Jack."
[2]. Jack had found this sentence in a note from one of his father's unfortunate debtors, and he had been carefully saving it for years until a proper opportunity for using it should occur.
This letter had been begun at the top of the page, with the intention that it should cover the entire front, but as it was, there was a considerable blank space at the bottom. So Jack labored hard to devise a postscript, but his head was not equal to much composition. Suddenly his fond resolution came to mind; it was to have been a dead secret, but now it seemed only just that his father should have something to break the shock of his son's departure—something particularly comforting and uplifting. So he wrote:
"P. S. The first thousand dollars I earn, I'm going to send to you, to pay for the stable that burned down on account of the matches in my jacket pocket getting scrunched under Bob Pinkshaw's foot."
This postscript gave Jack a great deal of comfort as he looked at it, but he doubted whether it was the part of prudence to linger over it. So he sealed and addressed both letters, and put his father's on the mantle in the doctor's room, just under the hook where the doctor's watch was always hung at night; the other letter he determined to mail at the first post-town he reached in his wanderings.
Then he got a little hand-valise of his father's, having failed to find a pocket-handkerchief large enough to hold the traveling outfit which he considered necessary. He packed all his fishing tackle, a red shirt, a pair of swimming tights, the box containing the remains of nice little Mattie Barker's bouquet, some underclothing, his Sunday suit, and his whole assortment of old felt hats. He looked around the room lest he might have forgotten something, and beheld the little Bible which his mother had given him on his tenth birthday. He had not read a word from it for a month, but then runaway boys always carried their mother's Bibles, or Testaments, he was not sure which—and they beat everything for turning off murderous bullets or the daggers of assassins. Then he remembered how his mother had looked at him and kissed him when she gave him that Bible, and he wished that she had always looked so, and he nearly cried without knowing why, and he longed to go find his mother and give her a great hug and kiss, but it would be just like her to ask awkward questions if he did. He would have a last look at her, anyhow, come what might, so he tiptoed to the sitting-room, and there she sat darning one of Jack's stockings, with a lot of others before her, and she was looking very tired and seemed to have been crying.
"She won't have to darn stockings any more," said Jack to himself, "and that'll be a comfort." Then he slipped out of the back door, through the garden, behind the blackberry rows, into the meadow, and so down to a wild little gully which would lead him out of town unseen by any one.
CHAPTER XV.
RUNNING AWAY.
Jack's first care was to get out of town; once out of sight of any house, however, he began to wonder seriously what course he should take. The terrible thirst with which he was consuming suggested that he should keep close to the river, the water of which, now that October had come, was quite cool. There was a scarcity of houses along the river bank, and Jack had entirely forgotten to bring any food with him; still, if he developed no more appetite than he had at present, he would want nothing to eat for days. Besides, the river bank was well wooded for miles, and though the trees had begun to shed their leaves, there was still foliage enough to secrete a boy from anyone who might be impertinently curious. Still better, the dry leaves would make a delightful couch, and Jack began to think that the sooner he tried them the more comfortable he would be, for his head persisted in aching, and his legs were very weak. So within two miles of town, he halted, scraped a great many leaves against a fallen tree, as he had heard was the habit of hunters and trappers, and stretched himself upon them. The air was balmy, the shade was most grateful, so Jack soon dropped into a slumber.