The Golden Boys on the River Drive
Levi Parker Wyman
9781465658302
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
“Hurrah! She’s breaking up.” Two boys were standing on a little wharf looking out over the ice covered surface of Moosehead Lake in northern Maine. They were fine specimens of American boyhood. Bob Golden, nineteen years old, lacked but a trifle of standing six feet and was possessed of a body perfectly proportioned to its height. His brother Jack, a year younger, was not quite so tall but his body was as perfectly developed. Except when at school they had for years lived in the great out-of-doors, in the Maine woods and on the Maine lakes, and the free and open life coupled with the invigorating air of the Pine Tree State had given them “mens sana in corpore sano.” They had arrived at the lumber camp belonging to their father the day before, having driven up from their home in Skowhegan, a small town about fifty miles to the south. The Fortress, a military college in Pennsylvania, where they were cadets, had closed for a three weeks’ vacation and they had lost no time in reaching the camp. “She’s breaking up,” Jack repeated, dancing about like a wild man, on the end of the wharf. “Just look at that crack run out into the lake, will you,” he added, as a heavy booming sound reverberated through the vast forest. “And just think,” Bob declared, as he grabbed his brother by the arm and held him fast, “by night there won’t be a speck of ice to be seen anywhere on the lake. I wonder where it all goes to so quickly.” Jack was about to reply when the loud call of a horn rang through the air. “I don’t know, but I do know where I’m going,” he cried as he turned and sprang for the shore. “Come on or I’ll eat all the flapjacks,” he called back, as he saw that his brother was still watching the ice. “Be with you in a minute,” Bob shouted, his eyes still on the lake. It was a fascinating sight, the ice slowly heaving with a suppressed restlessness as though loath to give up its sovereignty of the lake. But hunger soon overcame his desire to watch the lake and he was but a few minutes later than his brother in entering the long mess room. Breakfast was on the long table, along the two sides of which about forty men were doing their best to make way with the huge piles of hot cakes and bacon and eggs, to say nothing of doughnuts and coffee.
