BRENT GAYLONG
The fellows were all waiting for us when we came out and we hiked out to
where those scouts had their camp. There were only five of them, one
patrol, and the biggest one was a kind of scoutmaster and patrol leader
rolled into one. His name was Brent Gaylong. I walked with him behind the
others and he told me all about his patrol and the troubles they had. He
was an awful nice fellow, kind of quiet like; but he was funny, too.
Christopher, that little troop must have been started on Friday the
thirteenth, that's one thing sure.
I said, "What's the name of your patrol?"
"Well," he said, "we call ourselves the Church Mice, because we're so poor.
First we were going to call ourselves the Job's Turkeys, but we decided
that a church mouse was poorer than Job's turkey."
I had to laugh. I said, "I've heard of most every kind of an animal's name
used for patrols, but never a church mouse. My patrol is the Silver Fox."
"That's a bully name," he said.
"Anyway," I told him, "the name hasn't got so much to do with it. There was
a patrol up at Temple Camp named the Polliwogs and they were all nice
fellows. But they couldn't keep still, they were always wriggling. Maybe
they're frogs by this time, hey? A fellow up there told me about a patrol
named the Caterpillars and afterwards they changed it to the Butterflies.
He said there's a patrol out west named the Mock Turtles. There's a lot of
crazy fellows come to Temple Camp. One of them said there was a fellow in
his troop named Welsh and he was chosen leader of a new patrol and they
wanted to call it the Welsh Rabbits. Church Mice is all right, I think."
He said, "It's appropriate anyway. I'd like to see a camp like that Temple
Camp; it must be great. Trouble with us is we've had such plaguey hard
luck. I guess there's only one thing harder than our luck and that's the
biscuits we make."
I said, "I can make hard ones."
Then he said, "You see, first our scoutmaster had to go to war. We were
just starting then. It hit us a good whack. We tried to get another, but
scoutmasters were pretty scarce; they were scarcer than coal and sugar.
They were all in France. So I took the job. I suppose we could get one
now, but since we've worried along all this time without one, we decided
to wait till our scoutmaster gets back. He'll be back in a couple of weeks,
I understand, and we want to give him a welcome. We've got two dollars and
fourteen cents toward it so far-two dollars and four cents, really, because
there's a Canadian dime. If there are any Canadian dimes around, we're sure
to get them. Then our little shanty burned down. It was about the best
camp-fire I ever saw, only it left us without a meeting-place. We still
have our scout smiles; they don't cost anything. If they did, we couldn't
afford them."
I said, "That's one thing about scout smiles; they're the only things that
haven't gone up."
"So here we are," he said, "hiking back home after one of our fool
enterprises. We intended to go down on the train, but we went to the
circus instead."
"It's about thirty miles down to Newburgh," I said; "you'll have to
bivouac twice anyway."
He said, "I guess we've got eats enough."
"We might as well all hike that far together," I told him.
"Good idea," he said, "if you don't mind chumming up with a traveling
poor-house."
"We should worry about being poor," I said; "I know a man that's rich and
he can't hike at all. He goes on crutches. How would you like to be him?
Anyway, don't you fellows get discouraged."
"Don't worry," he said; "first it was hard, but now we've come to like it.
You can get a lot of fun out of hard luck. And all we need is time, I
suppose. This winter we're all going to work on Saturdays. Trouble is that
isn't going to help us give our scoutmaster a _welcome home_. We've done
more crazy things this summer trying to get a little money together! I
guess it would have been better if we'd all knuckled down to jobs. But I
wanted these poor kids to get a taste of scouting. Too late now, anyway.
Why if I told you why we hiked up to Elm Center, you'd just laugh in my
face. You'd say we were crazy. But we've had a good time anyway."
I said, "One thing sure, everything will come out all right and it's better
to go on a hike and camping and all that in the summer than to be working
in the city. One of those fellows ahead of us is named Dorry Benton and
he's kind of--not exactly poor, but--Anyway, he's crazy to get a motorcycle
and he was going to stay home and work this summer, but Mr. Ellsworth (he's
our scoutmaster) told him no, that it was better for him to go up to Temple
Camp. That big fellow with us isn't our regular scoutmaster.
"Anyway, Dorry is crazy to have a motorcycle and you can bet he'll have
more fun with it if he has to wait for it, won't he? Anyway, I wish you'd
tell me what you came up this way for. I won't tell any of the follows if
you don't want me to."
"Oh," he said, "they might as well all have a good laugh. And I don't want
you to think that I'm grouching about hard luck, either. We'll land right
side up-scouts mostly do. The woods are free, thank goodness. All that's
troubling us is that when Mr. Jennis went away he gave us a spread and
presented each one of us with a scout knife and we'd like to return the
compliment, that's all. We'd like to show him how much we think of him. I
had a crazy notion we'd all go down to New York and meet him and give him
something or other when the transport arrives. Happy dreams. I guess all
we'll give him is the scout salute. But we'll come out right side up yet,
even if we have to sweep up the streets in Newburgh. Principal trouble
with us is that we're a lot of dreamers; I guess I'm the worst of the lot.
Not much money in adventures. So now we're up against it. You don't make
money _scouting_, you make it _working_."
I said, "I wish you'd please tell me why you came up this way, will you?"
"Sure I will," he said; "it's a joke-it's a peach of a joke. Only I tell
you beforehand, we're a band of wild adventurers. Here we are at our
luxurious camp. Pretty big tent, hey?"
"I don't see any tent," I said.
He said, "Don't you see that big blue tent?"
"Where?" I asked him.
"With the little gold spots all over it?"
"Oh, you mean the sky?" I said.
"Some tent, hey?" he said. And then he began laughing.
"There's no man can make a tent like that," I told him.
"It's only intended for rich scouts," he laughed "we don't even bother to
take it with us when we go; we just leave it here. Oh, we're a reckless,
extravagant bunch."