“Your father go to lodge meeting?” Fred asked Bobby. “So’d mine and Palmer’s too, and I think Bertrand’s father was going. Wonder where he is now.”
Fred meant Bertrand, not his father, and just as he finished speaking, that small boy came up to them, panting.
“I ran all the way,” he said. “Is it late? My mother had company in the parlor and my big sister was making candy in the kitchen. So I couldn’t get out till I thought of sliding down the porch trellis.”
“Wasn’t it icy?” asked Bobby.
“Oh, yes, it was icy,” admitted Bertrand cheerfully. “But I don’t care, long as I got here!”
“Where we going?” asked Fred, looking at Bobby for directions.
“I think we’d better walk till we come to a barn,” planned Bobby. “Folks always sleep in a barn when they run away from home.”
“Where’ll we get anything to eat?” suggested Palmer Davis. “I’m hungry already.”
“I brought some buns,” said Bertrand, hastily untying a small package he carried. “We can eat these as we go along.”
They started to walk uptown, keeping close together and munching the buns as they walked. The packed snow deadened the noise of their footfalls and there was not a sound anywhere. Here and there a light shone out from the houses they passed, but most folk in Oak Hill went to bed before ten o’clock unless there happened to be a party.