[CHAPTER III]
FRIENDS AT OUTS
Hal won the captaincy, and two days later he and Joe and Bert Madden started for home. About three hundred other youths also started for home, but none of them lived in Central City, and so, beyond the Junction, Joe and Hal and Bert went on westward alone. Bert was well over seventeen and would be a senior next year, as would Hal, a year younger. Joe, who was Hal’s age within a few months, was returning to Holman’s in the fall as a junior. He and Hal had been friendly at high school, and when Hal had decided to go to Holman’s for the last two years Joe had decided to go also. It wasn’t so easy for Joe, however, for Joe’s folks weren’t wealthy by any means, while Hal’s were. But he had found employment last summer and worked hard, and, when September had arrived, his earnings, with what his father had been able to provide, had been sufficient to put him through the first year.
It wasn’t going to be nearly so hard next fall, for Mr. Kenton’s business had improved. Nevertheless, Joe meant to find some sort of employment for the summer months, and on the journey home this matter occupied his thoughts a good deal of the way. He couldn’t go back to Murray and Bankhead’s, for his place there was occupied permanently by another, but he was certain that he could find a job of some sort. While Joe considered ways and means, Hal was telling Bert about the good time he was going to have at his father’s camp up north and Bert was picturing the delights of summer life at one of the nearby summer resorts. Hal had invited Joe to visit the camp some time toward the last of the summer and Joe had half accepted the invitation. He didn’t really expect to get there though.
Hal left town about a week after their return home, and Joe missed him a good deal at first, even though they didn’t get together very often in Central City. Hal moved in a different circle than Joe. Looking for work, however, occupied much of Joe’s time during that week and the next, for he had been home more than a fortnight before he secured the job with Donaldson and Burns, who operated the Central City Market. His principal duty was to deliver by bicycle, orders that could not await the trucks or that had been forgotten by them. When not occupied in that way he sometimes helped to put up orders. His hours were from eight to five, save on Saturdays, when the store kept open until nine. Thursday afternoons he had off, for in Central City Thursday was the weekly half holiday from July to September.
It was on the first Thursday afternoon after starting to work that he sat on an empty soap box by the window of the stable loft and listlessly distributed type from a “stick” in his left hand to the case before him. The July day was hot, and from the printing press that stood on a stout packing case came a strong though not unpleasant odor of fresh ink. Joe wasn’t very happy this afternoon. On a shelf under the type case lay the results of his recent labor, twelve printed invitations still sticky from the press. Now, having distributed the last of the type, he lifted one of the invitations, held it at arm’s length and read it. Beginning in script, it ran the gamut of Old English, italics and small Roman, and it read as follows:
You are Cordially Invited
to Attend a House Warming at
Camp Peejay, Squirrel Lake,
Thursday, July 6.
Philip Levering Joe Kenton
R. S. V. P.
It really looked awfully well, but he couldn’t get much of a thrill from that fact since, as sightly as they were, those invitations would probably never be used.