I did not like leaving my bundle behind, but I felt bound to help, and following Jack's example, I helped him to catch the horses, which were soon attached to the tow-line thrown ashore by the bargeman, who cast loose the mooring ropes, and with the stars still twinkling above our heads we were once more on our way, Jack walking beside the horse and I barefooted beside him. My feet did not pain me now, but I felt that to replace my boots would be to chafe them again, so I contented myself with letting them ride, while for the present I made my way afoot. My proceedings as we went along seemed to greatly interest Jack, who stared hard as he saw me stoop down and wash my face and hands at a convenient place in the river, for a shake and a rub of his curly head seemed to constitute the whole of his toilet. My hair I smoothed as I walked by his side, while he looked contemptuously at my little pocket-comb. "That wouldn't go through my hair," he said at last. Then in the same breath, "Old woman's up." I turned to see how he knew it, expecting his mother to be on the little deck: but the only thing visible besides Jack's father was a little curl of smoke from the iron chimney in front of the rudder. "That means brakfass," said Jack, grinning; "don't you want yourn?" I said I did, and asked how soon we should get to a lock where I could buy some bread and milk. "Don't you waste your money on bread and milk," said my companion, "there'll be lots o' brakfass for both on us. You wait till we get farther on and we can get some apples and a bottle of ginger-beer." It seemed so fair an arrangement that when the shrill voice summoned Jack to fetch his breakfast I shared it with him, and so I did his dinner and tea, while we afterwards regaled ourselves with fruit, and sweets, and cider, or ginger-beer. This went on day after day, for though the pace was slow I found that I could not have got on faster. Besides which, I had endless rides, Jack's proceedings with me never once seeming to awaken either interest or excitement on the part of his parents. In fact, Jack's father seemed to occupy the whole of his time in leaning upon the tiller and smoking, with the very rare exceptions that he might occasionally make use of the hitcher in rounding some corner. As for the passing of other barges, the men upon them seemed to do the greater part of the necessary work in lifting tow-ropes. At the locks, too, he would stolidly stare at Jack and me as we turned the handles with the lock-keeper, and then perhaps grunt approval. Jack's mother appeared to spend all her time in cooking and other domestic arrangements, for she never showed herself on deck except to announce the readiness of a meal by a shrill shout for her boy, rarely speaking a word to him at such times as he took his food from her hands.