“I wonder where Willie is to-night. Poor boy, I sometimes fear I was too harsh with him.” And your mother will try to keep back her tears, but she can't, and first thing she knows she'll burst out crying, and... and... and old Maje will go around the house looking for you, and whining because he can't find his little playmate.... It will seem as if you were dead--dead to them, and.... Smf! Smf! (Confound that orchestra leader anyhow! How many times have I got to tell him that this is the music-cue for “Where is My Wandering Boy To-night?”) We were all going to get up early enough to see the show come in at the depot. Very few of us did it. Somehow we couldn't seem to wake up. Here and there a hardy spirit compasses the feat. All the town is asleep when this boy slips out of his front-gate and snicks the latch behind him softly. It is very still, so still that though he is more than a mile away from the railroad he can hear Johnny Mara, the night yardmaster, bawl out: “Run them three empties over on Number Four track!” the short exhaust of the obedient pony-engine, and the succeeding crash of the cars as they bump against their fellows. It is very still, scarey still. The gas-lamp flaring and flickering among the green maples at the corner has a strange look to him. His footfalls on the sidewalk sound so loud he takes the soft middle of the dusty road. He hears some one pursuing him and his bosom contracts with fear, as he stands to see who it is. Although he hardly knows the boy bound on the same errand as his, he takes him to his heart, as a chosen friend. They are kin. On the freight-house platform they find other boys. Some of them have waited up all night so as not to miss it. They are from across the tracks. They have all the fun, those fellows do. They can swear and chew tobacco, and play hookey from school and have a good time. They get to go barefoot before anybody else, and nobody tells them it will thin their blood to go in swimming so much. Yes, and they can fight, too. They'd sooner fight than eat. Our boys, conscious of inferiority, keep to themselves. The boys from across the tracks show off all the bad words they can think of. One of them has a mouth-harp which he plays upon, now and then opening his hands hollowed around the instrument. Patsy Gubbins dances to the music, which is a thing even more reckless and daredevil than swearing. Patsy's going with a “troupe” some day. Or else, he's going to get a job firing on an engine. He isn't right sure which he wants to do the most.