Andy at Yale | Page 2

out, you old faker! You know that view from Brad's Hill can't be beat for miles around."
"That's right!" chorused the others, and there seemed to have come over them all a more serious manner with the mention of the pending break-up of their pleasant relations. They had hardly realized it before.
For a few minutes they walked on over the hills in silence. The green fields, with here and there patches of woodland, stretched out all around them. Over in the distance nestled a little town, its white church, with the tall, slender spire, showing plainly.
Behind them, hidden by these same green hills over which they were tramping this beautiful day in early June, lay another town, now out of sight in a hollow. It was Warrenville, on the outskirts of which was located the Milton Preparatory School the five lads attended. They were in their last year, would soon graduate, and then separate, to go to various colleges, or other institutions.
School work had ended early this day on account of coming examinations, and the lads, who had been chums since their entrance at Milton, had voted to go for a walk, and end up with an early supper at Kelly's, a more or less celebrated place where the students congregated. This was at Churchtown, about five miles from Warrenville. The boys were to walk there and come back in the trolley.
They had spent two years at the Milton school, and had been friends for years before that, all of them living in the town of Dunmore, in one of our Middle States. There was much rejoicing among them when they found that all five who had played baseball and football together in Dunmore, were to go to the same preparatory school. It meant that the pleasant relations were not to be severed. But now the shadow of parting had cast itself upon them, and had tempered their buoyant spirits.
"Yes, boys, it will soon be good-bye to old Milton!" exclaimed Chet, with a sigh.
"I wonder if we'll get anybody like Dr. Morrison at any of the colleges we go to?" spoke Ben.
"You can't beat him--no matter where you go!" declared Andy. "He's the best ever!"
"That's right! He knows just how to take a fellow," commented Tom. "Remember the time I smuggled the puppy into the physiology class?"
"I should say we did!" laughed Andy.
"And how he yelped when I pinched his tail that stuck out from under your coat," added Ben. "Say, it was great!"
"I'll never forget how old Pop Swann looked up over the tops of his glasses," put in Frank.
"Dr. Morrison was mighty decent about it when he had me up on the carpet, too," added Tom. "I thought sure I was in for a wigging--maybe a suspension, and I couldn't stand that, for dad had written me one warning letter.
"But all Prexy did was to look at me in that calm, withering, pitying way he has, and then say in that solemn voice of his: 'Ah, Hatfield, I presume you are going in for vivisection?' Say, you could have floored me with a feather. That's the kind of a man Dr. Morrison is."
"Nobody else like him," commented Andy, with a sigh.
"Oh, well, if any of us go to Yale, or Princeton, or Harvard, I guess we'll find some decent profs. there," spoke Ben. "They can't all be riggers."
"Sure not," said Andy. "But those colleges will be a heap sight different from Milton."
"Of course! What do you expect? This is a kindergarten compared to them!" exclaimed Frank.
"But it's a mighty nice kindergarten," commented Tom. "It's like a school in our home town, almost."
"I sure will be sorry to leave it," added Andy. "But come on; we'll never get to Kelly's at this rate."
The sun was sinking behind the western hills in a bank of golden and purple clouds. Two miles yet lay between the lads and their objective point--the odd little oyster and chop house so much frequented by the students of Milton. It was an historic place, was Kelly's; a beloved place where the lads foregathered to talk over their doings, their hopes, their fears, their joys and sorrows. It was an old-fashioned place, with little, dingy rooms, come upon unexpectedly; rooms just right for small parties of congenial souls--with tall, black settles, and tables roughened with many jack-knifed initials.
"We can cut over to the road, and get there quicker," remarked Andy, after a pause. "Suppose we do it. I don't want to get back too late."
"All right," agreed Tom. "I want to write a couple of letters myself."
"Oh, ho! Now who's got a girl?" demanded Chet, suspiciously.
"Nobody, you amalgamated turnip. I'm going to write to dad, and settle this college business. Might as well make a decision now as later, I reckon."
"We'll have to sign soon, or it