As we walked to our boarding house I told my father the whole story of my job in the cigar store, my collecting for the milkman, my arrest, and our rescue of Julia. He listened without comment, and when I was done, said: “Well, John, you’ll be what you’ll be, and I cannot help or hinder you. Go back to your job in the morning if you like.”
Those were his last words to me. They were kind, and I have always remembered them and their ring of fatality. I never saw him again. I learned later that he lived out his life orderly and died decently. He went away the next day, and when he returned I was far away, westbound in search of adventure.
I was tired of Tex and his tribe and their smoky back room and cheap cheating. I was sick of the sight of the crabby widow at the boarding house. It was springtime. Sundown found me miles away on a country road, walking westward. Yes, I was going in the right direction. There was the sun going down away off in front of me. Darkness was coming on, but it did not strike me as unusual that I had no supper or no room for the night.