CHAPTER V

GOOD NEWS

Blank looks replaced those of pleasant anticipation on the faces of Ned, Bob and Jerry. Slowly they glanced at one another, then Ned burst out with:

“Say, Dad, that’s all wrong! Don’t be so hard on us. If we have to go to college the best one in the world for us will be Boxwood Hall, because we’ll have such a good friend in Professor Snodgrass.”

“And we won’t go off bug hunting with him--at least not very often,” said Jerry. “We won’t have time, nor will he. And you can see by his letter that he’s done with bugs. He’s making a collection of butterflies now.”

“That’s just as bad,” said Mrs. Hopkins, with a smile at her son. “Butterflies will lead you farther afield.”

“There won’t be many more butterflies this year,” Ned remarked. “Though I suppose there may be a few late ones up around Fordham that the professor will bag in his net. But, really, we won’t waste any time on them. Let us go to Boxwood Hall, and we’ll buckle down to hard study.”

“We can go in for athletics though; can’t we?” asked Bob. “They have a swell football eleven and a dandy baseball nine at Boxwood Hall.”

“Oh, we haven’t any objections to sports, if you don’t go in for them too heavily,” said Mr. Baker. “What do you say?” and he glanced at the department store proprietor and at Mrs. Hopkins. “Shall we let the boys have their way?”

“Let’s consider it farther,” suggested Mr. Slade. “We’ll write to--let me see--Dr. Anderson Cole is the college president,” he went on, referring to the catalogue. “We’ll write to him and see what sort of arrangements can be made.”

“We could start in with the fall term,” observed Jerry. “Boxwood doesn’t open as early as some of the other colleges.”

“We’ll see about it,” said his mother.

“I’ll write the letters,” offered the banker. “My stenographer isn’t overworked, and I will get her at them the first thing in the morning. And I guess that ends the conference, for the time being,” he concluded.

“Then may we go?” asked his son. “We are going out in the motor boat.”

“Yes, run along,” said Mrs. Hopkins. “Jerry, let Mr. Baker have the catalogue the professor sent. He’ll need to refer to it for his letters.”

A little later the three chums were hastening toward the house where their motor boat was kept.

“Say! won’t it be great if we can go to Boxwood?” exclaimed Bob.

“The finest thing ever!” declared Jerry. “It will do us good to see the professor again.”

“So that’s what all this confabbing business on the part of our respected parents was about,” commented Ned. “I hadn’t any idea it would turn out this way.”

“Nor I,” admitted Jerry. “I thought something was in the wind along the line of making us settle down, but I was afraid mother might be going to make me go to work. Not that I would mind work,” he made haste to add, “but I’m not quite ready for it.”

“I thought maybe they were going to take the car, the boat and the airship away from us,” observed Bob, for our heroes, as their friends who have read about them in previous books know, did have a fine airship, in which they had gone through many adventures.

“That would be a hardship,” said Jerry. “But going to college isn’t half bad. I’m glad they decided on it. I guess a little discipline and settling down will be good for all of us. It’s a lucky thing Professor Snodgrass sent me that catalogue. If I hadn’t had that to spring on ’em they might have packed us off to some place where we wouldn’t have a friend to our names.”

“They may yet,” suggested Bob half gloomily. “They may decide against Boxwood Hall.”

“I don’t believe so,” remarked Jerry. “I sort of think they’re favorably disposed toward it, for it is a first-class place. And say! why, we can take our motor boat there!” he cried. “There’s Lake Carmona--a dandy place for a boat.”

“But it will soon be winter,” objected Ned, “and the lake will freeze over.”

“That’s all right,” declared Jerry. “It will be some time before freezing weather sets in, and there’ll be lots of time to take trips on the lake. We’ll have to store the boat over winter, of course, but she’ll be there in the spring. We’ll take the _Neboje_ with us.”

The _Neboje_ (the name being made up of the first two letters of Ned, Bob and Jerry) was a new craft. It was smaller than the last boat the boys had bought, and they often preferred it, as it was easier to handle. It was so arranged that they could sleep and cook on board, and make short cruises on lake or river.

“Sure, take the boat!” exclaimed Bob. “And why can’t we take the auto too?”

“We could, I guess,” conceded Jerry. “The only thing is, though, that the fellows at Boxwood may think we’re putting it on rather thick.”

“I guess not,” said Ned. “If we took our airship they might. But some of them are sure to have cars themselves, and with the lake so near it would be a wonder if there wasn’t one or two motor boats owned by the students. We’ll take her along.”

“That is, if we go,” observed Jerry with a smile.

“Oh, we’ll go!” declared Bob, as they reached the boathouse.

“Got enough gasoline?” asked Jerry, as he took the tarpaulin cover off the _Neboje_.

“Plenty,” announced Bob, looking at the gauge. “We’ll only go for a little run, as I want to get back in time for----”

“Grub!” broke in Ned with a laugh, and then he had to dodge the bailing sponge which the stout youth threw at his head.

Ned caught the sponge and threw it back at Bob, but with such poor aim that it struck Jerry in the face, and, being wet, it was not the most desirable object in the world to receive in that fashion.

“Here! What are you doing?” roared Jerry, wiping his dripping face. “I’ve had my bath this week. Cut out the rough stuff!”

“I didn’t mean that,” came from Ned. “It was Bob’s fault.”

“It was not! You threw it!”

“You chucked it first.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t ragged me about my eating. And I wasn’t going to say anything about grub, either. I meant I wanted to get home early so I could talk more to dad about Boxwood Hall.”

“Go on! You’re going to see a girl!” scoffed Jerry.

Bob flared up again, but quiet was finally restored and, the boathouse doors having been thrown open, Ned pressed the button of the self-starter and the _Neboje_ swung out into the river which ran near the Hopkins’ house.

As the chums, comfortably seated in their craft, were getting under way, they heard a hail.

“Hold on, boys--wait a minute--got something to tell you--don’t go away without me--it’s great news--come on back--slow down--turn off the gasoline--shut off the spark--swing her around--whoop!”

“No need to look to tell who that is,” Jerry remarked.

“Yes, it’s Andy Rush,” said Bob, as he glanced at a small and very much excited boy who was dancing about on the dock.

“Come back and get me!” he begged.

“Shall we?” asked Ned, who was steering.

“Oh, yes, I guess so,” assented Jerry. “Andy’s all right if he does talk like a gasoline motor.”

“I wonder what news he has,” ventured Bob.

Ned swung the boat about, and Andy, whom my older readers will remember, got aboard. He was panting from his rapid-fire talk.

“What’s the news?” asked Bob.

“It’s about Noddy Nixon,” said Andy Rush, when he had gotten back his breath.

“Then it isn’t good news,” averred Jerry, for in the past Noddy had made much trouble for the three chums.

“No, it isn’t good news,” said Andy. “He’s hurt somewhere out West. He ran his automobile into another one, and now he’s in a hospital.”

“Well, I don’t wish Noddy any bad luck, for all he did us several mean turns,” remarked Jerry. “But he never did know how to handle a car--he was too reckless. Is he badly hurt, Andy?”

“Well, he won’t die, but it will be a good while before he’ll be well. A friend of my mother’s, who lives out West, wrote her about Noddy, knowing he used to live here.”

“I hope he never comes back here to live,” Ned remarked. “We can easily get along without him.”

“So say we all of us!” chimed in Bob.

The boys enjoyed the little motor boat trip, though Andy Rush, as usual, talked so much and so fast that Jerry said he gave him a headache.

“Here, earn your passage,” the tall youth finally cried. “Polish some of the brass rail. That will give you a safety-valve,” and Andy, perforce, had to obey.

It was several days after this that Bob Baker came hurrying over to the Hopkins house.

“Good news!” cried the stout youth.

“What about?” asked Jerry.

“Dad has had a letter from President Cole, of Boxwood Hall, and everything is so satisfactory that dad has decided I am to go there. Hurrah!”

“Hurrah yourself!” retorted Jerry. “What about Ned and me?”

“It’s all right. I just left Ned, and his father says if Mr. Baker is satisfied he’ll be, so Ned can go. It rests with your mother whether you can, Jerry.”

“Oh, I’m sure mother will say yes! I’ll tell her! Say! this is great--all three of us to go to Boxwood Hall! Wow!” and Jerry did a clog dance that brought his mother to the door of her room to learn the cause of the excitement.

She readily gave her consent to the Boxwood Hall project for Jerry, and later that day there was another conference of the parents. There had been considerable correspondence between Mr. Baker and President Cole, and the banker was more than satisfied with the showing made by the college.

“I think it will be just the place for the boys,” he declared, “and I will write to President Cole, informing him they will be on hand soon after, if not at, the opening of the fall term. We shall have to get them ready, I suppose.”

“That won’t take long,” Jerry said. “Now I’ll write to Professor Snodgrass, and tell him we’ll soon be with him.”

Thus the matter was decided. The names of Ned, Bob and Jerry were formally entered for admission to Boxwood Hall, and their standing in their studies was such that they had to take but few examinations.

In the letter to Professor Snodgrass Jerry explained how it had all come about, and he thanked the little scientist for having sent the catalogue.

“Only for that,” Jerry wrote, “we might have been packed off to some place where we wouldn’t have liked it at all. I’m afraid we won’t get a chance to go hunting butterflies with you, much as we would like it.”

In reply Jerry had another letter from the bug-collector. Professor Snodgrass wrote that there would be plenty of chance for him to have outings with the boys.

“That’s fine!” cried Jerry. “Hurrah for Boxwood Hall!”

And his chums echoed the exultant cry.