"Here we are!" Anna smiled at
all the lights, listening to the music from the drinking houses, the pianos,
the phonographs, watching people, arm in arm, striding by in the crowded
streets.
"I wish I was home," said Tom.
"You never talked that way before," said his mother. "You
always liked Saturday nights in town."
"Stay close to me," whispered Tom. "I don‘t
want to get trapped."
Anna overheard. "Stop talking that way; come along!"
LaFarge noticed that the boy held his hand. LaFarge squeezed it. "I’ll
stick with you, Tommy-boy." He looked at the throngs coming and going,
and it worried him also. "We won‘t stay long."
"Nonsense, we’ll spend the evening," said Anna.
They crossed a street, and three drunken men careened into them. There
was much confusion, a separation, a wheeling about, and then LaFarge stood
stunned.
Tom was gone.
"Where is he?" asked Anna irritably. "Him always
running off alone any chance he gets. Tom!" she called.
Mr. LaFarge hurried through the crowd, but Tom was gone.
"He’ll come back; he’ll be at the boat when we leave,"
said Anna certainly, steering her husband back toward the motion-picture
theatre. There was a sudden commotion in the crowd, and a man and woman
rushed by LaFarge. He recognized them. Joe Spaulding and his wife. They
were gone before he could speak to them.
Looking back anxiously, he purchased the tickets for the theatre and allowed
his wife to draw him into the unwelcome darkness.
Tom was not at the landing at eleven o‘clock. Mrs. LaFarge turned
very pale.
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