"Yes, I did," said Pomp; "clar out dar an' back agin."

"Then I'll try it," cried Harry; and clambering around the trunk of the
tree, he jumped off as far as he could toward shore.




CHAPTER XXIV.

THE FIRST BUSINESS TELEGRAMS.


When Harry jumped from the tree, he came down on his feet, in water not
quite up to his waist, and then he pushed in toward land as fast as he
could go. In a few minutes, he stood in the midst of the colored family,
his trousers and coat-tails dripping, and his shoes feeling like a pair
of wet sponges.

"Ye ought to have rolled up yer pants and tooked off yer shoes and
stockin's afore ye jumped, Mah'sr Harry," said the woman.

"I wish I had taken off my shoes," said Harry.

The woman at whose cabin Harry found himself was Charity Allen, and a
good, sensible woman she was. She made Harry hurry into the house, and
she got him her husband's Sunday trousers, which she had just washed and
ironed, and insisted on his putting them on, while she dried his own.
She hung his stockings and his coat before the fire, and made one of the
boys rub his shoes with a cloth so as to dry them as much as possible