He was going to run away again, as he had from that man with the scarred face. He heard the children shouting at their play and decided he would first watch them a minute and perhaps let Danny know what he had driven him into doing. He went down the alley which led past the woodshed, behind which the circus performance was going on, and stopped to watch with his face wedged between two pickets of the fence.
Nora was walking the rope slowly. She was doing it very well as long as she kept one end of the balancing pole on the ground, but when she got halfway across the rope, the end of the pole was so far behind that she couldn't steady herself with it. She tried to drag it up even with her and in so doing lost her balance and had to jump to the ground. As she straightened up, she saw Jerry's face between the palings.
"There's Jerry!" she called to Danny.
"Thought you would play, after all," Danny remarked.
"I'm not," said Jerry.
"He's got his cap on!" laughed Celia Jane. "What've you got your cap on for, Jerry?"
"And your overcoat?" said Nora.
"And your mittens?" chimed in Chris. "You ain't cold, are you?"
"I'm running away," Jerry responded, addressing no one in particular. He tried to say it indifferently as though it were a matter of everyday occurrence, this running away, but in spite of himself a note of pride crept into his voice. None of them had ever run away.