On Monday morning he started bright and early for the railroad station.  As usual, he called upon Squire Lee, and informed Annie that he should probably be absent three or four weeks.  She hoped no accident would happen to him, and that his journey would be crowned with success.  Without being sentimental, she was a little sad, for Bobby was a great friend of hers.  That elegant copy of Moore’s Poems had been gratefully received, and she was so fond of the bard’s beautiful and touching melodies that she could never read any of them without thinking of the brave little fellow who had given her the volume; which no one will consider very remarkable, even in a little miss of twelve.

After he had bidden her and her father adieu, he resumed his journey.  Of course he was thinking with all his might; but no one need suppose he was wondering how wide the Kennebec River was, or how many books he should sell in the towns upon its banks.  Nothing of the kind; though it is enough even for the inquisitive to know that he was thinking of something, and that his thoughts were very interesting, not to say romantic.

“Hallo, Bob!” shouted some one from the road side.

Bobby was provoked; for it is sometimes very uncomfortable to have a pleasant train of thought interrupted.  The imagination is buoyant, ethereal, and elevates poor mortals up to the stars sometimes.  It was so with Bobby.  He was building up some kind of an air castle, and had got up in the clouds amidst the fog and moonshine, and that aggravating voice brought him down, slap, upon terra firma.

He looked up and saw Tom Spicer seated upon the fence.  In his hand he held a bundle, and had evidently been waiting some time for Bobby’s coming.

He had recovered from the illness caused by his broken arm, and people said it had been a good lesson for him, as the squire hoped it would be.  Bobby had called upon him two or three times during his confinement to the house; and Tom, either truly repentant for his past errors, or lacking the opportunity at that time to manifest his evil propensities, had stoutly protested that he had “turned over a new leaf,” and meant to keep out of the woods on Sunday, stop lying and swearing, and become a good boy.

Bobby commended his good resolutions, and told him he would never want friends while he was true to himself.  The right side, he declared, was always the best side.  He quoted several instances of men, whose lives he had read in his Sunday school books, to show how happy a good man may be in prison, or when all the world seemed to forsake him.

Tom assured him that he meant to reform and be a good boy; and Bobby told him that when any one meant to turn over a new leaf, it was “now or never.”  If he put it off, he would only grow worse, and the longer the good work was delayed, the more difficult it would be to do it.  Tom agreed to all this, and was sure he had reformed.