“I ate as little as possible until the farmer’s wife saw I was getting thin again. Then she told me to eat all I wanted and not to worry. She said she would manage somehow so—they would not have to—eat—me for dinner! I trusted her and after that enjoyed three good meals a day. You see she had taken a fancy to me because I kept myself looking neat, and tried to be gentlemanly. She called me ‘Squeaky’ and treated me like a child of her own. Little by little I began to understand what she said, and learned to talk. “One day the farmer’s wife was sitting by the window sewing. The farmer had gone to town. I trotted up as usual for a chat, but instead of chatting— “‘You must go away,’ she said, with a catch in her voice, ‘for my husband says we must have you—for—dinner—to-morrow!’ “She could hardly say the words. We looked at each other sadly. Then she took me in her arms and squeezed me so tightly I thought she would break my bones; and I would not have cared much if she had. To die in her arms would have been a happier lot than leaving her. “‘But surely I may come back some day,’ I managed to say, ‘or send for you when my fortune is made.’ “‘I’m afraid not,’ she faltered. “I cannot tell you any more about our parting. It was too sad. Somehow I survived it—I suppose because I was young and the world lay before me. “A farmer’s buckboard approached in the rough lane, thumping over the frozen ruts, announcing its coming long in advance. I hid in the cabbage-patch. The farmer’s wife stopped the vehicle and gossiped with the driver, to give me a chance to climb into the back and hide. [Illustration: To die in her arms would have been a happier lot than leaving her] “It was not easy to scramble up into the vehicle, for I was fat, and could not get a foothold. I tried using the spokes of the wheel as a ladder, but kept slipping and falling back. I knew one side of the wheel would go up and the other down when the wagon started, but could not figure out which side did which. However, I decided to take a chance. Taking a firm grip on one of the lower spokes I braced my feet on the one below it. It happened to be the right side of the wheel. So when the vehicle started the spoke I was holding to began to rise, carrying me up nearly to the top of the wagon. Bracing my legs, I gave a leap that landed me in the buckboard upon some empty potato sacks. Hurriedly selecting one I crawled into it. “The farmer thought he had heard something fall into the wagon, and stopping his horses, he glanced back. I was hidden by this time but he saw a bulging under the pile of sacks and was about to poke into them when I said, ‘Please, Mr. Smythers, let me stay here until we get by those boys in the road. I am hiding from them.’ “When he heard my voice Mr. Smythers, of course, took me for a boy and he answered: ‘No, you cannot stay there. You will smother. Come out and I will protect you from the boys.’