This, of course, while perhaps being satisfactory to a man, did not at all calm Sammy’s mother. She expected the very worst to happen to her son every time he disappeared; and as has been shown on this occasion, the boy’s absence stirred the community to its very dregs.
Had Mrs. Pinkney known that after tramping as far as the outskirts of the town, and almost dropping from exhaustion, Sammy had gone to bed on a pile of straw in an empty cow stable, she would have been even more troubled than she was.
Sammy, however, came to no harm. He slept so soundly in fact on the rude couch that it was mid-forenoon before he awoke—stiff, sore in muscles, clamorously hungry, and in a frame of mind to go immediately home and beg for breakfast.
He had more money tied up in his handkerchief, however, than he had ever possessed before when he had run away. There was a store in sight at the roadside not far ahead. He hid his bag in the bushes and bought crackers, ham, cheese, and a big bottle of sarsaparilla, and so made a hearty if not judicious breakfast and lunch.
At least, this picnic meal cured the slight attack of homesickness which he suffered. He was no longer for turning back. The whole world was before him and he strode away into it—lugging that extension-bag.
While his troubled mother was showing Agnes Kenway the unmistakable traces of his departure for parts unknown, Sammy was trudging along pretty contentedly, the bag awkwardly knocking against his knees, and his sharp eyes alive to everything that went on along the road.
Sammy had little love for natural history or botany, or anything like that. He suffered preparatory lessons in those branches of enforced knowledge during the school year.
He did not care a bit to know the difference between a gray squirrel and a striped chipmunk. They both chattered at him saucily, and he stopped to try a shot at each of them with his gun.
To Sammy’s mind they were legitimate game. He visualized himself building a fire in a fence corner, skinning and cleaning his game and roasting it over the flames for supper. But the squirrel and the chipmunk visualized quite a different outcome to the adventure and they refused to be shot by the amateur sportsman.
Sammy struck into a road that led across the canal by a curved bridge and right out into a part of the country with which he was not at all familiar. The houses were few and far between, and most of them were set well back from the road.