STRIKE THREE
If the first of August seemed like Christmas, the days immediately
preceding it did not seem like the joyous days before Christmas. Wilfred
wandered about, watched birds with his opera-glass, took leisurely
walks, and once he hiked into Terryville and called on old Pop Winters.
Perhaps he walked a little more vigorously than before; once he
permitted himself to run a little to get a hitch on a hay wagon. But he
did not join in any strenuous games. That was easy, for no one asked him
to. He was ostracized from the vigorous life of camp, an outsider, a
lonely figure. But just the same the mountain air had put its mark upon
him; he was brown and full of an excess energy.
To this day they will tell you at Temple Camp of the storm which blew
the shutters off the cooking shack on the night of July thirty-first,
that year. A wind-driven rain beat against the tents all night, filling
the drain ditches, and driving the occupants into the pavilion and the
commissary shack. You could hear the boats banging against each other at
the landing all night. The big swimming contest had been won by a scout
in the Fox patrol from Ohio and the aerial which they had proudly
erected outside their tent to bring the wandering voices of the night to
their prize receiving set, was wrecked utterly. In dismantling the camp
of its gala decorations, the boisterous elements had saved the scouts
this task. The gay bunting was torn from pavilion and boathouse and
plastered here and there, or carried away altogether.
Such was the end of all that gala splendor in which the Mary Temple
contest had been celebrated. Of all the artistic drapery of flags and
streamers only a few drenched and plastered shreds remained, their
colors running, their loose ends flapping in the gale. Such was the
scene which greeted Wilfred Cowell on August first, a day destined to be
memorable in the annals of Temple Camp. There was a certain fitness in
his rising early that morning and sallying forth amid the drenched
litter, for he had wrecked the hopes of his patrol, even as the storm
had wrecked these festive memorials of the big event. And he was running
amuck, even as the furious demon of the storm was.
It was not yet breakfast time when he was to be seen trudging through
the rain past the cooking shack and through Tent Lane, as they called
it. He wore his overcoat with collar turned up. Several scouts who were
contemplating the weather from the shelter of Administration Shack
noticed him and one observed that Wandering Willie was out for a stroll.
The quarters in Tent Lane consisted of a row of tents pitched on a long
platform under the shelter of a long shed. At the seventh tent, Wilfred
paused. Within were the sounds of belated rising and hurried dressing.
He stooped and knocked on the platform and there followed a quick
silence within.
“Is Edgar Coleman in there?” he asked. And without waiting for the
obvious answer he added, “He’s wanted out here.”
Edgar Coleman, never prepossessing, looked anything but natty as he
emerged from the tent, his hair as yet unbrushed, the evidences of
recent slumber still upon him. Those of his comrades who were
sufficiently interested crowded in the opening to the tent, staring.
“I want to get this over with early in the morning,” said Wilfred;
“stand outside, the rain won’t hurt you. I’m not afraid of it and you
called me a coward. You remember that morning at breakfast—when you
called me Wilfraid Coward? You thought I wouldn’t hit back just because
I took my time about it.” In an easy, businesslike way he unbuttoned his
old overcoat, brought forth a piece of paper, a lead pencil, and four
thumb tacks; these he handed to the astonished Coleman.
“Go in your tent and write an apology for what you called me,” said
Wilfred; “then go and put it up on the bulletin board. I don’t care when
you do it as long as you do it before you go in Eats Shack. You might as
well finish getting dressed.”
If Edgar Coleman had been as observant as scouts are reputed to be, he
might have been assisted to a decision (however humiliating) by
Wilfred’s right eye, which was half-closed, the lid quivering. But he
did not avail himself of this grim sign. Instead he thought of the
audience (always a bad thing to do) and for their edification, he said
in a voice that had a fine swagger in it:
“Say, how do you get that way, Willie?” And by way of completing his
scornful amusement he cast tacks, paper and pencil to the ground.
He did not have to stoop to pick them up, for like a flash of lightning
he went sprawling on the ground himself. Speechless, aghast with
amazement, he raised himself, holding one hand against a mud-bespattered
ear. And in that brief moment he saw more stars than ever boy scout
studied in the bespangled firmament.
“Hey, what’s the idea?” he demanded in a tone of injured innocence.
“Pick up the pencil and the tacks,” said Wilfred coldly. “I’ll give you
another piece of paper; pick them up, _quick_. You fellows keep away
from here.”
For a moment Edgar Coleman paused; then, all too late for his dignity,
he saw that half-closed, quivering eye, loaded with a kind of cold
concentration. He felt of his bleeding ear and glanced down at his
mud-smeared clothes. He was about to make an issue of this incidental
damage, but a good discretion (prompted by that quivering eye) deterred
him from debate or comment.
“What do you say?” asked Wilfred grimly.
“I suppose you’re going to tell everybody,” Edgar Coleman ventured.
“I’m not going to tell anybody about this,” said Wilfred, “and I’m sorry
about your clothes. I’m not so sorry about your ear; you’d better put
some iodine on it,” he added. “Everybody’ll know that you apologized to
me and that’s all they need to know. All _you_ have to know is that I do
things just when I happen to want to do them. I just as soon be good
friends with you after this. If your patrol doesn’t tell, I won’t.
Here’s another piece of paper and you might as well make the apology so
everybody’ll understand it; just tack it on the board. If it leaves
everybody guessing I don’t care. Have you got some iodine?”