sworn pal, the tiny Jumbo, was well nigh
distracted at the thought of severing their two knitted hearts; but
Sawed-Off's father was dead, and his mother was too poor to pay for
his schooling, so they gave him up for lost, not without aching at the
heart, and even a little dampness at the eyelids.

Heady was the first to leave town. He slipped away on an early morning
train without telling any one, for he felt very much ashamed of his
stubbornness; and he and his brother shook hands with each other as
nervously as two prize-fighters.

A few days later the five sixths of the Dozen that were booked
for Kingston stood on the crowded platform of the Lakerim
railroad-station, bidding good-by to all the parents they had, and all
the friends. All of them had paid long calls on their best girls
the evening before, and exchanged photographs and locks of hair and
various keepsakes more or less sentimental and altogether useless. So,
now that they were in public, they all shook hands very formally: Tug
with a girl several years older than he; Pretty with the beautiful
Enid; Quiz with the fickle Cecily Brown; bashful Bobbles with the
bouncing Betsy; B.J. with a girl who had as many freckles as B.J. had
had imaginary encounters with the bandits who had tried to steal her;
the unwilling Sleepy with a lively young woman who broke his heart by
congratulating him on being able to go to Kingston; tiny Jumbo with
plump Carrie Shields, whom he had once fished out of the water;
and Reddy with the girl over whom he and his brother had had their
bitterest quarrels, and who could not for the life of her tell which
one she liked the better.

[Illustration: STOP THE TRAIN AND WAIT FOR ME, I'M GOING TO KINGSTON,
TOO!]

But there was one very little girl in the crowd whose greatest sorrow,
strangely enough, was the fact that she had no one to bid good-by
to, since her dearest friend, the huge Sawed-Off, was not to go to
Kingston.

Just as the engine began to ring its warning bell, and the conductor
to wave the people aboard, there was a loud clatter of hoofs, and the
rickety old Lakerim carryall came dashing up, drawn by the lively
horses Sawed-Off had once saved from destroying themselves and the
Dozen in one fell swoop down a steep hill. The carryall lurched up to
the station came to a sudden stop, and out bounced--who but Sawed-Off
himself, loaded down with bundles, and yelling at the top of his
voice:

"Stop the train and wait for me.