New Name

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Book: Read New Name for Free Online
Authors: Grace Livingston Hill
mother’s and his father’s name. He must hold out to save them so much at least.
    His mind had grown clearer through the day, as he had tramped painfully hour after hour and thought it out. He knew that the only thing to do was to get far away, to someplace where law could not find him out and fetch him back for punishment. To do that successfully he must disguise himself somehow. He must get rid of his clothes little by little and get other clothes. He must grow a beard and change his haircut and act a part. He had been good at acting a part for fun in the old days. He was always in demand for theatricals. Could he do it now when Fear was his master?
    He stumbled across the meadows one by one, painfully overthe fences, and at last stood in the ditch by the side of the shining rails with the long, low sunset rays gilding them into bright gold. He waited with trembling knees and watched eagerly for the coming of the car, and when at last a faint hum and a distant whistle announced that it was not far off, he began to fairly shake in his anxiety. Would there be many people on board? Would he dare take the risk? Still, he must take it sometime, for he could not hold out much longer.
    There were only three women on board, and they did not notice the haggard young fellow who stumbled into the backseat and pulled his hat down over his eyes. They were talking in clear intimate voices that carried a sense of their feeling at home in the car. They told about Mary’s engagement, and how her future mother-in-law was giving a dinner for her, and how proud John was of her and was getting her a little Ford coupe to run around in. They talked of the weather and little pleasant everyday things that belonged to a world in which the man in the backseat had no part of. They whispered in lower tones of how it was rumored that Bob Sleighton was making money in bootlegging, and he got a glimpse for the first time in his life of how the quiet, respectable, nondrinking world think of people who break the law in that way. And then they told in detail how they scalloped oysters and made angel cake, and just the degree of brownness that a chicken should be when it was roasted right, until Murray Van Rensselaer, sitting so hungry in his backseat, could fairly smell them all as they came out of the oven, and felt as if he must cry like a child.

Chapter 5
    I t was dusk when he slid stealthily out of the car, having waited with his head turned toward the darkening window till each of the three women had gotten off at her particular corner. He had spotted a bakery window, and there he made his way, ordering everything they had on their meager menu. But then when he had gotten it, he could only eat a few bites, for somehow Bessie’s white face as he carried her into the hospital kept coming between him and the food and sickened him. Somehow he could not get interested in eating any more, and he paid his bill and left a tip that the girl behind the counter did not in the least understand. She ran out to find him and give it back, but he had gone into a little haberdashery shop, and so she missed him.
    He bought a cheap cap of plain tweed and a black necktie. Somehow it did not seem decent going around without any necktie. He walked three blocks and threw his old hat far into avacant lot, then boarded the next trolley, and so went on, where he did not know. He had not known the name of the little town where he had eaten. He began to wonder where he was. He seemed a long way from home, but when a few minutes later the motor-man called a name, he recognized a town only about thirty miles from his home city. Was it possible he had walked all that time and only gotten thirty miles away? He must have been going in a circle! And the newspapers would have full descriptions of him by this time posted everywhere! He was not safe anywhere! What should he do? Where go? Why go anywhere?
    He lifted his eyes in despair to the advertisements overhead, for it seemed to

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