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Show THE FAIR APOSTATE. 327 swiftly across the fields till he reached the high road; then he stopped, and, boy- like, with the reaction came this thought: " Oh, won't I catch it, though, when I get home?" Left to himself, the thirteen- year- old child would, of course, have gone back, taken his punishment, and perhaps sunk into a " white slave," perhaps taken a later occasion to fly. But fate Avould have it otherwise. As he pondered, there came down the road a high " prairie schooner," drawn by four horses; within the neat white cover sat a cheery looking woman who held the reins, while behind came two men driving loose cattle. They nodded and smiled in a way that warmed the heart of the forlorn orphan ; but the next minute turned in haste to head * off their cattle, who had broken into a wood lot and were stampeding for wild freedom. With a natural wish to please, and glad of some change, the barefooted boy ran after the cattle, and, by his knowledge of the locality, assisted greatly in getting them past the next open piece of timber. They thanked him heartily, and pressed a silver dime upon him, then bade him good- bye; but, to their surprise, when they camped that evening on the banks of the Wabash, the boy was there. Reluctantly the " movers" consented to his remaining - for the night, and in the morn-ing, fearing the consequences to themselves of " harboring a runaway," they sent him back. But to their amazement, when the swing ferry had landed them on the west bank, and they were toiling up the west-ern bluff, the boy climbed out of the rear of the wagon- box and beg-ged to go on with them. His readiness to help had pleased the men, and now something in his pleading face touched the weary but still cheerful woman. " Isn't he like our Johnnie was? And at the age we lost him" and she took him into her great motherly heart at once. So, with many misgivings, the head of the family consented to his accompany-ing them. But it might have been noticed that he made a very long drive that day, and camped at a distance from any dwelling; that he managed to keep Willie very busy if any settler halted to chat with the " movers," and that he pressed upon him a hat very different in appearance from that he had worn. And so it was that in a few days Willie felt as if he had never known other friends than these ; that the old life as a " bound boy " was a dream, and that he was to begin a new life away in the West. By this time they had emerged into what seemed a vast field with-out a fence, where, for hours, they jogged on over the grand prairie without sight of tree or house. They crossed the Embarras, the Okaw and other streams, threaded their bordering groves, and were out again |
