“Promise that you won’t ever tell.”
In an instant every boy had vowed that he would keep the secret, and, after assuring himself that there was no other person near who might hear him, Tom began:
“I’m going to run away.”
The little circle of listeners gazed at the bold boy in almost breathless astonishment, and Tom, fully enjoying the sensation he had caused, continued his story after first pausing sufficiently long to note the effect which his announcement had upon his hearers.
“Yes, I’m going, and you just better believe that I’ll go so far away that nobody’ll ever find me. I’ve stood this working around home just as long as I can, and I’ll show my folks what it is to treat a boy the way they’ve treated me.”
“But where are you going, Tom?”
“That part of it I’m not going to tell,” said Tom, with a decided shake of the head, preferring to seem cruel rather than confess that he had no idea as to where he should go to escape the tyranny of his parents. “I’ll leave here some night, hide under the bridge at Rankin’s brook till morning, and then go to some place where none of the folks around here will ever find me.”
“But what makes you hide under Rankin’s bridge all night?” asked Dwight Holden, curiously.
“So’s I’ll be ready to start just as soon’s it’s daylight, of course.”