RIGHT SIDE OUT
And so Warde Hollister, with the gateway leading to every merit badge
and scout honor now thrown open to him, hiked back with his two
companions, and was not weary, for there is no weariness when joy dances
in the heart.
Their hike back took them through the pleasant town of Westwood where
our young hero with his formidable envelope still stuck in his belt must
have looked like an official come to read the riot act or a proclamation
or, perchance, to demand a hostage. But they are a fearless race in
Westwood and only smiled as the doughty hero passed through, and one
inquisitive little girl asked her mother why he had his hat on inside
out.
The bakery in Westwood was closed so they deferred their refreshment
till they should reach the next village southward. Warde did not see
much of the town for wherever he looked the first class scout badge
seemed to be staring him in the face. It loomed up larger than towns and
villages.
Their way took them now southward along the Kinderkamack Road with its
high terraced houses to the right and to the left the low marshy land
stretching away to the river. Along the road they had to pass several
villages before reaching the point where it would be well to leave the
road and cut through the country eastward to camp.
Into the post office of one of these places strode Scout Harris. He
stamped his letter, dropped it through the slot, then having done his
good turn he proceeded to turn his hat right side out, and his
conscience was at rest.
So it happened that two or three days later old Mrs. Haskell, in her
tumbling-down white house, read the letter which her soldier boy had
written her more than two years before. Little did she dream as she laid
this reverently away with that blunt, harsh notification of his death,
that a scout had taken off his hat to her as scouts do across all those
miles and miles of country....