Josiah turned obediently.  He heard the door slam as he went down the walk.  As in a nightmare he opened the gate he had opened ten thousand times and stepped out on the sidewalk.  He felt dazed.  Surely it was a dream.  Very soon he would wake up with a sigh of relief.  He rubbed his forehead and paused indecisively.  The monotonous complaint of the bucksaw came to his ears.  If that boy had any of the old Childs spirit in him, sooner or later he’d run away.  Agatha was beyond the endurance of human flesh.  She had not changed, unless for the worse, if such a thing were possible.  That boy would surely run for it, maybe soon.  Maybe now.

Josiah Childs straightened up and threw his shoulders back.  The great-spirited West, with its daring and its carelessness of consequences when mere obstacles stand in the way of its desire, flamed up in him.  He looked at his watch, remembered the time table, and spoke to himself, solemnly, aloud.  It was an affirmation of faith: 

“I don’t care a hang about the law.  That boy can’t be crucified.  I’ll give her a double allowance, four times, anything, but he goes with me.  She can follow on to California if she wants, but I’ll draw up an agreement, in which what’s what, and she’ll sign it, and live up to it, by George, if she wants to stay.  And she will,” he added grimly.  “She’s got to have somebody to nag.”

He opened the gate and strode back to the woodshed door.  Johnnie looked up, but kept on sawing.

“What’d you like to do most of anything in the world?” Josiah demanded in a tense, low voice.

Johnnie hesitated, and almost stopped sawing.  Josiah made signs for him to keep it up.

“Go to sea,” Johnnie answered.  “Along with my father.”

Josiah felt himself trembling.

“Would you?” he asked eagerly.

“Would I!”

The look of joy on Johnnie’s face decided everything.

“Come here, then.  Listen.  I’m your father.  I’m Josiah Childs.  Did you ever want to run away?”

Johnnie nodded emphatically.

“That’s what I did,” Josiah went on.  “I ran away.”  He fumbled for his watch hurriedly.  “We’ve just time to catch the train for California.  I live there now.  Maybe Agatha, your mother, will come along afterward.  I’ll tell you all about it on the train.  Come on.”

He gathered the half-frightened, half-trusting boy into his arms for a moment, then, hand in hand, they fled across the yard, out of the gate, and down the street.  They heard the kitchen door open, and the last they heard was: 

“Johnnie!—­you!  Why ain’t you sawing?  I’ll attend to your case directly!”

THE FIRST POET