"
Johnny had once slept on a bale of cotton, the recollection
supplying him with a comparison.
"Why didn't you stay?"
"I felt lonely," said Johnny.
Johnny could not exactly explain his feelings, but it is often the
case that the young vagabond of the streets, though his food is
uncertain, and his bed may be any old wagon or barrel that he is
lucky enough to find unoccupied when night sets in, gets so attached
to his precarious but independent mode of life, that he feels
discontented in any other. He is accustomed to the noise and bustle
and ever-varied life of the streets, and in the quiet scenes of the
country misses the excitement in the midst of which he has always
dwelt.
Johnny had but one tie to bind him to the city. He had a father
living, but he might as well have been without one. Mr. Nolan was
a confirmed drunkard, and spent the greater part of his wages for
liquor. His potations made him ugly, and inflamed a temper never
very sweet, working him up sometimes to such a pitch of rage that
Johnny's life was in danger. Some months before, he had thrown a
flat-iron at his son's head with such terrific force that unless
Johnny had dodged he would not have lived long enough to obtain a
place in our story. He fled the house, and from that time had not
dared to re-enter it. Somebody had given him a brush and box of
blacking, and he had set up in business on his own account.
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