the world that a boy should not know his own name. Presently the Major said,
reflectively:

"Chadwick."

"Chad," corrected the boy.

"Yes, I know"; and the Major went on thinking that Chadwick happened to be an
ancestral name in his own family.

Chad's brow was still wrinkled--he was trying to think what old Nathan Cherry
used to call him.

"I reckon I hain't thought o' my name since I left old Nathan," he said. Then
he told briefly about the old man, and lifting his lame foot suddenly, he
said: "Ouch!" The Major looked around and Chad explained:

"I hurt my foot comin' down the river an' hit got wuss walkin' so much." The
Major noticed then that the boy's face was pale, and that there were dark
hollows under his eyes, but it never occurred to him that the lad was hungry,
for, in the Major's land, nobody ever went hungry for long. But Chad was
suffering now and he leaned back in his seat and neither talked nor looked at
the passing fields. By and by, he spied a crossroads store.

"I wonder if I can't git somethin' to eat in that store."

The Major laughed: "You ain't gettin' hungry so soon, are you? You must have
eaten breakfast pretty early."

"I ain't had no breakfast--an' I didn't hev no supper last night."