MOSTLY ABOUT SKINNY
This chapter I am going to fill
With some stuff about a two dollar bill.
That isn’t so bad for poetry, is it? I got that idea out of a story by
Sir Walter Scott—putting poetry at the top of the chapters. Mr.
Ellsworth says sometimes a fellow might get killed for writing poetry. I
should worry—a scout is brave.
You can bet that if Pee-wee had his way we’d have all gone into the city
that very night and broken into a store to get Skinny’s outfit. But nix
on that hurry up business when it comes to Mr. Ellsworth. “Scouts are
not made in a day,” he said to Pee-wee, “and the outfit doesn’t make the
scout anyway, remember that.”
“Any more than a merry-go-round makes a good turn,” I said.
So Mr. Ellsworth went to see Skinny and his mother, and then he went to
see the doctor, and he found out that Skinny wasn’t going to die right
then, but that something was the matter with his lungs, and that he’d
keep getting sick all the time probably and wouldn’t grow up. Oh, boy,
when Mr. Ellsworth once gets on your trail, _good night_! That’s just
the way he hauled Tom Slade into the troop, head over heels. And look at
Connie Bennett, too. Mr. Ellsworth had to hypnotize Connie’s mother and
now Connie’s a first class scout.
After two or three nights he brought Skinny to meeting, and oh, cracky,
but that kid looked bad. He just sat and watched us do our stunts and he
was scared when anybody spoke to him, except Mr. Ellsworth. And he was
coughing a lot, too.
After the meeting Westy and I and Mr. Ellsworth took him home, and just
when we left him he asked us if maybe he’d live long enough to get the
pathfinder’s badge. And oh, gee, it made me feel good the way Mr.
Ellsworth answered him. He said,
“Well, I can’t exactly promise that because I don’t know how long it
will take you to win that badge, but if you think you can win it inside
of forty or fifty years, I think you’ll be there to grab it when it
comes.” Oh, jingoes, but we’ve got one dandy scoutmaster. I don’t care
what you say, he’s the best one in America. And when he said that,
Skinny kind of smiled and then you could see how thin he was, because
the wrinkles came all around his mouth.
Well, on Saturday Westy and Dorry Benton and Ralph Warner (they’re all
in my patrol) went into the city to get Skinny’s outfit, so we could
give him a surprise at the meeting on Monday night. I didn’t go because
I wanted Westy to have the say, and I didn’t want him to think I was
butting in, because Skinny belonged to him, as you might say. Besides I
had to cut the grass so my sisters could play tennis with Johnny
Wade—honest, that fellow is there all the time. He’s got a machine, but
I never saw it. I guess maybe it’s a sewing machine, hey?
Now I didn’t know how much money Mr. Bennett gave Mr. Ellsworth. All I
know is that when the fellows came back they had everything for Skinny,
or most everything. Because they came up to Camp Solitaire (that’s the
tent I have on our lawn) and we opened the whole business. Pee-wee was
there and the first thing we knew he was shouting that there wasn’t any
belt-axe.
“We used all the money we had,” Westy said, “and it isn’t worth while
asking Mr. Bennett for any more, even if there’s one or two things
missing.”
Oh, jiminy, Pee-wee went up in the air. “Why didn’t you get a belt-axe,”
he shouted; “don’t you know a belt-axe is the most important thing of
all? It’s the sign of the scout! It’s more important than the uniform.”
“He’d look nice going down Main Street with a belt-axe and no uniform,”
I said; “you’re crazy on the subject of belt-axes. What’s the matter,
are you afraid Hindenburg is going to invade Bridgeboro? You should
worry about a belt-axe. Wait till he’s a tenderfoot.”
“That shows how much you know about scouting,” he yelled; “the belt-axe
is the emblem of the woods.”
“The which?” Westy said.
“The emblem of the woods,” he hollered at the top of his voice. “You
have to have a belt-axe first of all. It’s more important than the
Handbook. It means woodcraft and—and—and all that sort of stuff!”
Well, first I just laughed at him and jollied him along, because I know
how crazy he is about things like that—he’d wear every badge in the
Handbook on his chest if he had the chance. And he’s always getting new
suits and things, because his father is rich. Pee-wee’s all right only
he’s daffy about all the scout stuff that you see in the pictures and he
always has his belt-axe dragging on his belt, even when he’s home, as if
he expected to chop down all the telegraph poles on Main Street.
“You have belt-axes on the brain,” Westy told him.
“He’s got them on the belt anyway,” I said.
“You ask Mr. Ellsworth about it and see what he says,” Ralph Warner
said. “He’ll tell you it’s better for Skinny to wait till he can earn a
little money and then buy a belt-axe. There’s time enough.”
“Sure he would,” I said, because I know just how Mr. Ellsworth feels
about things like that. And for all I know, maybe he didn’t want Skinny
to have everything at the start, just so as he would be able to get some
things all by himself later. Because Mr. Ellsworth thinks that’s the
best way.
Of course, we always jollied Pee-wee about his belt-axe and about
wearing his scout-knife and his drinking cup hanging from his belt right
home in Bridgeboro, as if he was in South Africa, and Mr. Ellsworth
always said he was the typical scout—that’s the word he used—typical.
But now I began to think maybe it would cause some trouble and I hoped
he wouldn’t be giving Skinny any of that kind of talk. But he did just
the same, and it made a lot of trouble. Pee-wee’s all right, but I don’t
care if he knows what I said, because it’s true.
On Monday we had it fixed for Skinny to come up to Camp Solitaire, and
Westy and I would teach him some stuff out of the Handbook. Then we were
going to give him the new stuff so he could put it on, because we wanted
him to feel good—you know what I mean—when he went to meeting. We
didn’t want him to feel different from the other fellows. But usually we
don’t do that until a fellow takes the oath first.
Oh, boy, but wasn’t he proud when we put the khaki suit on him, and
fixed the hat on his head. He smiled in that funny way he had that
always made me feel kind of bad, because it made his face look all thin.
And he was awful bashful and scared, but anyway, he was proud, I could
see that.
So then I opened the Handbook to page 59, where there’s a picture of a
scout standing straight, making the full salute, and I told him he
should stand straight and try to look just like that. He said, “I ain’t
fat enough,” but I told him not to mind, but just to look at that
picture and he’d know how he looked as a boy scout.
“How soon will I be one?” he said. And I told him pretty soon.
Now I thought about that picture early in the morning and I made up my
mind I would show it to him when he got dressed up. You can bet he
didn’t look very much like it but a lot I cared about that, as long as
it made him feel good. So early in the morning before he came, I took my
two dollar bill (that’s my allowance my father always gives me Monday
morning) and put it in the Handbook at page 59, so that I could find the
place all right.
After I showed the picture to Skinny I shut the Handbook because I
wouldn’t need it any more and I laid the two dollar bill down on the
table in a hurry, because I wanted to straighten Skinny’s belt and fix
his collar right and make him look as good as I could. Anyway I laid an
oar-lock on the bill so it wouldn’t blow away. I’ve got two
nickel-plated oar-locks that my patrol gave me on troop birthday, and I
keep them in my tent except when I go to camp.
Westy was telling Skinny how fine he looked and, oh, gee, Skinny was
happy, you could see that. Of course, he didn’t look very good, I have
to admit it, but he had a smile a mile long.
“You’re all right,” I told him, “all you have to do is to stand up
straight and think about scouting and the oath and the laws, and then
you’ll look like one.”
Then he said, “I have to have one of those axes, don’t I?”
“You should worry about an axe,” I said; “you didn’t see one in the
picture did you?”
“Wasn’t it because the boy in the picture was facing me, and you wear
the axe in back, don’t you?”
“Don’t you worry,” I told him, “I know that fellow in the picture and he
hasn’t got one on.”
“One of your scout fellows says you have to have one,” he said, kind of
timid.
“Good night!” I said to Westy, “Pee-wee’s been at it.”
“He knows, too,” Skinny said.
“You mean that little fellow?” I said. “Has he been talking to you?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Forget it,” I told him; “if that kid had his picture taken he’d stand
with his back to the camera so as to show his belt-axe. If he had the
Gold Cross he’d pin it on the end of his nose, so everybody’d see it.
The principal thing to wear is the scout smile, you take it from me.
When you see Mr. Ellsworth to-night you ask him about the belt-axe and
go by what he says. That’s the one to go to—your scoutmaster.”
“But anyway it’s in the book about the axe,” he said, and oh, gee, I
could see how he fell for that axe. I don’t know, it was something about
it, I suppose. “It’s all right for a tree to fall for an axe, but don’t
_you_,” I said. That was a joke.
“You got to have one when you go chopping trees, haven’t you?” he asked
me.
“You forget it,” I said, and I decided I’d give Pee-wee a good bawling
out after the meeting.
Then I started straightening Skinny’s suit and telling him how swell he
looked and how he must always take off his hat to ladies. He was
interested all right, but I could see how the belt-axe kind of had him,
and I suppose it was because it was bright and shiny and a weapon, sort
of. That’s the way it is with lots of fellows when they start being
scouts.
We tried to get him to go in the house to supper with us and then go to
the meeting, but he was kind of scared and wouldn’t. I guess it was
because I live in a big house and because my father is rich—but anyway,
he never acts that way, that’s one sure thing. And, gee, nobody can say
Ruth and Marjorie wouldn’t have been nice to him too.
So we left him in the tent and told him to read the Handbook, but to be
sure to go home and get his supper in time to be at the meeting that
evening. We made him the full salute just for fun, and oh, didn’t he
smile and look proud. I bet he was proud going up Main Street too.
“I’d like to get my hands on that kid,” I said to Westy, as we went
across the lawn; “he makes me sick with his heroes and his noble rags
and his belt-axes. He’s got that poor kid’s brain full of fancy stuff
before he’s even a scout.”
“That’s just like him,” Westy said, “but he’ll get over it.”
“_Emblem of the woods!_” I said. “Did you hear that?”
“I guess he told Skinny we were going to chop down some saplings
to-morrow for stanchions on the boat,” Westy said.
“Goodness knows what he didn’t tell him,” I said, “Skinny will be
chopping down all the fence rails in Barrel Alley if Pee-wee has his
way.”
Oh, boy, we had huckleberry pie for supper, and didn’t Westy and I have
two helpings! “There’s only one thing scouts like about huckleberry
pie,” my father said, “and that’s the taste of it.”