But a few days before our meeting with him here on the canal Joe had met, on the public road, a roving wood-sawyer who recognized him. They walked together a long way.
The man, who had sawed wood for Joe’s father several times, had been at the homestead since Joe’s departure. He seemed surprised not to find the horse with Joe, and he finally asked the boy what he had done with him.
He was still more surprised when he learned that Joe had not had Old Charlie, and knew nothing about the theft. But poor Joe! It touched him to the quick to learn, as he did, that at home he was regarded as a horse-thief.
It was this that he brooded over now, day and night. To think that they should accuse him of stealing Old Charlie!
Joe had, in his wanderings, followed a sort of circle, which had now brought him within a comparatively short distance of home; but if, before this, he had thought of returning there, the thought was now driven from his mind. He felt that he could not go back to face this charge against him, for who would believe him? It was time to turn his face to the westward.
Besides, he had said that he would not return until he was twenty-one years old. His pride had not yet been enough chastened by misery to cause him to abandon his foolish boast.
So here he was, on the wharf at Rondout this raw September morning, seeking not so much independence and fortune as bread and shelter.
Joe walked slowly along close to the buildings, for the wind that swept down the creek was disagreeably cold. An occasional raindrop struck his face. He was very thinly clad, too, and he could not help shivering now and then as he pushed his hands deeper into his pockets and turned his back for a moment to the wind.
He stopped to look at a few loaves of bread and a string of sausages that were displayed in the window of a cheap store. He wondered whether it would be wiser to spend his last few pennies for his breakfast, or save them for his dinner.
He had about decided to buy a piece of bread, and was waiting for the store to be opened for the day, when some one accosted him from behind: “Say, you boy!”
Joe turned and looked at the speaker. He was a rather stout, low-browed man, with a very red nose and a shaven face, upon which a rough stubble of beard had begun to grow.