"Oh, Dave, that would be--be----" Jessie could not go on.

"As soon as I get back I'm going to buckle down, and get to be a
regular greasy grind, as they call 'em. I've made up my mind to one
thing I'm afraid the others won't like."

"What's that?"

"I'm going to cut the baseball nine, if I can. It takes too much time
from our studies."

"Won't that be easy?"

"I don't know. I made quite a record, you know. Maybe the crowd will
insist on it that I play. Of course, I don't want to see Oak Hall lose
any games. But I guess they'll have players enough--with all the new
students coming in."

"And if you do graduate, Dave, what then?" asked Jessie, after a
pause. This question had been on her mind a long time, but she had
hesitated about asking it.

"To tell the honest truth, Jessie, I don't know," answered Dave, very
slowly. "I've thought and thought, but I can't seem to hit the right
thing. Your father and Professor Potts seem to think I ought to go to
college, and I rather incline that way myself. But then I think of
going to some technical institution, and of taking up civil
engineering, or mining, or something like that. Uncle Dunston knew a
young fellow who became a civil engineer and went to South America and
laid out a railroad across the Andes Mountains, and he knew another
young fellow who took up mining and made a big thing of a mine in
Montana. That sort of thing appeals to me, and it appeals to Dad,
too."

"But it would take you so far from home, Dave!" and Jessie caught hold
of his arm as she spoke, as if afraid he was going to leave that
minute.

"I know it, but--er--but--would you care, Jessie?" he stammered.

"Care? Of course, I'd care!" she replied, and suddenly began to blush.
"We'd all care."

"But would you care very much?" he insisted, lowering his voice.
"Because, if you would, I'd tell you something."

"What would you tell me?" she asked.

"The young fellow who went to South America as a civil engineer took
his wife with him."

"Oh, Dave!" and for the moment Jessie turned her head away.

"If I went so far off, I'd want somebody with me, Jessie. A fellow
would be awfully lonely otherwise."

"I--I suppose that would be so."

"If you thought enough of a fellow, would you go to South America, or
Montana, or Africa with him?" And Dave looked Jessie full in the
face.

"I'd go to the end of the world with him," she answered, with sudden
boldness.

Then Mr. Porter and Phil came back