We floated along toward Tempe in a brighter world than I had known since the time when I felt my bosom swell at the wearing of the new cap my mother had made for me, the day when I, too young to be sad, had thrown the clod over the stone fence as we went down to the great river to meet John Rucker.

5

We tied up for the night some seven miles west of Tempe, but I could not sleep.  I felt that I must see my mother that night, and so I trudged along the tow-path in the light of a young moon, which as I plodded on threw my shadow along the road before me.  I walked treading on my own shadow, a very different boy from the one who had come over this same route sobbing himself almost into convulsions not many months before.

I was ready to swap canal repartee with any of the canallers.  It had become my world.  I felt myself a good deal of a man.  I could see my mother’s astonished look as she opened the door, and heard me in the gruffest voice I could command asking her if she could tell me where Mrs. Rucker lived—­and yet, I felt anxious.  Somehow a fear that all was not right grew in me; and when I reached the path leading up to the house I turned pale, I feel sure, to see that there was no light.

I tapped at the door; but there was no response.  I felt for the key in the place where we used to leave it, but no key was there.

There were no curtains, and as I looked into a room with windows at the opposite side, I saw no furniture.  The house was vacant.  I went to the little leanto which was used as a summer kitchen, and tried a window which I knew how to open.  It yielded to my old trick, and I crawled in.  As I had guessed, the place was empty.  I called to my mother, and was scared, I can’t tell how much, at the echo of my voice in the deserted cabin.  I ventured up the stairs, though I was mortally afraid, and found nothing save the litter of removal.  I felt about the closet in my mother’s bedroom, to find out if any of her clothes were there, half expecting that she would be where I wanted to find her even in the vacant house.  Down in a corner I felt some small article, which I soon found was a worn-out shoe.  With this, the only thing left to remember her by, I crawled out of the window, shut it carefully behind me—­for I had been brought up to leave things as I found them—­and stood alone, the most forlorn and deserted boy in America, as I truly believe.

The moon had gone down, and it was dark.  There was frost on the dead grass, and I went out under the old apple-tree and sat down.  What should I do?  Where was my mother?  She was the only one in the world whom I cared for or who loved me.  She was gone, it was night, I was alone and hungry and cold and lost.  Perhaps some of the neighbors might know where John Rucker had taken my mother—­this thought came to me only after I had sat there until every house was dark.  The people had all gone to bed.  I tried to think of some neighbor to whom my mother might have told her destination when she moved; but I could recall none of that sort.  She had been too unhappy, here in Tempe, to make friends.  So I sat there shivering until morning, unwilling to go away, altogether bewildered, quite at my wits’ end, steeped in despair.  The world seemed too hard and tough for me.