal, take the bunch of turkeys' feathers and dust the
hearth."

And from morning until night Li'l' Hannibal's gran'daddy kept him
doin' things too.

"Oh, Li'l' Hannibal," his gran'daddy would say, "fetch the corn and
feed the turkeys."

"Oh, Li'l' Hannibal, take your li'l' axe and chop some wood for your
gran'mammy's fire."

"Oh, Li'l' Hannibal, run 'round to the store and buy a bag of flour."

"Oh, Li'l' Hannibal, fetch your basket and pick a li'l' cotton off the
edge of the field."

So they kept poor Li'l' Hannibal at work 'most all day long, and he
had only four or five hours to play.

Well, one morning Li'l' Hannibal woke up and he made up his mind to
something. Before they could ask him to light the kitchen fire, or
fill the tea-kettle, or mix the hoecake, or dust the hearth, or feed
the turkeys, or chop any wood, or go to the store, or pick any cotton,
he had made up his mind that he was not going to work for his
gran'mammy and his gran'daddy any longer. He was going to run away!

So Li'l' Hannibal got out of bed very quietly. He put on his li'l'
trousers, and his li'l' shirt and his li'l' suspenders and his li'l'
shoes--he never wore stockings. He pulled his li'l' straw hat down
tight over his ears and then Li'l' Hannibal ran away!

He went down the road past all the cabins. He went under the fence and
across the cotton fields. He went through the pine grove past the
schoolhouse, stooping down low so the schoolmistress wouldn't see him,
and then he went 'way, 'way off into the country.

When he was a long way from town, Li'l' Hannibal met a Possum loping
along by the edge of the road, and the Possum stopped and looked at
Li'l' Hannibal.

"How do? Where you goin', Li'l' Hannibal?" asked the Possum.

Li'l' Hannibal sat down by the side of the road and he took off his
straw hat to fan himself, for he felt quite warm, and he said:

"I done run away, Br'er Possum. My gran'mammy and my gran'daddy kep'
me totin', totin' for them all the time. I doesn't like to work, Br'er
Possum."

"Po' Li'l' Hannibal!" said the Possum, sitting up and scratching
himself. "Any special place you boun' for?"

"I don't reckon so," said Li'l' Hannibal, for he was getting tired and
he had come away without any breakfast.

"You come along of me, Li'l' Hannibal," said the Possum; "I reckon I
kin take you somewhere."

So the Possum and Li'l' Hannibal went along together, the Po