George subsided, and with the others watched the play, which was a sort of musical comedy, with vaudeville interspersed. The performance was over all too soon, and the boys started back toward school, after a round of sodas in a drug store.
“Well, we’ll soon be going home for the Easter vacation, and then the baseball season will open, when we get back,” spoke Jack. “Say, Tom, are you going to keep your promise, and spend Easter week with me?”
“Well, I don’t know, Jack. You see dad and mother wrote to me to go down in the country, and visit an old aunt of mine whom I haven’t seen for ages. I don’t see how I can make it to go to your place, much as I’d like it.”
“Are your folks still in Australia?” asked Bert.
“No, they’ve left there,” explained Tom. “They went there to look up some property a relative left to my father. They’ve been gone a long while now—at least it seems so to me, though the time has passed quickly enough while I’ve been here at Elmwood Hall.
“But I got a letter the other day, from dad, saying that the property matter was all settled satisfactorily, and that they had started for home.”
“Are they coming by way of Europe, as they planned?” asked Jack. “Cracky! Wouldn’t I like to see Europe, though!”
“No, they’ve changed their ideas,” replied Tom. “Dad and mother both thought they’d like a long voyage, so they took a large sailing vessel in the Australian trade that is to land them at San Francisco. Maybe I’ll go meet them if I can arrange it.”
“Coming on a sailing vessel; eh?” remarked Bert. “There aren’t many deep sea sailing ships any more.”
“No, and that’s one reason why dad wrote that he was taking the trip this way. He always has been fond of sailing and he thought he might not get another chance. So he and mother are on board the Kangaroo, somewhere out on the vasty deep at this moment—and I wish I was with them!”