Seven o'clock was the time appointed to meet, and Willy watched the tall clock in the front entry with a dreadful sinking at the heart. His mother was not at the supper-table and he was glad of that. Ever since muster she had staid in her room, suffering from a bad toothache. As her face was tied up, and she could not talk, Willy was not quite sure how she felt.

"How can I tell whether she has been crying or not? Her eyes are swelled, any way. Perhaps she doesn't care much. She used to love me, but she thinks I act so bad now that it's no use doing anything with me. I can't make her understand it at all."

It was a pity he thought of his mother just then, for it was hard enough, before that, swallowing his biscuit.

"She said to me, out in the orchard, one day,—says she, 'Willy, if a boy wants to do wrong, he'll find some way to do it;' and I s'pose she was thinking about me when she said it. S'pose she thinks I'm going to be bad—mother does. Well, then, I ought to go off out of the way; she doesn't want me here; what does she want of a bad boy? She'll be glad to get rid of me; so'll Love."

You see what a hopeless tangle Willy's mind was in. What ailed his biscuit he could not imagine, but it tasted as dry as ashes.

"Why, sonny," said Stephen, "what are you staring at your plate so for? That's honey. Ever see any before?"

"This is the last chance Steve will have to pester me," thought the child; and he almost pitied him.

"Guess he'll feel sorry he's been so hard on a little fellow like me."

As for grown-up Seth, it was certain that his conscience would prick, and on the whole Willy was rather glad of it, for Seth had no right to correct him so much. "Only eighteen, and not my father either!"

Willy did not think much about himself, and how he would be likely to feel after he had left this dear old home—the home where every knot-hole in the floor was precious. It would not do to brood over that; and besides, there was sullen anger enough in his heart to crowd out every other feeling.

There were circles in the wood of the shed-door which he had made with a two-tined fork; and after supper he made some more, while waiting for a chance to pocket a plate of doughnuts. Of course it wasn't wrong to take doughnuts, when it was the last morsel he should ever eat from his mother's cupboard. He had the whole of eighteen cents in his leathern wallet; but that sum might fail before winter, and it was best to take a little food for economy's sake.

At quarter of seven he put on his cap, and was leaving the house, when his father said, severely,—

"Where are you going, young man?"

Mr. Parlin did not mean to be severe, but he usually called Willy a "young man" when he was displeased with him.

"Going to the post-office, sir, just as I always do."

Willy spoke respectfully,—he had never done otherwise to his father,—and Mr. Parlin little suspected the tempest that was raging in the child's bosom.

"Very well; go! but don't be gone long."

"'Long?' Don't know what he calls long," thought the little boy. "P'raps I'll be gone two years; p'raps I'll be gone ten. Calls me a 'young man' after he has whipped me. Guess I will be a young man before I get back! Guess there won't be any more horsewhippings then!"

And, dizzy with anger, he walked fast to the post office, without turning his head.

Fred was there, anxiously waiting for him. The two boys greeted each other with a meaning look, and soon began to move slowly along towards the guide-board at the turn of the road.

To the people who happened to be looking that way, it seemed natural enough that Willy and Fred should be walking together. If anybody thought twice about the matter, it was Dr. Hilton; and I dare say he supposed they were swapping jack-knives.

As soon as they were fairly out of sight of the village, Fred said, sneeringly,—

"Well, I've been waiting most half an hour—I suppose you know. Began to think you'd sneaked out of it, Bill."

There is an insult in the word 'sneak' that no boy of spirit can bear, and Willy was in no mood to be insulted.

"Fred Chase," said he, bristling, "I'll give you one minute to take that back."

"O, I didn't mean anything, Billy; only you was so awful slow, you know."

"Slow, Fred Chase! You needn't call me slow! Bet you I can turn round three times while you're putting out one foot."

It is plain enough, from the tone of this conversation, that the boys had not started out with that friendly feeling, which two travellers ought to have for each other, who are intending to take a long journey in company. Fred saw it would not do for Willy to be so cross in the very beginning. He had had hard work to get the boy's consent to go, and now, for fear he might turn back, he suddenly became very pleasant.

"Look here, Billy; you can beat me running; I own up to that; but we've got to keep together, you know. Don't you get ahead of me—now will you?"

"I'll try not to," replied Willy, somewhat softened; "but you do get out of breath as easy as a chicken."

"Most time to begin to run?" said Fred, after they had trudged on for some time at a moderate pace.

"No; there's a man coming this way," replied the sharper-eyed Willy.

"O, yes; I see him now. Who suppose it is?"

"Why, Dr. Potter, of course. Don't you know him by his shappo brar?"

The chapeau bras was a three-cornered hat, the like of which you and I have never seen, except in very old pictures.

As Dr. Potter met the boys, he shook his ivory-headed cane, and said, playfully, "Good evening, my little men."

"Good evening, sir."

But it was certainly a bad evening inside their hearts, sulky and dark.

"What if Dr. Potter should tell where he met us?" exclaimed Fred. "Lucky 'twasn't Dr. Hilton.—There, he's out of the way; now let's run."

They were on the road to Cross Lots, a town about five miles from Perseverance. They had not as yet marked out their course very clearly, but thought after they should reach Cross Lots it would be time enough to decide what to do next.

They ran with all their might, but did not make the speed they desired, for they jumped behind the fences whenever they heard a wagon coming, and were obliged to stop often, besides, for Freddy to take breath. By the time they reached Cross Lots—a thriving little town with a saw-mill—it was pretty late; and if it had not been for the bright light of the moon and stars, they might have been a little disheartened.

They took a seat on a stump near the saw-mill, and prepared to talk over the situation. A lonesome feeling had suddenly come upon them, which caused them to gaze wistfully upon the "happy autumn fields" and the far-off sky.

"Stars look kind o' shiny—don't they?" said Fred, heaving a sigh.

Willy forced a gay tone.

"What s'pose makes 'em keep up such a winking? Like rows of pins, you know,—gold pins; much as a million of 'em, and somebody sticking 'em into a great blue cushion up there, and keeps a-sticking 'em in, but out they come again."

"I never heard of such a silly idea in my life," sneered Fred. "Pins!—H'm!"

"Why, can't you tell when a fellow's in fun, Fred Chase? Thought I meant real pins—did you? The stars are worlds, and I guess I know it as well as you do."

"Worlds? A likely story, Bill Parlin! Mother has said so lots of times, but you don't stuff such a story down my throat."

"Don't believe your mother!" exclaimed Willy, astonished. "Why, I always believe my mother. She never made a mistake in her life."

Fred laughed.

"She don't know any more'n anybody else, you ninny! only you think so because she makes such a baby of you."

Willy reddened with sudden shame, but retorted sharply,—

"Stop that! You shan't say a word against my mother."

"But you let me talk about your father, though. What's the difference?"

"Lots. You may talk about father as much as you've a mind to," said Willy, scowling; "for he no business to whip me so. He thinks boys are pretty near fools."

"That's just what my father thinks," returned Fred.

Whereupon the two boys were friends again, having got back to their one point of agreement.

"If I had a boy I wouldn't treat him so,—now I tell you," said Willy, clinching his little fists. "I'd let him have a good time when he's young."

"So'd I!"

"For when he's old he won't want to have a good time."

"That's so."

"And I wouldn't be stingy to him; I'd let him have all the money he could spend."

"So'd I," responded the ungrateful Fred, who had probably had more dollars given him to throw away than any other boy in the county.

"I'd treat a boy real well. I wouldn't make him work as tight as he could put in," pursued Willy, overcome with dreadful recollections.

"Nor I, neither! Guess I wouldn't!"

"Poh! what do you know about it, Fred? Your father's rich, and don't keep a pig!"

"What if he don't? What hurt does a pig do?"

"Why, you have to carry out swill to 'em. Then there's the wood-box, and there's the corn to husk, and the cows to bring up! It makes a fellow ache all over."

"No worse'n errands, Bill! Guess you never came any nearer blistering your feet than I did last summer, time we had so much company. Mother's a case for thinking up errands."

"Well, Fred, we've started to run away."

"Should think it's likely we had."

"I'm going 'cause I can't stand it to be whipped any more; but you don't get whipped, Fred. What are you going for?"

"Why, to seek my fortune," replied Fred, spitting, in a manly fashion, into a clump of smartweed. "Always meant to, you know, soon's I got so I could take care of myself; and now I can cipher as far as substraction, what more does a fellow want?"

"Don't believe you can spell 'phthisic,' though."

As this remark had nothing to do with the case in point, Fred took no notice of it. What if he couldn't spell as well as Willy? He was a year and a half older, and had the charge of this expedition.

"Which way you mean to point, Billy?"

"Why, I thought we were going to sea. That's what you said; and I put a lot of nutcakes in my pocket to eat 'fore we got to the ship."

"You did? Well, give us some, then, for I'm about starved."

"So'm I, too."

And one would hardly have doubted it, to see them both eat. The doughnuts were sweet and spicy, and cheering to the spirits; the young travellers did not once stop to consider that they might need them more by and by. Children are not, as a general rule, very deeply concerned about the future. Birds of the air may have some idea where to-morrow's dinner is coming from; but these boys neither knew nor cared.

"First rate," remarked Fred, as the last doughnut disappeared. "But I don't know about going to sea. It's plaguy tough work climbing ropes, they say, and I heard of a boy that got whipped so hard he jumped overboard."

"Let's not go, then," cried Willy.

"Catch me!" said Fred. "I've been thinking of the lumb'ring business. They make money fast as you can wink up there to the Forks."

"Let's go lumbering, then."

"Guess we will, Billy. You see the trees don't cost anything,—they grow wild,—and all you've got to do is to chop 'em down."

"Yes," said Willy, "and we need red shirts for that. I never chopped a tree's I know of. Could, though, if I had a sharp axe. Guess I could, I mean,—I mean if the tree wasn't too big!"

"O, we shan't chop 'em ourselves," said Fred, spitting grandly. "Wasn't my father a lumberman once, and got rich by it? But did he ever cut down a tree? What's the use? Hire men, you know."

"O!" exclaimed Willy. But a gleam of common sense striking him next moment, he added, "but the money; where'll we get that?"

"O, we'll get it after a while," replied Fred, vaguely. "My father was a poor boy once. Fact! I've heard him tell about it. Nothing but tow-cloth breeches, and wale-cloth jacket, off there to Groton. And he made butter tubs and potash tubs, sir. And he took his pay in beaver skins. And then he went afoot to Boston, and he rolled a barrel of lime round the Falls, sir. I've heard him tell it five million times. And my aunt Tempy, she rode a-horseback three hundred miles to Concord.—O, poh! there's lots of ways to make money, if you try. And once he took his pay in potash,—my father did; and he sold tobacco. O, there's ways enough to make money if you keep your eyes open; that's what my father says."

Willy's eyes were open enough, if that were all. At any rate, he was trying his very best to keep them open. Half of his mind was sleepy, and half of it very wide awake indeed. There was something so inspiring in Fred's confident tone. Rather misty his plans might be as yet; but hadn't Willy heard, ever since he could remember, that people were sure to succeed if they were only "up and doing?"

"Come, let's start," said he, rising eagerly, as the bell rang for nine. "If we are going to the Forks we must go to Harlow first; I know that much."

And turning the corner at the left, the two wise little pilgrims set out upon their travels,—