“Gee whiz!” piped Tucker. “They’ve certainly illuminated gorgeously for our arrival.”
“I have a party of friends there who are expecting us,” was Casper’s surprising announcement.
He now pressed the pedal, and the Gabriel horn sang sweetly through the spring night.
“That will tell them we’re coming,” he laughed. “They’ll be on the veranda to welcome us.”
And now the boys discovered that the veranda and the trees in the immediate vicinity of the house were hung with hundreds of Japanese lanterns.
As they swung up the fine road to the front of the house they heard a chorus of youthful voices, and forth from the wide front door came swarming a merry band of boys and girls. There were fully thirty of them, and they crowded to the steps, waving their handkerchiefs and laughingly crying welcome.
“Great horn spoon!” muttered Brad Buckhart. “What are we up against?”
But Dick was speechless, for there, in the mellow light of the many lanterns, standing in front of all the others, her hands outstretched to him, was the one girl he knew best in all the world—June Arlington!
CHAPTER IV.
A HEARTY WELCOME.
“Welcome, welcome to Meadwold!” cried the merry voices.