Well, the woman fell to talking about how hard times was, and how poor they had to live, and how the rats was as free as if they owned the place, and so forth and so on, and then I got easy again.  She was right about the rats. You'd see one stick his nose out of a hole in the corner every little while.  She said she had to have things handy to throw at them when she was alone, or they wouldn't give her no peace.  She showed me a bar of lead twisted up into a knot, and said she was a good shot with it generly, but she'd wrenched her arm a day or two ago, and didn't know whether she could throw true now.  But she watched for a chance, and directly banged away at a rat; but she missed him wide, and said "Ouch!" it hurt her arm so.  Then she told me to try for the next one.  I wanted to be getting away before the old man got back, but of course I didn't let on.  I got the thing, and the first rat that showed his nose I let drive, and if he'd a stayed where he was he'd a been a tolerable sick rat.  She said that was first-rate, and she reckoned I would hive the next one.  She went and got the lump of lead and fetched it back, and brought along a hank of yarn which she wanted me to help her with.  I held up my two hands and she put the hank over them, and went on talking about her and her husband's matters.  But she broke off to say:

"Keep your eye on the rats.  You better have the lead in your lap, handy."

So she dropped the lump into my lap just at that moment, and I clapped my legs together on it and she went on talking.  But only about a minute. Then she took off the hank and looked me straight in the face, and very pleasant, and says:

"Come, now, what's your real name?"

"Wh—what, mum?"

"What's your real name?  Is it Bill, or Tom, or Bob?—or what is it?"

I reckon I shook like a leaf, and I didn't know hardly what to do.  But I says:

"Please to don't poke fun at a poor girl like me, mum.  If I'm in the way here, I'll—"

"No, you won't.  Set down and stay where you are.  I ain't going to hurt you, and I ain't going to tell on you, nuther.  You just tell me your secret, and trust me.  I'll keep it; and, what's more, I'll help you. So'll my old man if you want him to.  You see, you're a runaway 'prentice, that's all.  It ain't anything.  There ain't no harm in it. You've been treated bad, and you made up your mind to cut.  Bless you, child, I wouldn't tell on you.  Tell me all about it now, that's a good boy."

So I said it wouldn't be no use to try to play it any longer, and I would just make a clean breast and tell her everything, but she musn't go back on her promise.  Then I told her my father and mother was dead, and the law had bound me out to a mean old farmer in the country thirty mile back from the river, and he treated me so bad I couldn't stand it no longer; he went away to be gone a couple of days, and so I took my chance and stole some of his daughter's old clothes and cleared out, and I had been three nights coming the thirty miles.  I traveled nights, and hid daytimes and slept, and the bag of bread and meat I carried from home lasted me all the way, and I had a-plenty.  I said I believed my uncle Abner Moore would take care of me, and so that was why I struck out for this town of Goshen.

"Goshen, child?  This ain't Goshen.  This is St. Petersburg.  Goshen's ten mile further up the river.  Who told you this was Goshen?"

"Why, a man I met at daybreak this morning, just as I was going to turn into the woods for my regular sleep.  He told me when the roads forked I must take the right hand, and five mile would fetch me to Goshen."

"He was drunk, I reckon.  He told you just exactly wrong."