Tom Slade

“ Tom Slade watched spellbound, as the agile form ascended, using every physical device and disregarding every danger. More than once Tom almost shuddered at the chances which his young companion took upon some perilously slender limb. Once, the impulse seized him to call a warning, but he refrained from a kind of inspired confidence in that young dare-devil who by now seemed a mere speck of brown moving in and out of the darkened green above him. ”

“ But in his sullen mood one street was as good as another, and Rockwood Place had that fascination for him which wealth and luxury always had for poor Tom.
Three years before, when Tom Slade, hoodlum, had been deserted by his wretched, drunken father and left a waif in Bridgeboro, Mr. Ellsworth had taken him in hand, Roy had become his friend, and John Temple, president of the Bridgeboro Bank, noticing his amazing reformation, had become interested in him and in the Boy Scouts as well. ”

“ He thought it was little less than criminal that the son of Bill Slade should be wandering over the face of the earth when he might be legally placed in a dormitory, eating his three meals a day in a white-washed corridor.
For Mr. Ellsworth, John Temple had only contempt. He looked down upon him as the man without imagination always looks down upon the man with imagination. Meanwhile the new subtle spirit was working in Tom Slade and the capitalist had neither the time nor the interest to stoop and watch the wonderful transformation which was going on. ”

“ But there was one who did not come in on that peaceful afternoon, and that was the wandering minstrel. If Tom Slade had crossed the main road ten minutes sooner, he might have seen that blithe singer going along the road, but not with a song on his lips. The sun of that carefree nature was under a cloud. But his loyal stocking kept descending, and his suit-case dangled from a stick over his shoulder. His trick hat perched jauntily upon his head, Hervey Willetts was himself again. Not quite, but almost. At all events he did not ponder on the injustice of the world and the cruelty of fate. ”

“ Tom Slade, dispatch-rider, knew well enough what kamerad meant. He had learned at least that much of German warfare and German honor, even in the quiet Toul sector. He knew that the German olive branch was poisoned; that German treachery was a fine art—a part of the German efficiency. Had not Private Coleburn, whom Tom knew well, listened to that kindly uttered word and been stabbed with a Prussian bayonet in the darkness of No Man's Land?
"Stand up," said Tom. "Nobody can talk to me crouching down like that." ”

“ I wonder what he meant when he said that a trail sometimes doesn’t come out where you think it’s going to come out....”
Hervey had greatly admired Tom Slade, but he stood in awe of him now. “Well, anyway,” said he to himself, “he said I’d win the award and I didn’t; so I put one over on him.” To put one over on Tom Slade was of itself something of a triumph. “He’s not always right, anyway,” Hervey reflected.
He was aroused from his reflections by little Skinny. “I followed them from camp,” he said. “They’re real tracks, ain’t they? And they’re mine, ain’t they? Because I found them? ”

“ Didn’t you?”
“I said I could find the trees that had the stalking marks last summer,” said Tom, “and I got to admit I was wrong, ’cause I couldn’t.”
“Who was it that wouldn’t sit down and eat supper while somebody was dying?” demanded Doc. “There’s a whole lot of good scouts, believe me, but there’s only one Tom Slade!”
It was always the way—they made fun of him and lauded him by turns.
“There’s a kind of trail here,” said Tom, unmoved, “but it hasn’t been used for a long time—see those spider webs across it? Lend me your axe, will you, mine is all dulled.” ”

“ Here in the little cruiser, where Audry would not have dared to venture on such a night, surrounded by the dark water and enveloped by the solemn twilight, Tom Slade found himself. With the mighty mountains flanking him on either shore, the towering, rugged heights clothed in the dim silent forests that he loved, he thought—in his own simple, boyish way. These things, the water, the woods, the mountains, were his books....
“There is a law—capital punishment,” he mused. “But if a man, a citizen, doesn’t believe in that, they can’t make him serve on a jury. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When Tom Slade started to go to the Ford for the rope he tried to cut off a little of the distance by taking a new route through the hills. That is Tom all over; always exploring, always experimenting. He got into a fine mess doing this. Soon he found himself in a dense thicket and had to retrace his steps and hunt for the more familiar way. He thinks he lost “maybe half an hour or so” in this way. I dare say it was nearer to an hour. I thought it was a poor time to be seeking new routes with his companion in the bottom of an old well, and I told him so. “Brent had plenty to do,” he said. ”

“ And so Tom Slade dragged the wounded creature up onto the float and there he lay in a pool of blood, still clinging to his burden.
The little boy was safe. He opened his eyes and looked about. His face was smeared with mud, one of his shoes was gone, his foot seemed to be twisted. It was all too plain that he had been within the suction pipe, within the devouring jaws of that monster serpent, when his frantic rescuer had dragged him back. But he was safe.
His rescuer was utterly crazed. Yet he seemed to know Tom.
"Safe—alive——" he muttered.
"Yes, he's safe; lie still. ”

“ They bunked in three or four of the ground floor rooms and gathered on a back porch in one of the wings to chat and smoke away the evenings.
They were here when Ferris, carrying a lantern, took Tom over after supper to show him the hotel and have him meet the workers.
“Boys,” said Ferris in his hearty way and with a kindly tact that increased Tom’s already strong admiration for him, “this is Tom Slade, comes from the big camp up Catskill way. He’s got a lot of this woodcraft dope and he’s going to get us started on the log cabin. Hope some of you’ll give him a hand.” ”

“ And that was the way it had always been with Tom Slade. He had always made good, but somehow, the applause and the grateful tributes had gone to others. Nature had not made him prepossessing and he did not know how to talk; he was just slow and dogged and stolid, like a British tank, as I said, and just about as homely. You could hardly expect a girl to make much fuss over a young fellow who is like a British tank, when there are young fellows like shining machine guns, and soaring airplanes—to say nothing of poison gas. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One of the surest signs of approaching autumn in this suburban town of ours, is the reappearance in the main thoroughfares of my adventurous young friend Tom Slade after his summer sojourn in the mountains. When I see that familiar form in brown negligee attire careering down Main Street in the outlandish flivver which seems to be a very part of him, I know that Temple Camp has closed for the season, that the schools are again open, and that soon I shall be raking up dried leaves on the front lawn. ”

“ Turning to do so, he had found Roy Blakeley, scout, standing by him, and had felt Roy’s arm on his shoulder. And Tom Slade, hoodlum, did not run. Goodness, it seems like ancient history now, with Tom head of a patrol and “Old Man” Temple founder and trustee of the big Temple Camp!
But Mr. Ellsworth and Doc Carson and Westy and others of the Ravens and Silver Foxes, remembered, and they noticed how Roy Blakeley stepped forward now and put his arm over Tom’s shoulder, just as he had then. ”

“ Every Volume Complete in Itself.
"Let your boy grow up with Tom Slade," is a suggestion which thousands of parents have followed during the past, with the result that the TOM SLADE BOOKS are the most popular boys' books published today. They take Tom Slade through a series of typical boy adventures through his tenderfoot days as a scout, through his gallant days as an American doughboy in France, back to his old patrol and the old camp ground at Black Lake, and so on. ”

“ I know that when he gets around to it he will run up to see me and beguile me with an account of the summer up at the big scout camp of which he is the very spirit.
Sometimes I think that there is no single character in this whole thriving town who would be as much regretted as Tom Slade, if he should go away. There is a breezy kind of picturesqueness about him that sets him apart and makes him a sort of local celebrity. I think I have never in my life seen him wearing a regular suit of clothes. He goes hurrying about town in the winter months quite hatless; he seems always on the go. ”

“ I reflected cynically, “Tom Slade had the decency to leave a few untainted memorials of loyal service behind him—enough to make a story.” And I thanked my stars that no hint of other things had escaped from my pen, in that tale which I had written for Roy. That did not trouble my conscience at all now. Might it not go down as a good turn? And the girl, whoever she was, she must never know either. Where ignorance was bliss, ’twas folly to be wise. Why should I disgrace my own home town and bring shame upon this noble “good turner” and scout? ”

“ The body of Tom Slade was seen to fall separately but there can be no truth in the declaration which one heard in Rheims (especially among children) that it descended ten minutes after the plane fell. Such a thing would be manifestly impossible.
It is true that a German airman, flying over the American lines, dropped the cap said to have been worn by Slade. In it were his identification disk, corresponding to the number against his name in the army files, and the gold cross which he won while a scout. ”

“ If you think you could.”
“I can do anything,” said Arden, shaking her pretty head with pride and spirit.
“It runs in the family,” said Tom.
“I’m the only one that hasn’t done anything so far,” said Arden. “Now it’s my turn. You can go with me if you want to. I’m going to Shady Vale at once and arrange to have Auntie Sally taken to Bridgeboro—she’s going to have the big room with the bay window. How can you look me in the face, Tom Slade, and tell me they’re talking of getting her into a Home? It’s outrageous! That shows what brutes men are! ”

“ But when those hills where Tom Slade hurried in the night finally came within the iron lines of Marshal Foch, they found the poor old monster knocked clear off his pedestal, where Tom Slade of the Flying Corps had leaned to rest that night when his scouting lore did not forsake him. ”

“ Then Rosleigh Cowell was in her arms. Laughingly he tried to submit to her clinging embrace the while Arden held one of his hands and Wilfred the other. It was an affecting scene.
Tom Slade stood apart gazing with brimming, joyous eyes at the picture of which he had been the artist. He had performed his great exploit and now he seemed on the point of tiptoeing out of the room when Wilfred caught him in the act.
“This is just a family party,” said Tom. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He had (as he had confided to Pee-wee that first night in camp) never “fallen for” Tom Slade. There was not much of the scout glamor about Tom and Raymond liked the scout glamor. He worshipped Roy and he idolized Garry. He was so jealous for Garry that he looked on Tom as an unfair rival. Who had sent that smudge signal from the hill? Who had made Harry Stanton get better? And who had been treated like a dog during his whole vacation? Who but his friend, Garry. ”

“ And all the rest of that night Tom Slade, whose 106hand had extinguished the guiding light, perhaps, to some lurking submarine; who had had to “think quick and all by himself,” and had decided for his Uncle Sam against his brother Bill, sat there upon the leather settee, feeling guilty and ashamed. He knew that he had done right, but his generous heart could not feel the black, shameless treason of his brother because his own smaller treason stood in the way. He could not see the full guilt of that wretched brother because he felt mean and contemptible himself. ”