t her hand and
pointing to the door, where the light shone hospitably.

With a long breath, as if a load was off his mind, Dan took up a stout
stick, and began to limp towards the house, but stopped suddenly, to say
inquiringly,

"Mr. Bhaer won't like it. I ran away from Page."

"He knows it, and was sorry, but it will make no difference. Are you
lame?" asked Mrs. Jo, as he limped on again.

"Getting over a wall a stone fell on my foot and smashed it. I don't
mind," and he did his best to hide the pain each step cost him.

Mrs. Bhaer helped him into her own room, and, once there, he dropped
into a chair, and laid his head back, white and faint with weariness and
suffering.

"My poor Dan! drink this, and then eat a little; you are at home now,
and Mother Bhaer will take good care of you."

He only looked up at her with eyes full of gratitude, as he drank the
wine she held to his lips, and then began slowly to eat the food she
brought him. Each mouthful seemed to put heart into him, and presently
he began to talk as if anxious to have her know all about him.

"Where have you been, Dan?" she asked, beginning to get out some
bandages.

"I ran off more'n a month ago. Page was good enough, but too strict. I
didn't like it, so I cut away down the river with a man who was going in
his boat. That's why they couldn't tell where I'd gone. When I left the
man, I worked for a couple of weeks with a farmer, but I thrashed his
boy, and then the old man thrashed me, and I ran off again and walked
here."

"All the way?"

"Yes, the man didn't pay me, and I wouldn't ask for it. Took it out in
beating the boy," and Dan laughed, yet looked ashamed, as he glanced at
his ragged clothes and dirty hands.

"How did you live? It was a long, long tramp for a boy like you."

"Oh, I got on well enough, till I hurt my foot. Folks gave me things to
eat, and I slept in barns and tramped by day. I got lost trying to make
a short cut, or I'd have been here sooner."

"But if you did not mean to come in and stay with us, what were you
going to do?"

"I thought I'd like to see Teddy again, and you; and then I was going
back to my old work in the city, only I was so tired I went to sleep on
the hay. I'd have been gone in the morning, if you hadn't found me."

"Are you sorry I did?" and Mrs. Jo looked at him with a half merry, half
reproachful look, as she knelt down to look at his wounded foot.

The color came up into Dan's face, and he