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.
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