“They’re worth it, Mary.  There’s enough in every one of them to make a man of, and they’ve all started fairly well.”

“I fear that is more than you will be able to say of all these others.”

“Of course it will.  Their fathers and mothers have had a great deal to do with that.”

They were all “examined,” however, in due season, some in one way and some in another; and during all that time Dab Kinzer and his friends were inwardly wondering, whether they said so or not, precisely what impression they had made upon the doctor.

It was just as well, every way, that they did not know.

It was a curious fact, that with one accord they accompanied Dick on his return to their boarding-house; and, while he disappeared through the door at the end of the hall with Miss Almira, some invisible leading-string dragged them up stairs.  Not that they really had any studying to do; but it was dinner-time before they had finished turning over the leaves of their text-books, and estimating the amount of hard work it would cost to prepare for an “examination” on them.

There was no good reason for complaint of that dinner any more than of their breakfast; and it wound up with a very excellent Indian-meal pudding, concerning which Dabney went so far as to say he would like to send the recipe home to his mother.

“I’m so glad you like it,” said Mrs. Myers.  “Almira, just remember that.  They can have it as often as they please.”

She asked them, too, how they proposed to spend their afternoon, and smilingly explained, as to Dick Lee, that,—­

“Saturday is one of my busy days, and he will have to stay at home and help.  Errands to run, and I want him to learn how.  He’s a bright, active little fellow.”

That was all “according to contract;” but Dick did not come in for his dinner until the rest had eaten theirs; and then he barely had time to say to Dab Kinzer,—­

“Did you ebber shell corn?”

“Course I have.  Why?”

“’Cause dar’s a bigger heap ob corn out in de barn dan you ebber see.”

“Bigger’n Ham’s?”

“Well, no, not so big as his’n, mebbe; but dar’s more ob it.  I’s got it to shell.”

Dab went off with the other two, vaguely beginning to ask himself if shelling corn came fairly into the proper meaning of the word “chores.”

All that sort of thing was quickly forgotten, however; for there were a dozen groups of boys scattered here and there over the broad expanse of the “green,” and Ford Foster at once exclaimed,—­

“Boys, let’s examine that crowd.  It’ll take all the afternoon to find what they know.”

Getting acquainted is apt to be a slow process in cases of that sort, unless it is taken hold of with vigor; and Ford was the very fellow to hurry it up.  Before the afternoon was over, every boy on that green knew who he was, and where he came from; and a good share of them had tried their hands at “chaffing” him and his friends.  Of these latter it may safely be said that not a single one could afterwards remember that he had seemed to himself to get the best of it.