“Please, ma’am—”
“G’way, I say! We don’t want no tramps hookin’ everything they kin lay their hands on!”
“Please, ma’am,” I persisted, mildly, “I am not a tramp. I want something to eat”—the woman started to unchain the dog—“for which I am willing to pay.”
“Come right in,” said the woman, with a broad smile. “I declare I couldn’t have the heart to turn anybody away hungry. Tramps bother a person so that I get kinder suspicious, but I could see right away you were different from the general run.”
While she was talking she was busily engaged in setting the table with fried ham, potatoes, bread and butter and coffee, and I lost no time in falling to. I paid a quarter for it when I had finished, and got away as quickly as possible, as I feared the arrival of some of the men folks, who might have their suspicions aroused.
All that night I traveled on and slept in the woods again. Not to enter into particulars, it is sufficient to say that I kept this up for a week, until I found myself in the vicinity of Williamsport, and by that time I judged myself to be reasonably safe.
So I boldly entered that city in broad daylight, had a bath and my hair cut, a complete change of underclothing, and enjoyed a day of rest.
When I started out again, the next morning, I had recovered my usual spirits, and took to the road, determined to keep going as long as my money and strength held out. I had twenty-five dollars of the former and an unlimited supply of the latter.
All that day I tramped on steadily enough, buying both my dinner and supper for trifling sums; and, when night came on, I thought it would be just as well to camp in the woods again.
For that purpose I left the road, and, plunging into the forest on my left, I soon came to a secluded spot, near a ravine or