THE TROOP ARRIVES
The ten forty-seven train out of New York went thundering up the shore
of the lordly Hudson packed and jammed with its surging throng of
vacationists who had turned themselves into sardines in order to enjoy a
breath of fresh air. The crowd was uncommonly large because Saturday and
the first of August came on the same day. They crowded three in a seat
and ate sandwiches and drank cold coffee out of milk bottles and let the
children fly paper-bag kites out of the windows, and crowded six deep at
the water cooler at the end of the car.
In all that motley throng there was just one individual who had mastered
the art of carrying a brimful paper drinking-cup through the aisle
without spilling so much as a drop of water, and his cheerful
ministrations were in great demand by thirsty passengers. This
individual was scout Harris, alias Peewee, alias Kid, alias Shorty,
alias Speck, and he was so small that he might have saved his carfare by
going parcel post if he had cared to do so. If he had, he should have
been registered, for there was only one Peewee Harris in all the wide
world.
"Are we going to carry the tent or send it up by the camp wagon?" Roy
Blakeley asked, as he and the others crowded each other off the train at
Catskill Landing. "Answer in the positive or negative."
"You mean the infirmative," Peewee shouted; "that shows how much you
know about rhetoric."
"You mean logic," Roy said.
"I know I'm hungry anyway," Peewee shouted as he threw a suitcase from
his vantage point on the platform, with such precision of aim that it
landed plunk on Connie Bennett's head, to the infinite amusement of the
passengers.
"Did it hurt you?" Peewee called.
"He isn't injured--just slightly killed," Roy shouted; "hurry up, let's
go up in the wagon and get there in time for a light lunch."
"You mean a heavy one," Peewee yelled; "here, catch this suitcase."
The suitcase landed on somebody's head, was promptly hurled at somebody
else, and the usual pandemonium caused by Temple Camp arrivals prevailed
until the entire crowd of scouts found themselves packed in the big camp
stage, and waving their hands and shouting uproariously at the
passengers in the departing train.
"First season at camp?" Roy asked a scout who almost sat on his lap and
was jogged out of place at every turn in the road.
"Yop," was the answer, "we've never been east before; we came from Ohio.
We haven't been around anywhere."
"I've been around a lot," the irrepressible Peewee piped up from his
wobbly seat on an up-ended suitcase.
"Sure, he was conductor on a merry-go-round," Roy said. "What part of
Ohio do you fellows come from?"
"The Ohio River used to be in our geography," Peewee said.
"It's there yet," Roy said; "we should worry, let it stay there."
"Do you know where Columbus is?" Peewee shouted.
"He's dead," Roy said; "do you fellows come from anywhere near Dayton?"
"We come from Dansburg," said their scoutmaster, a bright-looking young
fellow with red hair, who had been listening amusedly to this bantering
talk.
A dead silence suddenly prevailed.
"Oh, I know who you fellows are," Roy finally said. "You're going to
bunk in the three cabins on the hill, aren't you? Is your name Mr.
Barnard?"
"Yes sir," the young man answered pleasantly, "and we're the first
Dansburg, Ohio, troop."
"Do you like mince-pie?" Peewee shouted.
"We eat it alive," said scoutmaster Barnard.
"Can you eat seven pieces?" Peewee demanded.
"If we can get them," young Mr. Barnard replied.
"G--o--o--d night!" Peewee commented.
"Our young hero has a fine voice for eating," Roy observed. "Sometimes
he eats his own words, he's so hungry."
"I don't think you can beat the Dansburg, Ohio, scouts eating," Mr.
Barnard observed.
"Is Dansburg on the map?" Peewee wanted to know.
"Well, it thinks it is," Mr. Barnard smiled.
"I know all about geography," Peewee piped up, "and natural history,
too. I got E plus in geometry."
"Can you name five animals that come from the North Pole?" Peewee
demanded, regaining his seat after an inglorious tumble.
"Four polar bears and a seal," Roy answered; "no sooner said than
stung. Our young hero is the camp cut-up. You fellows ought to be glad
he won't be up on the hill with you. He's worse than the mosquitoes."
"We used to bunk in those cabins on the hill," Peewee said; "there are
snakes and things up there. Are you scared of girls?"
"Not so you'd notice it," one of the Dansburg scouts said.
"Gee, I'm not scared of girls, that's one thing," Peewee informed them.
"I'm not scared of any kind of wild animals."
"And would you call a girl a wild animal?" young Mr. Barnard inquired,
highly amused.
"They scream when they get in a boat," Peewee said; "most always they
smile at me."
"Oh, that's nothing, the first time I ever saw you I laughed out loud,"
Roy said.
And at that everybody laughed out loud, and somebody gave Peewee an
apple which kept him quiet for a while.
"I'm very sorry we can't all be up on that hill together," Mr. Barnard
said, "I gather that it's a rather isolated spot."
"What's an isolated spot?" Peewee yelled.
"It's a spot where they cut ice," said Roy; "shut up, will you?"
"Are there only three cabins up there?" one of the Dansville scouts
wanted to know.
"That's all," Westy Martin, of Roy's troop answered. "We spent, let's
see, three summers up there. We had the hill all to ourselves. We even
did our own cooking."
"And eating," Peewee shouted.
"Oh sure, we never let anyone do that for us," one of the Bridgeboro
scouts laughed.
"If you want a thing well done, do it yourself--especially eating," Roy
said. "A scout is thorough."
"Do you know Chocolate Drop? He's cook," Peewee piped up. "He makes
doughnuts as big as automobile tires."
"Not Cadillac tires," Roy said, "but Ford tires. Peewee knows how to
puncture them, all right."
"He'll have a blow-out some day," Connie Bennett observed.
"So you boys used to be up on the hill, eh?" Mr. Barnard inquired,
turning the conversation to a more serious vein. "And how is it you're
not to bunk up there _this_ year, since you like it so much?"
As if by common consent Roy's troop left it for him to answer, and even
Peewee was quiet.
"Oh, I don't know," Roy said; "first come, first served; that's the
rule. You fellows got in your application, that's all there was to it. I
guess you know Tom Slade, who works in the camp's city office, don't
you, Mr. Barnard?"
"Indeed I do," young Mr. Barnard said. "We met in a shell hole in
France. We knew each other but have never seen each other. It's rather
odd when you come to think of it."
"I suppose that's how he happened to assign you the cabins," Connie
Bennett observed; "old time's sake, hey?"
"Oh, dear no," young Mr. Barnard laughed. "I should say that you boys
come first if it's a question of old time's sake. No indeed, we should
feel like intruders, usurpers, if there were any question of friendly
preference. No, it was really quite odd when you come to think of it. I
never dreamed who Tom Slade was when our accommodations were assigned
us; indeed, his name did not appear in the correspondence. It was just a
case of first come, first served, as you say. Later, we received some
circular matter of the camp and there was a little note with it, as I
remember, signed by Slade. Oh, no, the thing was all cut and dried
before I knew who Slade was. Then we started a very pleasant
correspondence. I expect to see him up here. He was one of the bravest
young fellows on the west front; a sort of silent, taciturn, young
fellow. Oh, no," young Mr. Barnard laughed in that pleasant way he had,
"you boys can't accuse us of usurping your familiar home. You must come
up and see us there, and I hope we shall all be good friends."
Roy Blakeley heard these words as in a dream, and even Peewee was silent.
The others of Roy's troop looked at each other but said not a word. _No
indeed, we should feel like usurpers if there were any question of
friendly preference_. These words rang in Roy's ears, and as he said
them over to himself there appeared in his mind's eye the picture of Tom
Slade, stolid, unimpassioned, patient, unresentful--standing there near
the doorway of the bank building and listening to the tirade of abuse
which he, Roy, hurled at him. "_If you want to think I'm a liar you can
think so. You can tell them that if you want to. I don't care what you
tell them_." These words, too, rang in Roy's ears, and burned into his
heart and conscience, and he knew that Tom Slade had not deigned to
answer these charges and recriminations; _would_ not answer them, any
more than the rock of Gibraltar would deign to answer the petulant
threats and menaces of the sea. Oh, if he could only unsay those words
which he had hurled at Tom, his friend and companion! What mattered it
who bunked in the cabins, so long as he knew what he knew now? How
small and trifling seemed Tom's act of carelessness or forgetfulness, as
he loomed up now in the strong, dogged pride which would not explain to
one who had no right to doubt or disbelieve. How utterly contemptible
Roy Blakeley seemed to himself now!
He tried to speak in his customary light and bantering manner, but he
was too sick at heart to carry it off.
"He's--he's sort of like a rock," he said, by way of answering Barnard's
comments on Tom. "He doesn't say much. You don't--you can't understand
him very easy. Even--even _I_ didn't----. I don't know where he is now.
We haven't seen him for a long time. But one thing you can bet, you're
welcome to the cabins on the hill. He said we wouldn't lose anything.
Anyway, we won't lose much. We've got a tent we're going to put up down
on the tenting space. You bet we'll come up and see you often, and you
bet we'll be good friends. Our both knowing Tom, as you might say, ought
to make us good friends."