Mr. Taylor was saying, "Sho, I guess he's coming to, and ye'd better not
let him see ye, jist at first"; but I turned quick before she could
move, and grabbed her and said, "Oh, Aunty May."

I thought I'd shouted it, but it sounded just like a squeak.

Aunty May didn't care. She just lifted me up in her arms and held me
tight, and said, "Oh, Billy, how could you run away from me?"

It took me the longest while explaining to her and to Mr. Turner and to
Mr. Taylor, who didn't say anything but "Sho" and shoo the cats, and
never looked at the others. But I knew he'd hear every word and remember
it, if I didn't, so I told them exactly what happened. How sorry Henry
was to go away, but that he had to, and that I didn't know where the
place was that we'd parted at, and how I thought he was coming back when
we started.

Mr. Turner said it was all right, that Henry was an honest, industrious
boy, but he had fits of homesickness, though they had never known about
his getting up early and walking.

Aunty May forgave me, and Mr. and Mrs. Turner forgave me too.

Mrs. Turner was in the launch, and was just telling me to jump in and
come up with Aunty May to dinner, when Mr. Taylor, who had been
listening and not saying anything, said, "I hope that wasn't the Lateeka
Toll-House ye stopped at, young man. I heerd say there was so much
diphtheria and scarlet fever there that they hev closed the tollhouse."

Then I remembered what the boy had said, and I had to say it to Aunty