[62] The man eyed me from head to foot, critically and contemptuously. "Then all I've got to say," he remarked slowly, "is this—appearances is very deceptive." It was getting dusk by this time, and I was thankful for it. "I slipped down in a mud-puddle and lost my hat," I explained to the sheriff, as I turned away, and had the satisfaction of hearing the other one of my arresters say, behind my back: "Oh, drunk!" I hired a little boy, for five cents, to deliver Miss Slocum's muff at her residence. Then I went into the house by the kitchen, bribed Mary to clean my soiled pants without telling mother, slipped up-stairs, and went to bed without my supper. The next day I bought a handsome seven-dollar ring, and sent it to Hetty as some compensation for the damage done to her dress. That evening was singing-school evening. I went early, so as to get my seat without attracting attention. Early as I was, I was not the first. A group of young people was gathered about the great black-board, on which the master illustrated his lessons. They were having lots of fun, and did not notice me as I came in. I stole quietly to a seat behind a pillar. Fred Hencoop was drawing something on the board, and explaining it. As he drew back and pointed with the long stick, I saw a splendid caricature of my[63]self pursuing a small dog with a muff, while a young lady sat quietly in a mud-puddle in the corner of the black-board, and Fred was saying, with intense gravity: [63] "This is the man, all tattered and torn, that spattered the maiden all forlorn. This is the dog that stole the muff. This is the ring he sent the maid—" "Muff-in ring," suggested some one, and then they laughed louder than ever. I felt that that singing-school was no place for me that evening, and I stole away as noiselessly as I had entered. I went home and packed my trunk. The next morning I said to father: "Give me my share of the profits for the last month," and he gave me one hundred and thirty dollars. "I am going where no one knows me, mother, so good-bye. You'll hear from me when I'm
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