He could catch a train to Bridgeboro in half an hour and leave the thunderbolt to break at the farm after he was safely away. Or he could return to the farm and still catch a train from Chandler at eight-twenty. He decided to do this. He lingered weakly in the station for a few minutes, killing time and trying to make up his mind just what he would say when he reached the farm. The station was dim and musty and full of dust and aged posters. One of these latter was a glaring advertisement of an excursion to Yellowstone Park. It included a picture of Old Faithful Geyser, that watery model of constancy which is to be seen on every folder and booklet describing the Yellowstone. Westy looked at it wistfully. “See the glories of your native land,” the poster proclaimed. He read it all, then turned away.
The ticket office was closed, and in his troubled and disconsolate mood it seemed to him as if even the railroad shut him out. Not a living soul was there in the station except a queer-looking woman with spectacles and a sunbonnet and an outlandish bag at her feet. Westy wondered whether she were going to New York.
Then he wondered whether, when he reached Bridgeboro, he might not properly say that he was very sleepy and let his confession go over till morning. Then it occurred to him that he was just dilly-dallying, and he strode out of the station and through the little main street where farming implements were conspicuous among the displays. He paused to glance at these and other things in which he had never before had an interest. Never before had he found so many excuses for pausing along a business thoroughfare.
He intended to return through the woods but a man in a buckboard with a load of clanking milk cans gave him a lift and set him down at the crossroads near the farm. He cut up through the orchard because he had a queer feeling that he did not want any one to see him coming. It seemed very quiet about the farm; he had an odd feeling that he was seeing it during his own absence. It looked strange to see his aunt stringing beans on the little porch outside the kitchen and Ira sitting with his legs stretched along the lowest step. His back was against the house and he was smoking his pipe. The homely, familiar scene made Westy homesick for the farm.
“Mercy on us, what you doin’ here?” Aunt Mira gasped. “Westy! You near skeered the life out of me!”
 
“MERCY ON US, WHAT YOU DOIN’ HERE?” GASPED AUNT MIRA.
Ira removed his atrocious pipe from his mouth long enough to inquire without the least sign of shock. “What’s the matter, kid? Get lost in the woods and missed your train?”
“No, I didn’t get lost in the woods,” said Westy, with a touch of testiness.
“Land’s sake, Iry, why can’t you never stop plaguin’ the boy,” said Aunt Mira.
“I came back,” said Westy rather clumsily. “I came back to tell you something. I’ve got something I want to tell you because I—because I want to be the o............