"Of course, it would be great if your folks would take you to South America," admitted Fred, after some reflection. "For you could bring home a whole raft of marmosets, and green-and-gray parrots, and iguanas, and the like, for pets. And you'd see manatees, and tapirs, and jaguars and howling monkeys, and all the rest. But crickey! you wouldn't have the fun we'll have when we get to Rockledge School."
Fun seemed to be all that Fred Martin looked forward to when he got to boarding school. Lessons, discipline, and work of any kind, never entered his mind.
That evening Mr. and Mrs. Blake, with Bobby, went up the street to the Martin house, and the parents of the two chums talked together a long time on the front porch, while the children were sent into the back yard—that yard that Buster Shea had cleaned so nicely the day before, being partly paid in rats!
When the Blakes started home, it had been concluded that Bobby was to attend school with Fred, and that if Mr. and Mrs. Blake did not return from their long journey in season, Bobby was to be under the care of the Martins during vacation.
"Another young one won't make any difference here, Mrs. Blake," said easy-going Mrs. Martin. "Really, half the time I forget how many we have, and have to go around after they are all abed, and count noses. Bobby will make us no trouble, I am sure. And he always has a good influence over Fred—we've remarked that many times."
This naturally made Mrs. Blake very proud. Yet she took time to talk very seriously to Bobby on several occasions during the next few days. She spoke so tenderly to him, and with such feeling, that the boy's heart swelled, and he could scarcely keep back the tears.
"We want to hear the best kind of reports from you, Bobby—not only school reports, but in the letters we may get from our friends here in Clinton. Your father and I have tried to teach you to be a manly, honorable boy. You are going where such virtues count for more than anything else.
"Be honest in everything; be kindly in your relations to the other boys; always remember that those weaker than yourself, either in body or in character, have a peculiar claim upon your forbearance. Father would not want you to be a mollycoddle but mother doesn't want you to be a bully.
"You will go to church and Sunday School up there at Rockledge just as you have here. Don't be afraid to show the other boys that you have been taught to pray. I shall have your father find out the hour when you all go to bed, and at that hour, while you are saying your prayers and thinking of your father and me so far away from you, I shall be praying for my boy, too!"
"Don't you cry, Mother," urged Bobby, squeezing back the tears himself. "I will do just as you tell me."