If anybody else had shown as much self-esteem as Horace did, the boys would have said he had "the big head." When Yankee children think a playmate conceited, they call him "stuck up;" but Hoosier children say he has "the big head." No one spoke in this way of Horace, however, for there was something about him which made everybody like him, in spite of his faults.
He loved his play-fellows, and they loved him, and were sorry enough to have him go away; though, perhaps, they did not shed so many tears as Grace's little mates, who said, "they never'd have any more good times: they didn't mean to try."
Mrs. Clifford, too, left many warm friends, and it is safe to say that on the morning the family started for the East, there were a great many people "crying their hearts out of their eyes." Still, I believe no one sorrowed more sincerely than faithful Barbara Kinckle.
CHAPTER III
TAKING A JOURNEY
It was a great effort for Mrs. Clifford to take a journey to Maine with three children; but she needed the bracing air of New England, and so did Grace and the baby.
To be sure they had the company of a gentleman who was going to Boston; but he was a very young man indeed, who thought a great deal more of his new mustache than he did of trunks and checks, and tickets.
Twenty times a day Mrs. Clifford wished her husband could have gone with her before he enlisted, for she hardly knew what to do with restless little Horace. As for sitting still, it was more than the boy could do. He would keep jerking his inquisitive little head out of the window, for he never remembered a caution five minutes. He delighted to run up and down the narrow aisle and, putting his hands on the arms of the seats, swing backward and forward with all his might. He became acquainted with every lozenge-boy and every newspaper-boy on the route, and seemed to be in a high state of merriment from morning till night.
Grace, who was always proper and well-behaved, was not a little mortified by Horace's rough manners.
"He means no harm," Mrs. Clifford would say, with a smile and a sigh; "but Mr. Lazelle, if you will be so kind as to watch him a little, I will be greatly obliged."