racingBILLY SIMPSON WON THE RACE WHILE PADDLING WITH ONE HAND.
BILLY SIMPSON WON THE RACE WHILE PADDLING WITH ONE HAND.
They came in sight of the float two lengths apart. The distance increased to three lengths. The crowd went wild with excitement. Amid a perfect panic of yells including weird calls of every patrol in camp, the white canoe swept abreast of the float, snapped the cord and danced along to the curving shore beyond the finish.
It was in that moment of tumult and clamor, amid the waving of flags and scarfs, and a medley of patrol calls which made the neighborhood seem like a jungle, that Pee-wee Harris, forgetting himself entirely, hurled piece after piece of peanut brittle after the receding victor, which action he later regretted and dived here and there to recover these tribute missiles. But alas, they were gone forever.
But the Mary Temple cup was safe upon its little velvet pedestal.
There was only one name upon the lips of all, now. But he heard the shouts only in a sort of trance. He heard his name called, and it sounded strange to him to hearhisname—Billy Simpson—shrieked by the multitude. It sounded like a different name, somehow. He could not face them—no, he could not do that. And no one saw him.
No one saw him as he crept up through the bushes far from the screaming, howling, clamorous, worshipping crowd. No one saw him as he sped around the edge of camp and past Outpost Cabin where his own name echoed against the dead, log walls.His own name!No one saw him as he climbed up through the woods to Cabin Hill. Yes, one person saw him. A tenderfoot scout who thought more of some bobolink or other than of the race, saw him. He was gazing up into the tree, a small lonely figure, when the victor, the hero, sped by. It seemed to him that the fleeing figure spoke to him; anyway, it spoke.
“Tell her—tell her I couldn’t have done it if she hadn’t been watching me.”
The tenderfoot scout did not know whom he was speaking of, so no one was ever told anything. He thought the fleeing figure in the black sweater might be a thief.
Reaching the Ravens’ cabin, the victor paused just a second, and listened to the spent sound of the cheering down at the shore. Then he fell to ransacking his suitcase for a writing tablet. He had no duffel bag, for you see he was only a new scout. He had come hastily, with heart beating high.
Upon his writing tablet he scrawled a few lines, and left the whole tablet, with a stone for a weight, upon the stump outside. He had stood by that stump when he had taken the scout oath. His one frantic fear was that Brent Gaylong would amble along and show him that what he was going to do was all wrong; call him a quitter.
A sound! No—yes! No, it was only the breeze in the quiet trees.
He gathered together his few poor belongings, then paused for a last glimpse at the note.
Tell Gaylong I don’t bother with little things. Tell Pee-wee Harris the cup is safe till next summer anyway. Tell him his place is open in the patrol because I’m through. He knows what fixing means, because he’s a fixer. So tell him I fixed it. He’s the best little scout that ever was—he’s my idea of a scout.
Tell Gaylong I don’t bother with little things. Tell Pee-wee Harris the cup is safe till next summer anyway. Tell him his place is open in the patrol because I’m through. He knows what fixing means, because he’s a fixer. So tell him I fixed it. He’s the best little scout that ever was—he’s my idea of a scout.
Then he was gone. He hurried up through the woods and waited for the bus. He had to carry his suitcase continuously in his right hand, because his left hand and arm were nearly numb. The driver had to help him up into the bus, he was so stiff and lame.
As he sat in the seat, nursing his stinging hand, and saw the beautiful Catskill country, the wide fields where the men were cutting hay, the woods through which the scout trails ran, the distant smoke arising from the cooking shack at Temple Camp, the whole episode of his coming, of his triumph and of his going away seemed like happenings in a wonderful dream....
THE END