"Joe, do you want to go home?" asked Mrs. Horton gravely. "I overheard you talking with the ticket agent. Haven't you enough money?"
Joe Brown looked at her quickly, then away again.
"I would kinda like to go home," he admitted.
"Oh, Joe!" Mrs. Horton cried half impatiently, half laughing. "Come over here and sit down a minute. Now tell me truly. Did you run away, and do you want to go back?"
Joe sat down on one side of her, and Sunny Boy scrambled into the seat on the other side. He leaned over her shoulder to listen.
"Well, yes, I did run away," confessed Joe humbly. "That is, I meant to go see my Aunt Annabell, and write the folks from her house. But she had moved, honest she had; I couldn't locate her nowhere. And then I thought I'd get me a job and wear new clothes home. But New York isn't such an easy place to get along in. These don't look much like new clothes."
Mrs. Horton glanced at the shabby suit.
"But your mother, Joe?" she urged. "Haven't you written to her?"
"I sent her postals telling her not to worry," answered Joe.
"And now you want to go home?" asked Mrs. Horton.