"What do you mean by that?"
"Haven't I been on a drunk, and left my family to starve and freeze?" groaned Joe, interlarding his speech with violent ebullitions of weeping. "Wouldn't my poor wife, and my poor children—O my God," and the poor drunkard covered his face with his hands, and sobbed like an infant.
"What is the matter? What do you mean, Joe?" asked Major Phillips, who had never seen him in this frame before.
"Wouldn't they all have died if Harry hadn't gone and fed 'em, and split up wood to warm 'em?"
As he spoke, Joe sprang up, and rushed towards Harry, and in his drunken frenzy attempted to embrace him.
"What does this mean, Harry?" said the stable keeper, turning to our hero, who, while Joe was telling his story, had been thinking of something else.
"What a fool I was to get mad!" thought he. "What would she say if she had seen me just now? Poor Julia! perhaps she is dead, even now."
"My folks would have died if it hadn't been for him," hiccoughed Joe.
"Explain it, Harry," added the major.
"The lame girl, Katy, came down here after her father early in the evening. She seemed to be in trouble and I thought I would go up and see what the matter was. I found them in rather a bad condition, without any wood or anything to eat. I did what I could for them, and came away," replied Harry.