Mr.Thayer was willing that Clint should prepare for college in his native state, but Clint's mother had other ideas.

Mr.
Thayer had graduated from Princeton and it had long been settled that Clint was to be educated there too; and Clint's mother insisted that since he was to attend a Northern college it would be better for him to go to a Northern preparatory school.

Clint himself had not felt strongly enough about it to object.

Several of his chums had gone or were going to Virginia Military College; and Clint would have liked to go there too, although the military feature didn't especially appeal to him.
Brimfield Academy, at Brimfield, New York, had finally been selected, principally because a cousin of Clint's on his father's side had once attended the school.

The fact that the cousin in question had never amounted to much and was now clerking in a shoe store in Norfolk was not held against the school.
So far the boy had liked what he had seen of Brimfield well enough.