A NEW ACQUAINTANCE
To know something of the circumstances which caused this letter to reach
Mrs. Haskell like a ghost out of the past, we shall have to betake
ourselves to Bennett's Fresh Confectionery and Ice Cream Parlor on Main
Street in Bridgeboro, New Jersey. And that is by no means a bad sort of
place to begin, for Bennett had the genial habit of filling an ice cream
cone so that the cream stood up on top like the dome on the court house
in Bridgeboro, and extended down into the apex, packed tight and hard.
It was long before the great sensation in Hicksville, and on a certain
pleasant day early in vacation, that Roy Blakeley, leader of the Silver
Fox Patrol, and several scouts of the First Bridgeboro Troop were lined
up along Bennett's counter partaking of refreshment. To be exact, they
had finished and were waiting for Walter, alias Pee-wee Harris to
finish, for Pee-wee had the true scout thoroughness and went down to the
very bottom of things.
"How is it you boys aren't off camping this summer?" Mr. Bennett asked
sociably, as he leaned against the fixtures behind the counter.
"We should worry about camp this year," Roy said. "We've been fixing up
our old railroad car for a meeting-place down by the river and we're
going to stay home and earn some money to buy a rowboat and a canoe and
start a kind of a camp of our own down there."
"We're going to build a float," Pee-wee said, digging with his spoon.
"Sure, and a sink," Roy said, "so we can wash our hands of Bridgeboro.
We'll be dead to the world down there. We're going to lead the simple
life like a lot of simps. We're going to catch salt fish in the salt
marshes and everything. All we need is a treasury; you didn't happen to
see one around anywhere, did you?"
"If I should happen to see a treasury I'll let you know," Mr. Bennett
laughed.
"We need a standing capital," said Artie Van Arlen, leader of the
Ravens.
"We wouldn't care if it was lying down as long as we had it," Roy said.
"We'd like some assessments," Pee-wee said.
"You mean assets," Doc Carson laughed.
"It's the same only different," said Roy.
"What we want is a few standing capitals, and some small letters and a
couple of surpluses."
"Deficits are good; did you ever hear of those?" Pee-wee asked.
"We need about eighty-five cents and fifty dollars," Roy said. "I guess
we'll start a drive only we haven't got any horse. Maybe we can catch
some goldfish down there and sell them for old gold. We should worry."
Mr. Bennett said, "Well now, you scouts ought to be able to raise some
funds. You seem to raise pretty nearly everything else."
"We raise the dickens," Grove Bronson said.
"We ought to be able to sell some stock," Roy said. "We've got some
rolling stock down there--one car. Only it doesn't roll. Who wants to
buy some stock in the Riverside Scout Camp? Watered stock, we dip it in
the river."
"You don't know what watered stock is; you're so smart," Pee-wee
sneered.
"Sure, it's milk," Roy said. "Right the first time, no sooner said than
stung."
"Never laugh at poverty," Westy said, as all the party began to shout.
"We're poor but dishonest."
"Sure," Roy ejaculated, "we wouldn't even steal a cent, that's why we
haven't any sense; deny it if you dare."
"We can sell papers at the station," Westy said.
"Sure, the _Saturday Evening Post_," Roy said. "We can do golden
deeds and get gold that way. We should bother our young lives. What care
us, quoth we? We'll think of a way. All we need is fifty dollars to put
tar-paper on the roof and a new cook stove in the car."
"Money talks," the kid shouted.
"Good night!" said Roy, "then we don't want any of it. You do enough
talking in this troop."
"Are you fellows all one outfit?" asked a young man who had been leaning
against the opposite counter, amused at their talk.
"United we stand, divided we sprawl," Roy said. "There are more of us,
too, only they're not here. They're by the river."
"I can give you a chance to earn some money if you really want to," the
young man said. "Do you think you could stick?"
"Our middle name is fly-paper," Roy informed him.
"Like camping?"
"Camping is named after us," Connie Bennett of the Elk Patrol said.
"We'd rather camp than eat."
"No we wouldn't," vociferated Pee-wee Harris.
"What kind of hours?" Doc Carson of the Ravens inquired.
"The usual kind," Roy volunteered, and put it up to their new friend if
this were not so. "The same kind we use in school, hey?" he added.
"Give him a chance to tell us what it is," said Westy Martin of Roy's
patrol. "We all started saying we'd like to earn some money; talk is
cheap."
"Sure, that's why we use so much of it," said Roy. "If it cost anything
we couldn't afford it."
"Well," said the young man, "I've got a job and I need help. It's
outdoors and it means camping and living rough. It means cooking our own
meals. You could get a little money out of it; not much, but a little."
Perhaps it was what the stranger said, perhaps the way he said it, but
something caused them all to turn and stare at him.
He was a young fellow of about twenty-three or four and of very shabby
appearance. The threadbare suit which he wore must have seen long
service and either it had never been a very trim fit or he had lost
flesh. His face, indeed, seemed to imply this, being thin and pale, and
there was a kind of haunting look in his eyes.
But his demeanor was creditable, he seemed quite free of any taint of
the shiftlessness which his appearance might have suggested, and his
amusement at the scouts' bantering nonsense was open and pleasant. Mr.
Bennett contemplated him with just a tinge of dubiousness in his look.
But the scouts liked him.
"What's the nature of the work?" Mr. Bennett asked.
The young man seemed a trifle uneasy at being directly questioned but no
one would have said it was more than the diffidence which any sensitive
young fellow might show towards strangers.
"It's taking down two or three buildings," he said; "just shacks. My
name is Blythe."
"Here in town?"
"No, up at the old camp."
"Oh, you mean Camp Merritt? I heard the government sold the whole
shebang. What are they doing? Putting gangs to work up there?"
"I'll help you tear down Camp Merritt!" Pee-wee shouted.
"No, they're just giving the jobs out piecemeal," the young man said
amid the general laughter. "Anybody that wants to tear a building down
can get permission. They give so much a building. I undertook three. If
I could get some help and do it in a month or so I'd have a little
money. I haven't got anybody so far. I suppose that's because it's out
of the way."
"Oh, then you don't work for the wrecking concern?" Mr. Bennett queried.
"Only that way," the stranger said.
"You belong hereabouts?"
"N--no."
"Anybody else working up there?"
"Not now."
"I suppose these youngsters could get a commission to haul down several
buildings themselves if they wanted to?" Mr. Bennett inquired. "Cut out
the middle man, huh?"
The young fellow seemed a trifle worried. "I--I didn't think of that,"
he said; "I guess they could. But I don't want much out of it myself,"
he added, in a voice that had almost a note of pleading in it; "and I
picked out the easiest shacks. They'd--I'd be willing--they'd get most
of the money. Beggars can't be choosers. I'm out of work--I--"
"And it's best for youngsters to have a boss, eh?" Mr. Bennett added,
genially. "Well, I guess you're right. Somebody to keep them out of
mischief."
The scouts and their new friend strolled out onto Main Street and,
pausing there in a little group, continued talking.
"If you think we're the kind to get an idea from you and then go and use
it and leave you out, you're mistaken," said Connie Bennett.
"The camp isn't mine," their new friend said, hesitatingly.
"No, but that particular job is yours," Westy Martin insisted, "and
we're on that job, if we go there at all."
"That's a good argument," Pee-wee ejaculated.
"Are you staying up there?" Connie asked.
The stranger seemed pleased, even relieved. That uncertain, diffident
smile hovered for a moment about his mouth. "I'd treat you right, that's
sure," he said. "It's pretty hard for a fellow to get work. I just sort
of stumbled into this--"
"Well, I'm glad you stumbled into us, too," said Roy, a note of sympathy
and sincerity in his voice that there was no mistaking. "We'll have to
speak to our mothers and fathers, but don't you worry, we have them
trained all right. We have cooking outfits and everything, too. We'll
take a hike up there to-morrow. We'd like to make some money, but gee
whiz, that isn't the only thing we care about. Camping and all
that--that's what we like. Don't we, Westy?"
"Where can we find you up there?" Westy asked.
"You go up the Knickerbocker Road and right in through the old
entrance," Blythe said. "The second shack you come to on your left is
where I'm bunking. You'll see me around somewhere."
"You do your own cooking?" Artie Van Arlen asked him.
"Yes, but I'm not much of a cook," Blythe said. "I--I don't--I won't get
anything till the work's finished--"
"You should worry about that," Roy said.
"I guess I can eat most anything," Blythe.
"Can you eat as many as eleven?" Pee-wee laughed.
"Can you eat as many as eleven?" Pee-wee demanded.
That same elusive, half-bashful, pleasant smile lingered on the
stranger's lips again as he said, "--I guess--not--"
"Then I can beat you," Pee-wee announced conclusively.
"Here comes the bus," Westy said. "Do you go up in that?"
"I guess I'll walk," Blythe said.
"Well, we'll be up there to-morrow, sure," Doc Carson reassured him;
"some of us anyway. Even if we don't come to stay we'll be up there, so
you look for us."
"I'm fair and square," Blythe said. "When you come you can look the
place over and then say--"
"You should worry about that," Roy interrupted him.
"Maybe your people--"
"You leave our people to us," Roy said. "My father believes in camping
and fun--he inherits that from me. Scouts know how to pick out fathers
all right."
Their new friend smiled again, with a kind of simple pleasure at Roy's
nonsense, "I'll look for you," he said. Then they parted.
"He's got some walk all the way up to Camp Merritt," Doc Carson said.
"Do you suppose he hasn't any money?"
"Looks that way," said Westy.
"I kind of like him," Doc said. "I guess he's in hard luck all right.
I'm glad we met him."
"I'm the one that did it," Pee-wee shouted. "Didn't I say for us all to
go into Bennett's? Now you see!"
"All we have to do is to follow you," Roy said, "and adventures come
around wanting to eat out of our hands."
"And I--I'm the one to show you where there's money too," Pee-wee said.
"I'm a capital or whatever you call it."
"You're the smallest capital _I_ ever saw," Roy said.