themselves, so they
would. And they'd come and apologize to you for the way they had acted,
and you'd say: "Oh, that's all right. Forgive and forget." And they'd
miss you at home, too. Your daddy would wish he hadn't whaled you the
way he did, just for nothing at all. And your mother, too, she'd be
sorry for the way she acted to you, tormenting the life and soul out of
you, sending you on errands just when you got a man in the king row, and
making you wash your feet in a bucket before you went to bed, instead of
being satisfied to let you pump on them, as any reasonable mother would.
She'll think about that when you're gone. It'll be lonesome then, with
nobody to bang the doors, and upset the cream-pitcher on the clean
table-cloth, and fall over backward in the rocking-chair and break a
rocker off. Your daddy will sigh and say:

"I wonder where Willie is to-night. Poor boy, I sometimes fear I was too
harsh with him." And your mother will try to keep back her tears, but
she can't, and first thing she knows she'll burst out crying, and...
and... and old Maje will go around the house looking for you, and
whining because he can't find his little playmate.... It will seem as if
you were dead--dead to them, and.... Smf! Smf!

(Confound that orchestra leader anyhow! How many times have I got to
tell him that this is the music-cue for "Where is My Wandering Boy
To-night?")

We were all going to get up early enough to see the show come in at the
depot. Very few of us did it. Somehow we couldn't seem to wake up. Here
and there a hardy spirit compasses the feat.

All the town is asleep when this boy slips out of his front-gate and
snicks the latch behind him softly. It is very still, so still that
though he is more than a mile away from the railroad he can hear Johnny
Mara, the night yardmaster, bawl out: "Run them three empties over on
Number Four track!" the short exhaust of the obedient pony-engine, and
the succeeding crash of the cars as they bump against their fellows. It
is very still, scarey still. The gas-lamp flaring and flickering among
the green maples at the corner has a strange look to him. His footfalls
on the sidewalk sound so loud he takes the soft middle of the dusty
road. He hears some one pursuing him and his bosom contracts with fear,
as he stands to see who it is. Although he hardly knows the boy bound on
the same errand as his, he takes him to his heart, as a chosen friend.
They are kin.

On the freight