TRIUMPH AND----
_At_ about the time that Tom was starting back to camp, rather
thoughtful and preoccupied, Hervey Willetts was arriving at camp, not at
all thoughtful or preoccupied.
His ankle was strained and bruised, and he limped. But his rimless hat
of many holes and button-badges was perched sideways toward the back of
his head and had a new and piquant charm by reason of being faded and
water soaked. Putting not his trust in garters, which had so often,
betrayed him, he had fastened a string to his left stocking by means of
an old liberty loan pin. The upper end of this string was tied to a
stick which he carried over his shoulder, so he had only to exert a
little pressure on the stick in front to adjust his stocking.
He had evidently been to see one of his farmer friends, for he was
eating a luscious red tomato, and fate decreed that the last of this
should be ready for consumption just as he was passing within a few
yards of the bulletin board. For a moment a terrible conflict raged
within him. Should he despatch the remainder of the tomato into his
mouth, or at the bulletin board? The small remnant was red and mushy and
dripping--and the bulletin board won.
Brandishing the squashy missile, he uttered his favorite passwords to
good luck,
One for courage
One for spunk
One to take aim
And then----
Suddenly he bethought him of an improvement. Sticking the remnant of
tomato on the end of his stick, he swung it carefully.
One for courage
One for spunk
One to take aim
And then--_KERPLUNK!_
Those magic words were intended, especially, for use in despatching
tomatoes and they never failed to make good. There, upon the bulletin
board was a vivid area which looked like the midday sun. From it
trickled an oozy mass, down over the list of uncalled for letters,
straight through the prize awards of yesterday, obliterating the
_Council Call_, and bathing the list of new arrivals in soft and pulpy
red. The "hike for to-morrow," as shown, was through a crimson sea.
Hervey approached for a closer glimpse of his triumph. No other
incentive would have taken him so close to that prosy bulletin board. He
had vaulted over it but never read it. But now in the moment of supreme
victory he limped forward, like an elated artist, to inspect his work.
There, in front of him, with a little red river flowing down across the
middle of it, was the ominous sentence.
Hervey Willetts will report _immediately_ to his scoutmaster at
troop's cabin upon his return to camp.
WM. C. DENNY.