“Certainly we would,” replied Ralph. “It looks now as though we were coming here to live; and if we do, we should like to know something about the boys into whose company we shall be thrown.”
It would seem from this that Ralph took it for granted that he and his brother and cousin would get into the company without the least trouble, and he was somewhat surprised because Arthur did not offer to take in their names at the very next meeting; but he did not even ask them what their names were. He led them to the place where the master bowman and his bugler were standing in the midst of a party of their friends, and, as soon as the opportunity was presented, introduced them as visitors who thought it possible that they might one day become permanent residents of the village. Then he excused himself and went off to hunt up one of the girls with green and white badges, who were carrying little buckets of lemonade around among the thirsty firemen and soldiers.
Tom and his cousins found the young archers to be very pleasant and agreeable fellows, but a trifle too independent to suit them. They did not seem to think that Tom was better than any other boy because his father was a banker, and owned a yacht in which he talked of going to Florida during the coming winter, and neither did they ask him and his cousins to step up to the armory when they fell into ranks and marched up to put away their bows and quivers. They left them standing in the park, as they did scores of others who had been talking to them, and that was a slight that Tom said he would not soon forget.
“You are altogether too touchy,” said Loren, with some impatience in his tones. “You appear to think that every boy who lives outside the city limits must, of necessity, be a greenhorn. These fellows know as much about New London as we do.”
“When I become a member of that company, I shall use my best endeavors to bring about a different state of affairs,” said Tom, decidedly. “If they are taking pattern after Robin Hood, why don’t they pass their time as he and his men did, lounging about in the greenwood under the shade of the trees, instead of parading through the streets on a hot day like this? I don’t see any fun in that.”
Nevertheless, before he had passed a week in Mount Airy, Tom Bigden decided that it was just such a place as he had always thought he should like to live in, and his cousins came to the same conclusion. So did their fathers and mothers; and so it came about that a couple of Mr. Wayring’s handsome cottages, on the other side of the lake, were rented until such time as Mr. Farnsworth and his brother-in-law could erect houses on the grounds they had leased in the village.
Tom and his cousins lost no time in getting ready to enjoy themselves. Before another week had passed away, they had the finest sail and row boats, and the most expensive canoes on the lake; and in anticipation of their immediate admittance to the ranks of the Toxophilites, they sent for a supply of bows and arrows and ordered uniforms of their tailor. But the old saying, that there’s many a slip, held good in their case; and this was the way they found it out:
One afternoon they and their parents were invited to a lawn party, at which the Toxophilites, girls as well as boys, appeared in force and in uniform, the girls wearing white dresses, green sashes and badges, and light straw hats, turned up at the side and fastened by a tiny silver arrow, which, at the same time, held in place the long black plume of the company. Tom declared that they looked stunning; and when he saw how they sent their arrows into the target, hitting the gold almost as often as they missed it, and played croquet and skipped about the lawn tennis ground, he added that he had never been to such a party before, nor seen handsomer girls. He was going to apply for admission to the club, and he wasn’t going to waste any time in doing it, either. With this object in view, he hurried off to find Arthur Hastings.
“I don’t wonder that you fellows are happy here,” was the way in which he began the conversation.
“Yes, I suppose we see as much pleasure as falls to the lot of most people,” answered Arthur, “but we have any amount of hard work as well.”