"Come, Bobby, boy, don't fall up the steps and get your nice new clothes dirty," adjured Madge, as her brother made a false step in getting aboard the train. "Will you look out for him, Mr. Cameron, if I leave him in your care?"
"Sure!" said Tom, laughing. "I'll see that he doesn't spoil his pinafore or mess up his curls."
"Say! I'd shake a sister like that if I had one," grunted "Busy Izzy" Phelps, disgustedly.
"Aw, what's the odds?" drawled good-natured Bobbins.
The hilarious crowd boarded the Lanawaxa at the landing, and after crossing the lake they again took a train, disembarking at Seven Oaks, where the boys' school was situated.
From here the girls were to journey by stage to Briarwood. There was dust-coated, grinning, bewhiskered "Old Noah Dolliver" and his "Ark," waiting for them.
There was a horde of uniformed academy boys about to greet Tom and his chums, and to eye the girls who had come thus far in their company. But Ruth and her friends were not so bashful as they had been the year before.
They formed in line, two by two, and slowly paraded the length of the platform, chanting in unison the favorite "welcome to the infants" used at the beginning of each half at Briarwood:
"Uncle Noah, he drove an Ark—
One wide river to cross!
He's aiming to land at Briarwood Park—
One wide river to cross!
One wide river!
One wide river of Jordan!
One wide river!
One wide river to cross!"
The boys cheered them enthusiastically. The girls piled into the coach with much laughter. Even Mercy had taken part in this fun, for the procession had marched at an easy pace for her benefit.