"I'm on, Son," he said, "and you can have your friends to help you."
"All right! Then shall I write and tell our darling Unkil that it's a go?"
And this was the letter Uncle Sam got from the "wayward youth he was trying to straighten out":
"Mr. Uncle Sam,
—— Building,
New York.
"Dear Uncle S.:
"Yours of the inst. rec'd., first. Jo—that's my dad and He's a peach too let me tell you—says your idea suits him fine and anyway he always goes to New York the first two weeks in June on business and then I have to stay with Aunt Maria at Sunny Glen and I hate it because she is so clean. I hate to milk too and she is so afraid I'll get drowned when I swim in the icepond. She is a terrible nut because I can swim fine. I've got a monogram for my sweater for swimming at the Y. M. C. A. pool and that's bigger and deeper than old spit-in-the-fire Aunt Maria's dinky little icepond. Daddy took me in the roadster over to the next town to order the stuff for the canoe. What do you think would be a good name for her after we finish it? We've put up part of the skeleton already. Sometimes on a straight road Jo lets me run the roadster—it's a Mercer. Do you like Mercers? I like them the best and so does Jo. I can't change gear very good yet and I am too young to get a license but I am strong enough to crank it. I've got right much muscle. Did you like to fight when you were a boy? I love my black eyes on other people. Jo says it is tough to fight, so he boxes with me. He can box fine, too. He can beat me swimming and diving all to pieces, too. I've got to stop now because Pete is whistling for me to come catch with him.
"Rept. Hal Allen."
CHAPTER II.
"Jo, I wish you would bring me a Remington rifle from New York. I'm old enough to have a good one now, and tell my reformer I named the canoe 'Uncle Sam'. I like that old man so much I wish he'd come down here to live."
"So long, Son! I hope you will have a peach of a time at your camp. Oh, yes! Aunt Maria told me to be sure and tell you not to go swimming but once a day, but I always lived in my bathing suit—at least we will say I had a bathing suit—and you can do the same."