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 before putting them near the fire.
Harry was very impatient to be off, but Charity was so certain that he would catch his death of cold if he started before his clothes were dry that he allowed himself to be persuaded to wait.
And then she fried some salt pork, on which, with a great piece of corn-bread, he made a hearty meal, for he was very hungry.
"Have you had your dinner, Charity ?" he asked.
"Oh, yes, Mah'sr Harry; long time ago," she said.
"Then it must be pretty late," said Harry, anxiously.
"Oh, no!" said she; "'tain't late.

I reckon it can't be much mor' 'n four o'clock." "Four o'clock!" shouted Harry, jumping up in such a hurry that he nearly tripped himself in Uncle Oscar's trousers, which were much too long for him.

"Why, that's dreadfully late.