ADVANCE
I would like you to see the letter that Wilfred sent home.
Dear Mother and Sis:—
To-day I’m using my fountain pen instead of my opera-glass.
I’m giving the birds of the air an afternoon off. My pen
doesn’t write very good—I guess it’s the opal. But I won’t
take it off just for spite. I’m supposed to wear it so I
will no matter what happens. I’m afraid I’m not going to
drop dead. I feel fine. I can’t find my heart when I put my
hand there but I guess it’s there all right. Don’t worry,
I’m keeping my promise, safety first that’s what you say.
Tom Slade’s all the time asking about you, Sis. He said I
didn’t get my disposition from you.
What do you think? Al Berry is here with his patrol. I wish
he’d keep still about me. He sneaked up and took a banner
from the Ravens and I didn’t run after him so I got put out.
I didn’t exactly get put out but they sort of said, here’s
your hat. There’s a lame boy here and he makes me feel I
don’t want to let anybody know I have anything the matter
with me ’cause they’ll think I’m like him. Anyway there’s
nothing the matter with me but don’t worry I’m keeping my
promise no matter what, the same as I’m wearing my pin no
matter what. I got that five dollars you sent me, Sis, and
I’m saving it up for a scout suit.
I’m in the Elks now, and I have to swim in the contest.
Don’t worry it’s not till August tenth. I’m going to see the
doctor here on the first like Doctor Brent said. If he says
my heart is still bad I’ll blame it to the opal—only he
won’t say it. Anyway don’t worry. If I say I’ll do a thing
I’ll do it. I like these fellows. Mom and Sis you have to
come up for the tenth. I’m glad I’ll be in the water so I
won’t see the people looking at me. I can do things as long
as I can forget that people are looking at me like when I
was looking at Madden I didn’t see the others. Anyway they
won’t be looking at me, they’ll be looking at you, Sis. Tom
Slade says I’ve got the same way of looking that you have. I
told him a scout is observant—that’s in the book. I send you
a four leaf clover, Sis. I’m all the time looking on the
ground and __taking it easy__, notice how I underline
__taking it easy__, Mom.
Wilfred.
P. S. The four leaf clover and the opal don’t speak to each
other.
Wilfred liked the Elks so much that he did not ask any of them to walk
down to Terryville with him where he intended to mail his letter. He
wanted to walk there alone and think about his little triumph among
them. They had fallen for him, as the saying is, and the realization of
this was a balm to his spirit. One could not say the Ravens had not been
good enough scouts to seek him out and find his winsome nature; they had
been too scoutlike (as one might say) for that. That is, they were too
busy with scouting. Now he was a decidedly large fish in a small pond.
He was the “big thing” in the struggling Elk Patrol.
He wanted to feast upon his success with them, to let his imagination
bask in the sunshine of this new favor that was his, after the ordeal of
ridicule and disgrace. He felt so much at home with them! He was at his
best with them. Well, there is a place for every fellow, if he can only
find it. Wilfred wanted to indulge these solacing thoughts and that is
why he walked down to Terryville alone.
But there was another reason. Terryville was a perilous place where
scouts bought ice cream sodas and cones and candy. They treated each
other to these. The Elks, however humble their standing in scout lore
and prowess, were not remiss in these convivial obligations. Charlie
O’Conner was notably prodigal on his pilgrimages to the rural center of
iniquity. Wilfred had no money at all except his five dollar bill and
this he wanted to save for a scout outfit. He would not let the others
treat him. They liked him so much that he was afraid if he asked one
they all might go. Then, he would have to let one after another treat
him. So he went alone.
At Terryville something occurred which was destined to have a bearing on
his future. Along the village thoroughfare he paused to look in a window
where, among other varieties of apparel, scout raiment and paraphernalia
were displayed.
He was gazing wistfully at these things when the sudden noise of a
quickly braked automobile caused him to turn about, and he beheld an all
too common sight. An old man, having just escaped being run down, had
returned to the curb where he stood gazing intently at the procession of
cars in the forlorn hope that he might discover a gap where a second
attempt might be made. One after another the heedless motorists sped
past in complacent disdain of this little village which chanced to be
upon the state highway. If the village itself had wanted to cross the
road it would probably have fared no better than the bewildered old man.
Again and again he stepped from the curb and back again. Yet this old
man had fought his way across harder places than this in his time.
Approaching the baffled pedestrian, Wilfred took him gently by the arm,
raised his right hand warningly, then started across the street with his
tottering charge, without apparently so much as a glance at the hurrying
traffic. There was another squeak of quickly applied brakes and the
shiny bumper of a car all but touched Wilfred’s leg. But the car stood,
and likewise the car behind it stood, and a man in a dilapidated Ford
behind that who tried (as Ford drivers will) to make a flank move
stopped also, and caused a jam in approaching traffic. But the Grand
Army passed triumphantly across!