“I hope you didn’t run away from home, boys,” said Ethan, in a grieved manner.
“No, we didn’t run away,” said Jim, “we walked.”
Ethan Durrell checked the reproof he was about to utter, and the young men laughed.
“You’ll be sorry for it some day,” remarked the New Englander, “you may depend on that.”
“Did you ever try it?” asked Wagstaff.
“I did once, but I didn’t get fur; the old gentleman overtook me a half-mile down the road; he had a big hickory in one hand and with the other he grabbed me by the nape of the neck; well,” added the gentleman, with a sigh, “I guess there’s no need of saying anything more.”
“He must have had a father like Billy Waylett,” remarked Jim, aside to his companion, both of whom laughed at the story of their new friend, “he wasn’t as lucky as we.”
The reader has already learned considerable about these two young men. They were wayward, disobedient, and fond of forbidden pleasures. It was the intention of their parents to place them in school that autumn, but while arrangements were under way the couple stealthily left home, first providing themselves with fine hunting outfits, and started for Piketon, with the intention of spending a couple of weeks in the woods.
They did not not make their plans known to Billy Waylett, who was such a willing companion several years before. Billy still lived in Ashton and could have been easily reached, but they knew that he would not only reject their proposal, but, as likely as not, acquaint their parents with it.
The unwise indulgence of Mr. Wagstaff and Mr. McGovern was producing its inevitable fruit. They had had much trouble with their boys, but hoped as they grew older, and finished sowing their wild oats, they would settle down into sedate, studious men, and that the end of all their parents’ worriment would soon come.