“Could a man go by the railroad?”
“Sure he could, if he had the money. Was n't that what I wanted some junk for—to sell it, so I could go on the train? But I have n't got any money. So I got to walk.”
“Mebby I should pay,” said Shuder.
Lem considered this.
“I guess that's all right,” he said, “if you want to. We'd get there sooner, anyway.”
Lem would not, however, tell where they were to go even then, and the next morning Shuder had to press close behind the boy at the ticket window to overhear him ask for a ticket to Burlington. He sat beside the boy all the way, too, never moving far from him even when they changed cars at the junction. At noon he fed Lem from the lunch Rosa had provided, and he bought Lem two apples from the train-boy. Shuder was close behind the boy when Lem asked at the post-office window for a letter for Lemuel Redding. Although he could not read, he peered over Lem's shoulder as Lem read the letter the clerk handed out.
“Pa ain't here no more,” said Lem, looking up at Shuder. “He's gone somewheres.”
Shuder grasped the letter from Lem's hand and stared at it, turning it over and over.
“Please, misder,” he begged of a man who passed, “you should read this to me.”
The man took the letter.