“Jonas had a new lesson in ‘Caesar,’” said Mary Pentz.  “I don’t believe they planned to spend much time at dinner.”

But at supper-time no boys appeared at the Wilsons’.  Mrs. Wilson was anxious.  George, the youngest boy of all, said the boys had been home since afternoon school; he had seen Jack in the kitchen with John Stebbins.

“Jack came to me for gingerbread,” said Jane, “and I asked him where they had been, and John Stebbins said, with the Pentz boys.  He said something about to-morrow being a holiday, and preparing for a lark.”

“I don’t like their getting all their meals at the Pentzes’,” said Mrs. Wilson, “and I don’t much like John Stebbins.”

Again at the Pentzes’ the talk was much the same.

Mary Pentz reported the boys went through their ‘Caesar’ recitation well; she had a nod of triumph from Jonas as he walked off with Sam Wilson.  “They had their books, so I suppose they are off for study again.”

“I don’t like their taking two meals a day at the Wilsons’,” said Mrs. Pentz.

“There’s no school to-morrow,” said Mary, “because the new furnace is to be put in.  But I dare say the boys, Sam and Jonas, will be studying all the same.”

“I hope he won’t be out late,” said Mrs. Pentz.

“He’s more likely to spend the night at the Wilsons’,” said Mary.  “You know he did a week ago.”

“The boys were round here for a candle,” said Will.

“Then they do mean to study late,” said Mrs. Pentz.  “I shall tell him never to do it again; and with Dick, too!”

Mr. Wilson came hurrying home for a late supper, and announced he must go to New York by a late train.

“A good chance for you,” he said to his wife, “to go and see your sister.  You won’t have more than a day with her, for I shall have to take the night train back, but it will give you a day’s talk.”

Mrs. Wilson would like to go, but she felt anxious about the boys.  “They have not been home for dinner or supper.”

“But they came home for gingerbread,” said Aunt Harriet.  “I suppose they didn’t have too hearty a dinner at the Pentzes’.”

“Joanna says they went off with a basket packed up for to-morrow,” said Gertrude.

“If the Pentzes did not live so far off, I would send up,” said Mrs. Wilson.

“They will be in by the time we are off, or soon after,” said Mr. Wilson.  “It looks like rain, but it won’t hurt us.”

Mrs. Wilson and he went, but no boys appeared all the evening.

Aunt Harriet, who had not been long in the family, concluded this was the way boys acted.

Jane sat up some time finishing a novel, and hurried off to bed, startled to find it so late, and waking up Gertrude to say, “It is odd those boys have not come home!”

Why hadn’t they?

They couldn’t.

This is what happened.