When we got far away from the house, I asked Henry if he wasn't hungry, and he shook his head, no, but gave me a Uneeda biscuit out of a box, and I ate three or four, and all the time he was walking on in the nice soft light, without saying anything.
Presently we got to the top of a hill, and Henry stood still, and so did I. There was the sun coming up and making all sorts of lovely colors on the sky.
When we looked at it a little while, Henry said, "How does the little, lonely boy like walking in the morning?" and I said, "Fine."
We walked on, and sometimes Henry didn't say anything, and sometimes he whistled, and sometimes he talked to me about Carlisle and football, and out-of-doors and things like that, and I had a lovely time and didn't notice how far away we were getting.
At last the sun came up all the way, and I said, "Oh, Henry, we'd better get back now, for Mrs. Turner will miss us and not know where we are."
But Henry threw himself flat on the grass,—we had sat down to rest a minute because I was tired, and didn't say anything at all for a long time.
Then he lifted his head and his white teeth showed, and his eyes smiled at me, and he said quite softly, "I am not going back."
Oh, how queer I felt when he said those words. Maybe it was as Aunty May said, because I hadn't enough breakfast in my insides, but everything went round like a clock for a minute, the sky, the trees, and the strange road, and the strange houses, and then I said in a funny voice, "Oh, Henry, you don't mean that."
He said, "Yes, I am tired of everything there"; and he pointed down the road we had come along. "I am going back to my own people; back to the school."