St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1909-09-11
BOY WHO
RAN AWAY
A story That Turned Out
the other Way.

that, but he didn't care for home any
more.
Anyhow, he figured II that his folks,
namely his father and mother, were
handing 1t out TO him pretty hard.
They declined to permit him to play
with the gang. They interfered with
him in lots of ways.
Consequently, after g1y the mat
j ter due and proper thoh the boy
decided that there was one thing
for him to do, and thRas to run
away.
Away from home, he lit he would
be able to indulge Id hfs natural pro
pensities without let or hindrance.
Now, his most natural propensity,
as it seemed to him. was for the
rohbing Of trains-far western trains.
The boy had a profound feeling that
he was modelled, cut out, fashioned,
devised and intended by nature to be
the greatest robber of trains that ever
crawled over the tender Of an engine
and put the engineer and fireman I'M
der a sawed off shotgun filled with
slugs.
He felt, too, that his folks would be
liable to thwart such an ambition on
his part were he to mention 1t 10
them.
He figured, therefore, that in view
Of these considerations the only prop.
er thing for him to do was to get his
few things together and beat it. He
had read many pieces Of fction-aN
of the fiction, however, as he under.
stood, founded upon fact-Whfch re-
lated how famous train robbers had
started off upon their distinguished
careers by running away from home
just as he meant to do, and hom some
thing always turned up pretty 500 to
put them in a way Of achieving 8
mastery of their chosen profession.
And so the boy, working very Sc
cretly and deliberately, gathered to-
gethez all his little possessions and
wrapped them up in a big silk muf-
fer belonging to his father. There
wasn't much to be packed in the muf-
der, but still he didn't elect to leave
his few little possessions behind, since
he was very certain that he would not
return to his boyhood home for many,
many years, If e
1t was a beautiful moonlit night
when he decided to make the jump
He went to bed, or pretended to go to
bed, and waited for his parents and
groWn-up brothers and sisters to turn
in. Then with his little bundle s1ung
over his shoulder at the end of a stout
stick he softly stole down the stairs,
opened the front door ~noiseIessly, tip.
toed out after closing the door, and,
reaching the front gate, turned to gaze,
as he felt, upon the home of his youth
Tor the last, last time.
He made directly for the freight
depot at the other end of the town,
his idea being that al he had often
read in connection with other runaway
heroes, he might be able to catch an
outgoing freight train. AS there
wasn't any outgoing freight train that
night. daylight found him still hang.
ing around the freight yard.
BY this time he was pretty hungry,
and he thought of the usual ham and
eggs and hot mullins and things that
he'd been accustomed to eat for break
fast. Somehow In the clear, sunny
light of morning 1t looked a heap more
difficult to get a start as a train rob
Der than 1t had seemed while he was
planning the great expedition. He
stood and watched the freight hands
making themselves some coffee on a
little stove in a signaling shack, and
bis hunger became something fierce.
and he thought Of the nice clean table
cloth and
However, just a minute. just one
minute.
Here is the spot where it is Gus.
tomary to get in swift climactic ac-
| ton.
It is the usual thing to narrate how
the hungry Would-be runaway boy who
hankered to be a train robber iz-
zled out In his desire as he thought
about the home grub, and how he be-
gan to whimper around the freight
yard, and how two or three kindly.
grizzled freight yard hands asked him
what was cheWin' on him, and how
they finally got his story out of him.
and how they sympathetically advised
him to beat 1t for home and nav and
NAV just as fast as he could 20. and
how he, Of course, hated to 90 home.
because he didn't know how he was
going to square things for having re.
NAMED out all night, but how. event
ually, he became SO dad-blagted hun.
cry that he had to Just nachulIy aban-
don all thought OF becoming a train
robber, and how he skunk into the al.
ley back Of his home after dark, and
how he got nailed by his dad as he
dried to nudge through the kitchen
door, and how his dad got out the old
trunk strap and Whaled him good and
plenty, and how that ~eternally killed
his ambition to become q train rebber,
and
Well, and all like t~hat-a-way, a lot
Of it, always and infallibly just like
that.
But it didn't break that way at
all
This boy caught a freight right out
OF town on the morning following his
running away from home, and after
some vicissitudes he finally fell in
with the famous Bill Dalton gang, and
he became a full-aedged train robber
and a mighty dangerous specimen, and
after seven or eight years Of robbing
trains he was AnalIy corralled some