A moment later, as the puffing locomotive drew up by the water-tank, the conductor stepped out on the platform, exclaiming: 

“Look a here, folks.  This aint right.  If there was going to be a picnic you’d ought to have sent word, and I’d have tacked on an extra car.  You’ll have to pack in, now, best you can.”

He seemed much relieved when he found how small a part of the crowd were to be his passengers.

“Dab,” said Ford, “this is your send-off, not ours.  You’ll have to make a speech.”

Dab did want to say something, but he had just kissed his sisters and his mother, and half a dozen of his school-girl friends had followed the example of Jenny Walters, and then Mrs. Foster had kissed him, and Ham Morris had shaken hands with him, and Dab could not have said a loud word to have saved his life.

“Speech!” whispered Ford, mischievously, as Dab stepped upon the platform; but Dick Lee, who had just escaped from the tremendous hug his mother had given him, came to his friend’s aid in the nick of time.  Dick felt that “he must shout, or he should go off,” as he afterward told the boys, and so at the top of his shrill voice he shouted: 

“Hurrah for Cap’n Kinzer!  Dar aint no better feller lef’ along shore!”

And, amid a chorus of cheers and laughter, and a grand waving of white handkerchiefs, the engine gave a deep, hysterical cough, and hurried the train away.

The two homesteads by the Long Island shore were a little lonely for a while, after the departure of all those noisy, merry young fellows.  Mr. Foster had enough to do in the city, and Ham Morris had his farm to attend to, besides doing more than a little for Mrs. Kinzer.  It was much the better for both estates that he had that notable manager at his elbow.  The ladies, however, old and young, had plenty of time to come together and wonder how the boys were getting along, even before the arrival of the first batch of letters.

“They must be happy,” remarked kind Mrs. Foster, after the long, boyish epistles had been read, over and over; “and such good letters!  Not one word of complaint of anything.”

Mrs. Kinzer assented somewhat thoughtfully.  Dabney had not complained of anything; but while he had praised the village, the scenery, the academy, the boys, and had covered two full sheets of paper, he had not said a word about the table of his boarding-house.

“He is such a growing boy,” she said to herself.  “I do hope they will give him enough to eat.”

It went on a good deal in that way, however, for weeks, even till the Fosters broke up their summer residence and returned to the city.  There were plenty of letters, and all his sisters wondered where Dabney had learned to write so capitally; but Mrs. Kinzer’s doubts were by no means removed until Ham Morris showed her a part of a curious epistle Dabney had sent to him in a moment of confidence.