A PROMISE
“But you got the ball,” said Tom conclusively. They were driving up to
Temple Camp in the official flivver which the young camp assistant
always kept in Bridgeboro during the winter season. It was a familiar
sight in this home town of so many of the camp’s devotees and the
lettering on it served as a reminder to many a boy of that secluded
haunt in the Catskills.
“Yes, and I got a nickname too.”
“You should worry; they’ll forget all about that up at camp.”
“Till they see me,” said Wilfred.
“Some of them won’t be there at all,” said Tom. “It’s only for scouts,
you know. Of course all the local troop boys will be there—Blakeley and
Hollister and Martin and Pee-wee Harris——”
“Is he a scout?”
“Is he? He’s about eighteen scouts; he’s the scream of the party. You
won’t see Madden; that chap’s a false alarm anyway. I’m half sorry you
didn’t slap his wrist while you had the chance.”
“He’s got them all hypnotized, just the same,” laughed Wilfred.
“They’ll come out of it.”
“Didn’t any of them want to come in the flivver?” Wilfred asked.
Here was his sensitiveness that was always cropping out. He was afraid
they had eschewed this preferable way of travel because they did not
want to go in his company.
“No, they go all kinds of ways. Some of them hike part way, some of them
go by boat, some of them go by train. Wig Weigand wanted to go along
with us but I told him no. I want to have a chance to talk things over
with you, Billy; two’s a company, huh?”
“He knew I was going?” Wilfred asked.
“Sure, he did; that’s why he wanted to go along.”
“That’s the fellow that wears a book-strap for a belt?”
“That’s him; he’s a shark on signaling. You got a radio?”
Wilfred was glad that there was one of the Bridgeboro sojourners who
seemed favorably disposed to him.
“No, I haven’t got much of anything,” he said, feeling a bit more
comfortable on account of this trifling knowledge concerning Wig-wag
Weigand. “I wanted to go to work when we moved here; I thought as long
as I was leaving one school I might as well not start in another. We’ve
had some job getting along as far back as I can remember; my dad didn’t
leave much. As long as Sis is going to business school I thought I might
as well get a start. I don’t know, I think I’d rather have a bicycle
than a radio. Guess I’ll never have either.”
“They pass out some pretty nifty prizes in camp along about Labor Day,”
Tom said. “You never can tell.”
“August first is my big day,” Wilfred laughed ruefully.
“Go-to-the-doctor day, huh?” Tom chuckled. “We have mother’s day, and
go-to-church day, and clean-up day, and safety-first day, and watch
your-step day— Well, you’ll have the whole of August to make a stab for
honors and things.”
“Guess I won’t need a freight car to send home the prizes,” said
Wilfred. “The best thing that’s happened to me so far is the way you
call me Billy; Sis says she likes to hear you, you’re so fresh.”
“Yes?” laughed Tom. “Well, you and I and the doc beat your mother to it,
didn’t we? Leave it to us. You went after something and got it. And I
went after something and got it. We’re a couple of go-getters. Didn’t
you mix in much with the fellows up in Connecticut?”
“There weren’t any fellows near us,” Wilfred said. “We lived a hundred
miles from nowhere. I suppose that’s why Sis and I are such good
friends.”
“You look enough alike,” said Tom. “Well, you are going where there are
fellows enough now, I’ll hope to tell you.”
“I wanted to go in for scouting a year ago,” Wilfred said, “but there
weren’t any scouts to join. Now I feel kind of—I feel sort of—funny—sort
of as if it was just before promotion or something.”
Tom glanced at his protege sideways, captivated by the boy’s
sensitiveness and guileless honesty.
“I’m glad it’s a long ride there,” Wilfred added.
“Any one would think you were on your way to the electric chair,”
laughed Tom. And Wilfred laughed too.
“Will they all be at the entrance?” the boy asked, visibly amused at his
own diffidence.
“No, they’ll all be in the grub shack,” said Tom. “That’s where they
hang out; they’re a hungry bunch.”
“Maybe I won’t see so much of you, hey?” Wilfred asked.
“Oh, I’m here and there and all over—helping old Uncle Jeb. He’s
manager—used to be a trapper out west. You must get on the right side of
Uncle Jeb—go and talk to him. He can tell you stories that’ll make your
hair stand on end; says ‘reckon’ and ‘critter’ and all that. Don’t fail
to go and talk to him.”
“Will you introduce me to him?” Wilfred asked guilelessly.
“Will I? Certainly I won’t. Just go and talk to him when he’s sitting on
the steps of Administration Shack smoking his pipe. Tell him I said for
him to spin you that yarn about killing four grizzlies.”
“What’s his last name?” Wilfred asked.
“His last name is Uncle Jeb and if you call him Mr. Rushmore he’ll shoot
you,” said Tom, a little impatiently.
“What patrol are you going to put me in?”
“Well, that’s what I want to talk to you about,” Tom said. “I think I’ll
slip you into the Raven outfit—they’re all Bridgeboro boys, of course.
Punkin Odell is in Europe and when he comes back in the fall, the
troop’s going to start a new patrol. Wig-wag Weigand is in that bunch——”
“The one that wanted to come with us?”
“Eh huh, and you’ll like them all. As it happens, there’s a vacancy in
each one of the three patrols—Ravens, Silver Foxes and Elks. But I think
you’ll fit in best with the Ravens. Pee-wee Harris is easy to get
acquainted with and when you know him you’re all set because he’s a
fixer. So I think I’ll slip you in with Pee-wee and Wig and that crowd.
Now this is what I want to say to you while I have the chance. Don’t you
think you’d better let the crowd know that you’re up there under a kind
of a handicap?”
“No, I don’t,” said Wilfred definitely.
“Well, I’m just asking you,” Tom said apologetically.
“That place isn’t a hospital,” said Wilfred. “I’m not going to have all
those fellows saying I have heart disease——”
“You haven’t,” said Tom.
“All right then, I’m not going to have anybody thinking I have. I’m not
sick any more than you are—or any of them. And I don’t want you to tell
them either. Do you think I want all those—those outdoor scouts thinking
I’m weak?”
Again there blazed in Wilfred’s brown eyes that light which had given
Lorrie Madden his sober second thought; the same light bespeaking pride
and high spirit which Tom had seen in the eyes of Arden Cowell while she
was championing her stricken brother. It was a something—pride if you
will—that shone through the boy’s diffidence like the sun through a thin
cloud.
“If you tell them, I won’t stay there,” he said, shaking his head so
that his lock of wavy hair fell over his forehead and he brushed it up
again with a fine defiance.
“All righto,” said Tom.
“Remember!”
“Yes, but you remember to keep your promise to your mother and the
doctor,” Tom warned. “Because you know, Billy, I’m sort of responsible.”
“I’ll keep my promise as long as you don’t tell,” said the boy in a kind
of spirited impulse. “But don’t you tell them I’m—I’ve—got heart
failure—don’t you tell them that and I’ll keep my promise. Do you
promise—do you?”
“I think I can keep a promise as well as you can,” Tom laughed, a little
uneasy to observe this odd phase of his young friend’s character. He
hardly knew how to take Wilfred. It occurred to him that the boy was
going to have a pretty hard time of it with this odd mixture of
sensitiveness and high spirit. He was afraid that his new recruit, so
charmingly delicate and elusive in nature, was going to bunk his pride
in one place while trying to save it in another. But all he said was,
“All right, Billy, you’re the doctor.”