“More likely he’d be crawling around on the floor of the car looking for a new kind of fly,” said Bob, with a chuckle.
Professor Snodgrass had gone back to Boston after his flying visit to Cresville. But he had promised to go to see them in camp, for it was evident that, on account of the war, he would not be kept very busy at Boxwood Hall.
Soon the prospective soldiers in the special car were having the best of times. They had gotten over the first wrench of parting, and were having fun. They sang and joked, and Ned, Bob and Jerry entered into the jollity of the occasion.
“Do we go right into camp?” asked one lad from Cresville.
“No, I believe we first have to stop at Yorktown and go through a detailed examination,” answered Jerry, who had been making inquiries. “So far all we’ve gone through has been preliminary; and though we have enlisted, there is still a lot of red tape to go through. They’ll sift us out at Yorktown.”
“You mean separate the sheep from the goats!” laughed Ned.
“Something like that, yes,” Jerry admitted.
So they traveled on. At each stop there was a rush to get papers, if any were available, so the recruits might know the latest news in regard to the war. There were flaming headlines, but not much real news, as events were, as yet, hardly shaped. But everything went to show that Uncle Sam had at last decided to get into the war on a wholesale scale.
“When’s the next stop?” asked Bob, as the conductor came through on one of his trips.
“Oh, in about half an hour. But that isn’t Yorktown.”