“Speak for yourself, if you please, Dorry,” he said almost angrily. “I’m sorry if I’ve been a drag on you; but, for my part, I’ve never enjoyed the holidays so much. Have you, daddy?” And forgetting his momentary temper, he laughed up at his father, who stood thoughtfully studying his son’s face.
Mr. Arnold roused himself at the question.
“The holidays have been a success, have they, sonny? Well, I’ve hated to see you hopping around in this way; but I’ve rather enjoyed it, after all, for if you’d been quite well, you would all have gone gallivanting off, and left the old people alone at home.”
“This is more fun than gallivanting,” said Leon serenely. “I’ll leave that till Easter, or till mother and Dot come up to Flemming, next month. But I think I’ll gallivant to bed now, for I’m uncommonly sleepy. Come on, boys.”
He picked up his crutches, kissed his father and mother good night in the same way he had done ever since he was a little boy, and limped away, laughing and joking with his brother and Alex. As he passed the door, some impulse made him turn back to add merrily,—
“Good night again, daddy. This is positively the last time.”
How often both the words and the scene came back to him, with the memory of that evening!
Bright and early the next morning, the lads started on their journey, for they had prolonged their vacation until the last possible moment. The whole family drove to the station with them, and as the train rolled away, the boys’ last glimpse was of handsome, kindly Mr. Arnold, waving them one parting salute.
The term opened on that morning, and nearly all the boys were back, so the Arnolds and Alex took the little journey by themselves. It seemed a short ride to them all, for what with the past vacation and the coming term, they had so much to talk over that they were all rather surprised when they came into the familiar station, and saw the old stage waiting for them.
In spite of the good times they had been enjoying, it was very pleasant to Leon to go to supper in the great dining-room, and listen to the uproar of seventy-five boys all talking at once; and when, an hour later, he and Stanley and Max, with half a dozen others, were gathered around the fire in Lieutenant Wilde’s room, planning for a sleighing party, it seemed as if the home he had left that morning, were thousands of miles and countless weeks away. It was not that he cared less for his home than other boys do; but this happy school life had already become so familiar to him that he dropped back into it just as naturally as, ten days before, he had settled into his old home corner.