[CHAPTER VI]
BOXWOOD HALL
Imagine a great, green, grassy bowl, nestled snugly amid a succession of green hills, set, more or less regularly, in a circle. And at the bottom of the great, green, grassy bowl, which is miles across, imagine further a silvery sheet, irregular in outline and sparkling in the sun.
Up on one of the sides of the green, grassy bowl, where it leveled out into a sort of plateau, is a group of dull, red buildings, their maroon color contrasting pleasingly with the emerald tint of the surroundings. Across the tip of another hill lay a country town, and from a vantage point one could see a railroad, like a shiny snake, winding its way up to the town, stopping there, in the shape of a station, and then going on across the valley.
The town is that of Fordham—a city some called it. It was in New England, about half way between Boston and New York. The green bowl was Fordham valley, and the shining, glittering bottom of it was Lake Carmona, a beautiful sheet of water, some miles in extent.
The group of red buildings was Boxwood Hall with which we shall soon concern ourselves, and which was very much in the minds of Ned, Bob and Jerry at this moment, as it had been for some time. The college buildings were about a mile, or, say a mile and a half to be exact, from the Fordham railroad station, and were practically on the shore of Lake Carmona, for the college owned the land running down to the lake, and had on it a boathouse and a dock. But the buildings themselves lay back a quarter of a mile from the water, and this quarter of a mile, somewhat less in width, formed the college campus—one not surpassed anywhere.
Upon this campus, strolling about here and there this fine fall day, was a group of lads attired in the more or less exaggerated costumes effected by college youth the world over.
“Say, fellows, I’ve got news for you!” cried Frank Watson, who, as one could tell by the manner he used toward some of the other students, was a sophomore. “Great news! Come here, Bill Hamilton—Bart Haley—you too, Sid Lenton and Jim Blake. Come here and listen to me.”
“What’s the matter now?” asked Bill Hamilton, a flashily dressed lad. “Has some one left you money?”