This letter informed Jerry, and, incidentally, his two chums, that she, with her sisters and father, had settled in a small town near the coast, not far from Santa Barbara, and on a little ocean bay, which, Nellie said, was a much nicer place than any they had visited in Florida.
“Father likes it very much here,” she wrote, “and he declares he feels better already, though we have been here only a week. He says he knows it would do him good to see you boys, and he wishes—in fact we all wish—you three chums could come out here for a long visit, though I suppose you cannot on account of school opening. But, perhaps, we shall see you during the next vacation.”
“She’s going to see us sooner than that,” announced Bob, when Jerry had read the letter to him and Ned.
“Did you write and tell her we were coming?” asked Ned, his two friends having called at his house to talk over their prospective trip.
“No, I thought we’d wait and see what Professor Snodgrass had planned. Perhaps he isn’t going to that part of California.”
“That’s so,” admitted Bob. “Guess we’ll have to wait and find out. I wish he’d call or write. Have you heard anything more about damages for our smashed boat, Jerry?”
“No, I saw Mr. Hitter the other day, and he advised me to wait a while before writing again. Something queer happened while I was in his office, too.”
“What was it’?”
“Well, you remember the man who got off the Boston express that day, and acted so strange about his boxes of stuff he wanted shipped to the Pacific coast?”
“Sure,” replied Ned and Bob at once.