THIS TRAIL FOR THREE DESSERTSFOLLOW ARROW
THIS TRAIL FOR THREE DESSERTS
FOLLOW ARROW
A few yards farther along they came upon another sign on which was a detailed mathematical appeal.
THE NEW WAY
THE NEW WAY
One month scouts .... 90 helpingsTwo month scouts .... 180 ”
One month scouts .... 90 helpingsTwo month scouts .... 180 ”
One month scouts .... 90 helpings
Two month scouts .... 180 ”
THE OLD WAY
THE OLD WAY
One month scouts .... 30 helpingsTwo month scouts .... 60 ”
One month scouts .... 30 helpingsTwo month scouts .... 60 ”
One month scouts .... 30 helpings
Two month scouts .... 60 ”
A NICKEL TRIPLES YOUR HELPINGS
A NICKEL TRIPLES YOUR HELPINGS
Still again they came to another one, calculated to stagger them by sheer weight.
TONS OF PIE FOR A NICKEL!MOUNTAINS OF ICE CREAM FOR A NICKEL!
TONS OF PIE FOR A NICKEL!
MOUNTAINS OF ICE CREAM FOR A NICKEL!
And then they came in sight of the cove. There behind the grocery box sat Willie Rivers ready for the mad rush for tickets. Howard Delekson, armed with an enormous stick and looking very much afraid, was strutting around the float to keep off trespassers. And Scout Harris stood upon the rescued keg amid a very carnival of signs, some tempting, others threatening, shouting at the top of his voice.
He had seen barkers displaying dollar bills held between their fingers and spreading out like fans to catch the public eye, and an “inspiration” had seized him to use a large piece of raisin cake as a kind of flaunting bait. To make this the more piquant, he took a large bite occasionally, for advertising purposes only.
“Here’s where you buy your tickets!” he screamed, taking a huge bite. “It costs you only a nickel—five cents! Remember scout regulation seven! It means you! It means everybody all the time, no matter what. Trespassers will be persecuted. No trespassing—absolutely, positively. Anybody that trespasses on this private property without paying five cents gets his name sent to Tom Slade. To-day is ice cream day, don’t delay! Five cents to cross this float! This is the path to three desserts as long as you stay! Follow the black line! Get your foot off this float—go on! Your nickel is safe, the cooking shack is in back of us—”
“I don’t see it,” called a voice.
“I mean financially about food,” Pee-wee shouted. “Tickets honored at messboards or your money back! Hey, Howard, rap any scout in the shins that sets foot on this float. The cost of desserts has come down! The problem has been solved by engineering skill. We may go away from here any time. Now’s your chance!”
There was no doubt about the bridge. If the desserts were as substantial as the bridge there would be no cause of complaint. And there were two things (both printed in black) which the scouts of camp respected. One was regulation seven, the other was Chocolate Drop. Chocolate Drop was absolutely solvent. The cooking shack was as good as the Bank of England.
“Your nickel is safe!” shouted Pee-wee. “Right this way! There’s where you buy your tickets—get your foot off this float, you North Carolina scout. Hit him a crack with the stick! Stand back! Private property! There’s only one way around! The cooking shack is with us! Maybe the price will go up to-morrow!Maybe it will go up in five minutes!”
This last thundered warning brought the hesitating misers to their senses, and financial transactions started on an unprecedented scale. The surging, clamoring throng in the Stock Exchange was nothing to it.
“Hurry up, lend us a nickel.”
“Lend me one too, will you?”
“Do you think I’m a millionaire.”
“Hey, lend us a nickel, will you?”
“Positively no trust!” screamed Pee-wee, anticipating a demand for credit.
Scouts fortunate enough to have loose change with them were already across the float, hurrying helter-skelter to the promised land. One or two did a thriving business in small loans, accepting promissory notes of pie or pudding as security. Those who could not borrow gazed wistfully at the passing show, under the stern and watchful eye of Howard Delekson.
“Hey, give us a bite, Pee-wee?” the financially embarrassed shouted.
“Buy your tickets!” shouted Pee-wee, disdaining to answer.
As the scouts, singly, in pairs, and in small groups, passed across the float, the merry jingle of money sounded in the tin-box behind the ticket office, and mingled harmoniously with the other sounds of hustling prosperity. As the scouts reached the opposite shore of the cove they hiked away through the woods, talking, laughing, jesting, till the woods echoed with their voices. Some arrived in canoes to see the fun, but these were refused tickets, because they had not hiked around. Pee-wee’s operations were conducted strictly on the square.
It was to the credit of all, particularly the loiterers who had no funds, that no one forced a crossing to the happy domain beyond. It is true that some, in their eagerness, advanced far enough to be reminded of a scout’s honor by a vigorous rap in the shins. But no one sneaked across.
The news of this colossal enterprise spread like wildfire, and now scouts came in droves and stood in line to purchase tickets. Dorry Benton took a snapshot of the scene, but alas, it could not reproduce Scout Harris’s voice.
“As long as you stay!” he shouted, waving his small remaining fragment of cake and looking scornfully upon the loiterers; “even if you stay till Thanksgiving. Then you’ll get three anyway, and three more makessix! The chance of a life time! Watch them cross! O-o-o-h! Watch them cross! They can’t wait! It’s only half an hour to dinnertime! A nickel well spent! Cross the eats bridge while it’s still here. O-o-o-h! Use the Hop-toad dessert multiplying system! The cooking shack is back of us with all its vast resources—push that feller back, hurry up! Only a few more tickets left. We start on another cruise to-night! O-o-o-o-h! Here’s where you get your tickets!”
By noontime the crowd began thinning out and business slowed down. Pee-wee gazed anxiously across the lake at the signal poles but no sign of weakening was there at Cooking Shack. No signal to withdraw the offer was to be seen.
Chocolate Drop stood the run, the greatest run on any cooking shack in financial history. He smilingly made each scout sign his name on his ticket and drop it in a bread-pan. He stood ready to pay in full, remarking only, “What dat kid up to next! Lordy,Lordy! He use up ebry last bit of flour I got! I done got not—one—last—cranberry—left!Lordy, he do hab some inspirize! He cer’n’ly do, dat kid!”
The boisterous procession had entirely ceased when Brent Gaylong came ambling around, bought a ticket in the most solemn manner, and went his way. He did not much care for desserts, but he wished to pay his tribute to Pee-wee, whom he greatly admired.
In a little while the sound of the dinner-horn sounded faintly across the water and the hero who had made the camp safe for three desserts, was reminded that his own stock of provisions was running low. Business was at a standstill now, and as the adventurers sat on the float counting their gains, they were conscious of an inner craving which their depleted commissary could not supply. Some of their provisions had been lost in the sanguinary battle of the burs, while other edibles had been freely used for advertising purposes.
It now appeared that what remained was the subject of attack by an army of ants which decorated the food like ornamental cloves on a ham. It seemed likely that the enterprise was all over. And since the ants were likewise all over, the speculators considered what they had better do.
They had begun as poor boys; they were now worth two dollars each. Their operation on that foreign shore had been perfectly legitimate; just as legitimate as Uncle Sam’s enterprise in Panama, where the precedent of charging tolls was established. But the ants were hurrying back and forth across cake and bread and had even penetrated to the fastness of the sugar can. They lurked among the corn flakes. And the edible territory not thus conquered was wet.
“I tell you what let’s do,” said Pee-wee; “there are two things we can do. We can hike down to Catskill and buy ice cream and candy and go to the movies. I know a trail that goes into the Catskill road from here. Or we can drift across the lake and get there for dinner.”
“I say let’s go down to Catskill,” said Willie Rivers.
“I say let’s drift across,” said Howard Delekson.
“I’ve got an inspiration!” shouted Pee-wee. “Let’s hike down to Catskill and buy a lot of stuff—jaw breakers, those are my favorite things because they last longer and you get four for a cent. And we’ll have some sodas, too. Come ahead, get your staff and push out from shore.”
He wet his finger and held it up to determine the direction of the breeze. The side of his finger that felt the first chill settled this matter definitely. Never in all Pee-wee’s life had it settled it correctly, but that made not the slightest difference to him. His faith was boundless.
“It’s blowing over toward the camp,” he said; “it’s due east. We’ll drift over in about five minutes. Come ahead,push. Push as hard as you can.”
“All the things you said made me hungry,” Willie Rivers shyly confessed. “The way you talked made me hungry.”
“Me too,” said Howard.
The gallant barkHop-toadwas now clear of the shore and sailing majestically.
“It’s going in a direction south by south!” shouted Pee-wee, frantically holding up his finger, as if to reprove the deceiving breeze. “I can tell because it’s going the other way from the way I thought it would go.”
“Won’t we get any dinner?” Willie asked.
“How am I to blame if the breeze doesn’t do like it says it’s going to do?” Pee-wee demanded. “If we held a rag up somebody might think it was a flag of truce.”
“We’re not having a war, are we?” Howard ventured to ask.
Pee-wee was too busy poling the float to answer. His scout staff touched bottom, and as the float moved the water became shallower, until soon there was a scraping sound beneath them and the float refused to be pushed any farther. Not only that, it refused to be pushed in any direction whatsoever. It did consent to turn a little like a merry-go-round, but thought better of it presently and became as motionless as a stubborn mule.
“It’s grounded,” Pee-wee said; “come on, push hard; push with all your might.”
The united strength of the three adventurers failed to budge the lumbering float. It sat securely on the gravelly bottom and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t start it moving again.
“We’re marooned!” Pee-wee shouted. “That means kind of like being on a desert island only there isn’t any island; it’s a desert float, but it’s just as good. We’re on a reef; you can tell a reef by closing your eyes and opening them all of a sudden and looking very sudden at the water. It’ll seem kind of gray, like, where the reef is.”
Both of the younger scouts squinted their eyes, in accordance with this valuable bit of nautical lore, but saw nothing. Pee-wee had tried it on every lake and river he had ever seen but never had it revealed anything under the water. It was his choicest bit of scout knowledge with one exception. That was his device for getting a light without matches, only he had to light a match in order to see to work it.
The spot where they were now marooned was a shallow area of the lake near the scene of their sensational adventures. But a few yards of unfathomable depth (six feet deep at least) lay between them and the shore. As for the camp shore, that seemed miles upon miles away, but they could see the sportive smoke circling above the cooking shack, and they gazed wistfully at it, as they thought of the hot stew and boiled potatoes which were being served at the messboards.
In their minds’ eyes, they saw mounds of ice cream standing in saucers, surrounded by little lakes of melted cream. And on each luscious island a cherry, marooned. Not only one helping did their fancy picture forth, but three helpings.
That Pee-wee himself should have sung of these delights (or rather shouted) and that now they should escape him! That he should bellow forth the joys of ice cream and cake and then not have any!
“Let’s send them a signal that we’re starving,” Willie suggested.
“There are four crackers in that box, let’s eat them,” said Pee-wee.
“I guess they’re having roast beef,” said Howard; “they have it on Wednesdays.”
“I saw Chocolate Drop killing some chickens,” said Willie. “I like the part with the wishbone best.”
“I like roast beef because it’s got all brown gravy over it,” Howard observed; “I like dumplings, too.”
“Do you like apple dumplings?” Willie asked.
“Yes, but I like cottage pudding better. I like corn fritters, too.”
“Will you shut up!” screamed Pee-wee.
“Can’t we even talk about it?”
“No, you can’t talk about it,” Pee-wee said, pouring the last remaining crumbs out of a biscuit box into his hand and lapping them up with his tongue.
“I guess they’re just about starting with dessert now; hey?” said Willie.
“I can kind of smell cooking; anyway IthinkI can,” said Howard.
“We’ve got six dollars anyway,” said Willie.
“We’re foiled!” Pee-wee shouted. “What good is six dollars? We promised we wouldn’t go in the water and we can’t get to camp. I know a way to cook moss if you’re starving, only I haven’t got any moss and if I did have, I haven’t got any matches.”
“I can see all those signs about desserts and things; look over there toward the cove,” said Willie. “Don’t you know you said the way to see was by taking off your jacket and holding up your sleeve so as to kind of make a telescope out of it—don’t you remember? Do you think we’ll be peruned long?”
“Now you’re talking about prunes!” Pee-wee fairly yelled in despair.
“Don’t you like prunes?” Willie asked innocently.
We will not describe the sufferings of the marooned Hop-toads. Under direction of Scout Harris they tried several of the most approved expedients for preserving life in such perilous predicaments as theirs.
Pee-wee knew of a way, highly popular in the days of the explorers, of extracting nourishment from shoe leather by soaking it in water. But the life-giving soup thus produced was not palatable. These things are matters of taste, and this did not taste good.
“I know a way, a scout way, to make fishes come to you by focussing the sun with your watch crystal,” said Pee-wee; “and I can light a piece of paper that way, too. That’s the way pioneers do when they haven’t any fishing tackle, only they use quartz crystal or maybe a locket with their mother’s picture in it; you can use anything that shines.”
Pee-wee’s canteen, his aluminum saucepan, his watch and his star scout badge, were used to deflect a tempting spot of brightness into the water, but the only thing that ventured near it was an inquiring pollywog, which whisked away again disgusted with the ruse. Nevertheless, the Hoptoad Patrol seemed greatly edified at this wisdom of scout lore.
“Wait a minute,” said Pee-wee, excitedly, “there’s oil in bone and oil is nourishing because don’t you know cod liver oil? Scouts in the Great North Woods get oil out of deer’s horns; you don’t ever need to starve if you’re a scout. Let’s take the buttons off our shirts and pound them up and we’ll get some oil. You have to mix water with it.”
A dozen or more buttons were contributed to this culinary enterprise and the result was a gritty concoction not unlike silver polish. Pee-wee pretended to eat this with a relish but the others rebelled. The very mention of cod liver oil had been sufficient for Willie Rivers.
“Don’t you know oil of wintergreen?” Pee-wee said contemptuously. “Sailors can live on the oil from turtles’ shells.”
“Why don’t they eat the turtles?” Howard asked innocently.
“Because maybe they already ate them!” Pee-wee shouted at him. “Maybe they were in the last pangs of hunger. That shows how much you know about scouting.”
“Do you have to be hungry to know about scouting?” Howard summoned the courage to inquire.
“You have to be resourceful,” Pee-wee said. “NowI can see which way the breeze is blowing, because look at the smoke over the cooking shack; it’s blowing away from the lake. That means it’s going to rain to-night, and to-morrow there’ll be more water in the lake and we’ll float away.”
“Won’t we have any dinner till then?” Willie asked.
“Sure we will,” Pee-wee answered, “because Nature is full of food only you have to know how to get it. You can’t starve because Nature is abundant.”
“How soon will it be abundant?” Howard asked.
It was not abundant throughout that afternoon at all events, and three more desperately hungry scouts were never seen disporting amid Nature’s bounty. It was just short of suppertime, in fact, when they were discovered and the nature of their predicament suspected. Then a couple of scouts rowed out and brought them to camp.
Pee-wee carried the tin box containing his share of the profits accruing from their adventurous voyage and this jingling receptacle of treasure, together with his somewhat rakish aspect, gave him not a little the appearance of a pirate of old. A flippant crowd awaited the rescued mariners at the shore.
“What are you going to do now, Kid? Settle down and live a respectable life?” one asked.
“Are you going to bury your treasure? Up behind the woodshed is a good place. Three paces from the trunk of the big elm tree—”
“We’re going to eat,” said Pee-wee.
“You arrived by boat I believe?” a scout asked. “That’s too bad. Otherwise you might have had three desserts at dinner. We expect to have three at supper. Ain’t we got fun? You just ought to see us. It’s really well worth seeing. We charge nothing—absolutely, positively. We’ll expect you to supper then?”
“Ohdocome; don’t miss it,” chimed in another.
“Hey Delicatessen,” a scout shouted at Howard; “you’ve got to go home, your mother sent for you. How do you like a life on the ocean wave, Willie Rivers? Going to settle down and reform now?”
“I’m going to eat first,” said Willie Rivers.
The unexpected return of the Hop-toad Patrol and its almost immediate dissolution had some very far-reaching consequences at Temple Camp.
Howard Delekson had to go home and Willie Rivers’ parents stopped at camp with their auto and took him for an extended tour of the Catskills. So Pee-wee became in fact a free lance. This did not trouble Artie Van Arlen because he knew that once back in Bridgeboro Pee-wee would start a new patrol of permanent residents, and probably make a success of it. It would be a joke patrol, but that would be better than a lifeless patrol of which there are many. You can’t keep a good scout down.
But there was one at Temple Camp whose amusement at Pee-wee turned to sympathy as he saw the sturdy little scout going about by himself, always busy, yet sometimes lingering wistfully around the Ravens’ cabin. This quiet, keen observer was Brent Gaylong.
Pee-wee was so much a camp institution, and had been so thoroughly a raven of the Ravens that it seemed grotesque to observe him now, emerging from the wreck of his own disbanded enterprise without any troop home. He seemed to be flopping around like a fish out of water. Probably he was in need of no sympathy or assistance, being a host in himself. But the sight of him and the thought of him impressed good old Brent so much that he stopped the Lone Star, as Pee-wee was now called, and had a little chat with him. It was on the veranda of the main pavilion where Brent liked to sit tilted back with his long legs against the railing.
“Anything new?”
“Sure, everything’s new, I got a lot of new ideas. I’m going to get a snapshot of Connie Bennett when he’s racing and I’m going to give a print to each member of the Elks. I can get a dandy snapshot because I’m going to sit in the canoe with him, because I did last summer.”
“If he wins,” laughed Brent.
“Sure he’ll win, because we’ve got to keep that cup in our troop—I mean his troop. Gee whiz, I keep forgetting. I bet they’ll be glad to get those snapshots, hey?”
“If he wins,” laughed Brent.
“Sure he’ll win; we’ve—they’ve got to win—the Bridgeboro troop.”
“Wish you were back in it?” Brent drawled.
“Sure, now that the race is coming on. Gee whiz, I was in that patrol since it started—I was in itbeforeit started even, because I was with Doc. Carson when he thought of it. We were drinking sodas in Bennett’s—that’s in Bridgeboro—and he said the Ravens would be a good name and I said yes, only we’d have to wear black scarfs and I hate black but that’s not saying I don’t like licorice. Yum,yum! Anyway, I like Billy Simpson only most of the fellows don’t, because he doesn’t mix in with them, I guess. When he shook hands with me, oh baby, didn’t he twist my hand! He’s awful strong in the wrist, that feller is. Do you know how to not make a noise when you sneeze? I can do that. That’s good when you’re stalking.”
“He shook hands with you? Talked with you?”
“Sure, he’s not mad at me.”
“You get kind of lonesome sleeping in the dormitory?”
“Gee whiz, you can’t be lonesome when you’re asleep.”
“No, that’s true. But when you’re awake.”
“Part of the time I’m eating. I bet you don’t know how to tell if it’s going to be cold by moss.”
“No. You go up to the cabin much?”
“Sure I do, because all those fellers live in my town, don’t they? El Sawyer lives right across the way from me. You know him, don’t you? He’s got a birthmark on his neck but you can’t see it. It’s the shape of Australia. That’s one place I’d like to go to—Australia. I bet it’s nice there.”
“Ed and Grove Bronson, they’re in the Ravens, aren’t they?”
“Sure, didn’t I bring them in? I knew how to handle their mother, all right. They’ve got an Airedale in their house.”
“And Benton?”
“He’s in the Silver Foxes, that’s Roy Blakeley’s patrol. I can beat him in an argument, I mean Roy. He’s a special chum of mine. My patrol has, now you count them; Artie Van Arlen, Doc. Carson, Grove Bronson, Ed Bronson, Punkin Odell and Wig Weigand and El Sawyer and myself—I mean Billy Simpson.”
“And I bet you’d join again if there was a vacant place, now wouldn’t you? I bet you’re sorry you ever left them.”
The question seemed to strike home. It subdued Pee-wee in an instant. He was sitting on the railing and to Brent’s surprise he turned his head and looked out across the lake.
“Am I right? Huh?”
He only nodded his head up and down and kept looking away. It was funny how that casual question just caught him and silenced him, as a cloth thrown over its cage will suddenly silence a singing bird....
Brent Gaylong understood Pee-wee, and he understood Temple Camp. The next day, as if by accident, he fell in with Billy Simpson. Gaylong had a kind of genius for falling in with peopleby accident. Billy was scrutinizing a rock along the trail which went up through the woods to the main road.
“Scout signs?” Brent queried.
“Looks like aturn to leftsign,” said Billy, still absorbed in it; “but I don’t see any trail to the left, do you?”
“Why don’t you get one of the fellows to help you, Simpson? I mean, to show you the trails around here. Any one of them would be glad to. Must be kind of hard, doping things out by yourself.”
“I guess that’s the way I’m made,” said Billy.
“You know, Simp—”
“That’s a good name for me, I guess.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean it that way,” said Brent, lifting himself lazily onto a stone wall in a familiar, friendly way. His very manner of doing this encouraged Simpson to do the same.
“You know, Simpson, you can’t expect two hundred fellows to run after you. You’re only one; you’ve got to run after them.”
“Don’t rub it in,” said Simpson, “I know I’m not popular.”
“You were so enthusiastic that night we were out on the lake,” Brent said kindly. “I think the trouble is you don’t mix in; you don’t let them know what you can do.”
“Look at Everson—”
”I know, but Everson did somethingbig; he saved a fellow’s life. You do something big and then’ll fall all over themselves; they’ll make a pathway to your door as old somebody-or-other said. That’s the short, quick way. Otherwise you just have to mix in.”
“Yes,” said Billy with a pitiful air of self disgust, “but there are scouts here that don’t do anything so very big and they—look at Blakeley.”
“I know, Blakeley has personality, he attracts, sort of like a magnet.”
“So have you,” said Billy.
“Thanks,” Brent said.
“Trouble with me is I want to do something big and I don’t know how to do it. What you said about little stuff and little scouts sticks in my mind. I know I don’t feel at home with them. That isn’t my fault, is it?”
“Surely not,” said Brent, thoughtfully, as if he were honestly trying to understand this strange, unhappy fellow.
“I just can’t hand a trustee a whisk-broom and—you know what I mean. And it’s the same with stunts. If I can’t do somethingbigI won’t do anything at all.”
“Well, that’s the heroic spirit, I suppose,” Brent mused, trying to favor Billy and to see his side of the thing.
“Oh, I guess nobody understands,” Billy said, disheartened with himself.
“You needn’t be afraid to open up with me,” said Brent in his whimsical way. “I’m a good target; all you have to do is just shoot. You see I haven’t got any talents and things to frighten you away with.... What seems to be the trouble, Billy?” he shot out suddenly.
That quick, friendly candor, seeming to invite candor in return, caught Billy Simpson the same as it had caught Pee-wee. You could not get away from old Doctor Gaylong....
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Billy, despairingly. “I can’t understand myself, I suppose. Maybe you’ll understand. All alone by myself I can do things—”
“Paddle,” Brent reminded him cheerily.
“Yes, and in the presence of a great big crowd I could do something—I wouldn’t care if a million people were watching me. If I saw big crowds standing around and they were cheering and all that, I’d forget myself and wouldn’t be—”
“Self-conscious? Sure, go on,” said Brent.
“I wouldn’t be afraid then. I suppose you think I’m crazy, huh? Afraid of a dozen or so fellows and not afraid of a thousand! I can’t do anything unless I forget myself. Maybe you’ll say I’m just spectacular. I guess I’m morbid. I’m all the time dreaming about being a hero—”
“And meanwhile you don’t make friends,” Brent said kindly.
“I can’t help it, I can’t butt in, I just can’t.”
There followed a pause. Brent felt very sorry for this fellow who could not seem to fall in line with others; who could overcome his shyness and self-consciousness only on some occasion quite out of his reach. Those who dream of being heroes are seldom heroes. Billy did not seem to fit into the scout program or the scout habit. And his undoubted talents were going to waste.
“Will Simpson,” drawled Brent, partly to cheer him and partly to come around to the main purpose of the talk, “I’ll say this much for you—you’re not little. You may be even too big for this crowd. Only you’re not having much fun. Anyway, you’re no sharpen-the-pencil-for-teacher scout. You’re no tie-my-handkerchief-in-a-knot-so-as-not-to-forget-my-good-turn scout, that’s sure.”
“Thanks,” said Billy; “I started out that way but you set me right.”
“I’m like a guide-post,” laughed Brent; “I point the way but never go there. I wonder whether you’d be interested in a—what you might call a middle class good turn, Simpson? I’ve got a job lot of good turns I’m trying to dispose of. This one isn’t very big, and it isn’t very little. It’s a little under your size perhaps. What would you think of letting Harris sit in the boat with Bennett in the races? It seems he did that last summer, and he’s sort of counting on it. He has an inspiration, it seems; you know he gets those. I guess nobody has told him about you being promised the place. I don’t suppose you care two straws about it.”
“If I hadn’t cared about it I wouldn’t have asked,” said Billy.
“Good,” said Brent, “then that makes the good turn all the gooder. It sort of comes up to your size—”
“I’m not willing to do it,” Simpson broke in.
“Oh,” said Brent, rather taken aback; “all right, I just thought I’d ask. You’re in the kid’s patrol, or rather he used to be in your patrol, and I thought maybe you’d be interested in him. He’s kind of—kind of an odd number just now. Poor little codger. He’s full of troop spirit and he wants to be there when Bennett pulls in. I think Bennett will win, don’t you?”
“He’s got a kinky side and he works too hard,” said Simpson. “He’ll win if he doesn’t go to pieces.”
“Well then, why not let the kid act as ballast? Acting as ballast, you wouldn’t exactly call that somethingbig, would you? You and I were chatting about good turns and all that sort of stuff; now here’s one made to order for you. A middle sized one, that’s what I call it.... Not interested?”
“Nothing doing,” said Simpson.
“Well then, the kid will have to stand on shore. I only thought—he’s sort of—sort of—out—”
“Oh yes, I know,” said Simpson. “I suppose you think it would be a good thing for me to get out of the Raven Patrol and let him go back in.”
“I never thought of that,” said Brent, not unkindly but with a little suggestion of disappointment and surprise. “I’d callthatsomething really big. Almost too big.”
“The largest size made, huh?” said Billy. “Well, you needn’t worry, I’m not going to do that just at present. I’m not a quitter.”
“Well, there’s no hard feeling?” Brent asked, still sorry for him. “If I happen to have a job lot of heroic acts, vast multitude stuff, I’ll bring them around and let you look them over. You may find something to fit you.”
There was just the faintest note of sarcasm in this last remark, and Billy Simpson realized that he had lost some measure of regard from the only real friend he had in camp.
Brent said nothing of his talk with Simpson, but in some mysterious way these things get abroad in a large camp, and it came to be known that Billy Simpson had refused to yield his place in the canoe to Pee-wee. No one would have thought twice about it except for Pee-wee’s position and the fact that he was such a universal favorite.
That Simpson should hold Connie Bennett to a casual promise in a matter so trifling caused the camp to look on him with a kind of tolerant contempt. He had never been popular but now he became unpopular. To Brent it seemed that the scout who had wanted to do something big had done something unspeakably small. But he did not say this. The view that most scouts took of it was that it was too small to talk about.
Nor was there time to talk or think about it, for the big event was now close at hand, and the three patrols of the Bridgeboro troop united in the troop cause of keeping the Mary Temple Cup in their own scout circle. “United we stand, divided we sprawl,” said Roy Blakeley; “when we race and when we eat we’re all one—we’re a league of rations.”
About the most pathetic sight at Temple Camp was Pee-wee, aroused by this troop spirit, united with his old colleagues in the common cause; shouting, boasting, denouncing, arguing, belittling, extolling, predicting, like the loyal little rooter that he was.
He won the big race twenty times a day, and several times in his dreams each night. He championed even the Silver Foxes, and the Elks, of which Connie Bennett was leader, were the subjects of his unstinted eulogy. There were no patrols now, just the troop, and he wasforit if notofit. He had his camera ready for a close snapshot of Connie if chance should still smile on him and let him sit in that canoe. He made a new pole for the troop pennant which the canoe would carry. He dangled his legs from the springboard and said the red-headed fellow from Ohio didn’t stand a chance. His imagination overcame the obstacle of non-membership and he became the voice and spirit of the troop—histroop.
“Do you mean to tell me,” he demanded, “that they—we—I mean they—can’t beat everybody because don’t we live in Bridgeboro where there’s a river and we all have canoes—except a few that haven’t?”
“They’re born with paddles in their mouths,” said a Virginia scout.
“And oars!” Pee-wee shouted.
It went to Brent Gaylong’s heart to see Pee-wee trudging down from the Ravens’ cabin night to go to bed in the pavilion dormitory. He might have stayed on cabin hill but only one full patrol could bunk in a cabin. Pee-wee never questioned the camp rules or the rules of the scout organization. “Gee whiz, they’re good rules all right,” he said. And he never overstepped the privilege of a non-member. That was the pathetic part of it. He watched them wistfully when they voted, contented, happy, just to be among them.
Just in proportion as he made a pathetic picture, just in that same proportion did Billy Simpson become more and more an object of tolerant contempt. If he had made the little sacrifice in the matter of the canoe it would not have been so bad, but now they were ready enough to think ill of him, reasonably or not. And often their dislike was without reason, for indeed he was as much a member of the Raven Patrol as any other Raven was.
If there was any criticism in that matter Artie Van Arlen should have borne it. It is only fair to Artie to say that from the day he summoned Billy Simpson from Bridgeboro, he was friendly to him, and fair to him, and seemed to believe in him. He did not study him, as Brent might have done, because it was not given to him to do that. But he treated him with a wholesome cheerfulness and with the same fraternal air which characterized his demeanor toward all. If he was disappointed he did not say so. If he had expected Billy to bring honors, merit badges, to the patrol he renounced that hope amiably. He was a pretty good all-around sort of a fellow, was Artie.
The camp assistant, young Mr. Slade, spoke to him one day. “You know, Van, this is an impossible situation,” said he; “Pee-wee’s a Raven. You’re taking liberties with nature, you fellows are.”
“It can’t be helped now,” said Artie; “besides I’m not worrying and I’ll tell you why. Do you want to know?”
“Go ahead, shoot.”
“Pee-wee doesn’t belong to the Boy Scouts of America. The Boy Scouts of America belong to Pee-wee. Just wait till he gets back home. You’re not afraid he’s going to drift away, are you?”
“Well, it knocks me clean to see him,” said Slade.
“You and old Doc. Gaylong ought to camp under a weeping willow, you’re so tender-hearted. How about the race?”
“Nothing about it,” said Slade; “except everything’s ready, and Connie Bennett is going to win it.”
“Sure thing?”
“That’s what Pee-wee says,” said Tom. “He says we’ve won it already.”
“Well, to-morrow’s the day,” said Artie cheerily. “Pee-wee says if the cup gets away fromus, he’ll never look Mary Temple in the face again. But he’ll accept an ice cream soda from her.”
The regatta was always the big event of the season at Temple Camp. Pee-wee always had to suck lemon drops for several days succeeding it to ease the huskiness in his throat. Sometimes he continued sucking them for several weeks, for a scout is nothing if not thorough.
The institution of the regatta (and the lemon drops) dated from the season when pretty Mary Temple, daughter of the camp’s founder, had offered the silver cup. A Rhode Island troop had won it, then it had passed to a Pennsylvania troop, and then to the Bridgeboro Troop. The Bridgeboro scouts took a particular pride in keeping it because Bridgeboro was the home town of the Temples.
Each troop chose its challenger or defender by its own process of selection, paying a certain regard to the claims of its patrols. Naturally the merit badge for Athletics, or for Physical Development, or for Seamanship, would imply eligibility for the honor of challenger or defender. And these things counted in the selection.
Particularly had they counted in the selection of Connie Bennett of the Elk Patrol for defender. How much they really counted in a race was another question. Also, as in the selection of a presidential candidate the claims of the states have to be considered, so in this business the patrols had to be considered, and it was now considered to be the Elk Patrol’s turn. Thus Connie Bennett had been put forward.
There was no complaint about this and no anxiety, but there was just a little undercurrent of feeling (which Pee-wee could not browbeat out of the troop’s mind) that the cup was notquiteso secure upon its little velvet box as they could wish it to be.
A course was marked around the lake by long poles driven in about fifteen to eighteen feet from shore. Some of them had to be pretty long to reach the bottom. They were saved from year to year. A heavy cord was carried around the lake caught at each of these poles and from this cord hung troop and patrol pennants at intervals all the way round. The whole thing made a very festive and inspiring sight. The cup race (always a canoe event because Mary Temple thought that canoes were scoutish, being of Indian origin) consisted of one complete round of the lake. There were other races of course; comic events, tub races and the like.
I wish to tell you of this thing just as it occurred for it is talked of at Temple Camp whenever scouts get around a camp-fire. And in a sense it has never been fully explained.
Mary Temple, with her parents, came up from Bridgeboro by auto, reaching camp early in the afternoon. They received an ovation as usual. Mary was exceedingly pretty and looked the more so because of the color which the breeze had blown into her cheeks. She reached down out of the car and shook hands merrily with Connie Bennett and handed Pee-wee an enormous box of peanut brittle, which caused much laughter.
“Oh, I know you, too,” she said, reaching out her hand to Billy Simpson who lingered in the background. “I often see you in Bridgeboro.”
Billy Simpson seemed greatly embarrassed, and he never looked quite so much alone as he did then, for all the clamor ceased as she shook his hand, and the throng fell back silent. There was nothing intentional in this; it just happened that way. But one or two scouts noticed that Simpson was more perturbed and shy than the very commonplace little incident seemed to warrant. He just stared at Mary Temple and did not take his eyes from her. Brent Gaylong said afterward that there was something in his eyes, he did not know what, but that he seemed like one possessed....
He was not seen again until the time of his destiny. A tub race took place, a graceful affair in which all the participants fell in the water. This was followed by a swimming race, and a couple of boat races. Next followed a race of several canoes. And then the event of the day.
The scout who had wriggled his way to the position of challenger was a red-headed fellow from the Middle West. Pee-wee loathed him for no other reason than that he dared to try for the cup.
He was lithe and slender, and had a rather attractive way of holding his head. He looked the young athlete through and through and there was a kind of aggressiveness about him such as to disconcert an opponent. His troop seemed very proud of him. He did not show off exactly, but his manner was such as to make one think he took his victory for granted. A little deference to his opponents would have been more becoming. Having seated himself in his canoe and his companion being seated also, he waited at the float with a blasé air of patience as if he were anxious to get the thing over with.
This cut and dried assurance was in marked contrast with Connie’s demeanor, which was modest and painfully nervous. The throng, gathered about the float and alongshore for many yards on either side, cheered as he stepped into his canoe and nervously accepted the paddle that was handed him.
A silent, solitary figure in a black sweater stood upon the float near Mr. Currie, the starter. He gazed out across the lake, seeming very nervous. He seemed to be trying to concentrate his eyes and thoughts on something quite removed from the scene about him. One might have fancied something exalted, spiritual, in his aspect, but the coarse, black sweater and rather hulking shoulders, spoiled that.
“This your sand-bag?” Mr. Currie asked. He meant nothing disrespectful. It was just the name used for the one going to steady the canoe. But there was a tittering here and there in the crowd as the figure in the black sweater stepped into the bow of Connie’s light, bobbing little craft and sat hunched up there.
No one thought of him again. They were thinking of pleasanter things....
The two canoes glided forward abreast. It was a good start. A chorus of cheers went up from the crowd near the float and was taken up by the groups which dotted the shore for the distance of half way round the lake.
The inner side of the course was lined with canoes and rowboats, and even Pee-wee’s ship, theHop-toad, had been dislodged and floated to the cord line and anchored. A group of scouts upon it cheered themselves hoarse. Goldenrod Cove was filled with canoes. But the preferable stand was at the float where the race began and would end. Here a great throng waited, and on its outskirts scouts sprawled upon the grass, perched upon the roofs of shacks, and crowded on the diving-board till it almost broke with their weight. Here the judges waited. Here the string was stretched low across the course to be snapped asunder by the gliding bow of the victor. Across the course, at intervals, scout officials rested on their oars and waited, watchful for violations of the rules.
The green canoe of the red-headed scout crept ahead a yard—two yards—three yards. Connie strained every muscle and, in his apprehension as the distance between the canoes widened, he fell to using shorter strokes. The shorter stroke seems to keep time with the beating heart; it looks like speed and feels like speed; it ishustling. It is hard for the amateur to believe that calmness and the long, mechanically steady stroke, are the only things to depend on.
“Make your stroke longer, not shorter whatever you do,” said Simpson.
“I’ll take care of it,” said Connie, breathing heavily.
Simpson caught the rebuke and sat silent, watching apprehensively. Connie seemed to think that his speed would be proportioned to his frantic exertion and he was surprised to see the distance between the two canoes widening. His spectacular efforts were received with applause foractionis what the multitude likes, and that strengthened Connie’s confidence in his method, which was no method at all. He gained a little (for a spurt will always accomplish that) but he lost in fatigue what he gained in distance.
“Don’t look at him,” Simpson pled anxiously. “It would be better if you were rowing, then you couldn’t see him. Bend way forward, reach out your lower hand—”
“Who’s doing this?” Connie panted. “Don’t—don’t—don’t—don’t you—you—know what you’re—you’re here for?”
The look of hurt pride on Simpson’s face turned to one of grim disgust and accusation. He saw the green canoe a couple of lengths ahead, and saw flags waving, heard the deafening cheers all about him. He was not shy or fearful now.
“Can’t you guess what I’m here for?” he said, between his teeth. “It’s so that the kid’s troop will win.It’s because Iknewyou’d go to pieces. Don’t look at the crowd, you fool! Bend forward—far—”
“I—I can’t,” Connie panted, releasing one hand long enough to press his side. The fatal kink had come, as it is pretty sure to do in erratic striving combined with frantic fear and excitement.
“Shall I take it?” he heard.
“You?” he said, surprised. “You can’t—anyway—it—it—wouldn’t be a race—they’d—they’d—”
In a sudden, abandoned frenzy of striving, Connie brought his canoe within a length of the other. In its way it was a feat, but it spent his last ounce of energy and left his side hurting as if he had been stabbed. Encouraged by the cheering he drove his paddle into the water with a vertical force that eased his panic fears, but had no effect upon his progress. The canoe seemed to halt and jerk like a balky horse.
Now he heard the deafening cheers as in a kind of trance.
“Walk away from him, Red!”
“You’re losing him! Keep it up!”
“Step on it, Red!”
“Give her the gas!”
“Let her out, Red!”
“Oh boy, watch him step!”
“All over but the shouting!”
Not quite, oh crowd. As Connie Bennett’s hand left the paddle to press his agonized side, he felt another gently take it from him. What next happened he felt rather than saw. He heard deafening cheers interspersed with cries of “No fair!” And then derisive shouts and cat calls. He felt the right side of the canoe dip until his trembling hand which grasped the gunwale felt the cooling touch of the water.
He was conscious of a form crawling past him. He heard a voice, hoarse and tense it seemed, urging him to move forward. It all happened as in a vision. The shouting, the cries of surprise and derision, sounded far away, like echoes.
He was better now, but his heart was thumping; he had almost fainted. He saw a rowboat with an official pennant very near. He saw canoes across the course line. He saw Billy Simpson in the stern of the canoe; not sitting, not kneeling, but sort of crouching. He looked strange, different....
“You can’t do that,” the man in the rowboat said.
“Let’s finish anyway,” said Simpson; “I’ll take a handicap that will shut their mouths. After that if they want to call it off, let them do it.”
He had already grasped the paddle in a strange fashion; his left arm seemed to be wound around it and his elbow acted as a sort of brace. The other hand he held above his head, grasping his hat (the ordinary scout hat) so that all might see. The shorter reach which this one handed paddling enforced was made up by the lightning movement of his body back and forth in the canoe. For a moment the crowd laughed in derision. But as the white canoe of the Bridgeboro Troop shot forward, those who hooted paused in gaping amazement.
Now his bow was close upon his rival’s stern. Now it was abreast of the red-headed figure. Now past it, and clear of the green bow.
The red-headed scout was too proud to complain of a one-armed rival. And his troop comrades could not see him sheltered by any rule or custom in the face of such a phenomenal display.
Steadily, steadily, the white canoe glided forward. The reach of the red-headed paddler was extended. But he could not vie with that human shuttle which worked with the monotonous steadiness of machinery. He seemed disconcerted by the mere dull regularity of that relentless engine just ahead of him.