Their mother came in just then with the tea things, so the boys turned the conversation to other matters. Mrs. Hardy wanted to know what was next on their program, now that school was over and the class picnic a thing of the past.
“Graduation exercises,” said Frank promptly. “Next week, at the high school.”
“I must get a new dress,” Mrs. Hardy declared.
“You’ll certainly have to get all dolled up to come and see your sons step up for their diplomas,” agreed Joe laughingly. “It only happens once in a lifetime, you know.”
“I’m glad to see you graduate, but in a way I’m sorry,” confessed their mother. “It means you’re growing up and you soon won’t be my boys any longer.”
“We’ll always be your boys, even if we live to be a hundred,” declared Frank, putting an arm about his mother’s waist.
“Have you decided what you want to do after the holidays are over?” she asked. “You know I’ve been counting on having you both go through college.”
The boys looked serious.
“We’ll have to think about that,” Joe said. “Still, there’s lots of time. A whole summer ahead of us.”
“Be sure and think seriously about it,” their mother warned. “It is a serious matter. Your whole future will depend on your decision.”
“Maybe by the end of the summer we’ll feel different about going to college,” said Frank. “Just now I’m so glad to be out of school that I never want to see another study book again as long as I live.”
“Me, too,” declared Joe.
Their mother smiled indulgently, and the matter of the boys’ future plans rested at that.
IX
Missing Mail
The night of the graduation exercises at the Bayport high school arrived, differing little from similar events in past years but of profound importance to the members of the graduating class and their parents.
Mr. and Mrs. Hardy were there, very proud of their two boys, and Mrs. Hardy beamed with pleasure when Frank and Joe, dressed in their finest clothes and looking very uncomfortable, stepped up to receive their diplomas. Chet Morton was so nervous and embarrassed that he stumbled on the way to the platform and ended by dropping the diploma when it was handed to him.
All the girls looked their prettiest, the boys looked their handsomest, the principal of the school excelled himself in the speech he had made at every graduation for the past fifteen years, various prominent citizens expressed their pride in the young people, and Callie Shaw, as class valedictorian, won the hearts of all by her valedictory address.
There were other numbers on the program, including a violin solo by Iola Morton, an exceedingly vigorous recitation by Biff Hooper, an accordion solo by Tony Prito and—to cap it all—the antics of a burlesque orchestra organized by Chet. In this, Chet was in his element, wearing a fireman’s hat and a huge false mustache. Frank and Joe Hardy, wearing stovepipe hats and red wigs, alternated at a bass drum; Jerry Gilroy, in a coat that reached to his heels, performed upon a saxophone that wouldn’t work and from which Chet produced a string of sausage at the critical moment; Phil Cohen tortured a flute that was capable of but one note. The burlesque orchestra assaulted the ears of the audience for some time, with no music whatever, but with such earnestness that the hearers were doubled up with laughter.
This was the high spot of the program, so far as the boys were concerned, and it ended the graduation exercises. When they left the school that night they all felt a little sad, as they knew they were leaving it for all time, “unless,” Chet Morton said, “they invite us back some day when we’re very famous to address the students on ‘The Secret of Success.’ ”
“In the meantime,” said Frank, “what are we going to do this summer?”
“I’d like another outing,” Joe volunteered.
“Too much excitement for me,” returned Chet. “Last summer we were going to have a nice quiet trip down the coast, and look what happened. We got mixed up with a gang of smugglers and had no end of trouble.”
“It finished up happily enough, didn’t it?” said Frank. “Even if you did get lost!”
“This summer, I’d like to have a nice quiet holiday in a nice quiet cabin, with a good beach, where we can swim and loaf around and eat and sleep and not have anything to worry about.”
“Sounds attractive,” Joe admitted. “Where are you going to find this place, and how can we get there?”
“How about Cabin Island?” suggested Biff Hooper.
The others were thoughtful.
“You’ve had worse ideas, Biff,” said Chet Morton. “Do you think Mr. Jefferson will let us go there?”
Frank laughed.
“Why not? Didn’t we find his missing stamp collection? Didn’t he say we could have the use of the island and the cabin any time we wished? There won’t be any trouble so far as that’s concerned.”
“I think an outing to Cabin Island would be the real thing,” Joe declared. “What do you say to organizing a trip? We can take the motorboats, use Cabin Island as our headquarters, then work out from there so we can go wherever we wish.”
“You have a head on your shoulders,” Chet approved. “When we get tired of camping we can go exploring. When we get tired of the motorboats we can loaf around Cabin Island.”
“Joe and I have the summer free,” said Frank. “After that, we’ll either go to college or go into business with our father.”
“Don’t you know yet?”
“We want to go in with dad,” said Joe promptly. “But he and mother seem bent on having us go to college. I think we’ll have a lot of arguing yet.”
“In the meantime, don’t let it spoil your summer,” advised Chet. “Well, if you want to go on this outing,
