THE BOY SCOUTS' INVASION.
That was a grand surprise that the Boy Scouts of Spring Lake academy
"put over" on the Camp Fire Girls of Hiawatha Institute. They had been
planning it for several weeks, or since they first received
information of the Grand Council Fire as a closing event of the first
semester of the girls' school. The two institutions were located in
municipalities only fifteen miles apart, connected by both steam
railroad and electric interurban lines.
Spring Lake academy, located on a lake of the same name at the
southern outskirt of Kingston, was originally a boys' military school,
and it still retained that primal distinction. But the success of
Hiawatha Institute as a Camp Fire Girls' school set the imaginative
minds of some of the leaders of the boys at Spring Lake to work along
similar lines, with the result that the faculty's cooperation was
petitioned for the organization of the student body into a troop of
Boy Scout patrols. The scheme was successful, and as it served to
inject new life into the academy, the business end of the institution
had no ground for complaint.
This innovation at Spring Lake was due largely to the activities of
Clifford Long, one of the students. He was a cousin of Marion
Stanlock, and naturally this relationship served to direct his
personal interest toward Hiawatha Institute. Not a few other students
in these two schools were similarly related, some of them being
brothers and sisters.
And so it is not to be wondered at if these two places of learning
became, as it were, twin schools, with much of interest in common and
many of their activities interassociated. They had rival debating
teams between which were held more or less periodic contests, and in
the numerous social events there were frequently exchanges of
invitational courtesies.
The boys plotted their big surprise on the girls in true scout
fashion. There was no real secret in the fact that the Camp Fire Girls
of Hiawatha Institute were planning a big event, but girl-like they
affected secrecy to stimulate interest. The result was more than could
have been expected, although the girls did not realize this until
after it was all over. The curiosity of the Spring Lake boys was
thoroughly alive as soon as they learned of a mysterious "something
big" going on at the institute. True to the character of real scouts
they delegated emissaries, commonly denominated spies, to visit the
stronghold of the Camp Fire Girls, get all the details of their plans
discoverable and report back to headquarters. Greater success than
that which rewarded their efforts could hardly have been wished for.
Half a dozen boys went and returned and then put their heads and their
reports together with the result that the Scouts of the school had
all the information they needed.
They mapped out their plans and scheduled their prospective movements
by the calendar and the clock. They chartered an interurban train for
the run to and from the Institute. The arrival on the scene of the
Grand Council Fire was, as we have seen, a complete surprise to the
girls. The Scouts well knew that their presence would not be regarded
as an intrusion, for a Grand Council Fire, according to the handbook,
"is for friends and the public."
The interruption of the program by the marching of the Boy Scouts
within the circle of the Camp Fire Girls was permitted to continue for
ten or fifteen minutes, while a number of short speeches were made by
some of the boy leaders, in which they gloried over the way they had
"put one over on the girls."
"And we're not through yet," announced Harry Gilbert prophetically.
"Some of us are going to put over another surprise just about as
thrilling as this, and we want to challenge you to find out what it
is."
Of course this statement produced the very result the boys desired.
Naturally they wished the girls to think they were pretty bright
fellows. They got just what they were looking for as a result of their
"surprise," namely, volumes of praise. To be sure, this did not come
in the form of undisguised admiration. That isn't the way a clever
girl signifies her approval of this sort of thing. It just burst into
evidence through such mock jeers as, "You boys think you are so
smart," or "It's a wonder you wouldn't have gone to enough pains to
build a railroad or sink a submarine."
To which, on one occasion in the course of the evening, Earl Hamilton
replied:
"Thank you, ladies; we always do things thorough."
"-_ly_!" screamed Katherine Crane. Yes, it was really a scream, an
explosion, too, if the indelicacy may be excused. But the opportunity
for a come-back struck her so keenly, so swiftly, that she just could
not contain her eagerness to beat somebody else to it.
Well, the laugh that followed also was of the nature of an explosion.
And it was on poor Katherine quite as much as on Earl, who had tripped
up on an adjective in place of an adverb. The girl's eagerness was so
evident that it struck everybody as funnier than the boy's mistake in
grammar. Anyway, she recovered quite smartly and followed up her
attack with this pert addendum as the laughter subsided:
"You evidently don't do your lessons thorough-_ly_." The emphasis on
the "-ly" was so pronounced, almost spasmodic, as to bring forth
another laughing applause.
This exchange of repartee took place in the large school auditorium,
to which all repaired as soon as the outdoor exercises had been
finished.
The program of the evening was punctuated by interruptions of this
kind every now and then. Of course, the fun-makers waited for
suitable opportunities to spring their "quips and cranks," so that no
merited interest in the doing could be lost. And none of it was lost.
The presence of the bold invaders seemed to add zest to the most
routine of the Camp Fire performances, and when all was over everybody
was agreed that there had not been a dull minute during the whole
evening.
At the close of the Camp Fire Girls' program the 150 Boy Scouts arose
and, with heroic unison of voices peculiar to much practice in the
delivery of school yells, they chanted a clever parody of Wo-he-lo
Cheer, a Boy Scout's compliment to the Camp Fire Girls, and then
marched out of the auditorium and away toward the interurban line,
where their chartered train was waiting for them, and all the while
they continued the chant with variations of the words, the rhythmic
drive of their voices pulsing back to the Institute, but becoming
fainter and more faint until at last the sound was lost with the
speeding away of the trolley train in the distance.
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