"And you had a good bed?"

"Yes."

"Then you'd better have stayed. You don't get either of them here.
Where'd you sleep last night?"

"Up an alley in an old wagon."

"You had a better bed than that in the country, didn't you?"

"Yes, it was as soft as--as cotton."

Johnny had once slept on a bale of cotton, the recollection
supplying him with a comparison.

"Why didn't you stay?"

"I felt lonely," said Johnny.

Johnny could not exactly explain his feelings, but it is often the
case that the young vagabond of the streets, though his food is
uncertain, and his bed may be any old wagon or barrel that he is
lucky enough to find unoccupied when night sets in, gets so attached
to his precarious but independent mode of life, that he feels
discontented in any other. He is accustomed to the noise and bustle
and ever-varied life of the streets, and in the quiet scenes of the
country misses the excitement in the midst of which he has always
dwelt.