"They might give us just one chance to prove whether we are or not," broke in Mif Bowers; "but they won't even do that. They just say, 'No, and that's the end of it.' I declare it's enough to destroy all a fellow's ambition," he added, bitterly.
The canoe club to which Tom Burgess belonged had chartered a small steamer, that was to take them from New York to the island selected for their encampment, leave them there and call for them again at the end of two weeks. As the Berks boys contrasted their own prospects with those thus outlined for their city friends, they felt more and more sorry for themselves, and longed for the time when, with advancing years, they should throw off the shackles of boyhood.
So the summer wore on, school closed, the first month of vacation was passed, and as the time arrived for the canoe club to go into its sea-side camp, the Rangers, to whom the topic was still one of constant conversation, became more and more depressed and inclined to take gloomy views of life in general.
Suddenly, as though by magic, everything was changed, and in a twinkling the darkness of disappointment was dissipated by the golden light of realized hopes. All opposition to their cherished scheme was swept away in the space of a few hours; and while they could still hardly credit their good-fortune, the Rangers found themselves working like beavers to make ready for their salt-water cruise. They were to do the thing up in a style that would beat that of the canoe boys out of sight, too. Oh! it seemed incredible, and they had to reassure each other of their wonderful good-fortune every time they met in order to believe in its reality.
It all came about through their friend Admiral Marlin, who, according to promise, visited Berks to determine its desirability as a place of summer residence. Of course he renewed his acquaintance with Will Rogers, and was taken to the engine-house, where he admired the "Ranger," and met the rest of the band. Of course, too, the bluff old sailor at once won their hearts and their confidence to such an extent that they unfolded to him all their longings for a seafaring life, and their recently shattered hopes in that direction.
The Admiral took their part at once, and said it was too bad; that every boy in the country ought to know something of the sea, and that the more he knew in that line the better it would be both for him and the country. Then he went to call on his old shipmate, Mr. Redmond Cuddeback, who, through his invention, had now become a large stockholder in the Berks Mills.
From that visit the big-hearted old sailor returned with a beaming face and the air of one who is charged with an urgent mission. That afternoon, in company with Squire Bacon, he drove from house to house until he had held a personal interview with the parents of every Ranger in Berks. Then he desired Will Rogers to call a special meeting of the band for that very evening, as he wished to make them a communication of the greatest importance.
Never had the Rangers found their parents so smiling and also so reticent as at supper-time. The very air seemed filled with a pleasant mystery, and when the members of the band reached Range Hall they were fully impressed with the idea that something big was about to happen. Nor were they disappointed, for they found Admiral Marlin occupying Pop Miller's one particular chair, and so impatient to address them that he could hardly wait for the formal preliminaries with which their meetings were always opened.
As soon, therefore, as he was invited to speak he plunged at once into his subject as eagerly as though he were a boy himself, by saying:
"It's all right, lads, and you can go on that salt-water cruise just as quick as ever you have a mind."