“‘Give him something to eat,’ answered the Son of Ben Ali, and this made me glad, for I had had a long, a hot, and a hard chase.
“‘What shall I do then?’ asked the man named Abe.
“‘Give him a drink of clean water,’ replied the Son of Ben Ali.
“‘What then?’
“‘Then let him alone.’
I LOOKED UP AND WHINED
“Now, I was very glad of that,” continued Rambler, licking his chops, and keeping one eye on the sputtering pine knot that gave out a flickering light, “for I wanted bread, and I wanted water, and I wanted to lie down and rest somewhere, where I wouldn’t have to fight the flies.
“So the man named Abe went into his cupboard—that same cupboard there—and gave me a big chunk of ash cake, and placed a pan of water close by. Then he sat in the door and began to weave his baskets. I ate all he gave me, drank as much water as I wanted, and crept under a low bedstead that stood in the corner yonder.
“I don’t know how long I slept, but when I woke I knew it was night, for I heard the man named Abe frying his bacon, and the smell of it crept under the bed where I was, and made me as hungry as I had been before I ate. After a while I heard voices. The Son of Ben Ali was asking the man named Abe if he would have to stay in the loft on the planks all night. The man named Abe said no, that he had a snug place for the Son of Ben Ali.