"Run away from home!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown.
"Yes, that's what he's done," said Mr. Ward. "I never thought he'd do such a thing as that, even though he is quick tempered. Yes, Fred has run away," and he turned over and over in his hand a slip of paper he had been reading.
"Perhaps he only went off in a sort of joke," said Mrs. Brown sympathetically. "I know once Bunny——"
"Yep. I ran away, I did!" exclaimed Bunny. "I got away down to the end of the street. I saw a man and a hand organ and he had a monkey. I mean the man did. And I wanted to be a hand-organ man so I ran away and was going off with him, only Bunker Blue chased after me, so I didn't run far, though I might have."
"Bunker Blue is a boy who works on Mr. Brown's fishing pier," explained Mrs. Brown. "Yes, Bunny did run away once, but he was glad to run back again."
"And I was lost!" cried Sue. "I was out walking with my daddy, and I went down a wrong street, and I couldn't see him and I didn't know what to do so I—I cried."
"Yes, Sue was lost a whole morning before a policeman found her and telephoned to us," put in Mrs. Brown. "She was glad to get back. Undoubtedly your boy will be the same."
"No," said Mr. Ward slowly, "I don't believe Fred will come home soon. He has gone off very angry."
"Are you sure he didn't go to the home of some neighbor or of a relative?" asked Mrs. Brown. "Children often do that, never thinking how worried their fathers and mothers are."
"No, Fred is too old to do that," said Mrs. Ward, wiping the tears out of her eyes. "He has gone, intending to stay a long while."