mother was in her grave, and could not offer any more her soft body to ward off floggings from mine. My stepfather flung that piece of information to me once, in language less pretty, miss. Oh, I was miserable—frightened and miserable—like a cur that's gotten kicked and kicked, and all the spirit knocked out of him.
"My stepfather said how I was his property till I was twenty-one, and I was to do as he wanted, and no squawking about it either. I was only fifteen. I didn't dare ask anybody, who might know, whether or not a boy of my age did belong to his stepfather like that. I was afraid I'd get some one suspicious about the murder I planned. I was afraid of my own shadow those days.
"Well, finally, in November, my stepfather suddenly went off guiding on a week's hunting trip. It was the first job he'd had since my mother died, and I saw my chance. With a week's start, I might get to some of those seaport places on the coast of Maine, and get out of the country somehow or other. I made up my mind to try anyhow. I had that much spirit left.
"Six days later, I slipped down over the edge of a big, black slimy dock at low tide, one evening, hung in space a second or two, then dropped softly four feet, onto the deck of what proved to be a big five-masted creature, a mysterious animal to me then, slipping slowly out to sea—out to safety," he added with a deep sigh, as if of relief.
"Is that all?" asked Reba in a small voice, after a long pause.
"I'm over the worst part," he assured her. "The
