"I can't abide yo' boys being away nohow!" wailed Aleck Pop. "It jess don't seem natural to have yo' gone, dat's wot it don't!"
"Oh, we'll be back some day, Aleck," answered Dick. "And if we go off on some trip later, maybe we'll take you along."
"I most wish I was a waiter ag'in at de Hall," sighed the colored man.
"They can't spare you from here," said Sam.
"Oh, I know dat, Sam."
The boys' trunks had been packed and sent on ahead, so all they carried with them were their dress-suit cases. Their father drove them to the railroad station at Oak Run, and their aunt and uncle and the others around the farm came out on the piazza to see them off.
"Now be good boys," admonished their Aunt Martha. "And take care and don't get sick."
"And be sure and study all you can," said their Uncle Randolph, "Remember nothing is quite so grand as learning in this world."
"Yo' keep out ob mischief!" cried Aleck Pop, shaking a warning finger at Tom, who grinned broadly.
And then the carriage started off, and the journey to Putnam Hall was begun.
