Some day, mebbe, I’m going to talk with Doctor Dalrymple and get him to give me a declaration that I ain’t a feeb.  Then I’ll get him to make me a real assistant in the drooling ward, with forty dollars a month and my board.  And then I’ll marry Miss Jones and live right on here.  And if she won’t have me, I’ll marry Miss Kelsey or some other nurse.  There’s lots of them that want to get married.  And I won’t care if my wife gets mad and calls me a feeb.  What’s the good?  And I guess when one’s learned to put up with droolers a wife won’t be much worse.

I didn’t tell you about when I ran away.  I hadn’t no idea of such a thing, and it was Charley and Joe who put me up to it.  They’re high-grade epilecs, you know.  I’d been up to Doctor Wilson’s office with a message, and was going back to the drooling ward, when I saw Charley and Joe hiding around the corner of the gymnasium and making motions to me.  I went over to them.

“Hello,” Joe said.  “How’s droolers?”

“Fine,” I said.  “Had any fits lately?”

That made them mad, and I was going on, when Joe said, “We’re running away.  Come on.”

“What for?” I said.

“We’re going up over the top of the mountain,” Joe said.

“And find a gold mine,” said Charley.  “We don’t have fits any more.  We’re cured.”

“All right,” I said.  And we sneaked around back of the gymnasium and in among the trees.  Mebbe we walked along about ten minutes, when I stopped.

“What’s the matter?” said Joe.

“Wait,” I said.  “I got to go back.”

“What for?” said Joe.

And I said, “To get little Albert.”

And they said I couldn’t, and got mad.  But I didn’t care.  I knew they’d wait.  You see, I’ve been here twenty-five years, and I know the back trails that lead up the mountain, and Charley and Joe didn’t know those trails.  That’s why they wanted me to come.

So I went back and got little Albert.  He can’t walk, or talk, or do anything except drool, and I had to carry him in my arms.  We went on past the last hayfield, which was as far as I’d ever gone.  Then the woods and brush got so thick, and me not finding any more trail, we followed the cow-path down to a big creek and crawled through the fence which showed where the Home land stopped.

We climbed up the big hill on the other side of the creek.  It was all big trees, and no brush, but it was so steep and slippery with dead leaves we could hardly walk.  By and by we came to a real bad place.  It was forty feet across, and if you slipped you’d fall a thousand feet, or mebbe a hundred.  Anyway, you wouldn’t fall—­just slide.  I went across first, carrying little Albert.  Joe came next.  But Charley got scared right in the middle and sat down.

“I’m going to have a fit,” he said.

“No, you’re not,” said Joe.  “Because if you was you wouldn’t ‘a’ sat down.  You take all your fits standing.”