The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1890-07-05

WICK ana moCner UOIu Sdlu Iney
couldn't afford it. They wouldn't let
US go alone, and it would cost three
dollars to hire a team, and there was
the admission fee of fifty cents to pay,
too.
Lulu cried, and 80 did I, but it didn't
do any good.
And so we decided to run away. Lulu
said she had just been reading in a
newspaper about a girl who had a
mother who abused her, and she ran
away, and kind old gentleman who
lived in grand style adopted her, and
when he died left her all his money.
She said she knew there must be lots
and lots of people who would be glad to
adopt us if they only knew about us,
and that we could look for some old peo-
pie living in the country, without chill
dren, and awful lonely. She said there
were plenty of 'em, if we only knew
where to find 'em.
We talked it all over one night at our
gate, and we decided that if we were
ever going, the sooner we went the bet
ter it would be, for we might miss some
good chance of being adopted.
So we left the very next morning. We
each took tin pail, so people would
think we were going blackberrying; but
in the pals were the things we wanted
to take with us.
Mother was upstairs with the baby
when l left, and Keziah was out in the
yard under the cherry tree, washing
blankets.
Tell mother I've gone down in the
pasture, Keziah," | said.
You'd best tell her yourself" said
Keziah. "You know she wouldn't let
you go off this way, and not a stroke of
work done in the house yet. And you
won't find no lackberries. There's
been Bromfield people pickin' in them
pastures, and they've cleaned out every
blackberry they could lay their fingers
on. You're jest tryin' to shirk out O.
takin' care of the baby, and it's ashamed
you ought to be of yourself, too, and
your ma so delikit."
OF course l felt like answering back;
but L didn't. She couldn't know that
she was looking on my face for the last
time, and l felt sure she would be sorry
for her harsh words when l was gone,
and she realized, as day after day passed,
and | was mourned perhaps for dead,
that she would never see me again. Be-
sides, | felt sorry for her because she
used such poor grammar
found Lulu down in the pasture sit
ting on an old stump. She looked dread
fully serious.
at was harder to come away than l
thought it would be-" she said. 81 wish
l hadn't been obliged to do it,
"Well, we acere obliged, and that is all
there is about it," l said. Things
were getting worse all the time. The
idea of our not going to the wax works
exhibition! 1t was Notifying. Every
body met asked me if I'd been, and
didn't know what excuse to make"
We climbed grassy knoll, as they
say in stories, and stood there, looking
our last on our homes. That is, we
thought it was our last, and of course
we couldn't look into the future and see
what really happened.
Il am glad l did up all the chamber
work before l left" said Lulu. Mother
can't reproach me for any thing"
They'll appreciate US when we are
gone" | answered. ''Now they take all
our sacrifices as a matter of course, and,
without conjunction, work US like
Slaves"
Lulu said talked just like heroine
in novel. That is the secret of my in
fuence over her-she thinks know so
much more than most girls of my age.
And suppose do.
We didn't dare go on the main road;
so we struck for the woods and walked
into the thick of it before we stopped
Then we turned around three times,
with our eyes shut, and said some magic
words / made up expressly.
This is the way 1 said, pointing to
my right.
And we walked off without the slight
est idea where we were going.
We talked about the future at first,
wondering how soon we would come to
some pslatial residence, and on what
sort of beds we would sleep that night
1--WE must get out of these woods, or
Well have to sleep right here on the
roots" said Lulu, at last. I'VE won't
find any palatial residences in this
wood. went through most of it when
Tom Briggs took me nutting last fall"
people say it is twenty miles long"
answered; "and there's no telling
what we'll find when we come to the
end of that twenty miles. We must
push right on"
So we kept going, but presently Lulu
said she was hungry, and then we found
out that neither of us had thought to
bring any thing to eat.
OF course there was no use worrying
over it; we simply had to endure it; but
we got hungrier and hungrier the fur
Their we went.
I'VE must have gone at least twenty
miles," Lulu said, at last, land Pm SO
tired out can't go any further"
Well, if hadn't known how to talk to
her, she would have sat right down
where she was, and starved to death,
for all know.
But kept my presence of mind, and
told her She must go on whether she
wanted to or not: that sitting down was
not to thought of for a moment.
Then she began to talk about home,
and to wonder what her little sister