Pattern—his full name was Arthur Pattern, as Wayne eventually learned—was as good as his word and four days later Wayne was a member of the Medfield Young Men’s Christian Association and had increased his list of acquaintances about two hundred per cent. The Association had a comfortable building in the new business district, with a well-equipped gymnasium, a small auditorium, reading, lounging, and game rooms, and a few bedrooms at the top of the building, one of which Arthur Pattern occupied. Pattern, Wayne learned, was not a native of Medfield, but had come there a year before from a small town in New Hampshire, where his folks still resided. Pattern preferred his room at the Y. M. C. A. to similar accommodation at a boarding-house. It was in Pattern’s little room that Wayne made a clean breast of his adventures for the past three months. His host, who had vouched for him to the Association without knowing any more about him than had been revealed to him in their few meetings in the freight yard, had asked no questions, but Wayne thought he owed some account of himself to his new friend. Pattern listened interestedly, and when Wayne had ended shook his head slowly.
“It’s none of my business, Sloan,” he said, “and I don’t know what you were up against back home, but this thing of running away is usually a pretty poor business. However, that’s done now. One thing I would do if I were you, though, is write back and tell your stepfather where you are and how you are. I guess you owe him that much. Will you do that?”
Wayne consented doubtfully. “I wouldn’t want him to come after me, though, and fetch me home with him,” he said.
“I dare say he could do that, but I don’t believe he would. From what you’ve told me of him—or, maybe, from what you haven’t told me—I gather that he might be rather relieved to be rid of the expense of clothing and feeding you, Sloan. Anything in that?”
“A heap, I reckon. I don’t mind his knowing where I am as long as he doesn’t make trouble.”
“I don’t see what trouble he could make,” objected Pattern. “Anyway, you’d feel better for writing. I’d tell him why I left, that I was well and getting on and that I meant to make my own way.”
“June wrote to his mother a little while after we got here, so I reckon Mr. Higgins knows I’m still alive. June didn’t tell where we were, though.”
“Where did he mail his letter?” asked the other. “Here in Medfield?”
“Yes.”
“Then it seems to me he may have a suspicion,” laughed Pattern.