"UP AGAINST IT FOR FAIR"
When the telegraph and the telephone and the speeding autos and the
bullying of the hapless village constable failed to reveal any clue to
the burglar at Five Oaks, John Temple proceeded to pooh-pooh the whole
business and say that there had never been any burglar, but that in all
probability the maid had been exploring Mary's trinkets just as Mrs.
Temple returned and that the "frightful-looking man" whom she had met
on the stairs was a myth.
It was then that the maid, groping for any straw in her extremity, said
that a boy in khaki had darted out from the pantry and across the
private rear lawn into the woods beyond while she stood at the window.
If she had stuck to the plain truth and not permitted Mr. Temple to
beat her down as to the man she actually did see on the stairs, a great
deal of suffering might have been saved. But the loss of only one
trinket, and that one of small intrinsic value, seemed to lend color to
the theory that it was the work of a boy rather than of a professional
adult burglar, and the master of Five Oaks, thinking this matter worth
inquiring into, called up the constable and laid the thing before him
in this new light.
Mr. John Temple had no particular grudge against the Boy Scouts. He was
a rational, hard-headed business man, decisive and practical and
without much imagination. His lack of imagination was, indeed, his main
trouble. He was not silly enough and he was extremely too busy to bear
any active malice toward an organization having to do with boys, and
except when the scouts were mentioned to him he never gave them a
thought one way or the other. He was not the archenemy of the movement
(as some of the boys themselves thought): he simply had no use for it.
So far as the scout idea had been explained to him by the Bridgeboro
Local Council (to whom he had granted five minutes of his time) he
thought it consisted of a sort of poetical theory and that money put
into it was simply thrown away. He believed, and he told the Council
so, that ample provision had been made for boys in the form of circuses
and movie plays and baseball games for good ones and reformatories and
prisons for bad ones, and he referred, as the successful man is so apt
to do, to his own poor boyhood and how he had attended to business and
done what was right and so on, and so on, and so on.
Nor had this king of finance cherished any particular resentment toward
the poor creature who had thrown a stone at him. John Temple was a big
man and he was not petty, but he was intensely practical, and he had no
patience with Mr. Ellsworth's notions for the making of good citizens.
He had known two generations of Slades; he had never known any of them
to amount to anything, and he believed that the proper place for a
hoodlum and a truant and an orphan was in an institution. He paid his
taxes for the support of these institutions regularly and he believed
they ought to be used for what they were intended for. He thought it
was little less than criminal that the son of Bill Slade should be
wandering over the face of the earth when he might be legally placed in
a dormitory, eating his three meals a day in a white-washed corridor.
For Mr. Ellsworth, John Temple had only contempt. He looked down upon
him as the man without imagination always looks down upon the man with
imagination. Meanwhile the new subtle spirit was working in Tom Slade
and the capitalist had neither the time nor the interest to stoop and
watch the wonderful transformation which was going on.
He was not prompted by any feeling of spite or resentment toward Tom
and the scouts when he told the constable about "young Slade." He
believed that he was acting wisely and even in Tom's best interests,
and it was in vain that his young daughter tried to pull him away from
the telephone. Mrs. Temple weepingly implored him to remember the
hospitality and the courtesy which she and Mary had just enjoyed at the
hands of the scouts, but it was of no use. If no one had mentioned Tom
he would never have thought of him, but since Mary had mentioned him he
believed it was a good time to have Mr. Ellsworth's experiment with Tom
looked into before "all the houses in the neighborhood were robbed." He
did not mean that, of course; it was simply his way of talking.
It was the second morning after the Silver Foxes' proud recovery of
Esther Blakeley's card that a loose-jointed personage from Salmon River
Village sauntered into camp, his face screwed up as if he were studying
the sun, and surveyed the camp with that frank and leisurely scrutiny
which bespeaks the "Rube." Concealed beneath his coat he wore a badge
which he had fished out of an unused cooky-jar just before starting,
and it swelled his rural pride to feel the weight of it on his
suspender.
"Wha'ose boss here?" he asked Pee-wee, who was about his customary duty
of spearing loose papers with a pointed stick.
"No boss," said Pee-wee.
"Wha'ose runnin' the shebang?"
Pee-wee pointed to Mr. Ellsworth's little tent just inside which the
scoutmaster sat on an onion-crate stool, writing.
The official personage sauntered over, watched by several boys, paused
to inspect the wireless apparatus in its little leanto. His inquisitive
manner was rather jarring. By the time he reached Mr. Ellsworth's tent
a little group had formed about him.
"Ya'ou the boss here?"
"Good-morning," said Mr. Ellsworth.
"Ya'ou the boss?"
"No; the boys are boss; anything we can do for you?"
The stranger looked about curiously. "Got permission t' camp here, I
s'pose."
"There's the owner of the property," said Mr. Ellsworth, laughingly,
indicating Roy.
"Hmmm; ye got a young feller here by th' name o' Slade?"
"That's what we have," said the scoutmaster with his usual breezy
pleasantry.
"Well, I reckon I'll hev ter see him."
"Certainly; what for?" Mr. Ellsworth asked rather more interested.
"He's got hisself into a leetle mite o' trouble," the stranger drawled;
"leastways, mebbe he has." He seemed to enjoy being mysterious.
So Tom was called. Roy came with him, and all who were in camp at the
moment clustered about the scoutmaster's tent. Mr. Ellsworth's manner
was one of perfect confidence in Tom and half-amusement at the
stranger's relish of his own authority.
"You don't wish to see him privately, I suppose?"
"Na-o--leastways not 'less he does. Seems you was trespassing araound
Five Oaks t'other day," he said to Tom in his exasperating drawl, and
with deliberate hesitation.
"Good heavens, man!" said Mr. Ellsworth, nettled. "You don't mean to
tell me this boy is charged with trespassing! Why, half a dozen of
these boys accompanied Mrs. Temple and her daughter home--they were
invited into the house." He looked at the stranger, half angry and half
amused. "Mrs. Temple and her daughter were our guests here. We might as
well say _they_ were trespassing!"
"Leastways they din't take nuthin'."
"What do you mean by that?" said the scoutmaster, sharply.
"Ye know a pin was missin' thar?"
"Yes," said Mr. Ellsworth, impatiently.
"An' one o' these youngsters was seen sneakin'--"
"Oh, no," the scoutmaster jerked out; "we don't do any sneaking here.
Be careful how you talk. You are trespassing yourself, sir, if it comes
to that."
There was never a moment in the troop's history, not even in that
unpleasant scene in John Temple's vacant lot, when the boys so admired
their scoutmaster. His absolute confidence in every member of the troop
thrilled them with an incentive which no amount of discipline could
have inspired. It was plain to see that they felt this--all save Tom,
whose face was a puzzle.
He stood there among them, his belt pulled unnecessarily tight, after
the fashion of the boy who has always worn a suspender, the trim intent
of the scout regalia hardly showing to advantage on his rather clumsy
form. His puttees were never well adjusted; the khaki jacket (when he
wore it) had a perverse way of working up in back. He presented a
marked contrast to Roy's natty appearance and to Westy whose uniform
fitted him so perfectly that he seemed to have been poured into it as a
liquid into a mould. Both boys looked every inch a scout. Yet there
was something strangely distinctive about Tom as he stood there. A
discerning person might have fancied his uncouthness as part and parcel
of a certain rugged quality which could not be expressed in precise
attire. There was something ominous in the dogged, sullen look which
his countenance wore. He seemed a sort of law unto himself, having a
certain resource in himself and seeking now neither advice nor
assistance. He was no figure for the cover of the Scout Handbook, yet
he had drawn out of it its full measure of strength; he would accept no
one's interpretation of it but his own and thus he stood among them and
yet apart--as good a scout as ever raised his hand to take the oath.
"One o' these youngsters went daown stairs and raound the haouse t' th'
pantry 'n' he was seen to go without warrant of law crost Temple's lawn
and inter his private woods." The man had his little spats of legal
phraseology, of course, and Mr. Ellsworth could almost have murdered
him for his "without warrant of law."
"Any one of you boys go 'without warrant of law'?" asked the
scoutmaster, with an air of humorous disgust.
"I did," said Tom simply.
The scoutmaster looked at him in surprise.
"What for, Tom?"
There was a moment's silence.
"I've got nothing to say," said Tom.
Doc. Carson, who was of all things observant, noticed a set appearance
about Tom's jaw and a far-away look in his eyes as if he neither knew
nor cared about any of those present.
"I s'pose if we was to search ye we wouldn't find nothin' on ye t'
shouldn't be thar?"
"I am a scout of the sec--I am a scout," said Tom, impassively. "No one
will search me."
It would be hard to describe the look in Mr. Ellsworth's eyes as he
watched Tom. There was confidence, there was admiration, but withal an
almost pathetic look of apprehension and suspense. He studied Tom as a
pilot fixes his gaze intently upon a rocky shore. Tom did not look at
him.
"Ye wouldn't relish bein' searched, I reckon?" the constable said with
an exasperating grin of triumph.
Then the thunderbolt fell. Calmly Tom reached down into his pocket and
brought forth the little class pin.
"I know what you want," he said. "I didn't know first off, but now I
know. You couldn't search me--I wouldn' leave--let you. I could handle
a marshal, and I'm stronger now than I was then. But you can't search
me; you can't disgrace my patrol by searchin' them--or by searchin'
me--'cause I wouldn't lea--let you. _Get away_ from me!" with such
frantic suddenness that they started. "Don't you try to take it from
me! I'm a scout of--I'm a scout--mind! Where's Roy?"
"Tom," said Mr. Ellsworth, his voice tense with emotion.
"Where's Roy?" the boy asked, ignoring him.
Roy stepped forward as he had done once before when Tom was in trouble,
and they made an odd contrast. "Here, Tom."
"You take it an' give it to Mary Temple and tell her it's tossin' it
back--kind of. She'll know what I mean. You know how to go to places
like that--but they get me scared. Tell her it's instead of the rubber
ball, and that I sent it to her."
"Oh, Tom," said Mr. Ellsworth, his voice almost breaking, "is that all
you have to say--Tom?"
"I'm a scout--I'm obeyin' the law--that's all," said Tom, doggedly. He
seemed to be the only one of them all who was not affected, so sure did
he feel of himself.
"Do I have to get arrested?" said he.
"Ye-es, I reckon I'll hev to take ye 'long," said the constable,
advancing.
Tom never flinched.
Roy tried to speak but could only say, "Tom--"
Mr. Ellsworth put his palm to his forehead and held it there a moment
as if his head throbbed.
"Can I have my book?" Tom asked as the constable, taking his arm, took
a step away.
It was Pee-wee who glided, scout pace, over to the Silver Foxes' tent.
In the unusual situation it never occurred to him that he, a Raven, was
entering it uninvited. Esther Blakeley's triumphant post card hung
there but he never noticed it. He brought the well-thumbed Handbook
with T. S. on it, and it was curious to see that he gave it to Roy
instead of to Tom.
But Tom noticed his bringing it. "I'm glad you did your tracking stunt,
Pee-wee," he said, with just a little quiver in his voice.
Roy handed him the book. Then, just as they started off, Mr. Ellsworth,
gathering himself together as one coming out of a trance, accosted the
departing constable.
"This boy was placed in my charge by the court in Bridgeboro," said he,
holding the man off.
"That don't make no difference," drawled the man. "I got a right to go
anywheres for a fugitive or a suspect. A guardian writ wouldn't be no
use to ye in a criminal charge." And he smiled as if he were perfectly
willing to explain the law for the benefit of the uninitiated.
Tom, clutching his Handbook, walked along at the man's side. He seemed
utterly indifferent to what was happening.
There were no camp-fire yarns that night.