Tom Slade

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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--"

[Illustration: "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.

CHAPTER VII

"ON MY HONOR"

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.

[Illustration: OUTSIDE SCHMITT'S GROCERY THEY FOUND A "BOY WANTED"
SIGN.]

"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.

CHAPTER VIII

STUNG!

"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."

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