It had been about a week after my return to my cottage and while I was still on restrictions I had painfully crawled behind some boxes in the utility room and laid on the floor waiting for my cottage to go to the noon meal.  I had been quickly missed but even though some boys had looked for me in the utility room I had been well hidden behind the boxes.
    After all of my cottage had left for the noon meal I waited for several minutes before crawling out from behind the boxes.  Then going out the back door I headed for the ditch and the hole in the fence.  Once through the fence I hadn't bothered to crawl in the ditch, I had ran as hard as I could for the trees that would lead me south to the railroad yard in Tama, Iowa.
    I had ran about a mile when I came to a clearing north of U.S. Highway 30.  Standing in the woods by the clearing to get my breath it was about two hundred feet to the highway bridge that spanned the small creek I would follow to the railroad yard.  The highway was several feet above the clearing I would have to cross.  There were several cars and trucks traveling back and forth along the highway and I knew I would be seen as I crossed the clearing.  (I always felt everyone knew I was a runaway and were looking for me.)  I broke clear of the woods and ran across the clearing as hard as I could. Arriving at the bridge not stopping to catch my breath I passed under the bridge and kept on running.  On the other side of the bridge was another clearing and I could see where the creek went into the woods about two hundred feet away.
    Not getting much more than fifty feet from the bridge I heard a man's voice from behind me shout for me to stop.  Hesitating, I stopped, turned and looked back.  There upon the highway near the bridge stood a man who took care of one of the older boy's cottages and he had five older boys from his cottage at hand.  As soon as I had been missed the alarm had gone out I had ran away again.  They had been able to get ahead of me along the path they had felt I would take to go to the railroad yard.  They had been sitting there, up near the bridge where I couldn't see them as I had approached the bridge from the north.  He had yelled at me again and told me to wait there as he had motioned with his hand to the boys to come and get me.  With a strong feeling of fear I had turned and fled as I seen the boys coming down the embankment after me.
    The trees were now about a hundred and fifty feet ahead of me.  Hoping I would be able to lose them in the woods I ran with everything I had in me.  Nearing where the creek ran under the fence near the woods I glanced back.  The boys had gained on me and were only about fifty feet away.  Quickly looking around I had found a small piece of a tree branch about the size of a baseball bat.  I picked it up swinging it back over my right shoulder I faced the boys.  I was exhausted and could hardly breath as I stood there on the bank of the creek waiting for the first boy who got near me.  I knew the boys would pile onto me and beat me up before the man could possibly get there to pull them off of me.  I had only turned on the boys out of desperation.  Out of a need of self preservation.  Even a cornered animal will fight if it feels it's life is in danger and I felt mine was very much in danger, at least at a minimum my physical well-being.  I knew I never stood a chance against them.
    Yes I was scared for I knew the boys wouldn't get into any trouble if they beat me up.  Even worse I knew they also knew it.  I had stood there alone, barely thirteen years old not hardly a hundred ten pounds.  Against five mid to late teen-age boys.  I had very little time to prepare from the time I had picked up the stick and to square off to defend myself when the boys were upon me.  My club had barely left my shoulder when the boys had hit me in mass.  The force of their drive into me had forced me off of my feet backwards, off of the creek bank and down into the creek.  As I had fallen everything seemed to be happening in slow motion, they on top of me, the creek and the trash in it moving up towards me.  The instant I hit, flashes of lightening had flashed through my mind and the taste of bone was in my mouth.  Then everything had gone dark.  I had been knocked unconscious.
    Though I may have regained conscious along the way somewhere I wasn't able to fully understand what was happening to me until they dragged me out of the pickup truck back at the juvenile home.  Even though my hands had been bound behind my back with bailing wire the boys had held onto me as they walked me towards the infirmary and Isolation.  As we walked towards the hospital the man said to me, "If you ever come to my cottage I'll cut your heel-strings (tendons in my ankles) the first time you run."  There had been no doubt in my mind he meant exactly what he said he would do.  If an adult told me anything I believed every word he said.  So there was no doubt in my mind if I ever went to his cottage he would cut the tendons in my ankles for I knew I would run.   The man was the cottage father of the next oldest boys' cottage, fourteen to seventeen year old boys.
    Those two weeks in Isolation were to prove my emotional well being was at it's lowest point up to that time of my life.  I had been beaten up by several boys and I didn't see any happiness in my future.  I couldn't see any end of what was happening to me.  To me those people who were hurting me would be there for the rest of my life.  I never seen them growing old or I growing up.  It would always be the same.  I was so depressed those next two weeks not being able to kill myself I thought how I wanted to stay in Isolation for the rest of my life, never returning to the campus life.
    There was a small room there in the basement next to the room I was in.  It wasn't used for anything at the time and I had asked the nurse if I could stay there instead of going back to my cottage.  I had told her I wanted to live there for the rest of my life making small wooden crosses.  She had made no comment as she had taken my tray, only looked at me, in what I felt was a disgusted way and then locked the door.  I laid there in Isolation, thankfully alone and talked to my imaginary friend, the only friend I had.  The friend they could never take from me.  Then my friend had no name.
    Mr. Urquhart came again with his board, when he was through he walked me back to our cottage with my spirit all but broken.  At that time I thought it had been.  I had thought my running days were over with.  But then, I had thought that before.
    A few days after getting out of Isolation, on August Twenty-fifth I met Mr. Ladd on the sidewalk near the administration building.  He had very seldom ever talked to me but this time as always, he talked to me and not with me.  He had told me my running away and telling "those stories" about my treatment at the juvenile home was causing him and many other people a lot of problems.  He had told me no matter how many times or how far I went they would always catch me and bring me back.  If I didn't like the treatment I was receiving at the juvenile home then all I had to do was to quit running away and conform like all of the other boys.
    I had told him, "I am going to run again and one of these days I will make it to Canada and then you will never be able to bring me back."  I had not been defiant for that sort of bravery was not in me.  I had only explained it to him in a quiet way I couldn't stay and I would have to run away again.  I wasn't telling on myself for he and everyone else knew the first chance I got I would run.
    It had been that day Mr. Ladd had told me how the marshal in Traer, Iowa had tried to make arrangements to have me transferred to Boy's Town in Omaha, Nebraska.  But then he told me I had messed that up for I had ran away again and he wouldn't let me go.  I know when he had told me it had saddened me for I had wanted to go to Boy's Town.
    I guess there had been an inquiry from the Children's Division of the Iowa Board of Control which Mr. Ladd was answerable to.  Though I wasn't aware of it then or for many years later, it was the policy of the Board no corporal punishment in any form could be used on any juvenile in the care of Iowa institutions.  That had been a policy many years before I had ever entered the institutions.  I feel someone (probably the marshal in Traer for this was about a month after he had seen the bruises on my body) had told the Board I was being abused there in the juvenile home.  The Board had asked for a report from Mr. Ladd as to my adjustments to the institution, any behavior problems I may have and forms of punishment being used on me.  In part he had written back saying my adjustment hadn't been very well, my worst fault was my running away.  That I was very friendly, had a pleasing personality and that I normally behaved well.  I always did as I was told to do and had very few problems other than running away.  He had told them while I was on escape, "In almost all cases he has sold them on the fact he is a very much abused boy."  That had not been true for I had only told the marshal and that had only been after he had seen what they had done to me.  He had told them the forms of punishment used on me had been missing the movie, eating alone at a table in the dining room and about putting me in Isolation.  He had never mentioned all of the other things which leads me to believe he knew it was wrong for him in allowing it to happen.

    To the page with lyrics and sound clip of the published song RUN, ORPHAN BOY, RUN which is based on the above event.