“Exactly so! And think—we haven’t any studying to do. Oh, boy!” and Andy, who was the speaker, felt so light-hearted that he turned several cartwheels on the grass.
“Say, you look out, Andy, or somebody will grab you and put you in the circus,” was Spouter’s comment.
The Colby Hall cadets had finished their first day’s march and were now in camp on the outskirts of Rackville. They had made the hike without mishap, stopping at noon for lunch along the roadside.
The encampment consisted of three long lines of tents, one for each company. As was the usual practice, the cadets had erected the canvases themselves, doing it with real military precision. They were in the center of a large, sloping field, one end of which bordered the road running into Rackville. The field was a pasture lot belonging to a large farm owned by a man named Oliver Appleby. Appleby owned a dairy farm, and employed about a dozen hired hands.
“I know one thing we’ll get here,” remarked Fred, after a look around. “We’ll probably get all the milk we want to drink.”
And in this surmise he was correct. Captain Dale had made the necessary arrangements with Oliver Appleby, and that evening and the following morning the cadets were furnished with the best of cream and also all the fresh milk they desired.
After the setting up of the tents came supper, and my readers can rest assured that none of the boys were “backward about coming forward,” as Randy expressed it. All were as hungry as wolves, and the amount of food they stored away was simply astonishing. But Captain Dale had received orders from Colonel Colby that the students should be well treated, so everybody got all he wanted.
“Gee! this is so different from a school I used to attend,” remarked Fatty Hendry, with a sigh of satisfaction. “At that place we only got about half enough to eat, and many a time I had to go down to the village and buy something extra to keep from starvation.”
Having spent so many of their vacations at the old Rover homestead at Valley Brook, the Rovers were much interested in the Appleby place, and after the evening meal Jack and Fred took a stroll up to the cow barns to inspect the herd. Oliver Appleby had a number of prize cattle, of which he was very proud.
“They are certainly beautiful cows,” remarked Fred, when they were walking through the shed which housed the best of the herd. “They must have cost a mint of money.”