Percy Keese Fitzhugh

“ The sight of a human being struggling frantically in the water and lost to all sense of reason by panic fright is one to strike terror to a stout heart. Even the skilful swimmer whose courage is not of the stoutest may balk at the peril. That seemed to be the feeling which possessed Tom Slade as he stood upon the end of the spring-board and instead of diving cast a hurried look to where Garry Everson was talking with Roy. ”

“ This is not a pleasant train of thought when you are standing alone in the bleakness and sadness and growing chill of the dying day, with tremendous nature piled all about you, and watching your two companions as they disappear along a lonely road. But the mood was upon him and it did not cheer him when Roy, turning and making a megaphone of his hands, called, "Look out and don't fall into the gas tank, Pee-wee!"
He had reminded them that they had better buy gasoline at Newburgh, while they had the chance. ”

“ The letter from Mary Temple fell on Camp Solitaire like a thunderbolt. Camp Solitaire was the name which Roy had given his own cosy little tent on the Blakeley lawn, and here he and Tom were packing duffel bags and sharpening belt axes ready for their long tramp when the note from Grantley Square was scaled to them by the postman as he made a short cut across the lawn.
"What do you know about that?" said Roy, clearly annoyed. "We can't take him; he's too small. Who's going to take the responsibility? This is a team hike." ”

“ We're in the same boat, you and I. We each wrote a letter that we shouldn't have written, but yours was received and mine wasn't—thanks to Tom. We've got to forget about both those letters, Pee-wee. I was ashamed of mine before I'd finished writing it. There's no good talking about it now. You're with us because we want you with us, not because Mary Temple wanted it, but because I want you and Tom wants you; do you hear? You know who it is that's always doing something for someone and never getting any credit for it, don't you? It's Tom Slade. ”

“ Pee-wee lingered upon the veranda at Temple Court swinging his legs from the rubble-stone coping—those same legs that had made the scout pace famous.
"Oh, crinkums," he said, "they'll have some time! Cracky, but I'd like to go. You don't believe all this about Roy's making a noble sacrifice, do you?" he added, scornfully.
Mary laughed and said she didn't.
"Because that isn't a good turn," Pee-wee argued, anxious that Mary should not get a mistaken notion of this important phase of scouting. "A good turn is when you do something that helps somebody else. ”

“ Tom had held that of all the joys in the mischievous hoodlum program none was so complete as that of throwing chunks of coal through streetcar windows at the passengers inside. Then along had come Westy Martin and shown him how you could mark patrol signs on rocks with chunks of coal—signs which should guide the watchful scout through the trackless wilderness. Exit coal as a missile. ”

“ That's one thing you ought to be thankful for—you're not small. Of course, maybe girls can't do so many things as boys—I mean scouting-like—but—oh, crinkums," he broke off in an ecstasy of joyous reflection. "Oh, crinkums, that'll be some trip, believe me."
Mary Temple looked at the diminutive figure in khaki trousers which sat before her on the coping. It was one of the good things about Pee-wee Harris that he never dreamed how much people liked him.
"I don't know about that," said Mary. "I mean about a girl not being able to do things—scouting things. Mightn't a girl do a good turn?" ”

“ Roy laughed.
"It's so," urged Pee-wee. "And there's another thing about girls, too; they're repulsive."
"What?" said Tom.
"What?" said Roy.
"They say the first thing that comes into their heads."
"Impulsive, you mean," laughed Roy.
"Well, they're all right on good turns," said Tom.
"They don't have any good turns in the Camp Fire Girls," said Pee-wee.
"A girl might do a good turn and you'd never know anything about it," said Tom, significantly. ”

“ Temple Camp was to be a school where scouting might be taught (Oh, he was going to do the right thing, was old John Temple!) , and to that end he communicated with somebody who communicated with somebody else, who got in touch with somebody else who went to some ranch or other a hundred miles from nowhere in the woolly west and asked old Jeb Rushmore if he wouldn't come east and look after this big scout camp. How in the world John Temple, in his big leather chair in the Bridgeboro Bank, had ever got wind of Jeb Rushmore no one was able to find out. ”

“ After that Tom Slade came out flat-footed and hit the scout trail. He was never able to determine to whom he should be most grateful, Roy Blakeley or Mr. Ellsworth, but it was the beginning of a friendship between the two boys which became closer as time passed.
There is no use retelling a tale that is told. Tom had such a summer in camp as he had never dreamed of when he used to lie in bed till noontime in Barrel Alley, and all that you shall find in its proper place, but you must know something of how Temple Camp came into being and how it came by its name. ”

“ But no one knows better than a boy how many "grouchy" men there are in the world, and these very boys had once been ordered out of John Temple's lot with threat and menace.
"Does everybody call him 'Old Man' Stanton?" Pee-wee asked. "Because if they do that's pretty bad. Whenever somebody is known as 'Old Man' it sounds pretty bad for him. They used to say 'Old Man Temple'—he's a man we know that owns a lot of railroads and things; of course, he's reformed now—he's a magnet——"
"Magnate," corrected Roy. ”

“ It was the third afternoon of their cruise, or their "flop" as Roy called it, for they had flopped along rather than cruised, and the Good Turn's course would have indicated, as he remarked, a fit of the blind staggers. They had paused to fish and to bathe; they had thrown together a makeshift aquaplane from the pieces of an old float which they had found, and had ridden gayly upon it; and their course had been so leisurely and rambling that they had not yet reached Poughkeepsie, when all of a sudden the engine stopped. ”

“ Roy snapped. "You'll get your wish."
"I'd rather go alone with you," said Tom, simply. "I told you that already. I'd rather see Pee-wee stay home. I care more for you," he said, hesitating a little, "than for anyone else. But I vote to take Pee-wee because Mary wants—asks—us to. I wouldn't call it a good turn leaving him home, and you wouldn't either—only you're disappointed, same as I am. I wouldn't even call it much of a good turn taking him. We can never pay back Mary Temple. It would be like giving her a cent when we owed her a thousand. ”

“ I guess Pee-wee thinks he's stronger than he is. I think he'd better be at home too and I'd rather he'd stay home, though it's mostly just because I want to be alone with you. Maybe it's selfish, but if it is I can't help it. I think sometimes a feller might do something selfish and make up for it some other way—maybe. But I don't think any feller's got a right to do something selfish and then call it a good turn. I don't believe a long hike would hurt Pee-wee. He's the best scout-pacer in your patrol. ”

“ It was amazing how readily Tom assumed that Pee-wee would do just what he had done to elude pursuit.
"Tree's always a suspicious thing," said he; "this is a Boer wrinkle—comes from South Africa."
He did not bother hunting for the tracks in the hubbly ground, but made straight for the tree.
"Poor kid," was all he could say as he picked up a few freshly fallen leaves and a twig or two. "He's good at climbing anyway." He examined one of the leaves carefully with his flashlight. "Squint around," he said to Roy, "and see if you can find where he stuck his staff in the ground." ”

“ If you do a good turn it's sure to make you feel good—that you did it—see? But if you do it just for your own pleasure, then it's not a good turn. But Roy puts over a lot of22 nonsense about good turns. He does it just to make me mad—because I've made a sort of study of them—like."
Mary laughed in spite of herself.
"He says it was a good thing when Tom threw a barrel stave in the Chinese laundry because it led to his being a scout. But that isn't logic. Do you know what logic is?"
Mary thought she had a notion of what it was.
"A thing that's bad can't be good, can it?" Pee-wee persisted. ”

“ So Garry Everson and his little one-patrol troop took up their abode in Hero Cabin, and the little sandy-haired fellow with the cough raised and lowered the colors each day, as Tom had done, and ate more heartily down at mess, and made birchbark ornaments in the sunshine up at his beloved retreat, and was very proud of his leader ”

“ Probably every troop in camp had dreams of occupying it (I am sure that Pee-wee had) , and of spending its "honor time" here.
But apparently Mr. Keller, who was not much given to dreaming, was right in his skeptical conjecture for Hero Cabin remained unoccupied, though Tom made it a point to tramp up and raise and lower the colors there each day.
"Some day, maybe next season," said he as they stood on the brink and gazed across the deep gully, "they'll bring somebody up here riding on their shoulders. You can't win an honor medal every day in the week. ”

“ Tom slowly shook his head.
"It's all my fault," said Roy.
"Meanwhile, we're losing time," said Tom.
"You don't suppose——" began Roy. "Where do you suppose that freight stopped? Here?"
Tom said nothing for a few moments. Then he jumped down and kneeling with his light began again examining the confusion of footprints near the siding. Roy watched him eagerly. He felt guilty and discouraged. Tom was apparently absorbed with some fresh thought. Around one footprint he drew a ring in the soil. Then he got up and crept along by the rail throwing his light upon it. ”

“ A committee was formed with a member from each troop to make the shack a suitable abode for a hero and his court. Impulsive Roy was the moving spirit of the plan; Pee-wee was its megaphone, and in the early days of the Bridgeboro troop's stay a dozen or more scouts had worked like beavers making a path up through the woods, covering the shack with bark, and raising a flagpole near it. They had hiked into Leeds and bought173 material for a flag to fly above the shack showing the name, HERO CABIN, and they had fitted it with rustic bunks inside. ”

“ I'll tell how nobody ever gets into danger here—or imperils his life, as Pee-wee would say. I'm going to put a notice up on one of the trees and get you to read another at mess with the regular announcements: Wanted; by scout seeking honor medal; someone willing to imperil his life. Suitable reward. Apply Temple Camp pavilion. Signed, Would-be Hero."
Tom laughed.
"I'm like old What's-his-name, Cæsar. Ready168 to do the conquest act, but nothing more to conquer. Believe me, it's no cinch being a would-be hero. Couldn't you get bitten by a rattlesnake on one of your tracking stunts? ”

“ Tom, seeing where Pee-wee was drifting, tried to stop him, but Roy, knowing that Pee-wee always managed to land on top, and seeing the smile on Mr. Stanton's forbidding countenance,73 encouraged him to go on, and presently the mascot of the Silver Foxes was holding the floor.
"A scout has to deduce—that's one of the things we learn, and if you heard somebody called 'Old Man Something-or-other,' why, you'd deduce something from it, wouldn't you? And you'd be kind of scared-like. ”

“ For a few minutes Tom said nothing, but watched as Garry, time after time, hit the slender tree across the gully.
"I often dream about having an honor medal, too," he said, after a while. "We haven't got any in our troop. Roy'll be the one, I guess. I175 suppose the gold cross is the highest award they'll ever have, hey?"
"Guess so."
"There's nothing better than gold, is there?"
"It isn't because there's nothing better than gold," said Garry, still intent upon hitting his mark. "It's because there's nothing better than heroism—bravery—risking your life." ”

“ If Pee-wee had remembered Roy's generous pleasure in the "parrot stunt," he would have been much happier, but instead he allowed his imagination to picture Tom and Roy in the neighboring village, having a couple of sodas—perhaps taking a flyer at a movie show.
He did as much as he could toward getting supper, and when it grew dark and still they did not return, he clambered up on the cabin roof again105 and sat there gazing off into the night. But still they did not come.
"Gee, I'm a Silver Fox, anyway," he said; "you'd think he'd want one of his own patrol with him sometimes—gee!" ”

“ There's so much dust you can't make a track. What we need is rain, so we can get some good plain prints. That's the only way to teach a tenderfoot. Jeb says dust ought to be good enough, but he's a fiend."
"He could track an aeroplane," said Garry. "Everything's pretty dry, I guess."
"You'd say so," said Tom, "if you were down through those east woods. You could light a twig with a sun glass. They're having forest fires up back of Tannerstown."
"I saw the smoke," said Garry.
"There's a couple of hoboes down the cut a ways; we tracked them today, cooking over a loose fire. ”

“ But you know as well as I do that a man like John Temple would never be satisfied with building a little one-troop camping pavilion; not he. So what should he do but buy a tract of land up in the Catskills close to a beautiful sheet of water which was called Black Lake; and here he put up a big open shack with a dozen or so log cabins about it and endowed the whole thing as a summer17 camp where troops from all over the country might come and find accommodations and recreation in the summer months. ”