There was a long warning shriek from the engine, echoed back by the wooded slope of Mount Adam; a momentary reverberating roar as the train crossed the little viaduct; the whistle of air brakes; and then, as the train came to a stop, a babel of boys’ voices. Some twenty youths of assorted ages and sizes, laden with every description of luggage, from golf bags and valises down to boxes of figs and caramels purchased from the train-boy and still uneaten, pushed and scrambled their way to the station platform. The last trunk was slid from the baggage car, and the conductor, portly and jovial, sang “All aboard!” and waved a smiling good-by to the boys. “Good-by, Pop! See you later!” “Don’t forget that anti-fat, Pop!” And then, when the train had gained speed, a slim junior danced along the platform waving a bit of pasteboard exultingly under the conductor’s nose and just out of his reach: “Hey, Pop! You didn’t get my ticket! Stop the train! Stop the train!” An old joke this, that never failed of applause. The conductor shook his fist in simulated wrath, and the next instant, with a farewell shriek of the whistle, the train was lost to sight. Beside the platform waited the coach, from the box of which “Old Joe,” the driver, smiled a toothless welcome. Each year held three red-letter days for “Old Joe,” namely, the days preceding the commencement of the three school terms, when the students, refreshed by recess or vacation, returned in merry troops to Hillton--noisy, mischievous, vexing, but ever admirable to the old stage-driver--and taxed the capacity of the coach to the utmost, and “Old Joe’s” patience to the limit. This was the first of the red-letter days of the present year, which was as yet but forty-eight hours old, and all day long the boys who had been so fortunate as to return to their homes for the Christmas recess had been piling from the trains to the stage and from the stage to the steps of Academy Building. And “Old Joe,” who loved the excitement of it all, and worshiped everything, animate or inanimate, that belonged to Hillton, was in his glory. “Now, then, you young terrors, get aboard here. Can’t wait all afternoon for you. This ain’t no ’commodating train, and----” “Hello, Joe, old chap; how’s your appetite?” “Still able to sit up and take your meals, Joe?” “Say, fellows, Old Joe’s looking younger every day.” “Give me a hand up, Joe, and I’ll show you how to drive those old plugs of yours.” “Please, Joe, you said I could sit on the box with you this trip, don’t you remember?” “Have to be next time, youngster; seat’s full a’ready. How do, Mister Hope? Scramble out o’ here, sir, an’ give Mister Hope your seat. Oh, is that you, Mister Nesbitt? Well----” “No, I’ll sit back here,” answered the boy addressed as Hope. “I can jump off quicker when we upset.”