He bore up against the homesickness as best he could, and when he could bear it no longer, resolved to run away from the making of toy bureaus, to be once more with the Bartletts.

He had partly executed this resolution, being several miles on the road to his old home, when his master, the cabinetmaker, caught up to him and returned him to Haverhill.

But when he heard the little fellow's story of homesickness and yearning for loved places and faces, he was not angry with him, but did presently release him from his apprenticeship.

And so the boy to his great joy found himself again in Newburyport and with the good old wood-sawyer.

Poverty and experience were teaching the child what he never could have learned in a grammar-school, a certain acquaintance with himself and the world around him.