The Grammar School Boys Snowbound | Page 7

gentleman used to go out to that cabin to live for a while, two or three times in every year. The place was in excellent repair when he died. It is still, I imagine."
There was a breathless silence as the lawyer ceased speaking. How the thought of that log cabin, out in the deep forest, appealed to the imaginations of such Grammar School boys as these!
"Well, sir?" asked Greg breathlessly, at last.
"Young men, if your parents should consent to your going on such a wild, madcap picnic in mid-winter, I would let you have the use of that cabin. But you may have the use of the cabin at any other time, as long as the cabin remains in Mrs. Dexter's name, so I would suggest your going in the spring or summer."
"Oh, pshaw!" leaped to Greg Holmes's lips, but he choked back the exclamation. What use would boys have for a log cabin in summer, when there was a chance to use it in mid-winter? Besides, the summer seemed a long way off.
"Is there any water near the cabin, Mr. Ripley?" asked Tom Reade, who possessed a practical head in such matters.
"Yes; a spring, within perhaps twenty or thirty feet of the doorway," nodded the lawyer. "Inside the cabin is one of the big, old-fashioned fire-places----"
"O-o-oh! A-a-ah!" gasped the youngsters in chorus.
"There are also eight bunks in the place, each with a straw or dry-leaf mattress," continued Mr. Ripley. "There are table and chairs, hand made and of the crudest kind, and some few tools."
"Say, wouldn't that make an ideal camp?" demanded Dick Prescott, turning to his chums, his eyes glowing.
All their faces were flushed with the excitement of the thing. Now that it was so close, and practical, all the boys of Dick & Co. felt a wild desire to be up and away for camp at once.
"And you say we may have the cabin, sir, and the right to cut some firewood in the forest?" Dick asked.
"I said you could, if you had your parents' full and free permission to go," replied Lawyer Ripley. "That, I fancy, is a very different thing."
"But if we get that permission, sir," urged Dick, "and come back and tell you so, then you will let us----"
"If you get home permission, you won't need to come back to me at all," replied Lawyer Ripley, smiling, as he rose. "Just go and help yourselves to the cabin and what few improvements it contains. But I am afraid, boys, you are going to be very much disappointed if you expect that your parents will consent. I think it very unlikely that you'll get any such permission. I will send your thanks to Mrs. Dexter, and will also tell her what I have told you about the use of the camp. As to-morrow will be Christmas, I shall not be back here to-day. If you go camping, boys--which I don't believe you will--don't burn the old cabin down unless you find it necessary in order to keep warm enough."
As Lawyer Ripley now made it plain that he was about to leave, the boys hastily repeated their thanks and left the office.
Not until they got down into the street did any of them feel like speaking.
"Say, fellows, if that isn't the grandest----" suddenly blazed forth Greg.
"It's all right," nodded Tom.
"I'm going camping, if I can get any of you fellows to go with me," announced Dave Darrin.
"If your folks will let you, you mean," interrupted Hazelton.
"They will," Dave contended. "And so will yours, Dick."
"I--I hope so," sighed Dick, his eyes dancing. "I never before in my life wanted to do anything as much as I now want to go camping."
"With the still woods, all snow-covered!" cried Dan enthusiastically.
"And the cold nights, with the great fire roaring up the chimney!" supplied Greg.
"And some hunting!"
"And the jolly fun of cooking our own food!"
These youngsters, as they hurried along the street, were in grave danger of being lost in the depths of their own excitement.
"Say, I wonder if there'd be any fishing out there--through the ice?" demanded Harry Hazelton.
"There'd be some rabbit hunting, anyway," supplied Dan.
"If we can only get leave to go!" groaned Greg anxiously.
"See here, fellows," muttered Dick, halting suddenly. "We've simply got to get that leave from our parents!"
"But how?" challenged Dan.
"That's what we've got to think out right now. And, by hookey! I believe I have an idea. Fellows, we have ten dollars apiece."
"My mother will say that I must put that in bank," grunted Dan.
"Wait! Of course, with ten dollars apiece, we've got to consult our parents as to how the money is to be spent," Dick went on. "Now, that is a matter that will call for a little diplomacy. Some of what our principal, Old Dut, calls 'finish'--no, 'finesse.'"
"What's that?" Dan wanted