all the time and
he couldn't sleep and he just hated that farm. So he made up his mind
that he would have to run away from home.

It was on his sixteenth birthday that he made up his mind to run away
from home. Captain Solomon was a kind father, but he had been a captain
for such a long time that he wanted to run his family and his farm just
like a ship and to have everybody do just exactly as he said and ask no
questions; and, when anybody didn't seem to want to do just as he said,
but began to ask questions and argue, he got very angry. Sol was very
sorry to leave his mother, but there was nobody else except his two
brothers. And he was very sure that Seth would run away to sea when he
got old enough, unless Captain Solomon let him go. But, long before it
came to be Seth's time, Captain Solomon had learned better. And John, at
that time, was a little boy.

So Sol made his plans. And, when the time came, he left a letter to his
father. The letter was scribbled on a leaf that Sol tore out of a book,
and it was very short, for Sol didn't like to write letters. The letter
said that he just _had_ to go to sea, and that he hoped that his father
wouldn't blame him, and that he would come back some day when he had got
to be a mate or a captain.

Then there was a letter to his mother. It was longer than the letter to
his father and in it Sol said that he was just sick for the sea and
that, if he stayed on the farm, he knew he should get sicker and die.
The farm was a beautiful farm, but farms were not for him for many years
yet. He would rather plough the ocean than plough the earth. Sol was
rather proud when he wrote that about ploughing the ocean, for he
thought it sounded rather well when he read the letter over. And he
subscribed himself, with a great deal of love, her loving son.

Then Sol made a bundle of the clothes he thought he would need, but the
bundle was a small one, for he didn't think that he would need many
clothes. And, when it got late that night, and everything was quiet
about the house and even his brothers, Seth and John, were sound asleep,
Sol opened the window and threw his bundle out. Then he got out and slid
down the rain spout. The rain spout made a good deal of noise, but it
was wooden and not made of tin, so it didn't make as much noise as a
rain spout would make now. Sol was afraid that his father would hear the
noise and wake up, so he hid behind the lilac bushes in the corner of
the fence. B