How about all those other boys, over on Randall’s Island? They too were walled in, but were they not the same boys? Did the house they were in change them? At all events, like Rodney, they had “loads of work to do,” all day, until supper time. Then indeed there was a curious kind of coming in to supper, for this, too, was part of their schooling and their discipline. All over the enclosure and in every workshop, could be heard the tap of a drum. Everywhere, work stopped. There were minutes of preparation and of “putting away things.” Then another drum-tap was heard, and from all directions compact and orderly squads of young fellows began to march toward the great dining-room, supper-room, of the House. Every boy was “tallied,” on leaving his place of work, and he was counted again as he went in to supper. Every sentry on duty; every boy in the “office”; promoted there for good behavior; every inmate of the House was at that hour reported and the Superintendent knew where he was and what he was doing. All but a very few of the boys were either eating supper or taking their regular turns as waiters, under the supervision of a blue-coated gentleman who was all the while explaining the supper management to half a dozen visitors. The supper was plentiful, of good quality, well cooked, and there was absolute fairness in the way it was served. There were many tables, each large enough for a dozen or so of boys to sit around it comfortably, and each table had its own boy watcher, a kind of corporal, promoted to that post, temporarily, for good conduct. There could be no favoritism shown by the waiters, for among them, to and fro, walked the regular officers of the Institution. Anyhow, the supper of those hundreds of young fellows, so many of whom would otherwise have gone without any supper, was worth anybody’s while to go and see, for it suggested something that was said, once: “I was hungry and ye fed Me.” Hundreds of boys, and not a word from one of them, even to his next neighbor, for the rule of the place was that there should be no talking at the table. Therefore, at all of the many tables arranged around the great dining hall, the most noticeable person present was Silence. So it was, although not so perfectly, at Uncle John Bronson’s house, fifty miles away, up the Hudson, but the silence was broken there, at last. “John!” exclaimed Aunt Betty. “I can’t help thinking of Jim. I wish I knew what he is doing and how they treat him.” “I guess they treat him well enough,” he responded, grimly. “But it doesn’t do any good for us to talk about him.” “Well, I s’pose it doesn’t,” she said. “But it seems as if he had lost everything. When a boy is sent to such a place, you take away from him all he has----” “No, you don’t,” he exclaimed. “They say it’s a good place. Besides, he did it, himself, when he stole the money. He’d always been kind o’ reckless and self-willed. I guess he’ll learn something.”