THE ARK SAYS GOOD-BYE
Three days later, at exactly 1:44 in the afternoon, The Ark chugged her
way decorously up to the platform at the station in Audelsville. In the
front seat sat Tom and Willard, the latter rather gorgeously arrayed,
as befitting one who is about to make his premier appearance at New
Haven as a Yale freshman! In the tonneau reposed a suitcase adorned
with a fresh, new label, bearing the inscription in a round, boyish
hand, “Willard Garford Morris, New Haven, Ct.”
Before The Ark had quite ceased its motion a deep honking sounded in
the direction of River Street and the boys turned to watch smilingly
and proudly the gallant approach of a green and yellow motor truck on
the seat of which sat Jimmy Brennan. The truck drew up behind The Ark
and Jimmy shut off the engine and climbed down.
“Well, here’s your trunk, Will. If you’ll give me your ticket I’ll
check it for you.”
“Thanks, Jimmy. Here you are.” And Willard rather importantly pulled
a pocket-book from the recesses of his jacket and produced his ticket.
“How does she run?”
“Run? She doesn’t run,” replied Jimmy proudly. “She glides! I’ll be
back in a minute, fellows.”
“It was a fine thing, our finding Jimmy,” said Willard reflectively.
“I should say so! We’d never have got anywhere without him.”
“I feel sort of guilty, though, running away and leaving you two
fellows to do all the work.”
“You needn’t. We’ll get on all right.”
“I know that. Only I feel as though I ought to be here helping. Anyway,
I’m glad we’re all straight with Mr. Connors. He was pretty decent,
wasn’t he, Tom?”
“Yes, he was. The thing I liked best about him was his not insisting
when we refused to take his money that morning.”
“Well, he was certainly grateful! He made me feel――feel like crawling
under the hotel verandah! And he was decent about your father, Tom.”
“Yes, but he should have been. I just told him we didn’t want his money
and were glad we’d been able to help all we could. And then I said that
if he really thought he owed us anything he could see that father got
his reappointment as postmaster.”
“And what was it he said? ‘You tell John that he needn’t move out of
there until he gets good and ready’; wasn’t that it?”
Tom nodded. “Something like that. What time is it getting to be?”
“There’s four minutes yet. I say, Tom, you’ll write real often, won’t
you? And let me know everything that’s going on. I wish we had more
money on hand. That’s sort of worrying me.”
Tom smiled. “Well, we haven’t much of a balance in the bank, and that’s
a fact. After we pay that insurance premium to-morrow, we’ll have
about twenty dollars to our name. But you needn’t worry about that.
We’ll make more fast enough. And about everything’s paid for up to
date,――except that you still have twenty-five dollars coming to you.”
“There’s no hurry about that,” returned Willard. “And let me know
how you get along with the football team, Tom. Wasn’t it fine, their
electing you captain?”
“Flattering,” laughed Tom, “but awkward. I told the silly chumps I
wouldn’t have time for it but they wouldn’t listen to me. Have you
heard how George is getting on?”
“Mother said he was doing finely. But it will be three or four weeks
before he can be out again. Is that the whistle?”
“Yes, you’d better get your bag out.”
But Jimmy returned just then and performed that service and the two
boys piled out of The Ark as the 1:57 came whirring into the station.
They conducted Willard across the platform and put him on the train.
“Good-bye, Tom! Be good to The Ark! Good-bye, Jimmy! Look after
yourself!”
“Good-bye, Will! Don’t forget to write to a fellow!”
“I won’t. See that you do. And tell me all the news. Make him write to
me, Jimmy, will you?”
“If he doesn’t I’ll cut his tires,” responded Jimmy.
The train started slowly out. Tom, with a last wave of his hand, darted
across the platform and pounced on the horn.
“Honk! Honk!” said The Ark. “Honk! Honk! Honk!”
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes:
――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
――Except for the frontispiece, illustrations have been moved to
follow the text that they illustrate.
――Printer’s, punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently
corrected.
――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
――Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.