w.i.l.l.y's heart leaped up with a strange joy. He would not run away, but if Fred had a plan he wanted to hear it.

"Why, where could we go?"

"To sea."

"Poh! our Caleb got flogged going to sea."

"O, well, Captain Cutter never flogs. He's a nice man,--lives down to Cas...o...b..y. And of all the oranges that ever you saw, and the guava jelly, and the pine-apples! he's always sending them to mother."

"I never ate a pine-apple."

"Didn't you? Well, come, let's go; Captain Cutter will be real glad to see us; come, to-night; he'll treat us first rate."

"'My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.'"

It seemed as if w.i.l.l.y could hear his mother saying the words.

"You and I are the best kind of friends, w.i.l.l.y. We'd have a real nice time, and come home when we got ready."

w.i.l.l.y did not respond to this. He did not care very much about Fred,--n.o.body did,--and if he should be persuaded to go with him, it would not be from friendship, most certainly.

"I wouldn't go off and leave mother; 'twould be real mean: but sometimes I don't like father one bit,--now, that's a fact," burst forth w.i.l.l.y, with a heaving breast. "I told him I didn't like your cider, and didn't take but two mugfuls; but he didn't believe a word I said."

"You're a fool to stand it, Billy."

"I won't stand it again--so there!"

"There, that's real Injun grit," said Fred, approvingly; "stick to it."

"Father thinks children are foolish; he hates to hear 'em talk," pursued w.i.l.l.y; "and then, when you don't talk, he says you're sulky."

"Well, if you go off he won't get a chance to say it again."

"O, but you see, Fred--"

"Pshaw! you _darsn't_!"

"Now, _you're_ not the one to call me a coward, Fred Chase."

"Well, if you _dars_, then come on."

w.i.l.l.y did not answer. He was deliberating; and I wish you to understand that in a case like this "the child that deliberates is lost."

Without listening to any more of the boys' conversation, we will go right on to the next chapter, and see what comes of it.

CHAPTER X.

GOING TO SEA.

Seven o'clock was the time appointed to meet, and w.i.l.l.y watched the tall clock in the front entry with a dreadful sinking at the heart. His mother was not at the supper-table and he was glad of that. Ever since muster she had staid in her room, suffering from a bad toothache. As her face was tied up, and she could not talk, w.i.l.l.y was not quite sure how she felt.

"How can I tell whether she has been crying or not? Her eyes are swelled, any way. Perhaps she doesn't care much. She used to love me, but she thinks I act so bad now that it's no use doing anything with me. I can't make her understand it at all."

It was a pity he thought of his mother just then, for it was hard enough, before that, swallowing his biscuit.

"She said to me, out in the orchard, one day,--says she, 'w.i.l.l.y, if a boy wants to do wrong, he'll find some way to do it;' and I s'pose she was thinking about me when she said it. S'pose she thinks I'm going to be bad--mother does. Well, then, I ought to go off out of the way; she doesn't want me here; what does she want of a bad boy? She'll be glad to get rid of me; so'll Love."

You see what a hopeless tangle w.i.l.l.y's mind was in. What ailed his biscuit he could not imagine, but it tasted as dry as ashes.

"Why, sonny," said Stephen, "what are you staring at your plate so for?

That's honey. Ever see any before?"

"This is the last chance Steve will have to pester me," thought the child; and he almost pitied him.

"Guess he'll feel sorry he's been so hard on a little fellow like me."

As for grown-up Seth, it was certain that _his_ conscience would p.r.i.c.k, and on the whole w.i.l.l.y was rather glad of it, for Seth had no right to correct him so much. "Only eighteen, and not my father either!"

w.i.l.l.y did not think much about himself, and how he would be likely to feel after he had left this dear old home--the home where every knot-hole in the floor was precious. It would not do to brood over that; and besides, there was sullen anger enough in his heart to crowd out every other feeling.

There were circles in the wood of the shed-door which he had made with a two-tined fork; and after supper he made some more, while waiting for a chance to pocket a plate of doughnuts. Of course it wasn't wrong to take doughnuts, when it was the last morsel he should ever eat from his mother's cupboard. He had the whole of eighteen cents in his leathern wallet; but that sum might fail before winter, and it was best to take a little food for economy's sake.

At quarter of seven he put on his cap, and was leaving the house, when his father said, severely,--

"Where are you going, young man?"

Mr. Parlin did not mean to be severe, but he usually called w.i.l.l.y a "young man" when he was displeased with him.

"Going to the post-office, sir, just as I always do."

w.i.l.l.y spoke respectfully,--he had never done otherwise to his father,--and Mr. Parlin little suspected the tempest that was raging in the child's bosom.

"Very well; go! but don't be gone long."

"'_Long?_' Don't know what he calls long," thought the little boy.

"P'raps I'll be gone two years; p'raps I'll be gone ten. Calls me a 'young man' after he has whipped me. Guess I _will_ be a young man before I get back! Guess there won't be any more horsewhippings then!"

And, dizzy with anger, he walked fast to the post office, without turning his head.

Fred was there, anxiously waiting for him. The two boys greeted each other with a meaning look, and soon began to move slowly along towards the guide-board at the turn of the road.

To the people who happened to be looking that way, it seemed natural enough that w.i.l.l.y and Fred should be walking together. If anybody thought twice about the matter, it was Dr. Hilton; and I dare say he supposed they were swapping jack-knives.

As soon as they were fairly out of sight of the village, Fred said, sneeringly,--