Afterwards he wandered back to the principal street of the village and bought three very green apples for a nickel and munched them while he tried to find interest in the store windows. But the East Mendon stores were neither large nor flourishing, and their window displays were not at all enthralling. It was still only slightly after twelve-thirty as, having exhausted the entertainments of the village, he went back to the station, got his magazine from his bag, and made himself as comfortable as he could in a corner of the small waiting-room. It was hot and close in there, and smelled of dust and train smoke, but he found a good story in the magazine and was soon lost to everything but the adventures of the hero. That first story was so interesting that, having finished it, he started another, after a cursory glance about the room which was now beginning to fill up. He was halfway through the second story when the express came thundering in with much screeching of brake-shoes. The event promised excitement and so he slipped his magazine in a pocket of his coat, took up his bag, and went out on the platform with the other occupants of the room. It seemed at first glance that everyone was getting out of the express and Sam had to flatten himself against the station wall to keep from being trod on. To his momentary surprise, most of the arrivals appeared to be boys; there must, he thought, be a hundred of them! Then it dawned on him that he was getting his first look at his future charges. When, presently, the express went on again and the crowd on the platform had sorted itself out, he saw that the hundred boys really numbered only about thirty or forty. In age they seemed between twelve and fifteen, and they were of all sorts; short boys and tall boys, fat boys and thin boys, quiet boys and noisy boys. Each had his bag beside him and most of them were pestering the baggage-man about their trunks. Suddenly into the mêlée about that exasperated official pushed a broad-shouldered, capable-looking man of twenty-two or three years. He had a sun-browned face and wore a straw hat with a yellow-and-blue band around it. “Now then, fellows!” Sam heard him say briskly. “Every one across to the other platform, please. I’ll take charge of your checks.” In a minute order grew out of chaos and the boys, yielding their trunk checks, went off around the station. Sam followed. Two stage-coaches and four three-seated carriages were backed up to the platform and the boys were scrambling for outside seats on the coaches. Suit-cases and bags were being piled on the roofs, and pandemonium again reigned until, as before, the man with the yellow-and-blue hat-band appeared and took charge. “That’s enough on top now! Pile inside, you chaps. That’ll do. The rest of you get into the hacks. Room for one more here, though. You going to Indian Lake?”