(2) The boy wearily dropped his heavy bundle and stood still, listening as the voice of crickets split the shadows and made the
silence audible. A tear wandered down his brown cheek. They were at supper now, he whispered-the father and old mother,
away back yonder beyond the night. They were far away, they would never be as near as once they had been, for he had
stepped into the world. And the cat and Old Billy-ah, but the world was a lonely thing, so wide and tall and emptyl And so bare.
so bitter bare! Somehow he had never dreamed of the world as lonely before; he had fared forth to beckoning hands and luring.
and to the eager hum of human voices, as of some great, swelling music.
(3) Yet now he was alone; the empty night was closing all about him here in a strange land, and he was afraid. The bundle with
his earthly treasure had hung heavy and heavier on his shoulder, his little horde of money was tightly wadded in his sock, and the
school lay hidden somewhere far away in the shadows. He wondered how far it was; he looked and harkened, starting at his own
heartbeats, and fearing more and more the long dark fingers of the night.