Through the back tent he sped, past Madame Lucetta Almazida, who was holding the "Phenomenal Trapezist" in her arms, past Mons. Duval, out into the night. Home—home—home—that was the place toward which, if he had had wings, he would have flown. Being neither an angel nor even a bird, only a little wretched boy, all he could do was to stumble along the dark road. Eight miles away was his home. On and on he went, and at last his weary feet began to flag.
It seemed as if the chirping crickets were hissing at him. The frogs in the ponds croaked disapprovingly. Even the stars winked reproachfully.
He was growing exhausted. He sank down by a fence, and his eyelids closed heavily.
The sun was high when he awoke, and then a colder, hungrier boy you never saw. Six miles from home was he. There was nothing for it but to plod along, for there were no houses on that road. One mile, two miles, he walked. He picked some apples by the road-side, but they were sour and hard. Sometimes he tried to run, but had to give that up.
At five o'clock that afternoon the cook at a certain farm-house was frying doughnuts in the back kitchen. She was looking very sober, and near her sat a very sober boy, who every now and then drew his hand across his eyes. At last he spoke.
"Cerinthy," said he, "do you cal'late they'll ever find him?"
Cerinthy put another doughnut into the expostulating fat. "Romeo Augustus," said she, "it's my opinion that maybe they may and maybe they mayn't; an' like as not if they do, it'll only be his body, and— Oh!"
Cerinthy gave a great scream, and dropped her panful of doughnuts on the floor, for on the threshold of the "pump-room" stood a boy as black as the ace of spades, clad in startling yellow clothes, his neck ornamented with a huge paper collar.
This image opened his mouth and spake. "Where's my mother? Give me a doughnut."
Cerinthy shrieked louder than ever. An opposite door opened, and out rushed a lady whose eyes were swollen with crying.