hat mass of hair
shining in my hand and a queer, light feeling in my head.

"But I felt that I was free. I clamped on my cousin's hat--how queer it
felt with all that hair cut off! I bundled the hair into my pocket,
because they mustn't dream what I had done. Then someone beat on the
door.

"'Coming!' I called to them.

"I ran to the window. The house was built on a slope, and it was not a
very long drop to the ground, I suppose. But to me it seemed
neck-breaking, that distance. It was dark, and I climbed out and hung
by my hands, but I couldn't find courage to let go. Then I tried to
climb back, but there wasn't any strength in my arms.

"I cried out for help, but the singing downstairs must have muffled the
sound. My fingers grew numb--they slipped on the sill--and then I fell.

"The fall stunned me, I guess, for a moment. When I opened my eyes, I
saw the stars and knew that I was free. I started up then and struck
straight across country. At first I didn't care where I went, so long
as it was away, but when I got over the first hill I made up a plan.
That was to go for the railroad and take a train. I did it.

"There was a long walk ahead of me before I reached the station, and
with my cousin's big boots wobbling on my feet I was very tired when I
reached it. There were some freight cars on the siding, and there was
hay on the floor of one of them. I crawled into the open door and went
to sleep.

"After a while I woke up with a great jarring and jolting and noise. I
found the car pitch dark. The door was closed, and pretty soon, by the
roar of the wheels under me and the swing of the floor of the car, I
knew that an engine had picked up the empty cars.

"It was a terrible time for me. I had heard stories of tramps locked
into cars and starving there before the door was opened. Before the
morning shone through the cracks of the boards, I went through all the
pain of a death from thirst. But before noon the train stopped, and the
car was dropped at a siding. I climbed out when they opened the door.

"The man who saw me only laughed. I suppose he could have arrested me.

"'All right, kid, but you're hitting the road early in life, eh!'

"Those were the first words that were spoken to me as a man.

"I didn't know where I should go, but the train had taken me south, and
that made me remember a town where my father had lived for a long
time--Sour Creek. I started to get to this place.

"The hardest thing I h