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"kind of a low chuckle. We had mighty good weather, as a general thing, and noth-

ing ever happened to us at all, that night, nor the next, nor the next.

Every night we passed towns, some of them away up on black hillsides, noth-

ing but just a shiny bed of lights, not a house could you see. The fifth night

we passed St. Louis, and it was like the whole world lit up. In St. Petersburg

they used to say there was twenty or thirty thousand people in St. Louis, but I

never believed it till I see that wonderful spread of lights at two o'clock that still

night. There warn't a sound there; everybody was asleep.

Every night, now, I used to slip ashore, towards ten o'clock, at some little

village, and buy ten or fifteen cents' worth of meal or bacon or other stuff to eat;

and sometimes I lifted a chicken that warn't roosting comfortable, and took him

along. Pap always said, take a ssssssssss

chicken when you get a chance, ssssssssss

because if you don't want him ssssssssss

yourself you can easy find some- ssssssssss

body that does, and a good deed ssssssssss

ain't ever forgot. I never see ssssssssss

pap when he didn't want the ssssssssss

chicken himself, but that is what ssssssssss

he used to say, anyway. ssssssssss

Mornings, before daylight, I

slipped into corn fields and bor- ssssssssss

rowed a watermelon, or a mush- ssssssssss

melon, or a punkin, or some ssssssssss

new corn, or things of that kind. ssssssssss

Pap always said it warn't no ssssssssss

harm to borrow things, if you ssssssssss

was meaning to pay them back, ssssssssss

sometime; but the widow said ssssssssss

it warn't anything but a soft ssssssssss

name for stealing, and no decent ssssssssss

body would do it. Jim said he reckoned the widow was partly right and pap

was partly right; so the best way would be for us to pick out two or three

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