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and look sharp. Then he studied it over and said, couldn't I put on some of

them old things and dress up like a girl? That was a good notion, too. So we

shortened up one of the calico gowns and I turned up my trowser-legs to my

knees and got into it. Jim hitched it behind with the hooks, and it was a fair

fit. I put on the sun-bonnet and tied it under my chin, and then for a body to

look in and see my face was like looking down a joint of stove-pipe. Jim said

nobody would know me, even in the daytime, hardly. I practiced around all day

to get the hang of the things, and by-and-by I could do pretty well in them, only

Jim said I didn't walk like a girl; and he said I must quit pulling up my gown

to get at my britches pocket. I took notice, and done better.

I started up the Illinois shore in the canoe just after dark.

I started across to the town from a little below the ferry landing, and the

drift of the current fetched me in at the bottom of the town. I tied up and

started along the bank. There was a light burning in a little shanty that hadn't

been lived in for a long time, and I wondered who had took up quarters there. I

slipped up and peeped in at the window. There was a woman about forty year

old in there, knitting by a candle that was on a pine table. I didn't know her

face; she was a stranger, for you couldn't start a face in that town that I didn't

know. Now this was lucky, because I was weakening; I was getting afraid I

had come; people might know my voice and find me out But if this woman

had been in such a little town two days she could tell me all I wanted to know;

so I knocked at the door, and made up my mind I wouldn't forget I was a girl.

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