TOM AND THE GOLD CROSS
Mr. Ellsworth was right when he said that Tom had a way of doping things
out for himself. He had picked up scouting without much help, and he
seldom asked advice.
His duty was very clear to him now. As long as no one but himself and
Roscoe knew about this miserable business, the mistake could be mended
and no harm come of it.
The thing was so important that the smaller evil of neglecting his
allotted task and foregoing the honors which awaited him did not press
upon him at all. He was disappointed, of course, but he acknowledged no
obligation to anybody now except to Roscoe Bent and those whom his
disgrace would affect. Wrong or right, that is the way Tom's mind
worked.
Quietly he took his hat and went out, softly closing the door behind
him. For a second or two he waited in the hall. He could still hear the
muffled sound of the typewriter machine in the office.
As he went down in the elevator he heard two gentlemen talking about the
celebration that evening and about the governor's coming. Tom listened
wistfully to their conversation.
He had already taken from his pocket (what he always carried as his
heart's dearest treasure) a dilapidated bank book. He intended to draw
ten dollars from his savings account, which would be enough to get him
to Catskill Landing, the nearest railroad point to camp, and to pay the
return fare for himself and Roscoe.
But the bank was closed and Tom was confronted by a large placard in the
big glass doors:
CLOSED IN HONOR OF OUR BOYS.
DON'T FORGET THE PATRIOTIC RALLY TO-NIGHT.
DO YOUR BIT!
YOU CAN CHEER IF YOU CAN'T REGISTER.
He had forgotten that the bank was to close early. Besides spoiling his
plan, it reminded him that the town was turning out in gala fashion, and
his thoughts turned again to the celebration in the evening.
"I gotta keep in the right trail," he said doggedly, as he turned toward
home.
He did not know what to do now, for he had less than a dollar in his
pocket, and he was stubbornly resolved to take no one into his
confidence. If he had the money, he could catch a train before noontime
and reach the mountain by the middle of the afternoon. He would make a
short cut from the railroad and not go up through Leeds or to Temple
Camp at all.
As he walked along he noticed that the street was gay with bunting. In
almost every shop window was a placard similar to the one in the bank. A
large banner suspended across the street read:
DON'T FORGET THE RALLY
IN HONOR OF OUR BOYS
TO-NIGHT!
"I ain't likely to forget it," he muttered.
He wondered how Roscoe's father felt when he saw that banner and this
thought strengthened his determination so that he ignored the patriotic
reminders all about him, and plodded stolidly along, his square face set
in a kind of sullen frown.
"It's being--with the Colors, just the same," he said, "only in another
kind of way--sort of."
As he turned into West Street he noticed on the big bulletin board
outside the Methodist Church the words:
THE GOVERNOR WILL BE ON THE PLATFORM
OUR BOYS WILL BE IN THE TRENCHES
THE BOY SCOUTS ARE ON THE JOB
AND DON'T YOU FORGET IT!
"They're a live bunch, that Methodist Troop, all right," commented Tom.
He raised his hand and gently lifted aside a great flag which hung so
low over the sidewalk that he could not walk under it without stooping.
"Just the same, I can say I'm with the Colors," he repeated. "You can be
with them even if--even if they ain't around----"
He had evidently hit on some plan, for he walked briskly now through
Culver Street, his lips set tight, making his big mouth seem bigger
still.
He entered the house quietly and went up to the little room which he
occupied. It was very small, with a single iron bed, a chair, a walnut
bureau, and a little table whereon lay his Scout Manual and the few
books which he owned. Outside the window, on its pine stick, hung a
stiff muslin flag which he had bought.
He unlocked the top bureau drawer and took out a tin lock-box. This box
was his pride, and whenever he took it out he felt like a millionaire.
He had gazed at it in the window of a stationery store for many weeks
and then, one Saturday, he had gone in and bought it for a dollar and a
half.
He sat on the edge of his bed now, with the box on his knees, and
rummaged among its contents. There was the pocket flashlight his patrol
had given him; there was the scout jack-knife which had been a present
from Roy's sister; an Indian arrow-head that Jeb Rushmore had found; a
memorandum of the birthday of his patrol, and the birthdays of its
members, and a clipping from a local paper describing how Tom Slade had
saved a scout's life at Temple Camp and won the Gold Cross.
From the bottom of this treasure chest he lifted out a plush box which
he rubbed on his knee to get the dust off, and then opened it slowly,
carefully. He never tired of doing this.
As he lifted the cover the sunlight poured down out of the blue,
cloudless sky of that perfect day, streaming cheerily into the plain
little room which was all the home Tom had, and fell upon the glittering
medal, making it shine with a dazzling brightness.
Often when Tom read of the Iron Cross being awarded to a submarine
commander, or a German spy, or a Zeppelin captain for some unspeakable
deed, he would come home and look at his own precious Gold Cross of the
Scouts and think what it meant--heroism, _real_ heroism; bravery
untainted; courage without any brutal motive; the courage that saves,
not destroys.
He breathed upon the rich gold now (though it needed no polishing) and
rubbed it with his handkerchief. Then he sat looking at it long and
steadily. There, shining under his eyes, was the familiar design, the
three-pointed sign of the scouts, with the American eagle superimposed
upon it, as if Uncle Sam and the scouts were in close partnership.
Tom remembered that the Handbook, in describing the scout sign, referred
to it as neither an arrow-head nor a fleur-de-lis, though resembling
both, but as a modified form of the sign of the north on the mariner's
compass.
"Maybe it's like a fleur-de-lis, so as to remind us of France, kind
of," Tom said, as he rubbed the medal again, "and----"
Suddenly a thought flashed into his mind. "And it's pointing to the
north, too! It's the compass sign of the north, and it tells me where to
go, 'cause Temple Camp and that hill are north from here.... Gee, that's
funny, when you come to think of it, how that Gold Cross can kind of
remind you--of everything.... Now I know I _got_ to do it.... Nobody
could tell me what I ought to do, 'cause the Gold Cross has told me....
And it'll help me to ... it will...."