"Sit down here by the table, where you will have something on which to rest your head if you grow faint, and I'll be back in a moment."
Aunt Dorcas closed the kitchen door, lest a draft of air should come upon the boy she believed so grievously wounded, and went to her own room, Joe saying to himself, meanwhile:
"I'd been willin' for him to have pounded me into shoestrings, if it would save me from havin' to tell a woman as good as she is that I ran away from New York to keep out of jail."
CHAPTER XIII.
A CONFESSION.
It seemed to Joe as if aunt Dorcas had but just left the room when she returned, ready for the work of binding up his wounds.
"Do you feel any worse, Joseph?" she asked, laying her hand gently on his shoulder.
"Not a bit of it," Master Potter replied, stoutly.