Great-Uncle Hoot-Toot by Mary Louisa Molesworth

That first day at the farm was a pretty fair specimen of those that followed. The days grew into weeks and the weeks into one month, and then into two, and Geoff went on with his self-chosen hard and lonely life. The loneliness soon came to be the worst of it. He got used to the hardships so far, and after all they were not very terrible ones. He was better taken care of than he knew, and he was a strong and healthy lad. Had he felt that he was working for others, had he been cheered by loving and encouraging letters, he could have borne it all contentedly. But no letters came, no answer to his note to Vicky begging her to write; and Geoff's proud heart grew prouder and, he tried to think, harder.

"They would let me know, somehow, I suppose, if there was anything much the matter -- if -- mamma had not got much better yet. " For even to himself he would not allow the possibility of anything worse than her not being "much better. " And yet she had looked very ill that last evening. He thought of it sometimes in the middle of the night, and started up in a sort of agony of fright, feeling as if at all costs he must set off there and then to see her -- to know how she was. Often he did not fall asleep again for hours, and then he would keep sobbing and crying out from time to time, "Oh, mamma, mamma! " But there was no one to hear. And with the morning all the proud, bitter feelings would come back again. "They don't care for me. They are thankful to be rid of me; " and he would picture his future life to himself, friendless and homeless, as if he never had had either friends or home. Sometimes he planned that when he grew older he would emigrate, and in a few years, after having made a great fortune, he would come home again, a millionaire, and shower down coals of fire in the shape of every sort of luxury upon the heads of his unnatural family.