After supper they returned to the saloon, where Amos Todd lighted a cigar, and listened to the wonderful story of trial and triumph, privation and strange vicissitude, that had transformed his pale-faced weakling into the strong, handsome, self-reliant youth upon whom he now gazed so proudly. When the long story was ended, he asked, quietly,
"How much have you earned by your summer's work, son; and what have you to show for it?"
"If you mean in money, dad, not one cent; and all I have to show, besides what you've already noticed, is this." Here Alaric held out a dilapidated baseball, at which his father gazed curiously. "With that ball," continued Alaric, "I took my first lesson in being a boy, and it has led me on from one thing to another ever since, until finally, this very evening, it brought me back to you. So, dad, I should say that it stood for my whole summer's work."
"I am thankful, Rick, that you haven't earned any money, and that through bitter want of it you have learned its value," said Amos Todd. "I am thankful, too, that there is still one thing for which you have to come to your old dad. More than all am I thankful for what you have gained without his help, or, rather, in spite of him; and had I known last spring what that baseball was to do for you, I would gladly have paid a million of dollars for it."
"You may have it now, dad, for one hundred, which is just the amount I owe Bonny."
"Done!" cried Amos Todd; and thus he came into possession of the well-worn baseball that, set in a plate of silver and enclosed in a superb frame, hung above his private desk for many years afterwards.
Here our story properly ends, but we cannot help telling of two or three things that happened soon after the disappearance of our hump-durgin boys from camp No. 10, and as a direct result of their having lived there. To begin with, Mr. Linton felt himself so insulted by the manner in which President Todd made his inspection that he resigned his position, and, on the recommendation of Alaric, Buck Raulet was given his place. On the strength of this promotion the big "faller" went East to marry the girl of his choice, and both Alaric and Bonny were present at the wedding.
Through the liberality of Amos Todd, the ex-hump-durgin boys were enabled to present the camp with their shack, converted into a neat little library building and filled with carefully selected books, in which the occupants of the camp are greatly pleased to discover many of the tales already told to them by Rick Dale.
A certain famous and badly used up hat, carefully removed from the camp, belongs to Bonny Brooks, and adorns a wall in one of a beautiful suite of rooms that he and Alaric occupy together at Harvard. Here Alaric is taking an academic course, while Bonny, whom Amos Todd regards almost as an own son, is sturdily working his way through the mathematical and chemical labyrinths of the Lawrence Scientific School. They entered the university just one year after completing their studies as hump-durgin boys; and while they were still Freshmen, the splendid baseball-player, who, though only a Sophomore, was captain of the 'varsity nine, happened to be badly in need of a catcher.
"I can tell you of one who can't be beat this side of the Rocky Mountains," suggested his classmate and pitcher, Dave Carncross.