After the "jigger" had been safely bestowed in the shed, Tom and Jack went into the garden for a confab. "What are you doing, Tom?" was Jack's first question when they were by themselves.
"Doing!" repeated Tom. "Why, I've done nearly all the garden; and you can see how it looks," said Tom, with some pride.
"Ah, yes it looks pretty tidy," said Jack, with a cursory glance round the neatly kept beds; "but look here, Tom, I've learned a thing or two since I've been on my job; and if I could have my time over again at school, I wouldn't play the fool there as I often did. I wonder the master had so much patience with us. But that isn't what I'd come to say. Do you know where my job is? Why, at a horticultural college, where they teach fellows to be first-rate gardeners! Now I thought, when I heard it, this is just the sort of place for Tom Winn, if he could only get here. And—"
Tom groaned. "Don't, Jack; don't tell me again what a fool I've been, I know it well enough."
"We were both fools, old fellow, in those days, and I was the worst, for I persuaded you not to go to that scholarship class, and led you into all the mischief. You've forgiven me, old fellow, I know, but I haven't forgiven myself; and I never shall, unless I can do something to make up for what I cost you that time. Well, now, I can see a chance. Do you go to school, old fellow?"
"Yes; but it's such a measly old school, that I expect if I was to ask about a scholarship they'd think it was something to eat."
"Never mind; where is it?" said Jack, impatiently.
"Why, here, to be sure, in Fairfield," answered Tom.
And then he thought that Jack must certainly have taken leave of his senses, for he threw his cap in the air, and shouted "Hip, hip, hurrah!" with such gusto that Elsie put her head out of the kitchen door to see what had happened.
And Tom said, rather curiously, "Are you subject to fits now, Jack?"