“Haven’t you any other name?” said John, having recovered his good-humour.

“Yes, sir, but I keeps that to myself.”

“But why?” urged John.

Josiah hesitated.  “Well, Mr. John, I ran away, and—­so it was best to get a new name.”

“Indeed!  Of course, every one knows you must have run away—­but no one cares.”

“Might say I was run away with—­can’t always hold a horse,” he laughed aloud in a leisurely way.  “When he took me over the State-line, I didn’t go back.”

“I see,” said John laughing, as he rose and paid the barber.  The cracked mirror satisfied him that he was well shorn.

“You looks a heap older now you’re shorn.  Makes old fellows look younger—­ever notice that?”

“No.”

Then Josiah, of a sudden wisely cautious, said, “You won’t tell Mrs. Penhallow, nor no one, about me, what I said?”

“Of course not; but why my aunt, Mr. Josiah?  She, like my uncle, must know you ran away.”

When John first arrived the black barber’s appearance so impressed the lad that he spoke to him as Mr. Josiah, and seeing later how much this pleased him continued in his quite courteous way to address him now and then as Mr. Josiah.  The barber liked it.  He hesitated a moment before answering.

“You needn’t talk about it if you don’t want to,” said John.

“Guess whole truth’s better than half truth—­nothin’ makes folk curious like knowin’ half.  When I first came here, I guessed I’d best change my name, so I said I was Josiah.  Fact is, Mr. John, I didn’t know Mrs. Penhallow came from Maryland till I had been here quite a while and got to like the folks and the Captain.”

John’s experience was enlarging.  He could hardly have realized the strange comfort the black felt in his confession.  What it all summed up for Josiah in the way of possible peril of loss of liberty John presently had made plain to him.  He was increasingly urgent in his demand for answers to the many questions life was bringing.  The papers he read had been sharp schoolmasters, and of slave life he knew nothing except from his aunt’s pleasant memories of plantation life when a girl on a great Maryland manor.  That she could betray to servitude the years of grey-haired freedom seemed to John incredible of the angel of kindly helpfulness.  He stood still in thought, troubled by his boy-share of puzzle over a too mighty problem.

Josiah, a little uneasy, said, “What was you thinkin’, Mr. John?”

The young fellow replied smiling, “Do you think Aunt Ann would hurt anybody?  Do you think she would send word to some one—­to take you back?  Anyhow she can’t know who was your master.”

The old black nodded slowly, “Mr. John, she born mistress and I born slave; she can’t help it—­and they was good people too—­all the people that owned me.  They liked me too.  I didn’t have to work except holdin’ horses and trainin’ colts—­and housework.  They was always kind to me.”