"JUST FOR FUN"
The twins missed Chance Carter during the next few weeks. The boy had been a regular nuisance in some ways, for he was always getting into scrapes; but he was a clever lad and had a way of making up games that nobody else seemed able to think of.
"It does seem lonesome without Chance," Bob told Sure Pop when the broken leg had kept their friend tied up indoors for a week or more. "And yet we don't get into half as much trouble when he isn't round."
Sure Pop looked wise. "Perhaps it's because Chance hasn't learned that he must play according to the rules,"he said. "The fellow who is always taking chances isn't playing up to the rules of the game."
"Anyhow," said Betty, "Chance has had his lesson now. By the time he's able to run around again, he will be ready to quit taking chances."
Sure Pop changed the subject, though a shrewd twinkle seemed to say that it would take more than one lesson to teach Chance how to play life's game according to the rules. "How'd you like to take a trip with me today?"
"Fine!" exclaimed Bob and Betty. "Where?"
"To a kind of moving picture show," answered Colonel Sure Pop. "Let's start right away, then. And be sure you wear your Safety First buttons."
The twins couldn't help smiling at the idea of going anywhere without their magic buttons. They boarded the crowded street car with Sure Pop and stood beside the motorman all the way to the railroad yards. It seemed as if somebody tried to get run over every block or two, and the way people crossed the crowded streets in the middle of blocks was enough to turn a motorman's hair gray.
"How'd you like to be the motorman, Bob?"
"Well, I tellyou, Sure Pop, I don't believe it's as much fun as it looks from the outside. If fellows like Chance and George would ride beside the motorman for just one day, seeing what he has to see right along, they'd be Safety workers forever after. Look at that, now! Those chaps have no business to cross in the middle of the block."
"Nobody has," agreed Sure Pop, with a keen glance at Bob. The boy flushed as he remembered what he himself had been doing when he first felt the warning touch of the Safety Scout's hand.
He and Betty noticed, too, how carefully Sure Pop looked all around him before leaving the car, and they did likewise. Two short blocks more and they were in sight of the railroad roundhouse. The Safety Scout stuck his head inside the great doorway and peered around at the smoking engines that impatiently awaited their turn. "There she is!" he exclaimed. "There's old Seven-Double-Seven!" And he waved his hand at the engineer up in the cab.
The three climbed into the engine cab, where the fireman stood waiting with his eye on the steam gauge. From the way the engineer shook hands with Sure Pop, the twins decided they must be old friends.
"Got my orders?" asked the engineer. He ripped open the envelope Sure Pop handed him, glanced at the message, nodded to the fireman, and gently pulled open the throttle. The big, powerful engine answered his touch like a race horse. With a warning clang of the bell, they slipped down the shining track, through the crowded yards, and toward the city limits.
"Bob, what are you looking for?" asked Sure Pop.
Bob went on looking in all the corners of the cab as if greatly puzzled. "Looking for the moving picture machine," he said with a grin. "I thought I heard you promise us a moving picture show."
"You just wait. Be ready to rub your magic buttons when I say the word, both of you, and you'll see some moving pictures you'll never forget—pictures of whatmighthappen to boys and girls like yourselves. The pity of it is, it does happen, every day of the year."
Sure Pop paused to call their attention to some little blurry patches of blue scattered along the track. "Wild flowers," he said. "Pretty things, aren't they? If we weren't going so fast, we'd stop and get some."
The engineer scowled. "Pretty? They don't look pretty to me any more. Look there, now!"
The brakes jarred as he spoke, and the shriek of the whistle scattered a group ahead. Several young couples, going home from town by way of the railroad track, had stopped to gather wild flowers. One couple were walking hand in hand over the railroad bridge, deaf at first to whistle and bell and everything else. Suddenly they heard, looked up, and turned first one way and then another, uncertain whether to jump off the bridge or stand their ground.
"Is it any wonder that I don't like the flower season?" grunted the engineer in disgust. "It's the worst time of all, seems to me. Now you'd think those young fellows and girls were old enough and would have sense enough to keep off the railroad's right of way, wouldn't you? But look at 'em!"
He mopped his forehead and glared ahead at the frightened couple, holding the panting engine at a standstill till they could scramble off the bridge.
"They act as if we had nothing to do but just watch out for 'em," he went on, getting under way again. "They got off scot-free this time, but imagine what old Seven-Double-Seven would have done to 'em if this had been my regular run! Forty miles an hour on schedule—and where would they be now?
"It's the same old story, day after day—boys riding bicycles down the tracks, when the road's ten times smoother and a million times as safe! Boys playing on the turntables and getting crippled for life, one by one!
"They'll run like mad to get across the track ahead of a fast train—and then stand and watch it go through! I ought to know—I did it myself when I was a boy, but little I knew then of the way it wrecks an engineer's nerves!
"They flip the cars and try to imitate the brakemen without the least idea of how many thousands of brakemen have lost their lives just that way. They crawl under cars, instead of waiting or going around. Why, Colonel, the railroads kill thousands and thousands of people every year—you know the figures—dozens every day, week in and week out. And somebody's badly hurt on the railroads every three minutes or less—and a third of them are boys and girls and little children!That's what I can't stand—the little folks getting hurt and getting killed, when just a bit of common sense would save them! Oh, if their fathers and mothers had any idea—"
The big engineer choked up for a moment. "Even onthe trains," he added, "when they're safe inside the cars, they get hurt. I'm not the only one that worries on my run—ask the conductor. He'll tell you how they run up and down the aisle, till a sudden jar of the brakes throws 'em against a seat iron or into the other passengers. They get out into the vestibules, which is against the rules, and when the train takes a sudden curve they get smashed up."
Three minutes later he slowed down for the twins to watch the fast mail thunder past. It was near a village crossing, and a little group of boys stood waiting. As No. 777 came to a stop, the twins saw that most of the boys had stones in their hands.
On came the fast mail, tearing past the little village as if it were not even on the map. The mail cars—the smoker—the long rows of glass windows, a head beside each—
Smash! The flying splinters of glass told of one stone that had found its mark. The boys ran like scared cats around the corner into a lumber yard.
"Little cowards!" The fireman glared angrily after them. "They may have killed somebody on that train—theydon't know!"
"Rub your buttons!" whispered Sure Pop, whose eyes were still fixed on the fast mail, now disappearing in a cloud of smoke and dust.
Bob and Betty rubbed. At their first touch of the magic buttons the disappearing train took on a queer, unreal look, like a film at the "movies."
They seemed to be inside one of the cars. They seemed to be watching a sweet-faced old lady—somebody's grandmother—snowy haired, kind, gentle, not used to traveling, as even the twins could see. She kept looking first at the time-table and then at an old key-winding silver watch she wore on a quaint little chain around her neck.
Her lips were moving, smiling. "Only two stops more," she seemed to be saying, "and then I shall see little Jim." She took a kodak picture out of her handbag and looked at it long and lovingly. She glanced out of the window and saw a group of boys standing by the village crossing "to watch the fast mail go through." She liked boys. She smiled at them—she did not see the stones in their hands.
Smash! The other passengers sprang to their feet as one of the stones, thrown at random, shivered the car window into bits and struck the kind old face, full between the eyes. A quick, startled cry—a pitiful fumbling of kind old hands before shattered spectacles and eyes suddenly blinded—and the moving picture seemed to fade away. The twins were left with the sickening fear that perhaps little Jim's grandmother might never see him after all.
"Oh! oh!" gasped Betty, rubbing her eyes. "How terrible!" Bob caught Sure Pop by the arm.
"Did we imagine it, Sure Pop—or was it true?"
"Too true," said Sure Pop, sadly. "It happens almost every day somewhere—where boys throw stones at the cars 'just for fun'!"
GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS
"And just to think," said Bob, as the three sat on the home steps talking over their exciting trip on old No. 777, "just to think of how many boys and girls are killed on the railroad tracks every day!"
"Every day," echoed the little Safety Scout, "and all over the world. Go into any village graveyard along any railroad, and you'll find the grave of some boy or girl who has been killed trespassing on the railroad tracks. No way to save them, I'm afraid, till folks wake up to the fact that it's not so much the tramps who are being killed this way—it's the children!"
"It's just awful," said Betty, puckering up her brow in athoughtful scowl. "I think we ought to do something about it."
"What, for instance?" Sure Pop was watching her sharply.
"Well, something to put a stop to it. Surely we could findsomeway of teaching the boys and girls how to play safely; and then when they grew up they'd be in the habit ofthinkingSafety. Then they'd teachtheirboys and girls—and all this awful killing and crippling, or most of it, would be ended."
"The trouble is," said Bob, "in going at the thing in too much of a hit-or-miss style. We could do some good by talking to the few boys and girls we could reach, but not enough. Why can't we organize?"
Sure Pop's eager face lighted up, overjoyed at the turn Bob's thoughts were taking. "You can," he said quietly.
"Why, sure!" went on Bob, getting more and more excited as the idea took hold. "Let's get busy and organize an army of Safety Scouts right here. We've already got the biggest thing in the Safety Scout Law at work—don't you see?—our 'One Boost for Safety' every day. We can get some more Safety Scout buttons made, and as fast as a boy earns his—"
"—Or a girl earns hers!"—interrupted Betty, so seriously that Bob couldn't help smiling.
"Yes, of course—girls too—why, as fast as boys and girls earn the right to wear Safety Scout buttons, we canform them into patrols. It wouldn't be long before we could have several troops hard at it. I tell you, Sure Pop, if we go at it that way we can do big things for Safety just as sure as you're a foot high!"
Sure Pop gave Betty a droll little wink. "It's a go, then," he said cheerfully. "Well, where are you going to begin?"
Bob looked up at him with a sudden idea shining in his eyes. "Why not begin by organizing in patrols and then in troops, just about like the Boy Scouts? First, we can get a few of our friends interested, and let each one of them get eleven others interested—that will make a patrol of twelve, commanded by the one who got them together."
"Spoken like a Scout and a gentleman!" cried the little Colonel, giving him a sounding thump on the shoulder. "Go on, Bob—what next?"
"Well, just as fast as we get four new patrols, we can form them into a troop, with a Scout Master for their leader."
"Good," said Sure Pop. "It will take some lively work to pick your Scout Masters and get them trained in time, but the difference in their efficiency will be worth your while."
"I suppose," said Betty, "we'll have to choose only boys and girls who have good records for Safety?"
Bob looked doubtful. "What do you think about that, Sure Pop?"
"I think it would be a mistake, Bob. You'll find toofew who have even learned to think Safety. A better plan will be to take in those who seem most in earnest over the idea, especially those who have been taught a hard lesson through accidents which care would have avoided."
"Go on, please. Tell us more—how would you work out the details?"
"Bob, I would—but I believe I've told you enough. You and Betty go ahead in your own way and work out the details yourselves. Let me see you get your Safety Scouts together, if you really do mean business, and I'll show you about the work that's already been done among the factory hands and mill-workers of America.
"Let me tell you this much, though: you'll find, when you get your Safety Scouts of America organized, that the good work will go ahead by leaps and bounds. All this talk about 'efficiency' is really part of the same movement, though very few realize it; it's nothing more or less than cutting out guess work and waste—and what else, after all, is our Safety work?"
"That's so. It really is all working in the same direction, isn't it?" agreed Bob. "Chance Carter's oldest brother is studying to be an efficiency engineer—perhaps he can give us some ideas."
"Then—you really do mean to get busy and organize the Safety Scouts of America?"
"Mean it!" Bob and Betty fairly shouted the words in their eagerness to get to work. And as Sure Pop said good night to them, there was a joyous light in his eye which showed his plan was working out just as he had thought it would.
He smiled a satisfied smile as the door closed on the excited Dalton twins. "And now," said Colonel Sure Pop to himself, "now, we're getting down to business!"
Enlist now! We fight to save life, not to take it.—Sure Pop
Sure Pop Watching
DALTON PATROL
The next few weeks were busy ones for Bob and Betty Dalton. The plan was a big one—the Safety Scouts of America. Growing out of an idea planted by Colonel Sure Pop, it sprouted and grew surprisingly fast. Already the news was spreading like wildfire among the boys and girls all over the city.
Joe Schmidt was out again, his head as good as ever. George Gibson, always brim full of energy and enthusiasm, had set his heart on becoming a Safety Scout Master and heading a troop of his own. Even Chance Carter, hobbling about on crutches, had caught the fever of Safety Scoutingand was making all sorts of plans as to what he would do when his broken leg got well.
Chance really had changed, somehow. The twins supposed it was all due to his accident, but the real reason was Colonel Sure Pop. Chance seemed almost magnetized by the little Colonel and never lost a chance to be near him.
"Honestly now, Colonel," he owned up to Sure Pop one day, "I'd read so many stories about reckless heroes and all that, I got in the habit of thinking I had to be reckless. Story books seem to make out that it's a brave thing to risk your life—and wasn't that exactly what Bob did when he found that live wire?"
Sure Pop laid an understanding hand on Chance's shoulder.
"Listen, Chance! You've caught only half the point, that's your main trouble. Itisa manly thing to take a risk—when it's necessary. When somebody's life is in danger, it's the manliest thing on earth to take a risk for the sake of saving it. That's why Bob's act in patrolling the live wire earned him a Safety Scout button—the lives of those smaller boys were in danger, to say nothing of anybody else who might blunder across the wire just then—that's where the difference comes in."
"That's so. I never thought of it in just that way."
"I know you haven't. When you stop to think it over, you see it's a fellow's plain duty to take a chance when it's necessary, but it's downright foolish to do it on a dare.One thing about Bob's live-wire adventure I don't believe even he realizes," added Sure Pop. "It was that hurry-up patrol of small boys that he threw out around the live wire which really gave him the idea of how to organize the Safety Scouts of America. I knew the idea would strike him and Betty sooner or later."
Chance looked admiringly at the little Colonel. What a wise Scout he was, sure enough, as keen and clever at reading signs of the trail as any Indian fighter that ever stepped in deerskin!
The boy looked longingly after the Safety Scout Patrol, which was just starting off on an "observation hike," as Bob called it. Part of the training Bob had laid out for his men was an hour's brisk walk, after which each Safety Scout wrote out a list of the unsafe things he had noticed while "on the trail."
"There's one thing that stumps me, though," said Chance. "How did Bobknowthat was a live wire?"
"He didn't. He simply had sense enough to treatallfallen wires as if theywerealive. See? Better safe than sorry. Just the same in turning on an electric light: itmaynot harm you to touch an iron bedstead with one hand while you turn the light on with the other—but it's taking a chance. Same's the fellow who turns an electric bulb on or off while standing in a bathtub: hemaygo on with his bath in safety—and then again he may drop lifeless in the water.
"It's a good deal like the gun that isn't loaded, Chauncey. Therewasa lad, you know, who found a gun was dangerous without lock, stock, or barrel—his father whipped him with the ramrod! A real Scout knows how to take care of himself—and of others. And that's especially true of Safety Scouts."
"Well, Colonel," said Chance, reaching for his crutches and rising painfully to his feet, "I'mforit! Perhaps if I make good, the fellows will quit calling me Chance and call me either Chauncey or Carter, I don't care which—but Chance makes me sick!"
"Here'stoyou, Carter!" said Sure Pop, with a hearty handshake. Again came that smile of satisfaction as he watched the boy hobble off on a slow "observation hike" of his own. In Carter's mind, too, the big idea was taking root.
Ten days later, Colonel Sure Pop was reviewing Dalton Patrol.
"Safety Scouts," he said, saluting the even ranks drawn up before him, "your Colonel is proud of the work you're doing. These 'observation hikes,' as your Scout Master calls them, show better than anything else how much more alert you are to danger signs than you were a month ago.
"Now, I've been sizing up these risks as covered by your patrol reports. They seem to be of three kinds—home, street, and railroad risks.
"Nobody can study these reports without seeing that our work is plainly cut out for us for the next few months. Charity and every other good work begin at home—though they end there only with the weak-minded! So our work in Safety patrolling will naturally begin in our homes and with ourselves, and will begin with the risks which these reports show to be most common. Let me read you a few of the common risks reported by the Scouts of this patrol:
Matches: left on floor where they may be stepped on; or where mice may nibble them; or next the stovepipe or chimney; or thrown down before the last spark is out.
Celluloid things: brushes and combs handled near the gas jet, where they may burst into flame.
Kerosene: poured on the fire to make it burn faster (three bad cases of burns reported from this cause alone).
Gasoline: left near a flame, or anywhere except clear outside the house.
Gas: lighting oven of gas stove without first opening oven door; leaving gas jet burning near window, where breeze may blow curtains across (five fires started that way during last month).
Electric wires: loose wires crossing, which often cause fires.
Bathers: venturing too far out in deep water. Innearly every case, it is the rescuer who drowns. Never take a chance that may cost another's life.
Safety pins: left open within baby's reach. You all know what happened to Mrs. Fuller's baby girl two weeks ago, all through an open safety pin.
Hot water and grease: left standing where children may get into them.
Dogs: left unmuzzled and running loose.
"These are only a few of the common dangers shown in your scouting reports. So far, our work has been hunting out these risks and listing them. From now on, we'll fall to with a will and set them right as fast as we can, in our own homes first and next among our neighbors.
"Just one word of caution before we take up this new patrol duty. Let's be careful how we go about setting these things right. Remember, we can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, so let's not give people the idea we are criticizing them—just suggesting.
"For instance: if a Safety Scout sees a mop and a pail of scalding water on Mrs. Muldoon's back steps and one of her babies in danger of pitching into it headfirst, he'd better not walk up and begin to scold about it. Mrs. Muldoon may have done that for years without scalding any one yet. More likely than not she'd just order you off the place—and go right on as before. But if, instead, a Scout steps upand begins playing with the baby, he can first get baby out of harm's way andthenwatch his chance to say, 'Baby seems to have his eyes on that pail of hot water, Mrs. Muldoon. Two babies over on the west side were scalded to death last week; did you hear about it?' Chances are Mrs. Muldoon will be around warning all her neighbors before you've been gone ten minutes. Get the idea?—honey instead of vinegar."
"Honey works better down in South America, anyhow!" said a deep voice, and a tall, handsome man stepped forward, saluted, and shook hands cordially with Colonel Sure Pop. He was brown as a berry from the tropical sun and he carried his left arm in a sling.
"Uncle—Uncle Jack!" The Dalton twins forgot that the troop was on review, forgot Mrs. Muldoon's babies, forgot everything and everybody but Uncle Jack. What a surprise! And he knew Sure Pop, too!
"Sure pop, I do!" laughed the explorer, kissing Betty warmly before the whole admiring troop. "Here, look out for that lame arm, you rascals! Our surgeon told me it would be well in a month, but he was too optimistic, for once!" For Bob and Betty were fairly swarming over their favorite uncle, home at last from the jungle.
"Nellie," said Uncle Jack to Mrs. Dalton that night, when the Safety Scouts were off to bed at last, "those twins of yours are making history—do you realize that?"
"Well," said his sister, "they have their faults, like allthe rest, but they're pretty fine youngsters at that. But, oh, Jack, they're growing up so fast!"
"They are, sure enough, like weeds; but their harvest isn't going to be any weed crop, now mark my words. I heard most of what was said at their patrol review this afternoon before anybody saw me; and on my word, Nell, those youngsters have started something bigger than they have any idea of, something that no power on earth is going to be able to stop. After all, I'm just as pleased that the old chief's spear thrust sent me home in time to see the Safety Scouts of America in the making!"
A real Scout knows how to take care of himself—and of others.—Sure Pop
Crossing the street
SIX TIMELY TIPS
Sure Pop and Uncle Jack were sprawled out side by side on the green river bank, talking over old times. Bob and Betty were hanging on every word.
"My first few months of Safety work among American factories and mills," Sure Pop was saying, "was largely planting. I planted the Safety First idea and gave it time to grow. I began with the steel mills; then I turned to the railroads, then to the wood-working shops, and so on."
Uncle Jack gazed thoughtfully at the sparkling river."Well," he said at last to Sure Pop, "what results and how?"
"How?" repeated the little Colonel. "First, by putting the idea, Safety First, into the mind of every workman we met. Second, by whispering in his ear new ways of cutting out accidents—afterthe Safety First idea had had a chance to sink in. Results? Three fourths of the deaths and injuries in the steel mills were cut out entirely in six years' time; in the railroads, the number of accidents was cut squarely in two in three years' time; in other kinds of work—all except one—big reductions all along the line."
"Great!" There was no mistaking the admiration in Uncle Jack's voice. "What about the one exception—what line was that?"
"It's a certain class of mills that is practically controlled by one man, a very able man, but exceedingly self-willed and stubborn. He owns a chain of mills from coast to coast, and the rest of the manufacturers in his line follow his lead in everything. He has fought the Safety First idea from the start—calls it 'one of these new-fangled notions'—will have nothing at all to do with it—and he has held back the Safety movement in his whole line of work."
"Hm-m-m! Hard nut to crack, eh? What's the old codger's name?"
"Bruce. He's done more to handicap Safety work thanany other man in the country—and I do believe he's proud of it," said Sure Pop, grimly.
"Bruce—isn't that the man your father works for, Bob?"
Bob nodded. "He has a heart, though"—and he told them how the mill owner had come to Chance Carter's aid, and how like a different man he had seemed when little Bonnie threw her happy arms around him.
"Queer mixture, isn't he?" said Uncle Jack.
"Yes, he is. But don't you suppose our patrol could do something to change his mind?"
Uncle Jack waved the idea aside. "Forget it, Bob, forget it! Don't lose sight of what the Colonel told you Scouts yesterday about the right way to go at things. Well, the right way to go at Bruce is to leave him alone for a while. If he's as prejudiced as all that, interfering would only make him worse. He'll come around by and by, won't he, Colonel?"
"All in good time," said Sure Pop. "Your work is cut out for you, Bob, as I told you yesterday. Get the Safety First idea well rooted in the homes, and then we'll begin on the streets, and get folks in the habit of thinking Safety every time they cross the street."
Uncle Jack yawned and stretched himself.
"Can you spare these twins of ours for the day, Colonel? I've a frolic of my own I want to borrow them for, if I may."
"Sure pop! Go ahead, sir."
Uncle Jack stepped across the street to a telephone, and the first thing Bob and Betty knew, a big red automobile drew up beside them. "Jump in, folks—look out for my arm, please. Now—we're off! Goodby, Colonel."
"My, but isn't this glorious!" Betty nestled closer to her uncle as they sped along toward the shopping district. "Is this your car, Uncle Jack?"
"For today it is," laughed her uncle. "Today we'll just make believe I own the mint. Careful there, driver!"
Forgetful of his lame arm, he jumped to his feet and waved his hand in warning. They had been running smoothly along the car tracks, and another automobile had cut in ahead of them from around the corner. A tow-headed lad of about Bob's age, who was stealing a ride on it, holding himself on by main strength as the automobile jounced along over the crossing, had just made up his mind he would ride no farther and was getting ready to jump. Down he came, kerflop, in the street, stubbing his toe as he tried to catch his balance.
Uncle Jack's chauffeur, warned by his shout, gave the steering wheel a quick turn—and cleared the boy by a hand's breadth! Uncle Jack sank back on the cushions, his eyes flashing.
"Reckless young rascal! Trying to make murderers of us, is he? What are you Safety Scouts going to do about the boys' hitching on like that, Bob?"
Bob pulled a notebook out of his pocket. "Here's howSure Pop has summed up our patrol reports on street accidents. He calls it—
Six Timely Tips on Street Safety
Tip 1: Make the street car stop before you step on or off—the car can wait. But step lively!
Tip 2: Face forward in getting off. Hold the grip iron with your left hand—it's a friend in need. Left foot to the step, right foot to the ground, eyes front!
Tip 3: Before leaving the car, look both ways for automobiles, wagons, and motor cycles.
Tip 4: In passing behind a car, first peek around to see what's coming. When carrying an umbrella, peek around that, too.
Tip 5: Before you hitch on or steal rides on street cars, automobiles, or wagons, better make your will.
Tip 6: Keep wide awake in getting on and off cars and in crossing streets. Walk fast,but don't run. Use all the sense you have; you're likely to need it and to need it quick!
"Those six tips are not guess work either, Uncle Jack. They're boiled down from weeks of street scouting by every boy and girl in our patrol."
"Those are good, sensible tips," said his uncle. "What use are you going to make of them?"
"Well, by the time vacation's over, we will have a special School Safety Patrol drilled and ready to get down to business on this particular work among the youngsters—to get them out of the habit of hitching on, and that sort of thing. Our idea is to begin with the smaller school children; there have been a good many bad accidents to them, you see, going to and from school. Most of them have to cross the tracks; it's altogether too easy for them to get confused and run down by a street car or engine or auto."
"That's right, Bob. How are you going to stop it?"
"Why, each Scout in the School Patrol takes charge of the school children in his block for one month. It's his job to get them together at a convenient corner in the morning, then herd them across the tracks and through the crowded streets to school; to do the same thing on their way home; and to keep an eye on their games during recess, reporting any risky condition to their teachers. We've planned it so this team work will not only keep the youngsters from being run over and all that, but will also be training them to take care of themselves and keep out of danger just like any Safety Scout. How does the idea strike you?"
"Fine! It's a good, practical plan! Makes me wish I were a boy again myself. Hello, here we are—out we go!"
"Why, where are we?"
"I'll soon show you." Uncle Jack led the way to the elevator and they shot up, up, clear to the roof.
"Hungry?" he asked, as a white-clad waiter showed them to a table. He enjoyed the surprise of Bob and Betty; they had never had luncheon downtown before. Mr. Dalton's hard-earned wages left no room for such celebrations as this. And a roof garden—! No wonder it seemed very strange and very grand to the Dalton twins.
They must have spent a good half-hour ordering that meal: it was fun to study the big bill of fare and pick out delicious things which they "never had at home." Uncle Jack seemed to find it just as much fun as they did, and he understood pretty well how they felt as they ate and ate, while they gazed out on the roofs of the city spread out below them. It wasn't soverymany years, you see, since he had been a youngster himself!
Plant the Safety First idea and watch it grow.—Sure Pop
TWIN UNIFORMS
"How nice and cool it is up here!"
Betty, looking very grown-up and quite as if she were used to taking luncheon in a roof garden every day, smiled contentedly at Uncle Jack over her glass of lemonade.
"Cool as a cucumber," said her uncle. "Hard to realize how sweltering hot it is down there in the street, isn't it? Betty, what'syourSafety work going to be when school begins?"
Betty glanced at Bob; she had not yet told even him about her plan. "First, I suppose, I'll serve my month on the School Safety Patrol; and then—then, I'm goingto talk to my teacher about starting Safety Games in the lower grades."
"Safety Games!" Bob's tone showed his surprise.
"Yes, Bob. Funny sounding idea, isn't it? But I've thought out a lot of games that the kindergarten children can play, games that will be brand new to them, and lots of fun, and at the same time will get them into the habit of thinking Safety and looking out for themselves on the street."
"Tell us one," demanded Bob.
"Well," said Betty, "one of them I call 'Little Safety Scout.' We can begin by asking the little folks in one grade what things they ought to keep in mind when crossing a busy street. The one that gives the best answer is made 'Little Safety Scout.' One of the biggest boys plays he's the crossing policeman, other children play street cars, others make believe they're automobiles, and so on. The rest are just people trying to get across the street, and they have trouble trying to understand what the policeman's whistle signals mean, and some get run over, and some are saved by the 'Little Safety Scout,' and others show the right way to get on and off a car, and all that."
"Well, Betty Dalton," cried Uncle Jack, "you're a regular little witch! Why, that's a dandy plan. The first thing you know, you'll have the little folks able to take care of themselves on the streets better than the grown-ups do!"
"Fine!" chimed in Bob. "And we can give them Sure Pop buttons, too!"
"That's right, we can," said Betty. "We can give buttons to the children who pass an easy little Safety First examination after we've played the Safety Games a few weeks. And perhaps we might make some Safety posters to hang on the schoolroom walls; just big posters in colored crayons, with a picture of Sure Pop and one of his Safety mottoes below it in big letters,—like, 'Folks that have no wings must use their wits,'—something that would make the children remember the point of the story longer. Don't you think that would help along?"
Thus the three friends went on planning, till the jolly head waiter asked them for the ninth time if they wouldn't have something more, and Uncle Jack looked at his watch with a start of surprise.
"Four o'clock! Whew! We must get out of this. We have lots to do yet before we go home, and I told the chauffeur to be back here at five. Let's stop in the cold-storage room below."
"Is that what makes the roof so cool?" asked Betty, as they looked around on the floor below.
"Ha, ha! Not a bad idea—perhaps it does have something to do with it. No, this is where the store keeps its furs during the summer months. Moths can't stand the cold, you know. Come on, we'll go on down now."
The elevator car was nearly full of people from the roofgarden. Betty started to step in, hesitated, then turned back. Uncle Jack motioned her and Bob in, stepped in after them, and carefully turned so that he faced the elevator door.
"That was a risky thing you did just then," he whispered to Betty. "Three quarters of all the elevator accidents are due to stepping in or out in the wrong way. Never do the thing halfway, you know. Always wait till the elevator man stops the car at the floor level and throws the door wide open."
Next to them in the elevator stood two boys—cash boys in the store—who were fooling and scuffling so close to the door that the elevator man cautioned them twice as the car dropped swiftly downward. Finally one of them brought his heel down on the other's foot so hard that the other jumped backward, forgetting everything else for the pain. Forward went his head—bang went his face against the iron grating of the door they were just passing.
The elevator stopped with a jerk. They carried the boy out and sent for the store doctor. Bob and Betty never had to be reminded, in all the years to come, to look sharp when riding in elevators. The memory of that bruised and battered face was warning enough.
"It's a dangerous machine," said Uncle Jack as they left the store. "A fellow who will scuffle in an elevator is foolish enough for almost anything. Here's our next stop,"and he showed them into a shop with a big sign over the double door:
UNIFORMS—READY MADE OR TO ORDER
"Uncle Jack must be going to have a new uniform," whispered Betty to her twin as the tailor came up with his tape over his shoulders. But it was not around their uncle that the tape measure went, it was around Bob!
"Yes, the regulation khaki," Uncle Jack was saying. "Cut and finish it just like this one," and he handed the tailor a photograph of Sure Pop.
"Your turn next, Betty," said Uncle Jack, and to Betty's great delight and the tailor's surprise,shewas measured for a special Safety Scout uniform too!
Uncle Jack did not stop there. He bought the twins Safety Scout hats of fine, light felt, made for hard service, and he was on the point of buying them leather puttees or leggings, but Bob stopped him.
"Canvas leggings are plenty good enough," he said. "The fellows couldn't afford leather, most of them, and we want them all to match."
"Canvas it is, then," nodded his uncle, and went on making up the outfits. Betty sighed happily as they followed him into another store. It all seemed too good to be true! The first thing she knew, they were sitting at a glass-topped table.
Uncle Jack mopped his steaming forehead again. "That tailor shop beats the jungle all hollow for heat!" he exclaimed. "What kind of ice cream do you want, Scouts?"
Betty thought it was time to object. "Oh, Uncle Jack, we've had enough! You've done too much for us already!" All the same, she enjoyed the ice cream just as much as the others did, and when Uncle Jack tucked a box of chocolates under her arm, her cup of joy was full.
"What are you thinking about, Betty?" asked Uncle Jack as the big red automobile bore them merrily homeward; for Betty had not said a word for blocks and blocks.
She patted Uncle Jack's arm—the well one—with a grateful smile. "I was thinking what a perfectly, perfectlylovelyday we've had! And wishing," she murmured, wistfully, "that Mother had been along too."
"Now that part's all taken care of," said Uncle Jack. "Your mother's going out for a spin with me tonight after Baby's asleep; she couldn't leave today, she said. She and I will have a good long ride down the river front in the moonlight. Be sure you get a good sleep tonight, now, you two; I want you to be in good trim for a little exploring party I'm planning for tomorrow."
"We'll be up bright and early, ready for anything," Bob told him. "Whew! but this has been a whirlwind of a day! Glad you're going to take Mother out—that's the only way she'd get a cool breeze tonight, all right!"
"But it can't be as nice as the roof garden, even then!" cried his happy twin, as she lifted out her big box of candy and skipped up the front steps two at a time.