Just a little way behind he army, a small figure slipped from tree to tree. Little Robert Cowler had run away from home. His drunken Pa had fallen asleep after spending a quarter of an hour wailing his youngest son's bare rump with a length of strap. In a house full of 'brat's bobby Cowler was lucky to have a cast off over-sized shirt that one of his bigger brothers had discarded. Undergarments and britches were a privilege he would be given when he was ten. According to Pa and Ma, boys under ten didn't "need to britches." "Ya aint' got nuthin' to hide yet," Pa said, swigging from his mug. "Fi' year olds 're just babes anyway."
"I ain't no babe, Pa!" bobby had said, hands on his hips and filled with righteous anger despite a little round bare fanny and an equally exposed little nub of a wanker in front.
"Don't you sass me, baby boy!" Pa had grunted. And so bobby had spent a long, instructive time laying across his Pa's lap while Pa worked his leather skillfully across his baby boy's bare fanny.
Then, with the boy still across his knees, the drunken man had let the strap slip from his fingers and feel sound asleep snoring loudly.
bobby had climbed off his Father's lap of discpline, stolen his older brother Sean's homespun short legged britches and climbed out the window.
Bare foot and holding the pants up with a bit of rope, the five year old crept behind the army. The young men looked pretty good to the small boy; he wanted to be a soldier to and have a nice warm wool uniform.
"'Cor! I could carry one of them guns! Certain sure I could," the child said.
He darted out of the trees and fell into step beside a fresh faced young man.
"Hey! I come to help ya," bobby said, tugging on the young man's pant leg.
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