shack would not have been livable. For the first time
both Ted and Laurie realized that the summer they had each enjoyed so
heartily was at an end and they were face to face with a different
phase of life.

The harvest, with its horde of vegetables and fruit, had been gathered
into the yawning barns and cellars and the earth that had given so
patiently of its increase had earned the right to lay fallow until the
planting of another spring. Ted's work was done. He had helped deposit
the last barrel of ruddy apples, the last golden pumpkins within doors,
and now he had nothing more to do but to pack up his possessions
preparatory to returning to Freeman's Falls, there to rejoin his family
and continue his studies.

Once the thought that the drudgery of summer was over would have been a
delightful one. Why, he could remember the exultation with which he had
burned the last cornstalks at the end of the season when at home in
Vermont. The ceremony had been a rite of hilarious rejoicing. But this
year, strange to say, a dull sadness stole over him whenever he looked
upon the devastated gardens and the reaches of bare brown earth. There
was nothing to keep him longer either at Aldercliffe or Pine Lea. His
work henceforth lay at school.

It was strange that a little sigh accompanied the thought for had he
not always looked forward to this very prospect? What was the matter
now? Was not studying the thing he had longed to be free to do? Why
this regret and depression? And why was his own vague sadness reflected
in Laurie's eyes and in those of Mr. Hazen? Summer could not last
forever; it was childish to ask that it should. They all had known from
the beginning that these days of companionship must slip away and come
to an end. And yet the end had come so quickly. Why, it had scarcely
been midsummer before the twilight had deepened and the days mellowed
into autumn.

Well, they had held many happy, happy hours for Ted, at least. Never
had he dreamed of such pleasures. He had enjoyed his work, constant
though it had been, and had come to cherish as much pride in the
gardens of Aldercliffe and Pine Lea, in the vast crops of hay that
bulged from the barn lofts, as if they had been his own. And when
working hours were over there was Laurie Fernald and the new and
pleasant friendship that existed between them.

As Ted began to drag out from beneath his bunk the empty wooden boxes
he purposed to pack his books in, his heart sank