“Well, I hadn’t any more’n started to run till I heard a splash I knew she’d got to the water all right and there wa’n’t nothin’ for me to do but hurry home.
“I went right back to the wagon and climbed upon the seat and turned ‘round. The old horse was pretty tired but he seemed some encouraged, bein’ as he’d turned home. Horses always does, no matter how poor a place they has to stay. I urged him ‘long just as fast as I could; didn’t stop for nothin’ except to give him some water at a trough down on Halstead Street, and went right home. Then I put him in the stable and took care of him, and throwed some hay in the manger. So long as I hadn’t any oats I emptied about a bushel of potatoes in with the hay. I thought they wouldn’t be any use to me any more, and they’d keep him quiet a while and mebbe do him some good.
“Then I went in the house, and struck a match and lit the lamp. I didn’t ‘low to stay long for I’d got my plans all thought out comin’ home, but I just wanted to look into the room and see the kid. I glanced ‘round and ever’thing seemed all right, except I thought I’d better take the coal pail out in the kitchen. Then I looked at the floor and the rug and I couldn’t see no blood; and the water had pretty near dried up. Then I opened the bedroom door and looked at the kid. He was sleepin’ all right, just as if he hadn’t been awake once all night. He was layin’ on one side with his face lookin’ out toward me, and was kind of smilin’ pleasant-like and his hair was all sweaty and curly. You’ve seen the kid. You know he’s got white curly hair just as fine as silk. That’s one thing he got from her.
“Well, I couldn’t hardly bear to go away and leave him, but there wa’n’t nothin’ else to do. I guess I would have kissed him if I hadn’t been ‘fraid he’d wake up, but I never was much for kissin’; kissin’ depen’s a good deal on how you’re raised. I guess rich people kiss a good deal more’n poor people, as a general rule, but I don’t know as they think any more of their children. Well, I just looked at him a minute and shut the door and went out. Then I noticed the whiskey bottle on the table that I brought out to try to wake her; I hadn’t thought of it before; and I picked it up and drank what was left, and turned and blew out the lamp and went away. That’s the last I ever seen of the kid, or the house.
“I went right over to the yards to see about trains. There wa’n’t nothin’ standin’ ‘round there and I didn’t like to ask any questions, so I went down to the other end and see ‘em switchin’ some cars as if they was makin’ up a train, and I walked out in the shadow of a fence until they’d got it all made up and I felt pretty sure ‘twas goin’ south. I knew them cars and engines pretty well. Then I jumped in a box car that was about in the middle of the train. There was a great big machine of some kind in the car, so there was plenty of room left for me, and I snuggled down in one corner and dozed off. I don’t think I’d been sleepin’ long till a brakeman come past with a lantern and asked me who I was and where I was goin’. I told him I was goin’ south to get a job, and wanted to get down as far as Georgia if I could, for my lungs wa’n’t strong and the doctors had advised a change of climate. I had read about the doctors advisin’ rich people to have a change of climate, but of course I hadn’t ever heard of their tellin’ the poor to do any such thing. I s’pose because it wouldn’t do no good and they couldn’t afford to leave their jobs and go. But I didn’t see why that wasn’t a good excuse. He asked me if I had any whiskey or tobacco, and I said no, and he told me that I oughtn’t to get on a train without whiskey or tobacco, and I promised not to again, and then he let me go.
“It was just gettin’ streaks of light in the east, and I thought I might as well go ahead and prob’ly I’d better ride till noon anyhow, as nothin’ much could happen before that time. Then I went off to sleep again. The sun was pretty high before I woke up. I looked at my watch to see what time it was but found I’d forgot to wind it the night before and it had run down. Well, I concluded it was just as safe to stay on the car so long as it was goin’ south and so I didn’t get off all day, except to run over to a grocery when the train stopped once and get some crackers and a few cigars. I thought I’d have ‘em when the brakeman come ‘round, and then I fixed myself for the night. I was pretty well beat out and didn’t have much trouble goin’ to sleep, though of course I couldn’t get it out of my head any of the time, and would wake up once in a while and wonder if it wa’n’t all a dream till I found myself again and knew it was all true.
“I’d found out that the car I was in was goin’ to Mississippi and made out that it was for some saw mill down there. It was switched ‘round once or twice in the day, and I think once in the night, and was put on other trains, and the new brakeman had come ‘round at different times. After I got the cigars I gave ‘em one whenever they come ‘round and this kep’ ‘em pretty good natured. And so long as the car had switched off and I made up my mind they wouldn’t find her the first day, I thought mebbe I’d better stay right in it and go to Mississippi. I didn’t know nothin’ ‘bout Mississippi, except that it was south and a long ways off and settled with niggers, and that they made lumber down there. I used to see a good many cars from Mississippi when I was switchin’ in the yards. The car was switched off quite a bit, and didn’t go very fast, and it was four days before they landed it in Mississippi.
“They stopped right in the middle of the woods, and I made up my mind that this was about as good a place to stay as anywhere, if I could get a job, and I thought it wouldn’t be a bad plan to try where they was sendin’ the machine. It had been so easy for me to get down to Mississippi that I began to think that mebbe my luck had changed, and that the Lord had punished me all he was goin’ to. So I went up to the mill and asked for a job. The foreman told me he’d give me one if I didn’t mind workin’ with niggers. I told him I didn’t care anything ‘bout that, I guessed they was as good as I was. So I started in. My whiskers was beginnin’ to grow out some. You know I always kep’ ‘em shaved off, and now they was comin’ out all over my face, and I made up my mind to let ‘em grow. I went to work loadin’ saw logs onto a little car that took ‘em down into the mill. A great big stout nigger worked with me, and we took long poles and rolled the logs over onto the cars, and then it was rolled down into the mill and another one come up in its place. I found the only chance to board was in the big buildin’ where all the hands lived. I thought this wa’n’t a bad place. Most of the people boardin’ there was niggers, but there was a few white fellers, and I naturally got acquainted with ‘em.
“I’d been there a week or two when someone brought a Chicago paper into the house. It was covered with great big headlines and had my picture on the front page. It told all ‘bout some boys findin’ her and about the neighbors hearin’ me call her a damned bitch, and about the kid wakin’ up in the mornin’ and goin’ out in the street to hunt its ma. Then it offered a thousand dollars reward in great big letters.