and that would be the end of it.

So here he was, ticketed and started, fairly bound for Colorado, sitting
with his hat over his eyes, and thinking about it.

"Hm-m. Asleep," pronounced Tommy, with his keen glance into the corner.
"Guess I'll wake him up."

He laid his cheek down on his little fiddle,--you don't know how Tommy
loved that little fiddle,--and struck up a gay, rollicking tune,--

"I care for nobody and nobody cares for me."

The man in the corner sat quite still. When it was over he shrugged his
shoulders.

"When folks are asleep they don't hist their shoulders, not as a general
thing," observed Tommy. "We'll try another."

Tommy tried another. Nobody knows what possessed the little fellow, the
little fellow himself least of all; but he tried this:--

"We've lived and loved together,
Through many changing years."

It was a new tune, and he wanted practice, perhaps.

The train jarred and started slowly; the gloved exquisite, waiting
hackmen, baggage-masters, coffee-counter, and station-walls slid back;
engine-house and prison towers, and labyrinths of tracks slipped by;
lumber and shipping took their place, with clear spaces between, where
sea and sky shone through. The speed of the train increased with a
sickening sway; old wharves shot past, with the green water sucking at
their piers; the city shifted by and out of sight.

"We've lived and loved together,"

played Tommy in a little plaintive wail,

"We've lived and loved--"

"Confound the boy!" Harmon pushed up his hat with a jerk, and looked out
of the window. The night was coming on. A dull sunset lay low on the
water, burning like a bale-fire through the snaky trail of smoke that
went writhing past the car windows. Against lonely signal-houses and
little deserted beaches the water was plashing drearily, and playing
monotonous bases to Tommy's wail:--

"Through many changing years,
Many changing years."

It was a nuisance, this music in the cars. Why didn't somebody stop it?
What did the child mean by playing that? They had left the city far
behind now. He wondered how far. He pushed up the window fiercely,
venting the passion of the music on the first thing that came in his
way, and thrust his head out to look back. Through the undulating smoke,
out in the pale glimmer from the sky, he could see a low, red tongue of
land, covered with the twinkle of lighted homes. Somewhere there, in
among the quivering warmth, was one