John Borden.”
The woman shook her head.
“Thank you, very much.” Jack rose.
“You go straight down three blocks. Then ask a policeman. Oh, I guess you’ll get home safely.”
Jack walked his three blocks. Then there was a low rumble of thunder. Oh, dear! He began to cry. Was there never a policeman!
“What’s the matter bub?” asked a kindly voice.
“I’m lost. I can’t find my way home.”
“Where is home?”
“Arch Street.”
“Come on. We’ll find it. It’s bad to be lost. Where have you been?”
“Oh, I can’t tell all the places,” sobbingly.
They entered the park. Even that was large enough to get lost in. It grew darker and darker and there was a sprinkle of rain. Jack held tight to the man’s hand, and it seemed as if the park was full of bears. He was so frightened. They came to one of the entrances.
“Now you keep straight on and you will come to Arch Street. Good-bye little lad. It’s raining quite fast. Hook it along.”
Jack did run. Houses began to look familiar.
Yes, here was his own street. Oh, how glad he was. He almost flew. And his father ran down the steps and caught his little wet boy in his arms.
“Oh, Jack! Jack! Amy,” he cried through the open hall door, “he’s here! he’s here!”
There had been a great commotion, for Jack had been instructed to come straight home from school even if he went out afterward. And when it came dinnertime with no Jack, and the dreadful things that one could conjure up – being run over, being kidnapped – for he was such a pretty little fellow! Mr. Borden telephoned to the Police Precinct, to two hospitals, went out to search, inquiring of the neighboring children. No, he had not been playing with them. Mrs. Borden was wild with terror. Aunt Florence said some boy had coaxed him off somewhere, but she was desperately afraid that he laid crushed in some hospital. And now they all hugged and kissed him; and what with the fatigue, the fright and all, Jack really had an hysteric.
They rubbed him and put him in some dry clothes and gave him a dose of aromatic ammonia to steady his nerves, and then some supper. And he said he went to the park and came out somewhere, and a man took him and two other boys for a ride. Dick was such a nice, big fellow. He said nothing about hanging on behind, he had a feeling that wouldn’t redound to the story. And the man took them out to Roselands and wasn’t coming back–
“Roselands,” cried his mother. “Oh, Jack you might have been kidnapped. Never, never go riding with any strange man. And how did you get back?”
“We walked some, then another man rode us a little way, and the boys went off and I got lost more and more and couldn’t find a cop, and asked every so many people, and a woman gave me a bun and a cake, and then a man took me across the park and told me to go straight along. And I was afraid of the thunder and all, and I was wet, and oh, dear!”
“Never mind, Jack. You’re safe home now. You must come straight home from school, you have always been told that.”
And he hadn’t been to school at all!
But he was very sleepy and his mother put him to bed and kissed him a dozen times. The scoldings would save until tomorrow.
Jack was rather languid the next morning and a little afraid. But he was the best boy in school, and brought home a note from his teacher, never suspecting his sin would find him out so soon.
Miss Collins asked his mother if she would send the reason why Jack was not at school yesterday afternoon, as they were required to put it down in the record book.
“Oh, Jack! You didn’t go to school yesterday afternoon! What were you doing?”
Jack hung his head, “I took a little walk, and then – and then – I was afraid it was late, and some children were playing – !”
“Oh, you naughty boy! That is playing truant. I don’t know what your father will say!”
“I don’t want to any more. I’d rather go to school. It wasn’t funny a bit. And I don’t want to ride in any old wagon that jounces and jounces, and I did get so tired. What did the teacher say?”
“They have to put the true reason down in the record book. And there it will stay always. My nice little boy was a truant-player. And we shall all be so ashamed. What will your father say? And he was so afraid last night that you were killed!”
“Oh, mama, I never will do it again, never!” Jack hung round his mother’s neck and cried and she cried with him, thinking of her tumult of agony last night. And she had him safe – her little boy!
“Jack,” she began presently, “can’t you be brave enough to tell papa how it began. Climb up in his lap and tell him how sorry and ashamed you are.”
“Will he strap me?”
“You deserve it I think. But he surely would if I told him. And when people do wrong they must bear the punishment.”
“But I never will do it again.”
“Tell him that, too.”
Of course they talked it over at dinner time. Jack was not at all vainglorious. Afterward, he hung around and presently climbed up in his father’s lap.
“My dear little son,” and his father kissed him.
“But papa, I was badder than all that.” Badder seemed to admit more enormity than simply bad, “I – I went in the park to walk and I staid so long that – that–”
“That you were ashamed to go back?”
“Well” – Jack had spasms of direct truth tellings now and then, like most children.
“I didn’t feel so ’shamed then as when teacher spoke of it this afternoon. It looked so pleasant I thought I’d go on. Some of the boys said it was funny to play hookey, but I don’t want to do it ever again. And if I had been killed somewhere!” Jack began to cry.
The father held him close for some minutes.
“Jack,” he said at length, “you have been a very bad boy, and I am glad it wasn’t a happy afternoon. I hope you never will play truant again. Think how mama and I suffered not knowing what had happened to you and afraid our little boy might be brought home dead. You ought to be punished but you seem to have suffered somewhat, and I am going to trust you, only, you can’t go walking with me on Sunday, and maybe there are some other pleasures you will be deprived of. I’m awfully sorry and mortified that your name must go on record down at City Hall as a truant from school. Some of my friends may see it. These things are sure to get to daylight and make your family ashamed of them, and your teachers; just try to think of that when you do the things you know are wrong, for even a little boy will know that. Didn’t something tell you staying from school was wrong?”
Jack crept closer in his father’s arms. He was too young for much reasoning, and the man wondered if he would have been so penitent if he
