CHAPTER XVI
AN EXPLORING EXPEDITION
The next day but one, there came a letter to Mrs. Dudley that increased her perplexity.
“Your Aunt Hannah is sick,” she said to Jack, “and I must go to take care of her. I don’t know what to do with you.”
“I’ll go to Port William to school,” said Jack. “See if I don’t.”
“How?” asked his mother. “We don’t know a soul on that side of the river. You couldn’t make any arrangement.”
“Maybe I can,” said Jack. “Bob Holliday used to live on the Indiana side, opposite Port William. I mean to talk with him.”
Bob was setting onions in one of the onion-patches which abounded about Greenbank, and which were, from March to July, the principal sources of pocket-money to the boys. Jack thought best to wait until the day’s work was finished. Then he sat, where Greenbank boys were fond of sitting, on the sloping top-board of a broad fence, and told his friend Bob of his eager desire to go to Port William.
“I’d like to go, too,” said Bob. “This is the last year’s schooling I’m to have.”
“Don’t you know any house, or any place, where we could keep ‘bach’ together?”