ent straightway to the land of dreams. The night wore on, the
restless traveler near the stove dozed and wakened and attended to the
dampers, thereby all unknowingly contributing his mite to Tode's warm
journey. The train halted now and again at a station, and a few sleepy
people stumbled off, and a few wide-awake ones came on, but still seats
were comparatively plenty and no one disturbed the fur cloak. In the
course of time Tode's sleep grew less sound; he twisted around as much
as his limits would allow, and punched an imaginary bed-fellow with his
elbow, muttering meanwhile:

"Keep still now. Which of you is joggling?"

The joggling continued, and at last the boy twisted and punched himself
awake and into a sitting posture, and finally the look of unmixed
astonishment with which he took in his surroundings, gave way to one of
unmistakable fun.

"Here's a go!" he at last informed himself. "I've come a journey and no
mistake; made a night of it sure as I live. Lucky I waked up first of
this crowd. If somebody had sat down on Wolfie now by mistake, there
might have been trouble. Guess I'll look about me."

He shook himself free from the cloak and sauntered out on the platform.
The gray dawn was just glimmering over the frozen earth, the world
looked snowy and icy and desolate. On swept the train, and not a
familiar object met his eye. Did Tode feel dreary and homesick, lost in
the whizzing strangeness, sorry he had come? Did he want to shrink away
from sight and sound? Did he feel that he would give anything in the
world to be landed at that moment somewhere near Broadway in Albany? Not
a bit of it! Nothing of the sort entered his brain. _He_ feel homesick!
Why his home was anywhere and nowhere. Since that day, years ago, when
his mother died, he had had less of a home than even before. Sometimes
he slept on the cellar floor with his father, but oftener in the street,
in a stable, or curled in a barrel when he had the good fortune to find
one--_anywhere_; but never in all his life had he spent such a
comfortable night as this last had been. But his father? Oh dear, you
don't know what fathers can become to their children, if you think he
missed him. Please remember his last act had been to kick his son out of
a cellar into the snow; but Tode bore him no ill-will for this or any
other attention. Oh no, nor good-will either. Why, his father was
simply less than nothing to him. So this morning, without an idea as to
w