Page:Cornelia Meigs--The island of Appledore.djvu/176

156. You are old enough now to manage such matters.”

Again Billy laid down the paper and sat thinking. Here was the thing that, next to his father’s and mother’s coming, he had long  wanted above all others. A camping trip—among those wonderful mountains—planned by himself—to include just the boys he  wanted. Whom should he ask? There was—

“Come on, Billy Wentworth, or you’ll miss the train.” The shout from the hall below  brought him quickly to his senses. They were all leaving for Chicago to play the last basketball game of the season; it was from there that  they were to scatter for the holidays. He seized his suitcase, jammed on his hat and ran  downstairs. He would have to decide on the way whether he would go West at once or not.

It was not unnatural, perhaps, that a party of boys wrapped up in their own and the  school’s affairs, should have very little knowledge of the bigger matters of the outside  world. Lately, however, events were becoming so exciting, situations were growing so tense, that every boy, the moment he got on  the train, must have his paper and devour the