Along the dusty road, Paul trudged alone, his head bent. He did not look up until the little town lay behind him. There was very little feeling of exultation in his heart as he made his way along the shady road, under the apple trees, from which the yellow fruit was already falling. For the first time in his life, this young citizen of the world knew what homesickness was—and he could not bring himself to look back to the town to which he had come so unwillingly ten months before. Well, he was free—he was his own master. That was what his uncle had said. The whole world lay before him—but where should he go? There was no one out there who knew that he was coming, or who cared whether he came or stayed. There was the city—“lots of people, lots of streets, lots of houses.” But what was Paul Winkler to the city? And even if at some time in that future to which he looked forward with dogged hope, he should make fame and fortune, would the city care any more about Paul Winkler? Would he not have been wiser—and happier—to have fitted himself to the ways of his own people, to have gone on growing up among them, learning to know them, to honor them for their simple virtues, and to forgive them their weaknesses? He shook his head impatiently; it was too late to think about the might-have-beens.
He had just reached a bend in the road, when he heard a voice calling him.
He stopped, and looked around slowly. Janey was running toward him, stumbling over the stones in the road, panting, her round little face puckered with distress.
“Janey!” He dropped his bundle in the dust, and held out both hands to her. But she ignored his hands, and flinging both arms around him, clung to him tightly.
“N-nothing,” she sobbed, “only I—oh, _Paul_ don’t go!”
He patted her red head tenderly; for a moment or two he found it difficult to say anything.
“There, Janey—don’t. I—and you’d better run on back, dear,” he said at last, stooping to pick up his bundle.
“No, mother said I could come—she said I could walk to the crossroads with you. And she said I was to give you another kiss for her—and tell you that she loved you—and Granny’s crying.”
“Is she?” said Paul. “Oh, Janey— Well, come along, kidlet.” He took her hand, and they went on slowly between the sweet-smelling fields that lay turning to gold under the August sun.