“Well, I guess we can look after ourselves, mother. We’ve pulled out of some pretty tight places.”
Mrs. Hopkins wrote a letter to a real estate agent at Harmon Beach, and Jerry was so anxious to have the plan succeed that he did not forget to mail the epistle which his mother gave him to post as he was going out. It was the first time such a thing had occurred in quite a while, as Jerry had a bad habit of forgetting to drop letters in the post-office.
Happy in the anticipation that he and his chums would be able to spend the summer together, Jerry whistled a gleeful mixture of all the sea songs he had ever heard, as he hurried over to Ned’s house. He found both his chums there.
“How about it?” asked Ned.
“My part is all right,” announced Jerry, “though of course it depended on whether a large-enough cottage can be secured.” But he did not think that detail worth bothering about. If worst came to worst he knew he and his chums would sleep on the floor in one room.
“I can go,” Bob announced, and Ned chimed in to say his parents had no objections if he was to stay at Mrs. Hopkins’s house.
“Then it’s all arranged,” Jerry said, in boyish confidence. “Now we’ll have to overhaul the Dartaway, and get her in shape. A new awning would do no harm, and I think we’ll need a little heavier anchor.”
With boundless enthusiasm the boys began to discuss their plans. They jumped from one thing to another, from the possibility of cruising half way to Florida to doing deep-sea-fishing in their motor boat.
“We’ll have the time of our lives,” said Bob. “We’ll—”