“I swiped two o’ them quarantine signs offen two doors.”
valeriodistefano.com - The Mirrored Project Gutenberg eBook of Tom Slade by Percy K. Fitzhugh Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the header without written permission. Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. **Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** **eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** *****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** Title: Tom Slade Author: Percy K. Fitzhugh Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6655] [Yes, we are almost one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on January 10, 2003] [This file was last updated on September 2, 2003] Edition: 11 Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, TOM SLADE ***
by
It happened in Barrel Alley, and it was Tom Slade, as usual, who did it. Picking a barrel-stave out of the mud, he sidled up to Ching Wo’s laundry, opened the door, beat the counter with a resounding clamor, called, “Ching, Ching, Chinaman!” and by way of a grand climax, hurled the dirty barrel-stave at a pile of spotless starched shirts, banged the door shut and ran.
Tom was “on the hook” this morning. In one particular (and in only one) Tom was like “Old John Temple,” who owned the bank as well as Barrel Alley. Both took one day off a week. “Old John” never went down to the bank on Saturdays and Tom never went to school on Mondays. He began his school week on Tuesday; and the truant officer was just about as sure to cast his dreaded net in Barrel Alley on a Monday as old John Temple was sure to visit it on the first of the month—when the rents were due.
This first and imminent rock of peril passed, Tom lost no time in offering the opening number of his customary morning program, which was to play some prank on Ching Wo. But Ching Wo, often disturbed, like a true philosopher, and knowing it was Monday, picked out the soiled shirts, piled up the others, threw the muddy stave out and quietly resumed his ironing.
Up at the corner Tom emerged around John Temple’s big granite bank building into the brighter spectacle of Main Street. Here he paused to adjust the single strand of suspender which he wore. The other half of this suspender belonged to his father; the two strands had originally formed a single pair and now, in their separate responsibilities, each did duty continuously, since neither Tom nor his father undressed when they went to bed.
His single strand of suspender replaced, Tom shuffled along down Main Street on his path of glory.
At the next corner was a coal-box. This he opened and helped himself to several chunks of coal. A little farther on he came to a trolley car standing still. Sidling up behind it, he grabbed the pole-rope, detaching the pulley from the wire.
The conductor emerged, shook his fist at the retreating boy and sent a few expletives after him. Tom then let fly one piece of coal after another at the rear platform of the car, keeping a single chunk for future use.
For, whenever Tom Slade got into a dispute (which was on an average of a dozen times a day), he invariably picked up a stone. Not that he expected always to throw it, though he often did, but because it illustrated his attitude of suspicion and menace toward the world in general, and toward other boys in particular.
So firmly rooted had the habit become that even indoors when his father threatened him (which was likewise on an average of a dozen times a day) he would reach cautiously down behind his legs, as if he expected to find a stone on the kitchen floor conveniently near at hand.
First and last, Tom had heard a good deal of unfavorable comment about his fancy for throwing stones. Mrs. Bennett, the settlement worker, had informed him that throwing stones was despicable, which went in one ear and out the other, because Tom did not know what “despicable” meant. The priest had told him that it was both wicked and cowardly; while the police had gone straight to the heart of the matter by threatening to lock him up for it.
And yet, you know, it was not until Tom met young Mr. Ellsworth, scoutmaster, that he heard something on the subject which stuck in his mind. On this day of Tom’s wild exploits, as he moved along a little further down the street he came to the fence which enclosed John Temple’s vacant lot. It was covered with gaudy posters and with his remaining piece of coal he proceeded to embellish these.
He was so absorbed in his decorative enterprise that he did not notice the person who was standing quietly on the sidewalk watching him, until he was aware of a voice speaking very sociably.
“I don’t think I should do that, my boy, if I were you.”
Tom paused (in the middle of a most unwholesome sentence) and saw a young gentleman, perhaps twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, looking pleasantly at him. He was extremely well-dressed in a natty blue serge suit, and to Tom his appearance was little less than gorgeous.
The boy’s first impulse was, of course, to run, and he made a start as if to do so. Then, fearing perhaps that there was not a clear get-away, he stooped for a stone.
“What are you going to do with that?” asked the young gentleman, smiling.
“Nartin.”
“You weren’t going to throw it at me, I hope, while I am standing three feet from you.”
Tom was a little nonplussed. “I wouldn’t t’row no stone standin’ near yer,” he grumbled.
“Good,” said the young man; “you have some ideas about sporting, haven’t you? Though, of course, you’re no sport—or you wouldn’t have picked up a stone at all.”
Now this was great news to Tom. He knew he was no gentleman; Mrs. Bennett had told him that. He knew he was a hoodlum; the trolley conductors had told him that. He knew that he was lazy and shiftless and unkempt and a number of other things, for the world at large had made no bones of telling him so; but never, never for one moment had he supposed that he was no sport. He had always believed that to hit a person with a stone and “get away with it” represented the very top-notch of fun, and sporting proficiency.
So he looked at this young man as if he thought that he had inadvertently turned the world upside down.
“Give me that piece of coal, my boy, and let’s see if we can’t mark out that last word.”
“Yer’ll git yer hand all dirty wid coal,” said Tom, hardly knowing what else to say.
“Well, a dirty hand isn’t as bad as a filthy word; besides, I’m rooting in the dirt with my hands all summer, anyway,” said the young man, as he marked out Tom’s handiwork. “There,” he added, handing back the coal, “that’s not so bad now; guess neither one of us is much of an artist, hey? See that scratch?” he went on, exhibiting his hand to Tom. “I got that shinning up a tree. Come on, let’s beat it; first thing you know a cop will be here.”
Tom hardly knew what to think of this strange, sumptuously-attired creature whose hands were rooting in the dirt all summer, and who got a scratch (which he proudly exhibited) from shinning up a tree; who said “beat it” when he meant “go away,” and who called a policeman a “cop.”
Tom rather liked the way this strange man talked, though it was not without a tinge of suspicion that he accompanied him along the street, casting furtive glances at his luxurious attire, wondering how such as he could climb a tree.
“You couldn’t shin up no tree,” he presently ventured.
“Oh, couldn’t I, though?” laughed his companion. “I’ve shinned up more trees than you’ve got fingers and toes.”
“When you was a kid?”
“I’m a kid now, and don’t you forget it. And I’ll give you a tip, too. Grind up some bark in your hands—it works fine.”
They walked on silently for a little way; an ill-assorted pair they must have seemed to a passer-by, the boy hitching up his suspender as often as it slid from his shoulder in his shuffling effort to keep up with the alert stride of his companion.
“Trouble with stone-throwing is that there isn’t any skill in it. You know what Buck Edwards said, don’t you? He said he’d have learned to pitch much easier if it hadn’t been for throwing stones when he was a kid. He used to be a regular fiend at it, and when he came to passing curves he couldn’t make his first finger behave. You think Buck can beat that pitcher the Prep. boys have got?”
“Dem High School guys is all right.”
“Well, Buck’s a good pitcher. I don’t suppose I’ve thrown a stone in ten years. But I bet I could practice for ten minutes and beat you out. You smoke, don’t you?”
“N-no—yeer, I do sometimes.”
“Just caught the truth by the tail that time, didn’t you?” the young man laughed. “Well, a kid can’t aim steady if he smokes: that’s one sure thing.”
Tom was seized with a strange desire to strengthen his companion’s side of the case. The poor boy had few enough arguments, goodness knows, in defense of his own habits, and his information was meagre enough. Yet the one little thing which he seemed to remember about the other side of stone-throwing he now contributed willingly.
“It’s bad too if you ever land a guy one in the temple.”
“Well, I don’t know; I don’t think there’s so much in that, though there may be. I landed a guy one in the temple with a stick last summer—accident, of course, and I thought it would kill him, but it didn’t.”
Tom was surprised and fascinated by the stranger’s frankness.
“But a fellow that throws stones is no sport, that’s sure, and you can mark that up in your brain if you happen to have a lump of coal handy.”
“I chucked that coal—honest.”
“Good.”
It had been Tom’s intention to go down through Chester Street and steal an apple from Schmitt’s Grocery, but instead he accompanied his new friend until that mysterious person turned to enter a house.
“Guess we didn’t swap names, did we?” the stranger said, holding out his hand.
It was the first time that Tom Slade had grasped anyone’s hand in many a day.
“Tom—Tom Slade,” he said, hitching up his suspender.
“So? Mine’s Ellsworth. Come up to the Library building and see us some Friday night—the boys, I mean.”
“Oh, are you the boss o’ them regiment fellers?”
“Not exactly the boss; scouts we call ourselves.”
“What’s a scout? A soldier, like?”
“No, a scout’s a fellow that does stunts and things.”
“I betcher you kin do a few.”
“I bet I can!” laughed Mr. Ellsworth; “you said it! I’ve got some of those boys guessing.” Which was the plain truth.
“Drop in some Friday night and see us; don’t forget now.”
Tom watched him as he ascended the steps of a neighboring porch. He had a strange fascination for the boy, and it was not till the door closed behind him that Tom’s steady gaze was averted. Then he shuffled off down the street.
Tom Slade awoke at about eleven o’clock, swung his legs to the floor, yawned, rubbed his eyes, felt blindly for his tattered shoes and sniffed the air.
Something was wrong, that was sure. Tom sniffed again. Something had undoubtedly happened. The old familiar odor which had dwelt in the Slade apartment all winter, the stuffy smell of bed clothes and dirty matting, of kerosene and smoke and fried potatoes and salt-fish and empty beer bottles, had given place to something new. Tom sniffed again.
Then, all of a sudden, his waking senses became aware of his father seated in his usual greasy chair, sideways to the window.
And the window was open!
The stove-lifter which had been used to pry it up lay on the sill, and the spring air, gracious and democratic, was pouring in amid the squalor just as it was pouring in through the wide-swung cathedral windows of John Temple’s home up in Grantley Square.
“Yer opened the winder, didn’ yer?” said Tom.
“Never you mind what I done,” replied his father.
“Ain’t it after six?”
“Never you mind what ’tis; git yer cap ‘n’ beat it up to Barney’s for a pint.”
“Ain’t we goin’ to have no eats?”
“No, we ain’t goin’ ter have no eats. You tell Barney to give ye a cup o’ coffee; tell ’im I said so.”
“Awh, he wouldn’ give me no pint widout de money.”
“He wouldn’, wouldn’ he? I’ll pint you!”
“I ain’t goin’ ter graft on him no more.”
“Git me a dime off Tony then and stop in Billy’s comin’ back ‘n’ tell him I got the cramps agin and can’t work.”
“He’ll gimme the laugh.”
“I’ll give ye the other kind of a laugh if ye don’t beat it. I left you sleep till eleven o’clock—”
“You didn’ leave me sleep,” said Tom. “Yer only woke up yerself half an hour ago.”
“Yer call me a liar, will ye?” roared Bill Slade, rising.
Tom took his usual strategic position on the opposite side of the table, and as his father moved ominously around it, kept the full width of it between them. When he reached a point nearest the sink he grabbed a dented pail therefrom and darted out and down the stairs.
Up near Grantley Square was a fence which bore the sign, “Post No Bills.” How this had managed to escape Tom hitherto was a mystery, but he now altered it, according to the classic hoodlum formula, so that it read, “Post No Bills,” and headed up through the square for Barney Galloway’s saloon. Bill Slade had been reduced to long-distance intercourse in the matter of saloons for he had exhausted his credit in all the places near Barrel Alley.
In the spacious garden of John Temple’s home a girl of twelve or thirteen years was bouncing a ball. This was Mary Temple, and what business “old” John Temple had with such a pretty and graceful little daughter, I am not qualified to explain.
“Chuck it out here,” said Tom, “an’ I’ll ketch it in the can.”
She retreated a few yards into the garden, then turned, and gave Tom a withering stare.
“Chuck it out here and I’ll chuck it back—honest,” called Tom.
The girl’s dignity began to show signs of collapse. She wanted to have that ball thrown, and to catch it.
“Will you promise to toss it back?” she weakened.
“Sure.”
“Word and honor?”
“Sure.”
“Cross your heart?”
“Sure.”
Still she hesitated, arm in air.
“Will you promise to throw it back?”
“Sure, hope to die. Chuck it.”
“Get back a little,” said she.
The ball went sailing over the paling, Tom caught it, gave a yell of triumph, beat a tattoo upon the can, and ran for all he was worth.
Outside the saloon Tom borrowed ten cents from Tony, the bootblack, on his father’s behalf, and with this he purchased the beer.
Meanwhile, the bad turn which he had done had begun to sprout and by the time he reached home it had grown and spread to such proportions that Jack’s beanstalk was a mere shrub compared with it. Nothing was farther from John Temple’s thoughts that beautiful Saturday than to pay a visit to Barrel Alley. On the contrary, he was just putting on his new spring hat to go out to the Country Club for a turn at golf, when Mary came in crying that Tom Slade had stolen her ball.
Temple cared nothing about the ball, nor a great deal about Mary’s tears, but the mention of Tom Slade reminded him that the first of the month was close at hand and that he had intended to “warn” Bill Slade with the usual threat of eviction. Bill had never paid the rent in full after the second month of his residence in Barrel Alley. When he was working and Temple happened to come along at a propitious moment, Bill would give him two dollars or five dollars, as the case might be, but as to how the account actually stood he had not the slightest idea.
If Tom had not sent Mary Temple into the house crying her father would never have thought to go through Barrel Alley on his way out to the Country Club, but as it was, when Tom turned into the Alley from Main Street, he saw Mr. Temple’s big limousine car standing in front of his own door.
If there was one thing in this world more than another dear to the heart of Tom Slade, it was a limousine car. Even an Italian organgrinder did not offer the mischievous possibilities of a limousine. He had a regular formula for the treatment of limousines which was as sure of success as a “cure all.”
Placing his pail inside the doorway, he approached the chauffeur with a suspiciously friendly air which boded mischief. After a strategic word or two of cordiality, he grasped the siren horn, tooted it frantically, pulled the timer aroundr opened one of the doors, jumped in and out of the opposite door, leaving both open, and retreated as far as the corner, calling, “Yah-h-h-h-h!”
In a few minutes he returned very cautiously, sidled up to the house door, and took his belated way upstairs.
Tom placed his pail on the lower step of the stair leading up to the floor above his own, but did not enter the room whence emanated the stern voice of John Temple and the lying excuses of his father. He went down and out on the door step and sat on the railing, gazing at the chauffeur with an exasperating look of triumph.
“I wouldn’ be no lousy Cho-fure,” he began.
The chauffeur (who received twenty-five dollars a week) did not see the force of this remark.
“Runnin’ over kids all de time-you lie, yer did too!”
The chauffeur looked straight ahead and uttered not a word.
“Yer’d be in jail if ’twuzn’t fer old John paying graft ter the cops!”
The chauffeur, who knew his place, made never a sign.
“Yer stinkin’ thief! Yer don’t do a thing but cop de car fer joy-rides— didn’ yer?”
At this the chauffeur stirred slightly.
“Yes, yer will!” yelled Tom, jumping down from the railing.
He had just picked up a stone, when the portly form of John Temple emerged from the door behind him.
“Put down that stone, sir, or I’ll lock you up!” said he with the air of one who is accustomed to being obeyed.
“G-wan, he called me a liar!” shouted Tom.
“Well, that’s just what you are,” said John Temple, “and if certain people of this town spent less for canvas uniforms to put on their boys to make tramps out of them, we should be able, perhaps, to build an addition to the jail.”
“Ya-ah, an’ you’d be de first one to go into it!” Tom yelled, as Temple reached the step of his car.
“What’s that?” said Temple, turning suddenly.
“That’s what!” shouted Tom, letting fly the stone. It went straight to its mark, removing “old” John’s spring hat as effectually as a gust of wind, and leaving it embedded in the mud below the car.
That night, when Tom Slade, all unaware of the tragedy which threatened his young life, shuffled into Billy’s garage, he announced to his followers a plan which showed his master mind as leader of the gang. “Hey,” said he, “I heard Sissy Bennett’s mother say she’s goin’ ter have a s’prise party fer him Friday night, ‘n’ d’yer know wot I’m goin’ ter do?”
“Tell him and spoil it fer him?” ventured Joe Flynn.
“Na-a-h!”
“Tick-tack?” asked Slush Ryder.
“Na-ah, tick-tacks is out o’ date,”
“Cord ter trip ’em up?”
“Guess agin, guess agin,” said Tom, exultantly.
But as no one ventured any further guesses, he announced his plan forthwith.
“Don’t say a word-don’t say a word,” he ejaculated. “I swiped two o’ thim quarantine signs offen two doors, ‘n’ I’m gon’er tack one up on Sissy’s door Friday night! Can yer beat it?”
None of them could beat it, for it was an inspiration. To turn away Master Connover’s young guests by this simple but effectual device was worthy of the leadership qualities of Tom Slade. Having thus advertised the possibilities of the signs he took occasion to announce,
“I got anoder one, an’ I’ll sell it fer a dime.” But even though he marked it down to a dime, none would buy, so he announced his intention of raffling it off.
Before the momentous evening of Connover’s party arrived, however, something else happened which had a curious and indirect effect upon the carrying out of Tom’s plan.
On Wednesday afternoon three men came down Barrel Alley armed with a paper for Bill Slade. It was full of “whereases” and “now, therefores” and other things which Bill did not comprehend, but he understood well enough the meaning of their errand.
The stone which Tom had thrown at John Temple had rebounded with terrific force!
One man would have been enough, goodness knows, to do the job in hand, for there were only six or seven pieces of furniture. They got in each other’s way a good deal and spat tobacco juice, while poor helpless, inefficient Bill Slade stood by watching them.
From various windows and doors the neighbors watched them too, and some congratulated themselves that their own rents were paid, while others wondered what would become of poor Tom now.
This was the scene which greeted Tom as he came down Barrel Alley from school.
“Wot are they doin’?” he asked.
“Can’t you see wot they’re a-doin’?” roared his father. “’Tain’t them that’s doin’ it neither, it’s you—you done it!! It’s you took the roof from over my head, you and old John Temple!” Advancing menacingly, he poured forth a torrent of abuse at his wretched son.
“The two o’ yez done it! You wid yer rocks and him wid his dirty marshals and judges! I’ll get the both o’ yez yet! Ye sneakin’ rat!”
He would have struck Tom to the ground if Mrs. O’Connor, a mournful figure in shoddy black, had not crossed the street and forced her way between them.
“’Twas you done it, Bill Slade, and not him, and don’t you lay yer hand on him—mind that! ‘Twas you an’ your whiskey bottle done it, you lazy loafer, an’ the street is well rid o’ you. Don’t you raise your hand agin me, Bill Slade—I’m not afraid o’ the likes o’ you. I tell you ’twas you sent the poor boy’s mother to her grave—you and your whiskey bottle!”
“I—I—ain’t scared uv him!” said Tom.
“You stay right here now and don’t be foolish, and me an’ you’ll go over an’ have a cup o’ coffee.”
Just then one of the men emerged bearing in one arm the portrait of the late Mrs. Slade and in the other hand Bill Slade’s battered but trusty beer can. The portrait he laid face up on the table and set the can on it.
Perhaps it is expecting too much to assume that a city marshal would have any sense of the fitness of things, but it was an unfortunate moment to make such a mistake. As Mrs. O’Connor lifted the pail a dirty ring remained on the face of the portrait.
“D’yer see wot yer done?” shrieked Tom, rushing at the marshal. “D’yer see wot yer done?”
There was no stopping him. With a stream of profanity he rushed at the offending marshal, grabbing him by the neck, and the man’s head shook and swayed as if it were in the grip of a mad dog.
It was in vain that poor Mrs. O’Connor attempted to intercede, catching hold of the infuriated boy and calling,
“Oh, Tommy, for the dear Lord’s sake, stop and listen to me!”
Tom did not even hear.
The marshal, his face red and his eyes staring, went down into the mud of Barrel Alley and the savage, merciless pounding of his face could be heard across the way.
While the other marshals pulled Tom off his half-conscious victim, the younger contingent came down the street escorting a sauntering blue-coat, who swung his club leisurely and seemed quite master of the situation.
“He kilt him, he kilt him!” called little Sadie McCarren.
Tom, his scraggly hair matted, his face streaming, his chest heaving, and his ragged clothing bespattered, stood hoisting up his suspender, safe in the custody of the other two marshals.
“Take this here young devil around to the station,” said one of the men, “for assault and battery and interferin’ with an officer of the law in the performance of his dooty.”
“Come along, Tom,” said the policeman; “in trouble again, eh?”
“Can’t yer leave him go just this time?” pleaded Mrs. O’Connor. “He ain’t himself at all—yer kin see it.”
“Take him in,” said the rising victim, “for interferin’ with an officer of the law in the performance of dooty.”
“Where’s his folks?” the policeman asked, not unkindly.
It was then the crowd discovered that Bill Slade had disappeared.
“I’ll have to take you along,” said the officer.
Tom said never a word. He had played his part in the proceedings, and he was through.
“Couldn’t yer leave him come over jist till I make him a cup o’ coffee?” Mrs. O’Connor begged.
“They’ll give him his dinner at the station, ma’am,” the policeman answered.
Mrs. O’Connor stood there choking as Tom was led up the street, the full juvenile force of Barrel Alley thronging after him.
“Wouldn’ yer leave me pull my strap up?” he asked the policeman.
The officer released his arm, taking him by the neck instead, and the last that Mrs. O’Connor saw Tom was hauling his one rebellious strand of suspender up into place.
“Poor lad, I don’t know what’ll become uv him now,” said Mrs. O’Connor, pausing on her doorstep to speak with a neighbor.
“And them things over there an’ night comin’ on,” said her companion. “I wisht that alarm clock was took away—seems as if ‘twas laughin’ at the whole thing—like.”
“‘Tain’t only his bein’ arrested,” said Mrs. O’Connor, “but ther’ ain’t no hope for him at all, as I kin see. Ther’s no one can inflooence him.”
In Court, the next morning, the judge ruled out all reference to the disfigurement of Mrs. Slade’s portrait as being “incompetent and irrelevant,” and when the “assault and battery” could not be made to seem “an act done in self-defense and by reason of the imminent peril of the accused,” Tom was taken to the “jug” to spend the balance of the day and to ponder on the discovery that a “guy” has no right to “slam” a marshal just because he sets a dirty beer can on his mother’s picture.
His first enterprise after his liberation was a flank move on Schmitt’s Grocery where he stole a couple of apples and a banana, which latter he ate going along the street. These were his only luncheon. The banana skin he threw on the pave-ment.
In a few moments he heard footsteps behind him and, turning, saw a small boy coming along dangling the peel he had dropped. The boy was a jaunty little fellow, wearing a natty spring suit. It was, in fact, “Pee-wee” Harris, Tenderfoot, who was just starting out to cover Provision 5 of the Second Class Scout requirements, for he was going to be a Second Class Scout before camping-time, or know the reason why.
“You drop that?” he asked pleasantly.
“Ye-re, you kin have it,” said Tom cynically.
“Thanks,” said Pee-wee, and the banana peel went sailing over the fence into Temple’s lot.
“First thing you know somebody’d get a free ride on that thing,” said Pee-wee.
“Ye-re?” said Tom sneeringly.
“And if anybody got anything free near John Temple’s property——”
“Dere’s where yer said it, kiddo,” said Tom, approvingly.
“So long,” said Pee-wee, and went gaily on, walking a little, then running a little, then walk-ing again, until Tom thought he must be crazy. Happening just at that minute to finish one of his apples (or rather one of Schmitt’s apples) he let fly the core straight for the back of Pee-wee’s head.
Then a most extraordinary thing, happened. Without so much as turning round, Pee-wee raised his hand, caught the core, threw it over into the lot, and then, turning, laughed, “Thanks, good shot!”
Tom had always supposed that the back of a person’s head was a safe target, and he could not comprehend the instinct which was so alert and highly-tuned that it could work entirely independent of the eyes. But this was merely one of Pee-wee’s specialties, and his amazing progress from Tenderfoot to Star Scout is a story all by itself.
Tom hoisted himself onto the board fence and attacked the other apple. Just then along came “Sweet Caporal” demanding the core.
“Gimme it ‘n’ I’ll put yer wise ter sup’m.”
Tom made the speculation.
“Wop Joe’s around de corner wid his pushcart? wot d’ye say we give him de spill?”
They were presently joined by “Slats” Corbett, and the “Two Aces,” Jim and Jake Mattenberg, and shortly thereafter Wop Joe’s little candystand was carried by assault.
The gum-drops and chocolate bars which did not find their way into the pockets of the storming host, were strewn about the street, the whistle of the peanut-roaster was broken off and Tom went scooting down the street tooting it vigorously.
This affair scattered the gang for the time, and presently Tom and “Sweet Caporal” found themselves together. They got an empty bottle from an ash wagon, broke it and distributed the pieces along Broad Street, which they selected as a sort of “mine area” for the embarrassment of auto traffic.
Tom then shuffled into the Public Library, ostensibly to read, but in fact to decorate the books according to his own theories of art, and was ejected because he giggled and scuffed his feet and interfered with the readers.
It would not be edifying to follow Tom’s shuffling footsteps that afternoon, nor to enumerate the catalogue of unseemly phrase and vicious mischief which filled the balance of the day. He wound up his career of glory by one of the most contemptible things which he had ever done. He went up at dusk and tacked his quarantine sign to the outer gate of the Bennett place.
“Gee, I hope they’re all home,” he said.
They were all at home and Mrs. Bennett, whom he hated, was busy with preparation and happy anticipations for her unsuspecting son. That the wretched plan did not succeed was due to no preparatory omission on the part of Tom, but because something happened which changed the whole face of things.
Tom’s visit to the Library reminded him that it was here “them regiment fellers” met, and since it was near the Bennett place he decided to loiter thereabout, partly for the ineffable pleasure of beholding the side-tracking of Connover’s party, and partly in the hope of seeing Mr. Ellsworth again.
So he shuffled around a little before dark and did sentinel duty between the two places. He wanted something to eat very much indeed, and he surmised that such a sympathetic fellow as young Mr. Ellsworth would “give him the lend of a nickel” especially if he were tipped off in regard to the coming ball game.
Standing outside, Tom heard the uproarious laughter through the basement windows and wondered what it was all about. Strange that fellows could be enjoying themselves so thoroughly who were not up to some kind of mischief.
Presently, the basement door opened and the scouts began to come out. Tom loitered in the shadow across the way.
The first group paused on the sidewalk bent on finishing their discussion as to whether “whipping” was as good as splicing for two strands of rope. One boy insisted that splicing was the only way if you knew how to do it, but that you had to whittle a splicing needle.
“I wouldn’t trust my weight on any double whipping,” said another fellow. “The binding wouldn’t stand salt water—not unless you tarred it.”
“If my little snow-white hand is going to grab that loop, it’ll be spliced,” said the first speaker.
Another boy came out and said he could jump the gap without any rope at all; it was only seven feet, and what was the use of a rope anyway? Then someone said that Pee-wee would do it scout pace, and there was a great laugh. The group went on up the street.
Then out came the renowned Pee-wee himself in hot pursuit of them, running a little, walking a little, according to his habit.
Two more boys came out and one of them said it was going to rain to-morrow. Tom wondered how he knew. Then three or four of the Ravens appeared and one said it would be a great stunt if they could work that on the Silver Foxes at midnight.
Tom didn’t know what the Silver Foxes were (he knew there were no foxes in Bridgeboro), and he had no notion what “that” meant, but he liked the idea of doing it at midnight. He would like to be mixed up in something which was done at midnight himself.
But his trusty pal, Mr. Ellsworth, did not appear. Whether he was absent that evening, Tom never knew. The last ones to emerge from the Library basement, were a couple of boys who were talking about dots and dashes.
“You want to make your dot flares shorter,” one said.
“Shall I tell you what I’m going to say?” the other asked.
“No, sure not, let me dope it out.”
“Well, then, get on the job as soon as you reach home.”
“All right, then I won’t say good-night till later. So long.”
“See you to-morrow.”
How these two expected to say good night without seeing each other Tom could not imagine, but he thought it had something to do with “dot flares”; in any event, it was something very mysterious and was to be done that night. He rather liked the idea of it.
The two boys separated, one going up toward Blakeley’s Hill and pausing to glance at the quarantine sign on the Bennett house as he passed. Tom was rather surprised that he noticed it since he seemed to be in a hurry, but he followed, resolved to “slam” the fellow if he took it down.
Then there came into his head the bright idea that if he followed this boy up the hill to an unfrequented spot he could hold him up for a nickel.
A little way up the hill the boy suddenly turned and stood waiting for him. Tom was hardly less than amazed at this for he had thought that his pursuit was not known. When they came face to face Tom saw that it was none other than the “half-baked galook” Roy Blakeley.
He wore the full Scout regalia which fitted him to perfection, and upon his left breast Tom could see a ribbon with something bright depending from it, which seemed to be in the shape of a bird. He had a trim figure and stood very straight, and about his neck was a looselyknotted scarf of a silvery gray color, showing quite an expanse of bare throat. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and on one wrist he wore a leather band.
“What are you following me for?” he asked.
“Who’s follerin’ yer?”
“You are.”
“I ain’t follerin’ yer neither.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Yer mean ter tell me I’m lyin’?” shouted Tom, advancing with a threatening air.
“Sure.”
Tom’s hulking form was within a few inches’ of Blakeley and he thrust forward his lowered head and held his clenched fist conveniently ready at his side, but Roy did not budge. On the contrary, he seemed rather amused. He did not scare worth a cent.
“Yer want me ter hand ye one?”
“No, sure not.”
“Well then, was I lyin’?”
“Surest thing you know.”
There was a pause.
“Gimme a nickel ‘n’ I’ll leave ye off,” said Tom magnanimously.
The boy laughed and asked, “What do you want the nickel for?”
“Fer a cup o’ coffee.”
Roy paused a minute, biting his lip ruminatively, frankly contemplating him.
“I can make you a better cup of coffee,” said he, “than any lunch wagon juggler in this town. You’re halfway up the hill now; come on up the rest of the way—just for a stunt. Ever up on the hill?”
Tom hesitated.
“Come on, you’re not in a hurry to get home, are you? I’ll give you some plum-duff I made and you can have a belt axe to chop it with if you want to. Come on, just for a stunt.”
“Who’s up dere?”
“Just ‘Yours sincerely.’”
“Yer live in de big house, don’cher?”
“Not fer me; guess again. Nay, nay, my boy, I live in Camp Solitaire, with a ring round it. Anybody steps inside that ring gets his wrist slapped and two demerits. I let the house stay there on account of my mother and father and the cat. Don’t you worry, you won’t get within two hundred feet of the house. The house and I don’t speak.”
Tom, half suspicious but wanting a cup of coffee, shuffled along at Roy’s side. The scout’s offhand manner and rather whimsical way of talking took the wind out of his belligerence, and he allowed himself so far to soften toward this “rich guy” as to say,
“Me an’ our house don’t speak neither; we wuz chucked.”
“Chucked?”
“Ye-re, put out. Old John Temple done it, but I’m hunk all right.”
“When was that?”
“Couple o’ days ago.”
He told the story of the eviction and his companion listened as they plodded up the hill.
“Well,” said Roy, “I haven’t slept indoors for two weeks, and I’m not going to for the next six weeks. And the best way to get hunk on a fellow that puts you out of a house is just to sleep outdoors. They can’t put you out of there very well. Camp, and you’ve got the laugh on them!”
“Gee, I thought nobuddy but poor guys slep’ outdoors.”
“It’s the poor guys that sleep indoors,” said Roy.
“Don’ de wind git on ye?”
“Sure—gets all over you; it’s fine.”
“My father give me a raw hand-out, all right, and then some more.”
“Well, there’s no use fighting your pack.”
“Yer what?”
“Your pack—as Dan Beard says.”
“Who’s he—one o’ your crowd?”
“You bet he is. ‘Fighting your pack’ is scrapping with your job—with what can’t be helped—kind of. See?”
They walked along in silence, Tom’s half-limping sideways gait in strange contrast with his companion’s carriage, and soon entered the spacious grounds of the big old-fashioned house which crowned the summit of Blakeley’s Hill, one of the show places of the town.
“Can you jump that hedge?” said Roy, as he leaped over it. “This’ll be your first sleep outdoors, won’t it? If you wake up all of a sudden and hear a kind of growling don’t get scared—it’s only the trees.”
Under a spacious elm, a couple of hundred feet from the house, was a little tent with a flag-pole near it.
“That’s where Old Glory hangs out, but she goes to bed at sunset. That’s what gives her such rosy cheeks. We’ll hoist her up and give her the salute in the morning.”
Near the tent was a small fire place of stones, with a rough bench by it and a chair fashioned from a grocery box. Before the entrance stood two poles and on a rough board across these were painted the words, CAMP SOLITAIRE, as Tom saw by the light of the lantern which Roy held up for a moment.
The tent was furnished with a cot, blankets, mosquito-netting, several books on a little shelf, and magazines strewn about with BOYS’ LIFE on their covers. On the central upright was a little shelf with a reflector for the lantern, and close to the pole a rickety steamer chair with a cushion or two. The place looked very inviting.
“Now this out here,” said Roy, “is my signal pedestal. You know Westy Martin, don’t you? He’s patrol leader, and he and I are trying out the Morse code; you’ll see me hand him one to-night. We’re trying it by searchlight first, then, later we’ll get down to the real fire works. He lives out on the Hillside Road a little way.”
The signal pedestal was a little tower with a platform on top reached by a ladder.
“Doesn’t need to be very high, you see, because you can throw a searchlight way up, but we use it daytimes for flag work. Here’s the searchlight,” Roy added, unwrapping it from a piece of canvas. “Belongs on the touring car, but I use it. I let my father use it on the car sometimes—if he’s good.
“Now for the coffee. Sit right down on that parlor chair, but don’t lean too far back. Like it strong? No? Right you are. Wait a minute, the lantern’s smoking. Never thought what you were up against to-night, did you? You’re kidnapped and don’t know it. By the time we’re through the eats Westy’ll be home and we’ll say good-night to him.
“Can you beat that valley for signalling? Westy’s nearly as high up as we are. Now for the fire and then the plum-duff. Don’t be afraid of it-you can only die once. Wish I had some raisin pudding, but my mother turned me down on raisins to-day.”
He sat down on the ground near Tom, scaled his hat into the tent, drew his knees up, and breathed a long, exaggerated sigh of fatigue after his few minutes’ exertion.
“Let’s see, what was I going to ask you? Oh, yes; how’d you get hunk on John Temple?”
“Put a quarantine sign on Sissy Bennett’s house.”
“What?”
“Sure; didn’t yer see it?”
“What for?”
“He’s a rich guy, ain’t he?”
Roy looked at him, puzzled.
“Dere’s a gang comin’ over from Hillside ter s’prise him to-night.”
“In a car?”
“Ye-re. An’ I put de sign up fer ter sidetrack ’em.”
“You did?”
In the glare of the glowing fire Roy looked straight at Tom. “How will that—what good—” he began; then paused and continued to look curiously at him with the same concentrated gaze with which he would have studied a trail by night. But that was not for long. A light came into his eyes. Hurriedly he took out his watch and looked at it.
“Nine o’clock,” he said, thoughtfully; “they must have started back.”
He rose, all the disgust gone from his face, and slapped Tom on the shoulder.
“Ain’t he a rich guy?” explained Tom.
“Never mind that,” said Roy. “I’m glad you told me—I’m going to show you something as sure as you’re a foot high! You and I are going to have the time of our lives to-night, and don’t you forget it!”
“Quick, now, hand me the light and look out you don’t trip on the wires. If they once get past Westy’s house—g-o-o-d-night! Just inside the garage door there you’ll see a switch-turn it on. Here, take the lantern. If Westy don’t get this right, we’ll kill him.”
Tom, with but the haziest idea of what was to be done, followed directions. It evidently had something to do with the mysterious “dot flares” and with his own mean act. These excited nocturnal activities had a certain charm, and if it wasn’t mischief Roy was up to it had at least all the attractive qualities of mischief.
“You’ll see a book just inside the tent—paper covered—hand me that too, and come up yourself. Look out for the wires,” cautioned Roy.
He opened the Scout Handbook to about the middle and laid it flat on the tower rail.
“That’s the Morse Code,” said he, “easy as eating ice cream when you once get the hang of it. I know it by heart but I’m going to let you read them to me so as to be sure. Better be sure than be sorry—hey? I hope they don’t speed that auto till we get through with them.”
“Can he answer?” ventured Tom.
“No, they haven’t got a car at Westy’s and no searchlight. He brings me the message all writ, wrot, wrote out, in the morning. They’ve got a dandy team there, though. Cracky, I’d rather have a pair of horses than an auto any day, wouldn’t you. Now be patient, Conny dear, and we’ll see what we can do for you.”
“It’s a long, long way to Tip—Hillside. Do you s’pose Westy’s home yet? Oh yes, sure, he must be. Well, here we go—take the lantern and read off the ones I ask for and get them right or I’ll-make you eat another plate of plum-duff! Feeding with intent to kill, hey?”
Tom couldn’t help laughing; Roy’s phrases had a way of popping out like a Jack-in-the-Box.
He had a small makeshift wooden bracket which stood on a grocery box on the tower platform, and in this the auto searchlight swung.
“Wait a second now till I give him ‘Attention’ and then we’re off. Guess you must have seen this light from downtown, hey?”
“Ye-re, I wondered what’twas.”
“Well, here’s where you find out.”
There was a little click as he turned the switch, and then a long straight column of misty light shot up into the darkness, bisecting the heavens. Far over to the west it swung, then far to the east, while Tom watched it, fascinated. Then he heard the click of the switch again and darkness reigned, save for the myriad stars.
It wac the first time in his life that Tom had ever been charged with a real responsibility, and he waited nervously.
“That meant, ‘Get ready,’” said Roy. “We’ll give him time to sharpen his pencil. Do you pull much of a stroke with Machelsa, the Indian spirit? She smiles a smile at me once in a while, and if you want her to see you through any kind of a stunt you just rub your cheek with one hand while you pat your forehead with the other; try it.”
“Can’t do it, eh?” he laughed. “That’s one of Mr. Ellsworth’s stunts; he got us all started on that. You’d think the whole troop was crazy.”
“I know him,” said Tom.
“He’s the worst of the lot,” said Roy. “Well, off we go, let’s have S-call them dots and lines; some say ‘dashes’ but lines is quicker if you’re working fast.”
“Tree dots,” said Tom.
Three sudden flashes shot up into the sky, quickly, one after another.
“Now T.”
“Line,” said Tom.
The switch clicked, and the long misty column rose again, remaining for several seconds.
“Now O.”
“T’ree lines,” said Tom, getting excited.
“Now P—and be careful—it’s a big one.”
“I’m on de job,” said Tom, becoming more enthusiastic as he became more sure of himself. “Dot—line—line—dot.”
The letter was printed on the open page of the heavens and down in Barrel Alley two of the O’Connor boys sitting on the rickety railing watched the lights and wondered what they meant.
So, across the intervening valley to Westy’s home, the message was sent. The khaki-clad boy, with rolled-up sleeves, whose brown hand held the little porcelain switch, was master of the night and of the distance, and the other watched him admiringly.
Down at the Western Union office in Bridgeboro, the operator sauntered out in his shirtsleeves and smilingly watched the distant writing, which he understood.
Stop all autos send car with young folks back to Bennett’s sure not practice serious.
“Good-night,” said Roy, and two fanlike swings of the misty column told that it was over. “If they haven’t passed Westy’s yet, we win. Shake, Tom,” he added, gayly, “You did fine—you’re a fiend at it! Wouldn’t you rather be here than at Conny’s party—honest?”
“Would I?”
“Now we’ll rustle down the hill and see the bunch co’me back—if they do. Oh, cracky, don’t you hope they do?”
“Do I?” said Tom.
“Like the Duke of Yorkshire, hey? Ever hear of him? Up the hill and down again. We’ll bring the sign up for a souvenir, what do you say?”
“Mebbe it oughter go back where it come from,” said Tom, slowly.
“Guess you’re right.”
“Ever go scout’s pace?” said Roy.
“What’s that?”
“Fifty running-fifty walking. Try it and you’ll
use no other. Come on!
The kind of pace you’ve always wanted,”
said Roy, jogging along.
“Beware of substitutes.”
It was just about the time when Roy was showing Tom his camp that a big touring car rolled silently up to the outer gate of the Bennett place. (The house stood well back from the road.) The car was crowded with young people of both sexes, and it was evident from their expressions of surprise and disappointment that they saw the yellow sign on the gate.
There were a few moments of debate; some one suggested tooting the horn, but another thought that might disturb the patient; one proposed going to the house door and inquiring, while still another thought it would be wiser not to. Some one said something about ’phoning in the morning; a girl remarked that the last time she saw Connover he had a headache and looked pale, and indeed Connover’s general weakness, together with the epidemic which prevailed in Bridgeboro, made the appearance of the sign perfectly plausible.
The upshot was that the auto rolled away and turned into the Hillside Turnpike. Scarcely had it gone out of sight when a patch of light flickered across the lawn, the shade was drawn from a window and the figure of Mrs. Bennett appeared peering out anxiously.
Ten minutes out of Bridgeboro, as the big car silently rolled upon the Hillside Turnpike, one of its disappointed occupants (a girl) called,
“Oh, see the searchlight!”
“Oh, look,” said another.
The long, misty column was swinging across the heavens.
“Now you see it, now you don’t,” laughed one of the fellows, as Tom’s utterance of “Dot,” sent a sudden shaft of light into the sky and out again as quickly.
“Where is it, do you suppose?” asked one of the girls.
“Does it mean anything?” asked another.
It meant nothing to them, for there was not a scout in the car. And yet a mile or two farther along the dark road there hung a lantern on an upright stick, directly in their path, and scrawled upon a board below it was the word, “Stop.”
Out of the darkness stepped a figure in a white sweater (for the night was growing cold) and a large-brimmed brown felt hat. One of his arms was braced akimbo on his hip, the other hand he laid on the wind shield of the throbbing auto.
“Excuse me, did you come from Bennett’s in Bridgeboro?”
“Yes, we did,” said a musical voice.
“Then you’d better turn and go back; there’s a message here which says so.”
“Back to Bennett’s? Really?”
“I’ll read it to you,” said the boy in the white sweater.
He held a slip of yellow paper down in front of one of the acetylene headlights, and read,
“Stop all autos, send car with young folks back to Bennett’s, sure.” (He did not read the last three words on the paper.)
“Did you ever in all your life know anything so perfectly extraordinary?” said a girl.
“You can turn better right up there,” said Westy. He was a quiet, uncommunicative lad.
The sign was gone from the Bennetts’ gate when the car returned, and the two boys standing in the shadow across the way, saw the party go up the drive and disappear into the house; there was still plenty of time for the festive program.
They never knew what was said on the subject of the sign and the mysterious telegram.
They kept it up at Bennetts’ till long after midnight. They played “Think of a Number,” and “Button, button, who’s got the button?” and wore tissue-paper caps which came out of tinselled snappers, and had ice cream and lady-fingers and macaroons and chicken salad.
When Connover went to bed, exhausted but happy, Mrs. Bennett tripped softly in to say good-night to him and to see that he had plenty of fresh air by “opening the window a little at the top.”
“Isn’t it much better, dearie,” she said, seating herself for a moment on the edge of the bed, “to find your pleasure right here than to be tramping over the country and building bonfires, and getting your clothing all filled with smoke from smudge signals, or whatever they call them, and catching your death of cold playing with searchlights, like that Blakeley boy up on the hill? It’s just a foolish, senseless piece of business, taking a boy’s thoughts away from home, and no good can ever come of it.”
What did Tom Slade do after the best night’s sleep he ever had? He went to Mrs. O’Connor’s, where he knew he was welcome, and washed his face and hands. More than that, he attended to his lessons in school that day, to the teacher’s astonishment. And why? Because he knew it was right? Not much! But because he was anxious not to be kept in that afternoon for he wanted to go down and peek through the fence of Temple’s lot, to see if there were any more wonders performed; to try to get a squint at Mr. Ellsworth and Westy.
In short, Tom Slade had the Scout bug; he could not escape it now. He had thrown it off once before, but that was a milder dose. As luck would have it, that very afternoon he had an amusing sidelight on the scouting business which gave him his first knowledge of the “good turn” idea, and a fresh glimpse of the character of Roy Blakeley.
Inside Temple’s lot the full troop was holding forth in archery practice and Tom peered through a knothole and later ventured to a better view-point on top of the fence.
When any sort of game or contest is going on it is absolutely necessary to the boy beholder that he pick some favorite whom he hopes to see win, and Tom lost no time in singling Roy out as the object of his preference.
It was not a bad choice. As Roy stood sideways to the target, his feet firmly planted, one bared brown arm extended horizontally and holding the gracefully curving bow, and the other, bent but still horizontal, holding the arrow in the straining cord, he made an attractive picture.
“Here’s where I take the pupil out of the Bull’s-eye,” he said, and the arrow flew entirely free of the target.
“No sooner said than stung!” shouted Pee-wee Harris.
“Oh, look who’s going to try,—mother, mother, pin a rose on me!” shouted another boy.
“Mother, mother, turn the hose on me,” called another.
“Stand from behind in case the arrow goes backwards!”
“I bet he hits that fellow on the fence!”
Tom could not help laughing as Mr. Ellsworth, with unruffled confidence, stepped in place.
“Oi—oi—oi—here’s where Hiawatha turns over in his grave!”
It surprised Tom quite a little that they did not seem to stand at all in awe of the scoutmaster. One boy began ostentatiously passing his hat around.
“For the benefit of Sitting Bull Ellsworth,” said he, “highest salaried artist in Temple’s lot—positively last appearance this side of the Rockies!”
But “Sitting Bull” Ellsworth had the laugh on them all. Straight inside the first ring went his arrow, and he stepped aside and gave an exceedingly funny wink at Tom on the fence.
Tom changed his favorite.
Presently Roy sauntered over to the fence and spoke to him. “Regular shark at it, isn’t he?”
“Which one is Westy?” Tom asked.
“Westy? That fellow right over there with the freckles. If you get up close you can see the Big Dipper on his left cheek. He’s got Orion under his ear too.”
“O’Brien?”
“No, Orion—it’s a bunch of stars. Oh, he’s a regular walking firmament.”
Tom stared at Westy. It seemed odd that the invisible being who had caught that message out of the darkness and turned the car back, should be right here, hobnobbing with other mortals.
“Come over here, Westy,” shouted Roy, “I want Tom Slade to see your freck—well, I’ll be—if this one hasn’t shifted way over to the other side. Westy’s our chart of the heavens. This is the fellow that helped send you the message last night, Westy. He ate two plates of plum-duff and he lives to tell the tale.”
“I understand Roy kidnapped you,” said Westy.
“It was fun all right,” said Tom.
“Too bad his parents put him out, wasn’t it?” said Westy.
“Did you ever taste any of his biscuits?” asked another fellow, who sauntered over. They formed a little group just below Tom.
“We’ve got two of them in the Troop Room we use for bullets,” he continued.
“What do you think of Camp Solitaire?” Westy asked.
Tom knew well enough that they were making fun of each other, but he did not exactly know how to participate in this sort of “guying.”
“’Sall right,” said he, rather weakly.
“What do you think of the Eifel Tower?”
“’Sall right.”
“Did he show you the Indian moccasins Julia made for him?”
This precipitated a wrestling match and Tom Slade witnessed the slow but sure triumph of science, as one after another the last speaker’s arms, legs, back, neck and finally his head, yielded to the invincible process of Roy’s patient efforts until the victim lay prone upon the grass.
“Is Camp Solitaire all right?” Roy demanded, laughing.
“Sure,” said the victim and sprang up, liberated.
Tom’s interest in these pleasantries was interrupted by the voice of Mr. Ellsworth.
“Come over here and try your hand, my boy.”
“Sure, go ahead,” encouraged Westy, as the group separated for him to jump down.
“I couldn’ hit it,” hesitated Tom, abashed.
“Neither could he,” retorted Roy, promptly.
“If you let him get away with the championship,” said another boy, indicating the scoutmaster, “he’ll have such a swelled head he won’t speak to us for a month. Come ahead down and make a stab at it, just for a stunt. You couldn’t do worse than Blakeley.”
Everything was a “stunt” with the scouts.
Reluctantly, and smiling, half pleased and half ashamed, Tom let himself down into the field and went over to where the scoutmaster waited, bow and arrow in hand.
“A little more sideways, my boy,” said Mr. Ellsworth; “turn this foot out a little; bend your fingers like this, see? Ah, that’s it. Now pull it right back to your shoulder—one—two—three—” The arrow shot past the target, a full three yards shy of it, past the Ravens’ patrol flag planted near by, and just grazed the portly form of Mr. John Temple, who came cat-a-cornered across the field from the gate.
A dead silence prevailed.
“I presume you have permission to use this property,” demanded Mr. Temple in thundering tones.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Temple,” said the scoutmaster.
“Good afternoon, sir. Will you be good enough to let me see your authority for the use of these grounds?” he demanded frigidly. “If I gave any such permission I cannot seem to recall it.”
“I am afraid, Mr. Temple,” said Mr. Ellsworth, “that we can show no written word on—”
“Ah, yes,” said the bank president, conclusively, “and is it a part of your program to teach young boys to take and use what does not belong to them?”
The scoutmaster flushed slightly. “No, that is quite foreign to our program, Mr. Temple. Some weeks ago, happening to meet your secretary I asked him whether we might use this field for practice since it is in a central and convenient part of town, and he told me he believed there would be no objection. Perhaps I should have—”
“And you are under the impression that this field belongs to my secretary?” asked Mr. Temple, hotly. “If you have nothing better to do with yourself than to play leader to a crew of—”
Here Mr. Ellsworth interrupted him.
“We will leave the field at once, sir.”
“When I was a young man,” said Mr. Temple, with frosty condescension, “I had something more important to do with myself than to play Wild West with a pack of boys.”
“There were more open fields in those days,” said the scoutmaster, pleasantly.
“And perhaps that is why my wealth grows now.”
“Very likely; and the movement which these boys represent,” Mr. Ellsworth added with a suggestion of pride in his voice, “is growing quite as fast as any man’s wealth.”
“Indeed, sir! Do you know that this boy’s father owes me money?” said Mr. Temple, coldly indicating Tom.
“Very likely.”
“And that the boy is a hoodlum?”
Mr. Ellsworth bit his lip, hesitatingly. “Yes, I know that, Mr. Temple,” he said.
“And a thief and a liar?”
“Don’t run, Tom,” whispered Roy.
“No, I don’t know that. Suppose we talk apart, Mr. Temple.”
“We will talk right here, and there’ll be very little talking indeed. If you think I am a public target, sir, you are quite mistaken! You clear out of this lot and keep out of it, or you’ll go to jail—the whole pack of you! A man is known by the company he keeps. If you choose to cast your lot with children—and hoodlums and rowdies—I could send that boy to jail if I wanted to,” he broke off. “You know he’s a vicious character and yet you—”
“Neither you nor any other man can break up this movement.”
The Scoutmaster looked straight into the eyes of the enraged Temple, and there was a little prophetic ring in his voice as he answered.
“I’m afraid it would be hard to say at present just what he is, Mr. Temple. I was thinking just a few minutes ago, as I saw him dangling his legs up there, that he was on the fence in more ways than one. I suppose we can push him down on either side we choose.”
“There’s a right and wrong side to every fence, young man.”
“There is indeed.”
“As every good citizen should know; a public side and a private side.”
“He has always been on the wrong side of the fence hitherto, Mr. Temple.” Mr. Ellsworth held out his hand and instinctively Tom shuffled toward him and allowed the scoutmaster’s arm to encircle his shoulder. Roy Blakeley elbowed his way among the others as if it were appropriate that he should be at Tom’s side.
“I have no wish to interfere with this ‘movement’ or whatever you call it,” said John Temple, sarcastically, “provided you keep off my property. If you don’t do that I’ll put the thumb-screws on and see what the law can do, and break up your ‘movement’ into the bargain!”
“The law is helpless, Mr. Temple,” said Mr. Ellsworth. “Oh, it has failed utterly. I wish I could make you see that. As for breaking up the movement,” he continued in quite a different tone, “that is all sheer bluster, if you’ll allow me to say so.”
“What!” roared John Temple.
“Neither you nor any other man can break up this movement.”
“As long as there are jails—”
“As long as there are woods and fields. But I see there is no room for discussion. We will not trespass again, sir; Mr. Blakeley’s hill is ours for the asking. But you might as well try to bully the sun as to talk about breaking up this movement, Mr. John Temple. It is like a dog barking at a train of cars.”
“Do you know,” said the capitalist, in a towering rage, “that this boy hurled a stone at me only a week ago?”
“I do not doubt it; and what are we going to do about it?”
“Do about it?” roared John Temple.
“Yes, do about it. The difference between you and me, Mr. Temple, is that you are thinking of what this boy did a week ago, and I am thinking of what he is going to do to-morrow.”
The boys had the last word in this affair and it was blazoned forth with a commanding emphasis which shamed “old John’s” most wrathful utterance. It was Roy Blakeley’s idea, and it was exactly like him.
He invited the whole troop (Tom included) up to Camp Solitaire and there, before the sun was too low, they printed in blazing red upon a good-sized board the words
TRESPASSING PROHIBITED
UNDER PENALTY OF THE LAW
When darkness had fallen this was erected upon two uprights projecting above the top of Temple’s board fence.
“He’ll be sure to see it,” commented Roy, “and it’s what he always needed.”
When a carpenter arrived on the scene the next morning to put up such a sign, as per instructions, he went back and told John Temple that there was a very good one there already, and asked what was the use of another.
It was the kind of thing that Roy Blakeley was in the habit of doing—a good turn with a dash of pepper in it.
During the next few days a dreadful document appeared which had to do with Tom, though he never saw it and only heard of it indirectly. Whence it emanated and what became of it he never knew, but he knew it was originated by the “rich guys” and that Mrs. Bennett and John Temple and the Probation Officer and the Judge had something to do with it.
It said that “Whereas one Thomas Slade, aged fourteen, son of William Slade, whereabouts unknown, and Annie Slade, deceased, was an unprotected minor, etc., etc., that said Thomas Slade should therefore be brought into court by somebody or other at a certain particular time, for commitment as a city charge,” and so forth and so on. There was a good deal more to it than this, but this was the part of it which Tom heard of, and he rose in rebellion.
He had been sleeping, sometimes at Mrs. O’Connor’s and sometimes up at Camp Solitaire with Roy, as the fancy took him. When the news of what was under way fell like a thunderbolt upon him, in a frenzy of apprehension he went to Mr. Ellsworth.
Mr. Ellsworth himself went to court on the fatal day. The judge asked what facilities the “Scout movement” had for handling a boy like Tom Slade and whether they had an “institution.” He thought Tom might be placed under the supervision of competent people in the Home for Wayward Boys. The Probation Officer said that was just the place for Tom for he had a “vicious proclivity.” Tom thought presently he would be accused of having stolen that, whatever it was. Happily, though, in the end, he was committed to Mr. Ellsworth’s care and he and Tom went forth together.
“Now Tom,” said the Scoutmaster, “you and I are going to have a little pow-wow—you know what a pow-wow is? Well, then I’ll tell you. When the Indians get together to chin about important matters, they call it a pow-wow. They usually hold it sitting around a camp fire, and we’ll do that too when we get to Salmon River, for the Indians haven’t got anything on us. But we’ll have our first pow-wow right now walking along the street. What do you say?”
“Yer—yessir.”
“You heard the judge say you haven’t any relations and, in a way, he was right, but he was mistaken, too, for a scout is a brother to every other scout and you’ve got lots of brothers, thousands of them; or will have when you get to be a scout. And after you get to be a scout, why you’ll have a pretty big pack to carry. The question is, can you carry it?”
“Yessir.”
“You’ll have to carry the pack for all these brothers of yours. If you make a slip—tell a lie or throw a stone or interfere with Ching Wo—everybody’ll say it’s the Boy Scouts. Just the same as if Roy Blakeley should send a flash message wrong. The telegraph operator would give us the laugh and say the Scouts didn’t know what they were doing. You and I’d get the blame as well as Roy. So you see, Roy’s got a pretty big pack to carry, but he manages to stagger along with it.
“You may have noticed that the Scouts are great fellows for laughing. If there’s any laughing to be done, we’re going to be the ones to do it. We don’t let anybody else have the laugh. That’s our middle name— laughter.
“There’s one other little thing, and then I’ll tell you the main thing I want to say—flash it, as you fellows would say. We have to be careful about talking. Stick your tongue out a little way between your teeth and say them.”
“Them,” said Tom.
“The first thing for you to do is to make a list of all the words you use that begin with th and say them that way. You know we have troop calls and patrol calls and all sorts of calls, and we’ve got to be able to make them just right—see?”
“Sure-yessir.”
“Now you take that word you use so much—’ye-re.’ ‘Yes’ is better because it’s only got three letters and you can flash it quicker. So one of the first things to do is to make the school books work overtime (there’s only two or three weeks more) and get all those words just right; them, those, three—because if you said ‘tree’ and meant ‘three’ it might throw everything endways. We have a lot to do with trees in the summertime, and you want to be able to say’three’ just right, for another reason.
“There are three parts to the Scout Oath and we don’t want to get those three parts mixed with trees. So whenever you’re thinking of the oath, say three and whenever you’re thinking of going to Salmon River Grove, say tree.”
The boy was much impressed.
“But, Tom, the immediate thing to do is to go down to Schmitt’s Grocery and take down that sign he’s got outside.”
“I told Roy Blakeley I wouldn’t take down no more signs.”
“You can tell Roy you took this one down with me—just for a stunt.”
Outside Schmitt’s Grocery they found a “Boy Wanted” sign, and then Tom understood. He hesitated a little when Mr. Ellsworth went in, for his relations with Mr. Schmitt had not been altogether cordial.
“How’d do, Mr. Schmitt,” said the scoutmaster breezily. “How’s the Russian advance?”
“Dem Roosians vill gett all vot’s coming to dem,” said Mr. Schmitt.
“Yes? Well, how about this boy?”
“Veil, vot about him?”
“He wants to take down that sign out there.”
“Och! I know dot poy!”
“No, you don’t; this is a different fellow—a Boy Scout.”
“Veil, if dis iss der kind of a poy scouts—”
“Now, look here, Mr. Schmitt, don’t you say anything about the Boy Scouts. Who stopped your runaway horse for you last week?”
“I didn’t say noddings about dem—”
“Well, a scout is a brother to every other scout, and if you say anything against one you say it against all.”
He winked significantly at Mr. Schmitt. “Come back here, I want to speak to you,” said he.
They retired to the rear of the store, where Mr. Schmitt leaned his arm affectionately over the big wheel of the coffee-grinder and listened, all attention.
Tom overheard the words, “fresh air,” “Boys’ Home,” “something to do,” “appeal to honor,” “sense of responsibility,” and more or less about woods and country and about a “boy to-day being a man to-morrow,” and about “working with him,” and other odds and ends which he did not understand.
“Veil, it’s a goot ting, I’ll say dot mooch,” said Mr. Schmitt, as they returned to the front of the store. “Dere is too mooch cities—dey don’t got no chance.”
“Tom,” said Mr. Ellsworth, “I’ve been telling Mr. Schmitt about that signal work. (He was wondering what the light was.) And I’ve told him about your wanting to earn a little money before camping time. He’s going to start you in on three dollars and a half a week, school-days after three and all day Saturdays and Saturday nights. He asked me if you could deliver goods and I told him there wasn’t a boy in town who could “deliver the goods” like you. Remember the pack you’ve got to carry for the whole troop. If you fall down, you’ll queer the troop-Roy Blakeley and all of us.
“Mr. Schmitt’s a busy man and he has no time to think of what you were doing a few days ago, so don’t you think about that either. You can’t follow a trail looking backward—you have to keep your squinters ahead. Isn’t that so, Mr. Schmitt?”
“You can’d look forwards vile you are going packwards,” said Mr. Schmitt. “You come aroundt at dree o’clock, to-morrow.”
“Now, Tom,” said Mr. Ellsworth, as they left the store, “my idea is for you to stay at Mrs. O’Connor’s, and give her your money every week. Roy says he’d like to have you go up several nights a week and stay at Camp Solitaire, so I think maybe three dollars a week to Mrs. O’Connor will be all right. Then she’ll save the other fifty cents for you and by the time we start for Salmon River you’ll have enough, or pretty near enough, for a uniform.
“For instance, you might go up to Camp Solitaire every other night and eat plum-duff and eggs with Roy. He says they’ve got chickens enough up there to keep the camp going. He uses so many eggs, one way or another, I should think he’d ashamed to look a hen in the face. And remember about the colors coming down at sunset. Uncle Sam’s a regular old maid about such things, you know. And don’t forget page—what was it?”
“Tree—three hundred and seventy-five,” said Tom.
“That’ll tell you all about the flag. Then I want you to turn to page 28 in the Handbook and study our law. We have our own home-made laws same as everything else, plum-duff and fishing rods—all home-made.”
Tom laughed.
“I’ll want to know what you think of those laws. I think they’re pretty good; Roy thinks they’re great, but then Roy’s half crazy——”
“No, he isn’t.”
“He doesn’t know as much as he thinkgs he does,” the scoutmaster came back.
“He knows all dem—them signs backwards.”
“You’ll beat him out at it,” said the scoutmaster. “Anyway, he’s going to post you about the sign and the salute, and that leaves only the knots. You take a squint at those knots in the Handbook. I can improve on two of them, but I won’t tell you how. You’ve got to get the hang of four of them, and I want you to see if you can’t do all this by Sunday afternoon. But remember, Mr. Schmitt comes first.”
Mr. Ellsworth blew into Mrs. O’Connor’s with the same breezy pleasantry that he had shown Mr. Schmitt, to the great edification and delight of Sadie McCarren. He created quite a sensation in Barrell Alley and Mrs. O’Connor, good woman that she was, fell in with his plan enthusiastically.
The next morning Tom was up at six, wrestling with the O’Connor clothes-line, and by half past seven he had mastered the reef-knot and the weaver’s knot, which latter he used to fasten two loose ends of the broken line for permanent use, and he wondered whether this by-product of his early morning practice might pass as a “good turn.”
Before he went to school, Mrs. Beaman, a neighbor, came in and said that after long consultation with her husband she had decided to offer three dollars for the Slade possessions, and in the absence of Bill Slade, the estate was settled up in Tom’s interest on that basis. So he went forth feeling he and John Temple were alike in at least one thing-they were both capitalists.
Mr. Ellsworth was somewhat of a stickler for form and organization, and it was a pleasant scene which took place the following Sunday afternoon under the big elm up at Camp Solitaire. The ceremony of investing a Tenderfoot was always held on a Sunday because he believed it made it more impressive, and whenever possible it was held out of doors.
The First Bridgeboro Troop was highly organized and all its ceremonies emphasized the patrol. The two patrols, the Ravens and the Silver Foxes (and later the Elks) participated in the investing ceremony, but it was the affair particularly of the patrol into which the Tenderfoot was to enter, and this idea was worked out in the ceremony.
Each patrol stood grouped about its flag, and a little apart, near the national colors, stood Mr. Ellsworth and Worry Sage, Troop Scribe, armed with a book and fountain pen. Down near the signal pedestal was Roy’s sister, Esther, in company with her mother and one or two servants from the house. Carl, the gardener, was there, too, to watch the ceremony.
Roy Blakeley, as sponsor for the new member, stepped forward with Tom.
“Whom have you here?” Mr. Ellsworth said, in accordance with their regular form.
“An applicant for membership in our Troop and a voice in our councils,” answered Roy.
“Is he worthy to be a member of our Troop?”
“I come as his friend and his brother,” said Roy, “and to certify that he is as desirable to us as we to him.”
“Has he made satisfactory proof of the tests?”
“He has.”
“And is he prepared to take the oath?”
“He is prepared.”
“Raise your right hand in the Scout Salute,” Mr. Ellsworth said to Tom.
Then Worry Sage stepped forward and repeated the oath, Tom following him, line by line:
On my honor I will do my best—
To do my duty to God and my country, and
to obey the scout law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong, mentally
awake, and morally
straight.
“How say you? Is this applicant familiar with the law?” asked the scoutmaster.
“He is familiar with the law and finds it good.”
“Let the law be read.”
Worry Sage read the first law, which was the one Tom broke when he stole Mary Temple’s ball.
“You find this law good?” asked the scout-master.
“Yes sir, I do.”
Then Worry read the next one, “A Scout is loyal. He is loyal to all to whom loyalty is due; his scout leader, his home and parents and country.”
“You find this law good?”
There was a slight pause.
“Do I have to obey that one?” said he. “Do I have ter be loyal ter him?”
Mr. Ellsworth stepped forward amid a tense silence and laid his hand on Tom’s shoulder. “I think you have been loyal to your mother already, Tom,” he said in a low tone, “as for your father,” he hesitated; “yes, I think you must be loyal to him too. There weren’t any Boy Scouts when he was a boy, Tom. We must remember that.”
“All right,” said Tom.
“You find this law good?” asked the scoutmaster, resuming the ceremonial form.
“Yes—I do. I’ll be—loyal.”
The reading of the law completed, he stepped back with Roy to the Silver Fox emblem.
The Silver Fox patrol leader asked, “Do you promise to stand faithful to this emblem, and to these your brother scouts of the Silver Fox Patrol?”
And then, “Are you familiar with the patrol call which is the voice of the silver fox, and with the patrol sign, which is the head of the silver fox, and do you promise to use this call and this sign and no other so that your name may be honorable in all the Troop, and among all troops?”
And Tom answered, “I promise.”
Mr. Ellsworth pinned the Tenderfoot Badge on his breast.
Tom Slade of Barrel Alley had become a Scout. He could not see where the trail led, but that he had hit the right one he felt sure.
“Got the linen thread?”
“Right here in the tin cup.”
“All right, put the tin cup in the pint measure and the pint measure in the coffee-pot; now put the coffee-put in the kettle and the kettle in the duffel-bag. Then put the duffel-bag in the corner.”
“Where’ll I put the corner?” laughed Tom.
“There we are,” said Roy, “all ready before the Ravens have started to pack. They ought to be called the ‘Snails.’”
They were up at Camp Solitaire, the whole patrol, and the standing of the duffel-bag in the corner of the tent was the last act of a busy day.
“I’ll be sorry to see Camp Solitaire break up,” said Tom. “We’ve had some good sport up here.”
“There hasn’t been much ‘solitaire’ to it lately,” said Eddie Ingram.
“Well, down it comes in the morning,” said Roy. “What are we going to catch, the three-thirty?”
“I bet the Ravens won’t be ready,” said one of the boys.
“It would be just like them,” observed an-other.
“And we’ll have to wait for the five-fifteen.”
Just then Esther Blakeley came running out from the house.
“I saw Walter Harris,” said she, panting from running and excitement, “and he told me to tell you that if the Ravens aren’t at the station not to wait for them but go right along on the three-thirty and they’ll see you later at Salmon River Grove.”
“What did I tell you!” laughed Roy. “Can you beat the Snail Patrol?”
“Hurrah for the Turtles!” shouted Westy.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t show up till the next day.”
“Or next week,” said Tom.
The Ravens were not on hand for the three-thirty next
day and the
Silver Foxes went without them, bag and baggage.
“They’re some rear guard, all right,” said Roy.
“Bet they’re still buying fishing-tackle,” said Westy.
“The Also Ran Patrol,” commented Dorry Benton.
“The Last Gasp Patrol,” said another boy.
“The Tardy Turtles,” ventured Tom.
“We’ll have our tent up before they leave Bridgeboro—you see,” said Roy. “Somebody ought to set a fire-cracker off underneath that patrol— they’re hopeless.”
Salmon River Grove was about an hour out on the train. Some of the wealthier of the Bridge-boro people had cottages there. The Bennetts had a pretty bungalow in the village and here, in a hammock on the wide veranda, Connover was wont to loll away the idle summer hours in cushioned ease, reading books about boys who dwelt in the heavens above and in the earth beneath and in the waters under the earth. They went down in submarines, these boys, and up in airships, and to the North Pole and the South Pole and the Desert of Sahara. They were all Boy Scouts and it was from these books that Mrs. Bennett gleaned her notions of scouting.
It was a dangerous season for Connover, for in the spring his fancy softly turned to thoughts of scouting, but Mrs. Bennett stood guard against these perils with a tennis racquet and a bottle of cod liver oil and a backgammon board and an automatic piano. And so by hook or crook Connover was tided over the dangerous season, and allowed to read the Dan Dreadnought Series as a sort of compromise.
But the show place at Salmon River Grove was Five Oaks, the magnificent new estate of John Temple with its palatial rubble-stone residence, its garage and hot-houses and “No Trespassing” signs, of which latter he had the finest collection of any man in the state. The latest edition of these did not say “No Trespassing” at all, but simply, “Keep out.” These signs stood about the newly graded lawns seeming to shake their fists at the curious who peered at the great tur-retted structure.
Mr. Blakeley, Roy’s father, also owned an extensive tract of woods a little way from the village and here the First Bridgeboro Troop was monarch of all it surveyed from the day school closed until almost the day it opened; and here Mr. Ellsworth spent the happy days of a well-earned vacation, going into town occasionally as business demanded.
From Salmon River Grove Station the Silver Fox Patrol had to hike it out for about three miles, and when they hit Camp Ellsworth (as the boys insisted upon calling it) there was the Ravens’ tent pitched under the trees, and the Ravens’ flag flying, and the Ravens’ fire crackling away, and the Ravens themselves gathered about it. On a tree was displayed a glaring sign done in charcoal, which read,
The Follow-Afters are cordially invited to dine with the Rapid Ravens. Supper is ready and
WAITING.
When Mr. Ellsworth came out from Bridgeboro at seven o’clpck, he declined to be interviewed as to what he might know of this affair. But whatever he knew, it was evident that the whole plan was known in another quarter, for the very next day the “mail-hiker” (who was Dorry Benton) brought up from Salmon River Village a post card addressed to Roy, which read,
“MR. SMARTY:
“Perhaps you know by this time the cause of my ‘scout smile.’ Do you still think Walter Harris is a turtle?
ESTHER.”
Scout-Pace Pee-wee got possession of this card, made an elaborate birch, bark frame for it, and hung it up in the Ravens’ tent, where it remained ostentatiously displayed until the bitter day of reckoning, which came not long after.
To Tom Slade the wretched, slum-stained boy whose whole poor program had been to call names and throw stones, the camp routine, the patrol rivalries and reprisals, the hikes, the stunts, the camp-fire yarns, the stalking and tracking, were like the designs in a kaleidoscope.
Observant persons noticed how he began to say “I saw” instead of “I seen”; “those” instead of “them,” and how his speech improved in many other ways. This was largely in the interest of the signalling, about which he had come to be a perfect fiend. It sent him to the dictionary to find out how to spell words which were to be flashed or wigwagged; and from spelling them properly he came to pronounce them properly.
When he found that it was possible to tell a piece of oak from a piece of ash by smelling it, if the sense of smell were good, why, that was a knock-out blow for cigarettes. He wasn’t going to let the Ravens get away with that species of scouting proficiency.
Next to signalling work the thing that engrossed Tom’s thoughts was tracking, which he was forever practicing and which he now looked to as the one remaining accomplishment which would advance him to the Second Class.
More than a month of scout life had passed for him and he was eligible in that particular; he was ready, though a trifle shaky, on the “first aid” business; as for signalling, he had but one rival and that was Roy; and he could jog along at scout pace with anyone except Pee-wee. He was prepared to chop his way into the Second Class with knife or hatchet, as per requirements; he could kindle a fire in the open and cook you a passable meal, though he would never be the equal of Roy as a chef.
He knew the points of the compass also, and there were but two things about which he was still in doubt. These were the tracking and the financial business. He felt that if he could do a good tracking stunt it might compensate for his lack in cooking proficiency and for his omission in another particular.
It was now the ambition of his life to be a Second Class Scout; he thought of it by day and dreamed of it by night, and he wrestled with a dogged persistence with those things in which he was not skillful because they were not in his line.
It was in the interest of this ambition that he joined Mr. Ellsworth one morning as the latter was starting out from camp on one of his “auto confabs,” as the boys called his strolls, for on these he was wont to formulate new policies and schemes and, as a rule, he went alone.
“Come along, Tommy boy,” said he cheerily. “Got something you want to say?”
“Yes, sir. I think I can do that tracking stunt in Paragraph Four an’ if I do an’ make it a good one, I was wondering if—I s’pose—would you—would you think those potatoes I cooked yesterday were all right?”
“Very fair, Tommy.”
“Would it pass for Test Eight?”
“Oh, I think maybe so; we all have our specialties, Tom.”
“I’m a little shaky on first aid.”
“I guess you can get away with that all right.”
“Well then,” said Tom, “there’s only one thing to prevent—that is, if I do the tracking stunt.”
“Yes? What’s that?”
“It’s about the money.”
“So?”
“Yes, sir; I’ve got that five dollars Mr. Schmitt gave me for the extra work when he opened the branch store.”
“Where’ve you got that, Tom?”
“I’ve got it ’round my neck on a strong cord. I made a bow line knot. It’s in my membership book to keep it clean.”
It was a new bill and he had always kept it clean.
“The rule says it must be in the bank—one dollar anyway. But I don’t want to break it. One day I was going to ask Roy to give me five ones for it and then I decided not to. I like one bill better, don’t you?”
“Yes, I don’t know but what I do, Tom,” said Mr. Ellsworth, smiling.
“Did I tell you it was a new one?”
“No.”
“Well, ’tis.”
“All right, Tommy. Don’t you worry about that. Just keep the bow line knot good and tight and think of potatoes and bandages and if you can make that tracking stunt something special so as to just knock the Commissioner off his feet, I guess it’ll land you in the Second Class. One thing has to make up for another, you know. I’ve got to stand guard because if I didn’t you fellows would be all waltzing scout-pace into the Second Class. But don’t worry about financial matters—that’s what’s turning Mr. Temple’s hair gray. When I go into town I’ll put that five-spot in the bank for you, hey?”
“Then if I took it out of the bank would it be the same bill?”
“No, it would be a different one.”
“But would it be a new one?”
“If you wanted a new one they’d give you a new one. Now you hike it back to camp and tell Worry there are to be no leaves of absence to-night on account of camp-fire yarns, and to post a notice. Tell him to make duplicate prints of the chipmunk Eddie stalked and paste one in the Troop Book. I’ve got a call to make up toward the village.”
Tom made him the full salute and started back. That night he dreamed that the “Be Prepared” scroll was pinned upon him and that he was a Silver Fox Scout of the Second Class, having passed with much distinction.
Mr. Ellsworth had designs on the Bennett bungalow and he blew into the porch like a refreshing breeze that sultry morning.
“Hello, Connie, old boy,” he called to the youth in the hammock. “How’s the state of your constitution?”
“I’ve got a little touch of rheumatism,” said Connover.
“Yes?” said the scoutmaster. “What right have you got to have rheumatism? I thought John Temple had a controlling interest in all the rheumatism around here.”
“It gets me in the arm,” said Connover.
“So? That’s too bad. May I lift these books off the chair, Connie?”
“Surely—sit down. Just push them on the floor.”
“Regular Carnegie Library, eh? What are they all about, Con?”
Connover quite welcomed the interruption for Mr. Ellsworth’s offhand cordiality was nothing less than contagious. He fell immediately and completely into the spirit of whatever was on the boards.
“’Bout the Boy Scouts.”
“No—really?” said Mr. Ellsworth, running through one of the volumes amusedly. “Who’s this fellow, Dan Dreadnought?”
“He’s lieutenant of the Eureka Patrol.”
“So? I thought maybe he was a battleship from his name. And what does Dan do to pass the time?”
“This one I’m reading now,” said Connover, “is the Eureka Patrol in the Fiji Islands; Dan stabs two natives.”
“Get out! Does he really?”
“And the captain of the squad—”
“What squad?”
“Of Boy Scouts-the captain is taken prisoner by the cannibals—”
“You don’t say! How many of these books are there, Connie?”
“Twenty-seven—all one series.”
“Well, Dan’s some boy, isn’t he? How would you like to be a scout, Connie?”
“My mother wouldn’t let me have a musket.”
“They all have muskets, do they?”
At this point Mrs. Bennett appeared and greeted the scoutmaster cordially. She could never find it in her heart to dislike Mr. Ellsworth.
“How’d do, Mrs. Bennett.”
“Good morning, Mr. Ellsworth,” she said, and added smilingly, “I hope you are not trying to contaminate Connover again.”
“Me? Oh, dear, no! A fellow who can witness the murder of two innocent South Sea natives isn’t in much danger from me!”
But Mrs. Bennett failed to see the point.
“I tell Connover,” said Mrs. Bennett, “that if it must be’scouts’ and ‘wild west’ it is better in the books than in real life.”
“Well, that’s a matter of taste, Mrs. Bennett. You can have Dan What’s-his-name up here, if you want to, but I wouldn’t allow him near my camp. No siree!”
“Yet he’s a scout boy,” said Mrs. Bennett triumphantly.
“From all I can see he’s a silly blackguard. Why, Mrs. Bennett,” added the scoutmaster pleasantly, “you’ve hit the wrong trail—”
“I’ve what?”
“Hit the wrong trail. We don’t have ‘Eureka’ Patrols or captains or lieutenants or squads or muskets. This book has got no more to do with real scouting than it has with a Sunday School picnic. I tell you what, Mrs. Bennett, I just came up out of the woods, and I tell you it’s a shame that good trees should be cut down to get wood-pulp to make paper on which to print such stuff as this! It’s a waste of good trees!”
“I have always done everything for Connover—” began Mrs. Bennett.
“Well, do one thing more for him and let him come and join the scouts-the real scouts. That’s what I wanted to see you about. I’m going to work up a new patrol, the Elks. Like that name, Connie?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I want Connie in the Elks.”
“It’s quite out of the question, Mr. Ellsworth. I am willing that he should read about them, but there it must end. We have always done everything for Connover. I have never stinted him in the matter of wholesome pleasure of any kind.”
“You don’t call murder wholesome pleasure, do you?”
“Here he is under my eye. There is no use arguing the matter. I have no thought but of Connie’s welfare and happiness, but I am not willing that he should dress up like Mrs. Blakeley’s boy—a perfect sight—his clothes redolent of smoke-and play with fire and sleep in a draught.”
“There aren’t any draughts outdoors, Mrs. Bennett.”
“There’s the damp air. Oh, it’s quite out of the question!”
“Don’t you think those O’Connor boys would be better out here?”
“I think a boy is better in his home, where his mother is. I have done everything for Connover—everything, and he is ready to do this much for me. Aren’t you, dearie?”
As Mr. Ellsworth walked back to camp through the silent woods, he was puzzled at the reasoning of the fond mother who thought that Dan Dreadnought was a better companion for her son than Roy Blakeley.
On one of their morning rambles, Mrs. Temple and Mary wandered to an unusual distance from home, and as the sun mounted higher Mrs. Temple felt greatly fatigued. Mary looked about for a spot where her mother might sit down and rest, but was startled by a slight sound and ran back just as Mrs. Temple sank fainting against a tree.
Greatly frightened, the girl looked wildly around for assistance, but there was no house nor sign of life in sight. Not knowing what to do she ran along the road a little way, calling aloud, when suddenly she heard a sound. Pausing to listen she distinctly heard again what sounded like a bugle call, and turning in the direction from which it seemed to come she ran through the woods until she came, breathless, to the camp of the Bridgeboro Scouts.
It happened that the Silver Foxes were that morning practising in first aid, and as soon as Mr. Ellsworth could gather from the frightened girl that her mother was in real need, he rushed “Doc” Carson, the first-aid boy, and Roy off to the rescue, instructing the other members of the patrol to follow scout pace.
Water was brought and Mrs. Temple quickly revived. Her head had been slightly cut as she fell, and this Carson bandaged skilfully. She was still too weak to walk, however, and the boys improvised a litter in which she was carefully borne back to camp, Mary walking at her side.
The Ravens, meanwhile, under Mr. Ellsworth’s direction, had prepared a sort of couch of fir boughs. Onto this they helped Mrs. Temple and the scoutmaster sat down beside her.
Perhaps it was not entirely by chance that he had instructed the two patrols to go through their signalling maneuvers at a little distance, so that they should not disturb the invalid, but yet in full view and near enough so that she might follow the course of the proceedings if she cared to. Mary had a thousand questions to ask as to the meaning of the various signals, and the kind scoutmaster answered them all patiently, finally summoning Eddie Ingram to show her about the camp and explain all its mysteries. Then, seeing that Mrs. Temple showed some interest in the maneuvers, the guileful Mr. Ellsworth proceeded to explain their practical value and the good uses to which the scout “stunts” were often put, tactfully pointing out the change that had taken place in Tom Slade, who at this moment was bashfully showing Mary how to blow whistle signals on a small bottle.
Mrs. Temple, however, showed but a courteous interest, and feeling that her husband would be alarmed at her long absence she called to Mary and insisted upon returning home immediately, despite Mr. Ellsworth’s urgent invitation that she stay and share the scouts’ luncheon.
The Silver Fox patrol was ordered to escort the ladies home, and with this ample bodyguard they returned to Five Oaks, the boys laughingly contesting for the honor of walking with Miss Mary—all save Tom, who lingered somewhat shamefacedly in the rear.
As they walked up the gravel path through the spacious lawn, it was evident that something was wrong. One of the servants was in the portecochere, wringing her hands, and the stoical Japanese valet stood near her, calm and unsmiling.
The unusual sight of the uniformed scouts did not seem to ruffle him at all.
Carl, the gardener, was craning his neck to look up and down the road from the window of the library, a room which he would never have dared to enter save on a very urgent matter.
“Where is Mr. Temple?” Mrs. Temple asked. “I have had quite an adventure.”
“Yes’m—he went after you, ma’am—with the runabout. He thought you was lost and he took on so—not knowing which way to go at all—and he sent James the other way to look for you—an’ there was burglars—”
“What?”
“There was someone entered the house an’ has gone away an’ all Miss Mary’s things out of her bureau is all over the bed—”
The story of the afternoon’s events was quickly extracted from the excited servant, prompted by Carl and the Jap. Mr. Temple, having grown anxious about the prolonged absence of his wife and daughter, had started out in the runabout in quest of them. The butler had been sent in another direction and shortly thereafter one of the maids had heard footsteps on the floor above. Thinking that Mrs. Temple must have returned, she went upstairs when, to her terror, a frightful-looking man brushed past her and went down the back stairs. She had screamed, and Carl and Kio had both come to her, but a search of the house and grounds had not discovered the burglar. The screen in the pantry window was ripped away, and Kio volunteered the suggestion that the “honorable burglar gentleman” had made his exit through it.
A systematic search of all the rooms by Mrs. Temple and the patrol revealed no loss or evidence of ransacking except that in Mary’s room the contents of the top bureau drawer were disheveled and some trinkets and an upset box lay upon the bed.
“It looked as if they were interrupted,” said Roy.
“They took my class pin,” said Mary, running over the things. “Oh, isn’t that a shame! I don’t care what else they took—that’s the only thing I care about! Oh, I think they were too mean for anything! It was my class pin!” She was crying a little.
“It wasn’t worth very much, dear,” said her mother.
“It isn’t that,” said the girl; “you don’t understand. I thought as much of it as you boys do of those badges.”
“I understand,” said Westy.
“Sure, we understand—don’t we, Tom?” said Roy.
Tom said nothing his eyes were fixed on the girlish trinkets which lay in confusion on the bed.
“I think it was too mean of them,” Mary said.
“I’d ask papa to give them my ruby out of his safe if they’d only bring that back!”
“Where did Tom go?” asked Westy, noticing that Tom had left the room.
“I guess maybe he’s afraid he might meet Mr. Temple,” whispered Dorry Benton. “I don’t believe he wants to see him, and I don’t blame him.”
Tom had gone downstairs and around the house to the pantry window. Nothing was farther from his thoughts than John Temple, but in those few minutes upstairs something had been said which recalled to his mind something else which had been said in the same half-doubtful, half-trustful voice, many weeks before. “Will you promise to toss it back?” And out of the past he heard a rough, sneering voice answer, “Sure, didn’ I tell yer?” The words, “If they’d only bring that back,” seemed almost to counter-felt that haunting voice out of the past, and they stung Tom Slade like a white-hot coal.
The rubber ball, which had been the subject of the half-pleading question, had gone the way of most rubber balls, and the memory of the episode would have gone the way of all such memories in the hoodlum mind, except that something had happened to Tom Slade since then. He was familiar now with Paragraph I, Scout Law, and was presently to show that he had pondered on other paragraphs of that law as well.
Outside the pantry window was a nail keg and on this Tom sat down. It was in a jog formed by an angle in the back of the house, and there was not much danger of being seen from any of the rear ground floor windows, for these were all of heavy cathedral glass. The ground beneath them was littered with nails and shavings; a scrap or two of colored glass and some little bars of lead lay strewn about where the men had been working.
Presently he heard voices and guessed that his companions were leaving. Then he heard the honk of an auto horn and caught a fleeting glimpse of a gray car rolling up the private way toward the porte-cochere. He heard other voices, the excited greetings of Mrs. Temple and Mary, and the sonorous and authoritative tones of John Temple.
For a moment he forgot what he had come out here for, as he realized that it would be difficult to leave without being seen. His hatred of John Temple had modified somewhat since he had become a scout, and had now given place to a feeling of awe for the man who could own a place of such magnificence as Five Oaks. Never before had Tom been in such a house. He had supposed that Roy’s beautiful home was about the most luxurious abode imaginable. He realized now that he was stranded in this despotic kingdom with “No Trespassing” signs all about glaring at him like sentinels.
Tom had acquired many of the scout virtues and his progress in the arts (save in one or two which he could not master) had been exceptional. But he had still to acquire that self-confidence and self-possession which are the invariable result of good breeding. He had not felt at home in the house and though his conscience was perfectly clear, he was ill at ease now.
Presently he heard voices again; he saw the car leave with the chauffeur alone, and heard the smothered ringing of the telephone bell in the house.
These evidences of the power of wealth hit his boyish imagination hard, and for a minute John Temple seemed like a hero. He could despatch a car to Bridgeboro, another to Keensburgh; he could call up every police station in the state and offer rewards which would cause sheriffs and constables to sit up and take notice. He could pay ten thousand dollars for the capture of the man who had stolen that little class pin. John Temple might be an old grouch, but he was a wonderful man!
Then the words came rushing into Tom’s head again, Will you promise to toss it back? and those other words, If they would only bring it back!
Then he remembered what he had come out here for, and it seemed very silly and futile alongside the approved methods which were being followed within. While he knew the Scout Handbook did not lie, just the same he hesitated to give this deducing and tracking business a practical test. Then, suddenly, there came to his mind the words Mr. Ellsworth was so fond of repeating to the troop, He who has eyes to see, let him see.
As Tom rose he saw that the fresh paint on the pantry window ledge had been smeared. Then he looked at the ground. Below the window was a long smooth mark on the soil. “The fellow had jumped from that window,” said he, “slid when he touched the groun’.” He stopped, but not to pick up a rock. Then he went down on his hands and knees, with never a thought of those treasured khaki trousers, and while the telephone bell rang and rang again in the house he read the writing which is written all over the vast, open page of nature for those who have eyes and know how to see.
He was very much engrossed now; he forgot everything. He was a scout of the scouts, and he screwed up his face and studied the ground as a scholar pores over his books.
“Huh,” said he, “his shoes need soling, that’s one sure thing.”
He examined with care a little thin crooked indentation in the soil, as if a petrified angleworm had been pushed into the hard earth.
“Huh,” said he, “I hope he kicked into it hard enough so it stays there.”
He was satisfied that the fugitive’s shoe was worn in the sole so that the outer layer, worn thin and flopping loose, had slid onto one of the little malleable leaden bars used in the cathedral-glass windows. This had evidently pushed its way into the tattered sole, bent a little from the impact, and lodged securely. Either the fugitive did not feel it, or did not care to pause and remove it. It made a mark as plain as Tom’s patrol sign.
He cast one apprehensive look at the open windows of the upper floor and, taking a chance, made a bold dash across the rear lawn, where he thought he could discern footprints in the newly-sprouting grass. Several hundred feet away was the boundary fence and here the correctness of his direction was confirmed by a painty smooch on the top rail where the fugitive had climbed over.
Tom leaped across the fence and, as usual, after any vigorous move, he felt instinctively to see if his precious five-dollar bill was safe. He lived in continual dread of losing it. He paused a minute scrutinizing the small crooked marks left by the leaden bar. Then he thought of something which added fresh zest to his thus far successful search. It was provision four of the Second Class Scout tests:
Track half a mile in twenty-five minutes, or,...
“If I do that,” said he, looking at his dollar watch, “it’ll land me in the Second Class with a rush, and if I should get the pin for her that would knock the Commissioner off his feet, all right. Here’s my tracking stunt mapped out for me. I never claimed I could cook. Oh, cracky, here’s my chance!”
He got the word “Cracky” from Roy.
As he turned and cast a last look toward the house someone (a woman, he thought) seemed to be waving her arm from one of the upper casements. He could not make up his mind whether she was beckoning to him or only scrubbing the window. Then he entered the woods where the ground was sparsely covered with pine-needles.
He had to stoop and search for the guiding mark and there were places where for thirty or forty feet at a stretch it was not visible, but the tumbled appearance of the pine-needle carpet showed where someone had recently passed. Then the marks took him into a beaten way and he jogged along with hope mounting high.
He had tracked for more than twenty-five minutes and a very skillful tracking it had been, entirely independent of its possible result. So far as the tracking requirement was concerned he had fulfilled that in good measure, and the possible danger in connection with it would commend it strongly to the Scout Commissioner. Moreover, the deductive work which preceded the tracking and the chivalrous motive would surely make up for any lack in first aid and cooking. “One thing has to make up for another,” he thought, recalling Mr. Ellsworth’s words.
He was breathing hard, partly from a nervous fear as to what he should do if he succeeded in overtaking the robber, and his little celluloid membership booklet with the precious bill in it, flapped against his chest as he hurried on. “I’ll be in the Second Class before Pee-wee,” he thought.
Suddenly he came to a dead stop as he saw a figure sitting against the trunk of a tree a couple of hundred feet away. The tree trunk was between himself and the man and about all he could see was two knees drawn up.
Now was the time