Onward, ever onward, is the watchword just now—dropping boys like seed-corn as they go! Woods and fields, and villas, and farms, and waste-lands, and forests, and water, fly past in endless variety and loveliness.
“A panoramy without no end!” exclaimed Tim Lumpy after one of his long gazes of silent admiration.
“Wot a diff’rence!” murmured Bobby Frog. “Wouldn’t mother an’ daddy an’ Hetty like it, just!”
The city of Toronto came in sight. The wise arrangements for washing in Canadian railway-cars had been well used by the boys, and pocket-combs also. They looked clean and neat and wonderfully solemn as they landed at the station.
But their fame had preceded them. An earnest crowd came to see the boys, among whom were some eager to appropriate.
“I’ll take that lad,” said one bluff farmer, stepping forward, and pointing to a boy whose face had taken his fancy.
“And I want six boys for our village,” said another.
“I want one to learn my business,” said a third, “and I’ll learn him as my own son. Here are my certificates of character from my clergyman and the mayor of the place I belong to.”
“I like the looks of that little fellow,” said another, pointing to Bob Frog, “and should like to have him.”
“Does you, my tulip?” said Bobby, whose natural tendency to insolence had not yet been subdued; “an’ don’t you vish you may get ’im!”