Great chance, Bob. Wouldn’t mind being in your boots. Dig up a few kings and buried cities for me, won’t you? Hope you have a wonderful time. We’ll think about you. Let us know how you’re coming on now and then. Well, sorry you can’t go with me. So long!”

Bob looked after the car wistfully. Somehow the hometown and the home folks had suddenly taken on a friendly look they had never shown before.

“I like him,” he said suddenly, as if he were thinking aloud.

“He certainly is a prince of a fellow,” said Alan, as he got out his latchkey.

The boys went quietly upstairs to Alan’s room and sat down to talk. As they turned on the light, they saw a big pitcher of milk and a plate of sandwiches and cake.

“Draw up and let’s have a bite,” said Alan. “My mother thinks I haven’t eaten supper evidently.”

“Is that the kind of thing mothers do?” Bob said wistfully. “Good night! And you wanted to go for dessert! Well, if I had a mother like that, I don’t know but I’d turn the job over to some other fellow, too.”

“Say,” said Alan thoughtfully, “you begin to make me think I haven’t been half appreciative of my lot.”

When they had cleared the plates and finished the milk, Alan reached for the package and untied it.

“This,” he said, as he opened the box, “is for you, Bob. It’s from the bunch. They want you to take it with you. Think you’ve got room to carry it?”

He felt just the least bit embarrassed now that he had begun. He was not quite sure how Bob would take the gift of a Bible. Perhaps after all, as Sherrill had suggested, he might resent it. He had the name of not caring much for religion or churches.

“For me?” said Bob with pleased surprise. “From the bunch? Say, what have you been saying to them? The bunch never cared a red cent for me.”

“That’s all you know about it, Bob,” said Alan. “And I haven’t said a word to them. It was all cooked up by the bunch. Sherrill Washburn is president, you know, this year, and she called me up awhile ago and asked if I thought you would mind their giving it to you.”

“Mind?” said Bob. “Indeed I do mind. I mind so much that I’ll carry it all the way in my hands if there isn’t any other place for it. What is it?”

“That’s it, Bob. I guess maybe they thought it wasn’t quite in your line. They didn’t know but you might like something else better. You see, it’s—a Bible!”

Alan stripped off the confining paper and handed over the beautifully bound Scofield Bible.

The other boy took it with a look of awe and reverence that astonished MacFarland. He held it in his hand a moment and felt of its covers, opened it and noted its suppleness, its gold edges, its fine paper, its clear print, and then looked down for an instant, almost as if he were going to cry.

“I’ve never had a Bible,” he said huskily at last, “but I’ll see to it hereafter that it’s in my line. I sure am grateful.”

“I think they’ve written something in the front,” said Alan to cover his own deep feeling. He reached over and turned the pages back to the flyleaf where it was inscribed.

To Robert Fulton Lincoln with the best wishes of his friends of the West Avenue Young People’s Group.

 

There followed a long string of autographs, most of them belonging to Robert Lincoln’s former schoolmates, and at the bottom in small script, 2 Timothy 2:15.

“Here, I’ve got to get my name in that space they left there,” said Alan, getting out his fountain pen.