“Poor child!” said the farmer’s wife. “Don’t hurt him, Jacob!—ah, don’t hurt him!”
“The varmint’s done his best to hurt me!” cried Jacob. “He kicked a few inches of bark off my shins!”
“Well,” howled Tom, “you nearly choked me!”
“Whose boy is he?” asked the farmer’s wife.
“He’s got a ugly face,” replied the burly farmer, holding Tom up to the candle light; “a ugly face that a cove ought to know anywhere; but I don’t recognise ’im.”
“Do you think he really was at the fowls, Jacob?”
“I dunno,” replied Jacob, “what kinder evidence you’d want to prove it; but I ketched him with a Leghorn hen in one hand an’ yer Spanish rooster in the other, coming’ outer the fowlhouse, an’ I reckon that’s strong enough for me; I reckon it’s strong enough to ’ang the varmint on.”
“Whose boy are you?” asked the farmer’s wife. “Where do you come from?”
“I can’t speak,” growled Tom, “he’s chokin’ me.”
“Don’t hurt him, Jacob!” pleaded the good wife, in a sympathetic voice. “He’s only a child.”
“He’s a derned old-fashioned child,” observed the farmer, taking a fresh grip of his prize. “There, now, let’s hear what you got to say for yourself. Who are you? What is your name?”
“Robinson,” replied Tom, tearfully, “Will Robinson.”
“Robinson!” repeated the man. “There ain’t any Robinsons round here. Where did you come from?”
“I came from the Richmond,” replied Tom, readily.
“Poor child!” cried the farmer’s wife softly. “Remember, Jacob, the Lord hasn’t blessed us.”
“Yes, I’m a orphan,” cried Tom, tearfully. “I got no father an’ no mother, an’ nobody in the world. I wuz put to work for a cove up there milkin’ cows an’ pullin’ maize an’ ploughin’——”
“Ploughin’!” interrupted the farmer. “Mean to say he put you ploughin’?”
“Yes,” sobbed Tom; “an’ he treated me bad, too—uster knock me about an’ larrup me with a cartwhip. I never hardly got enough to eat—never—so I couldn’t stand it no longer, an’ I run away.”
“What was the cove’s name you was workin’ with?” asked the farmer.
“I dunno his other name,” replied the captured pirate, suspecting a trap; “I never heard ’im called anythink except Mister Smith.”
“Hum,” said the farmer. “An’ how long is it since you run away?”
“’Bout two weeks,” replied Tom. “I bin hidin’ in the bush so’s they wouldn’t ketch me. I didn’t want to be ketched an’ took back an’ knocked about. I’d a rather died. I nearly did die, too! I got starved—I’m starved now. I ain’t ’ad nothink to eat all day, nor yesterday ’ardly. I wouldn’t ’a come ’ere to take them fowls only I wuz ’ungry, an’ that’s the truth. I never stole nothink in me life before.”