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I slep' with Buck the bootblack that night, an' nex' mornin', early, I started out in the country. I was 'fraid they'd find me if I stayed aroun' the city. It was pirty near afternoon 'fore I got out where the fields is, an' then a woman, she give me sumpthin' to eat.
I knew what the end of it'd be, an' I had a pirty hard time to bring myself to it, but I done it, an' I'm glad now 'at I did." "Did you reach this decision alone or did some one help you to it?" "Well, I'll tell you how that was. All't I decided in the first place was to tell Uncle Billy, he's the man't I live with. So I told him, an' he said I ought to tell Mrs. Burnham right away.
"Taking the circumstances into consideration, I regard that as the best compliment for our coal that I have ever received." The hand had been washed off as well as water without soap could do it. "I guess that's as clean as it'll come," said the boy. "It's pirty hard work to git 'em real clean.
"Yes, sir; it was pirty dusty an' hot, an' I had to walk a good ways, an' my shoes hurt me so't I had to take 'em off, an' I didn't have time to put 'em on again after I got here.
I'm thinkin' about a home with pirty things in it, books, an' pictures, an' cushions, the way women fix 'em you know, an' an' a mother; I want a mother very much; I think it'd be the mos' beautiful thing in the world to have a mother. You've had one, ain't you, Uncle Billy?"
Suddenly the door was opened from the inside, and Bachelor Billy stood there, shading his eyes with his hand and peering out into the darkness. "Ralph," he said, "is that yo' a-stannin' there i' the rain? Coom in, lad; coom in wi' ye! Why!" he exclaimed, as the boy entered the room, "ye're a' drippin' wet!" "Yes, Uncle Billy, it's a-rainin' pirty hard; I believe I I believe I did git wet."
"I hope," he said, slowly, "I hope you'll forgive me, Gran'pa Simon, if I've thought wrong of you. I didn't know 'at you was a-doin' all that for me, an' I thought I was a-havin' a pirty hard time with you." "Well," said Craft, speaking for the first time since Ralph's entrance.
"Well, Uncle Billy, I got lost in Wilkesbarre; I wasn't used to it, an' I went into a saloon there, an' they got all my money, an' I got onto the train 'ithout a ticket, an' the conductor put me off, an' I had to walk the rest o' the way home; an' I'm pirty tired, an' dirty, an' 'shamed." Sharpman laughed aloud.
Addressing Colonel Belford as "My dear Billy," he called upon that gentleman to rejoice at this determination, and informed him that he proposed in future to live "as decent a limb of grace as ever broke loose from hell," and added that he was going to fetch as a present for his niece Belinda a "dam pirty little black girl" to carry her prayer-book to church for her.
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