THE LAKE TRAIL
That afternoon we stayed and helped those surveyors to get their own
tent up, and we built them a scout fireplace out of stones. They were
going to cook with an oil-stove--jiminy, nix on that. That Bobby Easton
was a nice fellow all right. He said he remembered seeing us at camp but
he didn’t get acquainted with us because he was new at camp. He was
helping those surveyors on field assignment, that’s what they call it.
Lots of Scouts at camp do like that. A couple of fellows I knew went for
a week with some men who were stocking the lakes and streams with
fishes.
Bobby Easton was going to stay with those surveyors for a week--as long
as they camped in the chasm. A stake boy is the one that holds the cord
and drives stakes and all like that. Pee-wee thought it was a fellow
that ate a lot of steak. At night we all had supper together and those
surveyors told us.
The next day we took down our tent and went back to Temple Camp. If you
stay over your time you don’t get camping leave again, so if you ever go
there you better be careful. Those surveyors went back to camp with
us--they were telling us how they were going to do surveying for levees
down on the Mississippi. Boy, wouldn’t I like to go with them! At camp
they made up a statement about how Bobby Easton saved Pee-wee’s life--it
was an affidavit like you have to have--and all of us had to sign it.
Then Bobby had to answer a lot of questions by the camp council--that’s
the same as local council. Then after a while he got the Gold Medal for
life-saving from the National Court of Honor. He showed it to me after
he got it. He got the Burnside award, too, after about a week, and he
bought a canoe to keep on the lake. So I guess he’s coming up there
every summer. He treated us all to ice cream too, down in Catskill. But
all that wasn’t until after he got through helping the surveyors over in
the chasm.
So then poor Dub only had about a week to stay because Pee-wee didn’t
find anybody who was dying to have his life saved. I said that maybe
there might possibly be an earthquake or something and a lot of people
would almost get killed. But there wasn’t any earthquake--jiminies there
never is at Temple Camp. Pee-wee said over in Japan they have dandy
tidal waves. But what good do they do us--that’s what I asked him.
Two or three nights before the day Dub had to go home, he said to me,
“Are you going to be at camp-fire to-night?”
“Sure, there’s nothing else to do,” I said.
He said, “Let’s take a hike, just us two.”
“Sure,” I told him, “but watch out for Pee-wee.”
“Are you game to walk around the lake?” he asked me. He said he had
never done that and he wanted to do it. He wanted to see how it was on
the other side of the lake.
“It’s all woods,” I told him. “The shore comes down steep and those
hills are all covered with woods--you can see from camp how it is.
There’s a trail goes all the way around.”
He asked me did I care so much about camp-fire.
“Sure not,” I said. “Haven’t I got all summer to sprawl around
camp-fire?” Then right away I was sorry I said that. Because in a couple
of days he had to go home. “Come on in the office,” I said, “and I’ll
get permission.”
Dub waited, reading the bulletin-board while I told the councilor that I
was going for a hike with another fellow. The councilor (that was
Saunders, he’s a nice councilor all right) he said, “These night hikes
are being discouraged but you boys come home early and I guess it will
be all right.”
I said, “Believe me, I’ll get back by ten because I’ll want to get a
piece of pie before cooking shack closes up. Chocolate Drop, he’s cook,
and he goes to bed about ten o’clock.”
Dub was waiting for me, looking around Administration Shack. He was
looking at the Indian canoe and the elk’s head and the stuffed
beaver--there are a lot of things like that in Administration Shack. I
guess he had never been in there except when he was being registered. He
was looking at the big bulletin-board when I went back to him and he
said, “We might row across if it wasn’t for that.” He was pointing at a
notice that said--here’s just what it said because I copied it:
Attention is called to the rule recently announced forbidding
the use of boats or canoes after dark. The mishap of Wednesday
evening last emphasizes the importance of a rigorous enforcement
of this new regulation. Boats and canoes must not be taken from
their mooring places after supper except by special permission.
Disregard of this rule will be followed by summary dismissal
from the camp community.
“That’s on account of tenderfoots,” I told Dub. “Some of the Scouts that
are up here this season ought to have their nurse girls with them.
Anyway I’d rather walk around, wouldn’t you?”
“Sure, anything suits me,” Dub said. “I’m going home in a couple of days
anyway.”
I said, “You don’t mean you’d take a boat for that reason, do you? If
you’re going home you might as well go right.”
He said, “No, I only meant I have to go home in a couple of days. Come
ahead, I didn’t mean anything, let’s hike around.”
I felt sorry for him because he had to go right when the season was
getting started, but how could I help it? You can bet I wouldn’t want to
be leaving when the Scouts are coming every day. “You might as well go
merrily, merrily,” I said. “You’ll be up next summer.”
“I’ll be going to work next summer,” he said.
“Forget about it,” I told him.
We started walking around the lake, going toward the brook--that’s west.
If you look at the map you’ll see how we went. It’s about three and a
half miles around the lake. If you want to see Pee-wee jump up in the
air just tell him it’s longer one way around the lake than it is the
other way. Just tell him that with a sober face if you want to see some
fireworks. When you get past the brook it’s all woods, but there’s a
trail. It’s hard to follow it in the dark unless you’ve been over it in
the daytime. I bet I’ve been over it a hundred times. If you ever come
to Temple Camp I’ll take you around.
While we were hiking around through the woods I asked Dub how he made
out with those pictures he took that day we were on our way from Bagley
Center to the chasm. He said they came out pretty good.
I said, “Then all you’ve got to do to be an Eagle is to take the life
saving tests? I should think you would have done that before this.”
“What’s the use?” he said.
“Awh, come out of it, Dub,” I told him. “Just because you can’t stay all
summer, is that any reason for not caring about your tests? _Boy_, if I
had only one test more to be an Eagle you can bet I’d hop over the top
all right. There are lots of Scouts here that would change places with
you, you can bet.”
“Yes--they wouldn’t,” he said. “And go back to a flat up over a bakery
store? I bet you and all your patrol, and Pee-wee, live in nice big
houses.”
“Believe me,” I told him. “Pee-wee would change places with you to live
over a bakery store. If he lived over a bakery store you’d never see him
up here. Look out where you’re stepping, it’s marshy near the shore.”
He said, “Look at the luck that Easton fellow had--the Gold Medal and a
hundred bucks. And he doesn’t need it either, his folks are rich.”
“That has nothing to do with it,” I said. “You win a prize or you don’t.
Being rich hasn’t got anything to do with it.”
“Yes, but he would have stayed all summer anyway,” Dub said.
“Oh gollies, is that all you’re thinking about?” I said. “Gee, you
weren’t like that when we were at Beaver Chasm.”
“I didn’t have to go so soon then,” he said.
“It wasn’t until after Bobby Easton won the Gold Medal that you started
grouching,” I said to him.
He said, “What do I care about the Gold Medal--or being an Eagle Scout
either? They don’t get me anything.”
“_Good night!_ Don’t get you anything?” I said.
“Sitting home minding the baby while my mother’s out working,” he said.
“What good is it being an Eagle Scout when you have to do that? Or the
Gold Medal either--what good is it? Now I’m sorry my mother let me come
up here at all. Gee, all she could scrape together was two weeks’ board
and that isn’t enough up here even just for two weeks. Fellows buy cones
and hot dogs and everything and go to the movies over in Catskill. I
couldn’t even chip in for the closing events.”
I said, “Well, what of it? You won’t be here anyway.”
“Don’t rub it in,” he said.
“I don’t mean it that way,” I told him. “Only why should you be putting
up a half a dollar for something you won’t have anything to do with?
Anyway that’s against the rule in this camp, taking up collections like
that. Gee, I should think you’d be glad your mother did that--sending
you up here like that.”
He said, “Do you live in a big house?”
“Sure,” I told him, “but what’s the difference? They’re all the same
size when you get on the outside of them--the outside of every house is
the same size. You go outside your house and you’ve got just as much
room as I have when I go outside of my house. Let’s hear you deny it.”
“Tell that to Pee-wee,” he said, kind of laughing.
“Look out, you’ll crack your face laughing,” I told him.
He said, “When I go outside my house I just have to sit in the gutter.
There used to be a lot but they’re building on it.”
“When I go outside of my house there’s a big lawn I have to mow,” I told
him. “Jiminies, you’re lucky--you don’t have to cut the sidewalk.”
He said, “You crazy Indian, you make me laugh.”
“Sure, why not?” I said to him.