So they kept poor Li'l' Hannibal at work 'most all day long, and he had only four or five hours to play.
Well, one morning Li'l' Hannibal woke up and he made up his mind to something. Before they could ask him to light the kitchen fire, or fill the tea-kettle, or mix the hoecake, or dust the hearth, or feed the turkeys, or chop any wood, or go to the store, or pick any cotton, he had made up his mind that he was not going to work for his gran'mammy and his gran'daddy any longer. He was going to run away!
So Li'l' Hannibal got out of bed very quietly. He put on his li'l' trousers, and his li'l' shirt and his li'l' suspenders and his li'l' shoes—he never wore stockings. He pulled his li'l' straw hat down tight over his ears and then Li'l' Hannibal ran away!
He went down the road past all the cabins. He went under the fence and across the cotton fields. He went through the pine grove past the schoolhouse, stooping down low so the schoolmistress wouldn't see him, and then he went 'way, 'way off into the country.
When he was a long way from town, Li'l' Hannibal met a Possum loping along by the edge of the road, and the Possum stopped and looked at Li'l' Hannibal.
"How do? Where you goin', Li'l' Hannibal?" asked the Possum.
Li'l' Hannibal sat down by the side of the road and he took off his straw hat to fan himself, for he felt quite warm, and he said:
"I done run away, Br'er Possum. My gran'mammy and my gran'daddy kep' me totin', totin' for them all the time. I doesn't like to work, Br'er Possum."
"Po' Li'l' Hannibal!" said the Possum, sitting up and scratching himself. "Any special place you boun' for?"
"I don't reckon so," said Li'l' Hannibal, for he was getting tired and he had come away without any breakfast.