It was a Saturday afternoon.  To-morrow would be too late.  He knew he would not be allowed to start on the Sabbath, even in a career that was to be all wickedness.  In the grape-arbour he massed certain articles necessary for the expedition:  a very small strip of carpet on which he meant to sleep; a copy of “Golden Days,” with an article giving elaborate instructions for camping in the wilderness.  He was compelled to disregard all of them, but there was comfort and sustenance in the article itself.  Then there was the gun that came at Christmas.  It shot a cork as far as the string would let it go, with a fairly satisfying report (he would have that string off, once he was in the woods!).  Also there were three glass alleys, two agate taws and thirty-eight commies.  And to hold his outfit there was a rather sizable box which he with his own hands had papered inside and out from a remnant of gorgeously flowered wall-paper.

When all was ready he went in to break the news to Clytie.  She, busy with her baking, heard him declare: 

“Now—­I’m going to leave this place!” with the look of one who will not be coaxed nor in any manner dissuaded.  He thought she took it rather coolly, though Allan ran, as promptly as he could have wished, to tell his grandfather.

“I’m going to be a regular mean one—­worse’n Budd Jackson!” he continued to Clytie.  He was glad to see that this brought her to her senses.

“Will you stay if I give you—­an orange?”

“No, sir;—­you’ll never set eyes on me again!”

“Oh, now!—­two oranges?”

“I can’t—­I got to go!” in a voice tense with effort.

“All right!  Then I’ll give them to Allan.”

She continued to take brown loaves from the oven and to put other loaves in to bake, while he stood awkwardly by, loath to part from her.  Allan came back breathless.

“Grandpa says you can go as far as you like and you needn’t come back till you get ready!”

He shifted from one foot to the other and absently ate a warm cookie from the jarful at his hand.  He thought this seemed not quite the correct attitude to take toward him, yet he did not waver.  They would be sorry enough in a few days, when it was too late.

“I guess I better take a few of these along with me,” he said, stowing cookies in the pockets of his jacket.  He would have liked one of the big preserved peaches all punctuated with cloves, but he saw no way to carry it, and felt really unable to eat it on the spot.

“Well, good-bye!” he called to Clytie, turning back to her from the door.

“Good-bye!  Won’t you shake hands with me?”

Very solemnly he shook her big, floury hand.

“Now—­could I take Penny along?” (Penny was an inconsequential dog that had been given to Clytie by one whom she called Cousin Bill J.)

“Yes, you’ll need a dog to keep the animals off.  Now be sure you write to us—­at least twice a year—­don’t forget!” And, brutally before his very eyes, she handed the sniffing and virtuous Allan two of the largest, most goldenly beautiful oranges ever beheld by man.