ly became silent and
almost deserted; a few members of the school lingered and half a dozen
of the faculty remained to spend a part or all of the vacation on the
hill, but the great majority set forth to the four quarters of the wind.
Among those who took the morning train on that day of great exodus were
Neil Durant and Teeny-bits Holbrook. Within three hours, as the engine
dragged its load westward, the Ridgleyites who at the start had crowded
two cars had diminished in number to no more than a score. Every large
station along the way claimed two or three and as they left they shouted
back farewells and, loaded down with suitcases, went out to greet the
friends and relatives who had come to meet them. They all had a word for
Neil Durant and Teeny-bits--a special word it seemed--for there was no
question that recent events had ripened the friendships and enhanced the
popularity of these two members of "the best school in the world."

What happiness this was, Teeny-bits said to himself, to be going on a
vacation with a fellow like Neil Durant and to have evidence at every
moment of the friendship of such a "good crowd" as these fellows who
were piling off the train and yelling out their good-bys. It all made
him feel how much the last three months had brought into his life, how
much he owed to the generosity of old Fennimore Ridgley who, though long
ago laid to rest in his grave, had made it possible by his gift for
Teeny-bits to come to Ridgley School.

At two o'clock the train pulled into the station of Dellsport where
Teeny-bits and Neil said good-by to the half dozen of their schoolmates
who were going farther west. They found waiting for them in a closed car
Mrs. Durant and Sylvia Durant, Neil's sister, who immediately made
Teeny-bits feel at ease by talking about school affairs. It had been a
tremendous disappointment, it seemed, to both Mrs. Durant and Sylvia
that they had been unable to come to the football game which had
resulted so gloriously for Ridgley.

"If it hadn't been for the influenza," said Sylvia, "you would have
heard some terrible shrieking on the day of that game--I know I'd have
yelled loud enough so that every one would have heard me, because there
was nothing in the world that I wanted quite so much as to have Ridgley
come through. And when we got Neil's telegram maybe I didn't make the
windows rattle! And mother _almost_ yelled, too."

"We had a terrible quarrel over the newspaper the next