Sewell played him false. It had got out in
the neighbourhood that he was going to Boston before he left home;
his mother must have told it; and people would think he was to be
gone a long time. He had warned his mother that he did not know when
he should be back, before he started in the morning; and he knew
that she would repeat his words to everybody who stopped to ask
about him during the day, with what she had said to him in reply:
"You better come home to-night, Lem; and I'll have ye a good hot
supper waitin' for ye."
The question was whether he should go back on the five o'clock
train, which would reach Willoughby Centre after dark, and house
himself from public ignominy for one night at least, or whether
self-respect did not demand that he should stay in Boston for
twenty-four hours at any rate, and see if something would not
happen. He had now no distinct hope of anything; but his pride and
shame were holding him fast, while the home-sickness tugged at his
heart, and made him almost forget the poverty that had spurred him
to the adventure of coming to Boston. He could see the cows coming
home through the swampy meadow as plain as if they were coming
across the Common; his mother was calling them; she and his sister
were going to milk in his absence, and he could see her now, how she
looked going out to call the cows, in her bare, grey head, gaunt of
neck and cheek, in the ugly Bloomer dress in which she was not
grotesque to his eyes, though it usually affected strangers with
stupefaction or alarm.
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