There was great rejoicing in Kingston that night, much croaking of tin horns, and much building of bonfires.  The athletic year had been remarkably successful, and every one realized the vital part played in that success by the men from Lakerim the Dozen, who had made some enemies, as all active people must, and had made many more friends, as all active people may.

The rejoicing of the Lakerimmers themselves had a faint tang of regret, for while they were all to go back to the same town together for their vacation, yet they knew that this would be the last year of school life they could ever spend together.  Next year History, Punk, Sawed-Off, and Jumbo were to go to college.  The others had at least one more year of preparatory work.

And they thought, too, that this first separation into two parts was only the beginning of many separations that should finally scatter them perhaps over the four quarters of the globe.

There was Bobbles, for instance, who had an uncle that was a great sugar magnate in the Hawaiian Islands, and had offered him a position there whenever he was ready for it.

B.J. had been promised an appointment to Annapolis, for he would be a sailor and an officer of Uncle Sam’s navy.

And Tug had been offered a chance to try for West Point, and there were no dangers for him in either the rigid mental or the physical examinations.

Pretty, who had shown a wonderful gift for modeling in clay, was going some day to Paris to study sculpture.

And Quiz looked forward to being a lawyer.

The Twins would go into business, since their father’s busy sawmill property would descend to both of them, and, as they thought it out, could not very well be divided.  Plainly they must make the best of life together.  It promised to be a lively existence, but a pleasant one withal.

History hoped to be a great writer some day, and Punk would be a professor of something staid and quiet, Latin most probably.

Sawed-Off and Jumbo had not made up their minds as to just what the future was to hold for them, but they agreed, that it must be something in partnership.

Sleepy had never a fancy of what coming years should bring him to do; he preferred to postpone the unpleasant task of making up his mind, and only took the trouble to hope that the future would give him something that offered plenty of time for sleeping and eating.

Late into the night the Twelve sat around a waving bonfire, their eyes twinkling at the memory of old victories and defeats, of struggles that were pleasant, whatever their outcome, just because they were struggles.

At length Sleepy got himself to his feet with much difficulty.

“Going to bed?” Jumbo sang out.

“Nope,” drawled Sleepy, and disappeared into the darkness.

They all smiled at the thought of him, whom none of them respected and all of them loved.

In a space of time quite short for him, Sleepy returned with an arm-load of books the text-books that had given him so much trouble, and would have given him more had they had the chance offered them.

“Fire’s getting low,” was all he said, and he dumped the school-books, every one, into the blaze.

The other Lakerimmers knew that they had passed every examination, either brilliantly or, at the worst, well enough to scrape through.  Sleepy did not even know whether he had failed or not; but the next morning he found out that he should sadly need next year those books that were charred ashes in a corner of the campus, and should have to replace them out of his spending-money.

That night, however, he was blissful with ignorance, and having made a pyre of his bookish tormentors, he fell in with the jollity of the others.

When it grew very late silence gradually fell on the gossipy Twelve.  The beauty of the night and the union of souls seemed to be speech enough.

Finally the fire fell asleep, and with one mind they all rose and, standing in a circle about glimmering ashes, clasped hands in eternal friendship, and said: 

“Good night!”

THE HOME PLATE