Running Away

Jo's mother does a good job of describing Jo's character when she says that she has long worried about Jo. She worried that Jo seemed to not understand that difficult times are an inevitable part of life and cannot be escaped. From childhood through early adulthood and even into middle age Jo has never seemed to realize that difficult or unsatisfying times are inevitable, and there is no easy solution. Certainly, there is no way to run away and start over as if being born a completely different person.

As a child of eight or nine, Jo was unhappy with events at home and decided to run away. She did not get far from home before being returned by a neighbor, and the incident could have been forgotten as just one of the silly things that many children do, except that it seemed to mark the beginning...