“Workin’ on a farm.”
“Has your people got a farm?”
“No; me father and mother’s dead.”
“You was with your relations, eh?”
“No; I got no relatives; I’m a orphan.”
“Poor child!” cried the farmer’s wife softly. “Remember, Jacob, the Lord hasn’t blessed us.”
“Yes, I’m a orphan,” cried Tom, tearfully. “I got no father an’ no mother, an’ nobody in the world. I wuz put to work for a cove up there milkin’ cows an’ pullin’ maize an’ ploughin’——”
“Ploughin’!” interrupted the farmer. “Mean to say he put you ploughin’?”
“Yes,” sobbed Tom; “an’ he treated me bad, too—uster knock me about an’ larrup me with a cartwhip. I never hardly got enough to eat—never—so I couldn’t stand it no longer, an’ I run away.”
“What was the cove’s name you was workin’ with?” asked the farmer.