IN THE WOODS
So you see it's best to always think twice before you do a good turn. Don't
be in too much of a hurry about it. Because a good turn might go wild and
cause a lot of trouble. You've got to take a good aim.
As long as Jib Jab had told us we'd always be welcome, Harry said, it would
be best for him and Dorry and I to wait till the show was over that night
and then go in and make a call on him. So he told the fellows that we'd
hang around in the woods for one more day and hike it for Newburgh in the
morning. He said that would give us a chance to get some provisions in
Kingston and to stalk in the mountains. They all liked the idea, only Brent
Gaylong said his fellows didn't have many eats and they didn't want to be
sponging on us.
Harry said, "We're all one family and I'm sick of this Silver Fox outfit,
anyway. It'll help to vary the monotony." That was always the way he
talked.
In the afternoon I took a walk through the woods with Brent Gaylong and the
little fellow he called Willie Wide-awake. He was a nice little fellow. He
found a four-leaf clover and he said, "Maybe that will change our luck."
I said, "Maybe; you never can tell." And, oh' boy, didn't I just laugh to
myself. _You wait_, that's what I said to myself.
Gaylong said, "The trouble with us fellows is that we started our great and
glorious troop during the war. Everybody was organizing troops--France,
Germany, Uncle Sam, Italy--and we got lost in the shuffle. Too much
competition. We'll land rightside up yet. But when I look over that scout
magazine and see all the ads of things scouts want, it sort of makes me
discouraged. Knives, cameras, bicycles, canoes, magic lanterns, toy steam
engines, tin railroads, fancy memorandum books, electric motors, I suppose
I'm behind the times, but just about all we want is a little place to meet
in, and our scoutmaster back again and the price of a welcome for him,
that's all. That, and the woods."
"You said it," I told him. "You should worry about all those ads; they
have nothing to do with scouting. All they've got to do with scouting is
that they're good to kindle a camp-fire with. Scouting doesn't cost
anything when you once get started."
"It would cost about ten dollars a minute if some people had their way,"
he said.
"Sure," I said, "they'd have you looking like Santa Claus. You should
worry."
"But I ought not to kick," he said; "because I'm to blame for this wild
goose chase. You see I wanted to get the kids out of doors. I wanted to get
their minds off patent sleds and go-carts, and goodness knows what all. I
was brought up in the country and I wanted them to have a taste of
adventure--the kind of stuff that isn't advertised, you know ."
I said, "You bet I know; and I have to admit you're right, too."
"Of course, there wasn't any chance of finding that fellow, Chandler," he
said; "but what's the difference? We had about seven dollars, and the kids
wanted to buy one of those moving picture machines, _'Boy Scouts,
Attention! Here is just what you want!'_ You know. So I just took the
seven plunks and brought them up this way on a hike. Something they _really
did_ want. I thought maybe there was one chance in twenty of finding that
Chandler, but I didn't say so. I let them think the chance was fair.
Anyway, we had a hike. We were out for adventure. They forgot about the
cornets and the clock-work gew-gaws that they really _didn't want_. We've
been scouting. We're broke, but we've been scouting. We hiked up to a
remote village after a missing person. Romance! Adventure! We've been
_scouting_. Hurrah, and a couple of bravos! That fellow Donnelle has the
right idea; and he's a brick."
"Believe _me_, that's the biggest compliment you ever paid a brick," I
said.
"So here we are," he said; "cleaned out and happy, and living on our scout
brothers. That's the idea, isn't it? Brothers? Poor relations, hey? But
we're real, honest to goodness, scouts. None genuine unless labeled
_Church Mice_. Boy Scouts, Attention! Here is something you _really_ want.
Hiking! Adventure! Some day or other we'll stumble into fifty or a hundred
dollars, but by the Big Dipper we'll get it _scouting_. That fellow
Donnelle has the right idea; he's a peach."
"Believe _me_, he's a whole orchard," I said
Then neither of us said anything for about a minute, only we kept wandering
along through the woods and we stopped and watched a chipmunk in a tree and
kept good and still so lie wouldn't be scared. And Brent Gaylong picked up
a locust, awful careful, and held it in his two fingers and showed Willie
Wide-awake how its wings went and how it was different from a bird. And
Willie Wide-awake held it in one hand, because he had the four-leaf
clover in the other hand. It was nice in the woods. I found a red lizard,
too; the kind that come out after it rains. I guess he made a mistake, hey?
There are lots of them up that way.
I said, "You just keep that four-leaf clover and it'll bring you luck. If
you can stand a pine cone on your thumb and hold it that way till you count
ten, then you can make a wish and it'll come true."
So Willie Wide-awake balanced a pine cone like that and counted ten and
then he said, "I wish we'd get a hundred dollars and I wish Mr. Jennis
would hurry up and come back."
And then I batted the pine cone away with a birch stick, So as to make the
wish come true. You've got to be sure the stick is made of birch.