so there was
nothing for him to do but go. There was nowhere for him to go but home,
and he sneaked off in the dark.

When he came in sight of the cabin he could not tell whether he would
rather have his mother waiting for him with a whipping and some supper,
or get to bed somehow with neither. He climbed softly over the back
fence and crept up to the back door, but it was fast; then he crept
round to the front door, and that was fast, too. There was no light in
the house, and it was perfectly still.

All of a sudden it struck him that he could sleep in the stable-loft,
and he thought what a fool he was not to have thought of it before. The
notion brightened him up so that he got the gourd that hung beside the
well-curb and took it out to the stable with him; for now he remembered
that the cow would be there, unless she was in somebody's garden-patch
or cornfield.

He noticed as he walked down toward the stable that the freshet had come
up over the flat, and just before the door he had to wade. But he was in
his bare feet, and he did not care; if he thought anything, he thought
that his mother would not come out to milk till the water went down, and
he would be safe till then from the whipping he must take, sooner or
later, for playing hooky.

Sure enough, the old cow was in the stable, and she gave Jim Leonard a
snort of welcome and then lowed anxiously. He fumbled through the dark
to her side, and began to milk her. She had been milked only a few hours
before, and so he got only a gourdful from her. But it was all
strippings, and rich as cream, and it was smoking warm. It seemed to Jim
Leonard that it went down to his very toes when he poured it into his
throat, and it made him feel so good that he did not know what to do.

There really was not anything for him to do but to climb up into the
loft by the ladder in the corner of the stable, and lie down on the old
last year's fodder. The rich, warm milk made Jim Leonard awfully sleepy,
and he dropped off almost as soon as his head touched the cornstalks.
The last thing he remembered was the hoarse roar of the freshet outside,
and that was a lulling music in his ears.

The next thing he knew, and he hardly knew that, was a soft, jolting,
sinking motion, first to one side and then to the other; then he seemed
to be going down, down, straight down, and then to be drifting off into
space. He rubbed his eyes and found it was full daylight, although it
was the dayligh