to learn mighty bad, but I was glad when that was over.

"Every few days, all me life, I'd to be called up, looked over, and
refused a home and love, on account of me hand and ugly face; but it was
all the home I'd ever known, and I didn't seem to belong to any place
else.

"Then a new superintendent was put in. He wasn't for being like any of
the others, and he swore he'd weed me out the first thing he did. He
made a plan to send me down the State to a man he said he knew who
needed a boy. He wasn't for remembering to tell that man that I was a
hand short, and he knocked me down the minute he found I was the boy who
had been sent him. Between noon and that evening, he and his son close
my age had me in pretty much the same shape in which I was found in
the beginning, so I lay awake that night and ran away. I'd like to have
squared me account with that boy before I left, but I didn't dare for
fear of waking the old man, and I knew I couldn't handle the two of
them; but I'm hoping to meet him alone some day before I die."

McLean tugged at his mustache to hide the smile on his lips, but he
liked the boy all the better for this confession.

"I didn't even have to steal clothes to get rid of starting in me Home
ones," Freckles continued, "for they had already taken all me clean,
neat things for the boy and put me into his rags, and that went almost
as sore as the beatings, for where I was we were always kept tidy and
sweet-smelling, anyway. I hustled clear into this State before I learned
that man couldn't have kept me if he'd wanted to. When I thought I
was good and away from him, I commenced hunting work, but it is with
everybody else just as it is with you, sir. Big, strong, whole men are