"I am glad to say that I am now doing fairly well. I tried several positions and am now a traveling salesman for a large carpet house. I get fifteen dollars per week, all my expenses, and a commission on sales, so I consider myself lucky.
"When I look back on what I once was, Dick, I can scarcely realize what a change has come. But I feel happier than I ever was, and I am in hopes that I shall live to make a man of myself yet. I am trying to give up all my bad habits, and I haven't smoked, or drank a glass of liquor, since I left you in the south."
"That's the kind of a letter I like to get," said Dick, as he let his brothers peruse the communication. "It does a fellow's heart good, doesn't it?"
"I am glad we let him have that hundred dollars," said Sam. "Do you think he'll pay it back?"
"Here is a postscript in which he says he will send a money order next week."
"He certainly means to pull himself together," said Tom. "Well, now he has turned over a new leaf, I wish him the best of luck."
Almost before they knew it, it was time to leave the farm and journey to Putnam Hall. Everybody was sorry to see them go.
"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.
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.
As my old readers know, Putnam Hall was located not far from the village of Cedarville on Cayuga Lake. To get to the school the boys had to take a train to Ithaca and then board a little lake steamer stopping at Cedarville and various other points along the shore.