October had come and gone in busy school days and even busier Safety
Scouting trips, all but the last day. For it was the morning of
Hallowe'en,--and the Dalton twins' birthday.
"Twelve years old, eh?" said Father, at the breakfast table. "Well,
well, how time flies, Nell! Stand up here, you Safety Scouts, and let's
have a look at you. I declare, no one would suspect Bob of being a day
under fifteen, would he, Jack?"
"I'd hate to have him haul off and hit me with that fist of his!"
laughed Uncle Jack. "How are you going to celebrate the day, Scouts?"
"As if any one need ask!" smiled Mother. "Today's the day Bob takes his
entering test and joins the Boy Scouts, and Betty joins the Camp Fire
Girls. Just think--big enough for that! Good thing it's Saturday,
Betty."
"What are you going to do--start out to capture all the honor medals?"
"Well, I hope to get a few, by and by," admitted Bob, modestly, but with
a determined gleam in his eye. "I'll be just a tenderfoot to start with,
you know. But I'm hoping it won't be so terribly long before I can
qualify as a first-class Scout."
"Hm-m-m!" muttered their uncle, winking at Mr. Dalton over the twins'
heads. For he realized what Bob and Betty did not, that the practical,
everyday Safety scouting the twins had done had already gone far toward
qualifying them, not only for Boy Scout and Camp Fire Girl honors, but
for practical Safety work all the rest of their lives. There is no age
limit in the Safety Scouts of America.
They were wearing their handsome new uniforms when Chance Carter came
over to get some scouting tips from Bob. Chance was going around without
his crutches now, for the broken leg seemed to be as strong and well as
ever.
Chance had his heart set on a Safety Scout uniform like Bob's. "Dad says
he'll get me one as soon as I do something to earn it," he told the
twins. "I'm going to put in all day today scouting for something that
will earn me that uniform--and I want you two to think up some stunt
that will win it, _sure_!"
The twins were eager to get ready for their entrance tests, but it
seemed only fair to give their friend his chance, too. So they sat and
thought hard, while the golden minutes flew past.
"I can't seem to think of anything worth while today," said Betty. "Why
not hunt for a live wire and report it, the way Bob did?"
"Not much use on a day like this," objected Bob. "That was the morning
after the big windstorm, when wires were down all over town. I'll tell
you what you might do, Chance: you might patrol the roads on the edge of
town. You may run across a broken culvert, or a shaky bridge, or
something."
"And you might patrol the river bank and watch for a chance to fish
somebody out of the river," added Betty. "There are lots of children
playing down by the river every Saturday, you know."
"Now," said Bob, when to their great relief Chance Carter had hurried
off to begin his day's scouting for Safety, "now, we've got to hustle,
or we'll be late for those examinations. Come along, Betty."
"Wait till I turn my Safety button upside down," was his sister's
answer. "It seems a shame to go to the Boy Scout and Camp Fire Girls
tests with our Safety buttons wrong side up, doesn't it? I feel almost
like waiting till we've managed to do our 'One Day's Boost for Safety,'
Bob. Don't you suppose we'd better, after all?"
"Oh, now, Betty, come _on_! If we can't do any better, we can count our
patrolling hints to Chance as our work for Safety this time--certainly
that took enough longer than our day's boost usually does!"
Though Betty scoffed at the idea of their talk with Chance being work
for Safety, Bob had spoken more truly than they knew.
All forenoon long Chance Carter patrolled the different roads leading
into town. By noon he was so hot and tired that he plodded on till he
came to Red Bridge, as the boys all called the old bridge that spanned
the river where it crossed Bruce's Road, the short cut to Bruce's Mills.
Here he managed to find a shady spot on the grassy river bank and sat
down to eat the lunch he had brought along.
"What luck!" he grumbled to himself. "Everything's so dis-_gust_-ing-ly
safe!" The way he bit off the syllables showed how tired and
disappointed he was.
He threw the crumbs from his luncheon into the water, hoping the fish
would rise for them; but even the fish were not at all accommodating,
this sunny Hallowe'en. For a while he amused himself by shying stones at
the weather-beaten DANGER sign which was Bruce's only reply to the City
Council's action condemning Red Bridge as unsafe. The bridge was really
on Bruce's land, and nobody knew it better than the great mill owner
himself. So, while the public wondered why the city did not build a
newer and stronger bridge, Bruce had stubbornly insisted to the road
commissioner, "Oh, that bridge'll hold a while longer," and was putting
off spending the money for a new bridge just as long as he could.
Meanwhile the farmers from that part of the country had kept on using
the shaky bridge as a short cut to town by way of Bruce's Mills. One of
them was driving up to the bridge now. Lying on his elbow by the river's
edge, Chance idly watched the old bridge quiver and quake as the light
horse and buggy dragged lazily across.
Suddenly something went kerflop into the water, like a big fish jumping.
Chance sat bolt upright, staring at the dark shadows under the bridge.
There it was again! And this time he saw it was no fish, but a second
brick which had rotted away from the bridge supports underneath the
farther end.
"Phew!" whistled Chance to himself, now fully aroused. "If a light rig
like that shakes the bricks loose, the old thing must be rottener than
it looks! What would a loaded wagon do, I wonder?"
He carefully climbed up under the bridge to see just how bad it really
was, and then climbed out again in a hurry. The whole middle support had
crumbled away. Red Bridge was barely hanging on the weakened brickwork
at the far end, ready to plunge into the river with the next heavy load
that came along!
Bruce, in the meanwhile, was getting impatient. He sat at his desk in
the little office, signing papers as fast as he could shove his pen
across the pages. He glanced again at his watch and gave his call button
a savage punch with his big, blunt forefinger. A buzzer snarled in the
outer office, and a nervous looking secretary jumped for the private
office as suddenly as if the buzzer had stung him.
"Why isn't that car here?" snapped the great man.
"I--I don't understand it, sir. It should have been here half an hour
ago. Jennings is always so punctual," stammered the clerk.
"Humph! Call up the house and see if they've gone back for any reason.
Bonnie told me she'd call for me with the car at five o'clock."
The clerk hurried to the telephone, while Bruce paced his office. "If
that chauffeur has let anything happen to Bonnie, I'll--"
If Bruce had not cared more for his little golden-haired daughter than
for anything else in the world, he never would have thought such a
thing, much less said it; for he had had Jennings for years, and knew
him for the safest, steadiest of drivers. But he scowled when the clerk
hurried back to report that Jennings, with Bonnie in the biggest
automobile, had left for the office almost an hour before.
Throwing his light coat over his arm, the big mill owner slammed down
his rolltop desk and dashed out to the sidewalk, straining his eyes for
a glimpse of the big automobile and Bonnie's flying curls. As he stood
waiting on the curb, fuming at the delay, suddenly he heard a voice that
sent his heart up into his throat.
"Daddy! Oh, Daddy, here we are!" The big automobile swept swiftly up to
him--from the opposite direction!
"My Bonnie!" The big man snatched the dimpled, smiling girl into his
strong arms and held her there.
In the excitement of the moment, Jennings interrupted his employer as
the mill owner started to question him sternly as to the cause of the
delay. Bonnie, too, broke in with her version of the story, and together
they told him how a punctured tire had held them up fifteen minutes just
as they were leaving the house in plenty of time.
They told him how, to avoid being late at the office, Jennings had taken
the old short cut across to the mills, by the way of Red Bridge, only to
be halted by a lad of fourteen who waved a red handkerchief at them and
barred the way across the bridge in spite of the chauffeur's argument
and threats.
They told him how a heavy lumber wagon, in which three farm hands were
rattling home from the city, had come bouncing along to the other side
of the river and how the men had howled down the boy's wild warnings and
entreaties as they bowled on to Red Bridge as fast as their horses could
go.
Bruce's stern face went white as his little daughter, shuddering at the
awful memory of it, told how the bridge had gone crashing down into the
river--men, horses, and all; how the boy who had tried so hard to warn
them had almost given his own life trying to drag the drunken farm hands
from the swift-running current; how two of the men had never come up
again; and how the third, towed to shore by the half-drowned boy a
quarter mile below, had been laid face down on the river bank as soon as
the boy could catch his own breath long enough to get the water out of
the man's lungs and start him to breathing again.
Still clasping Bonnie tightly to him, her father got into the
automobile. "Home, Jennings. Why, what makes these cushions so wet?"
"Oh," said Bonnie, "that's where that nice boy sat while we were taking
the almost drowned man to the doctor's. Then we took the nice boy
home--he was so wet and shivery."
"Take us there first, Jennings, then home."
The big car whirled swiftly back to Chance Carter's house. Bruce found
Chance with his hair still wet, but triumphant. He was telling his
father exactly how he wanted his new Safety Scout uniform made, patch
pockets and all!
From him Bruce got the whole story, clear down to the scouting hints
from Bob and Betty that had started him off that morning. The mill owner
took Mr. Carter aside and made him promise to send the bill for that
uniform to Bruce's Mills. "Where do this other boy and the girl live?"
he asked, as he and Bonnie got back into the machine. "All right,
Jennings, we'll stop there next."
"I think, sir," suggested Jennings, "that must be the same boy and girl
we took home from Turner Hall last Fourth--the boy who put the splint on
this other lad's broken leg, sir. It's the same house, anyway."
Sure enough, when they drew up at the curb, there were Bob and Betty in
their Safety Scout uniforms, just going in to their birthday supper.
They were going to have a big double cake, with lots of frosting and
with twenty-four green candles on it--green for Safety, Betty
explained--and they were so excited over having passed their
examinations with such high marks, that it was some time before the big
man could make them understand what he was getting at.
"What I want to know," persisted Bruce, "is how you ever came to put
that Carter boy up to such a stunt as that. What difference did it make
to _you_?"
"Why," Betty told him, "we simply had to help him get a start for his
uniform and his Safety First button. But we couldn't do much because we
didn't have time. You see this is our birthday, and we had to go for our
examinations." Before Bruce left they had given him _their_ whole story,
too, and a good deal more than they had intended telling him, forgetting
what Colonel Sure Pop had told Uncle Jack about the way Bruce had been
holding back the Safety First work from Maine to California.
Bruce said little as he listened to their story, but he did some quick
thinking. So this was the sort of thing he had fought so long and so
stubbornly--this "Boost for Safety" talk which he had called
"new-fangled theory," but to which he owed the life of his own little
girl!
As they talked, two Scouts came into the front hall to remind the twins
that their birthday supper was waiting, but Bruce was too interested to
see them. Quick at reading signs, as all good Scouts are, Colonel Sure
Pop and Uncle Jack watched and listened for a moment, then smilingly
went back to the supper table.
"You were right, Colonel, as usual," said Uncle Jack, heartily. "Bruce
is coming around. He'll be the biggest Safety Booster in the whole
United States before morning!"
"Sure pop!" exulted the dapper little Colonel. "I'll have to wire my
King about this day's work!"
* * * * *
It was long after Bonnie's bedtime, and the nurse waiting in the hallway
was beginning to wonder if her little mistress was never coming
upstairs. On the avenue outside, in the soft, mellow Hallowe'en breeze,
jack o' lanterns and soot bags were still being paraded up and down,
horns blowing, rattles clattering. Two street urchins, bolder than the
rest, crept up to the great iron gate in front of the Bruce mansion and
vainly struggled to lift it off its hinges. Still the mill owner sat
before the fire, Bonnie on his knee. He could not bear to let her go
tonight, even to bed.
In the flames dancing on the hearth, the big man was seeing
visions--visions of the Safety First work that would be started tomorrow
morning in every mill in the whole Bruce chain. "I'll telegraph every
manager to get busy on Safety work at once if he wants to hold his job,"
he thought to himself. "I won't lose another day!" For after hearing
from the Dalton twins and from Chance Carter the way _their_ spare time
was spent, his own work in the world seemed suddenly very small and
mean. Here he--Bruce the rich, Bruce the powerful, with the safety of
thousands of lives in the hollow of his hand--had been holding back the
great work which these striplings had been steadily, patiently--yes, and
successfully--building up!
"I'll send those three youngsters each a copy of my telegram in the
morning," he muttered, looking more eager and enthusiastic than he had
looked for many a day. "I'll write across the bottom of each telegram,
'_The Safety Scouts of America did this!_' And the wonderful part of it
is," he added, "that it's only what any boy and girl could do, every day
of their lives. I wonder why somebody didn't start this Safety Scout
idea long, long ago!"
* * * * *
Over in the Dalton cottage, only a few blocks away, Bob and Betty were
going upstairs to bed.
"Many, many happy returns of the day!" whispered Betty to her brother as
she kissed him good night.
"Same to you, and many of 'em! But our 'One Day's Boost for Safety'
didn't amount to much today, did it, Betty?" For Bob and Betty had yet
to hear of Chance Carter's adventures, and Bruce had given them no hint.
"No, it didn't--not unless what we told Chance gave him a start toward a
Safety Scout uniform," said Betty, sleepily. "Never mind, though, Bob,"
she added. "We'll try to do better tomorrow, if we didn't get much done
today."
* * * * *
But over in the big stone house on the avenue, the silent man with the
little golden-haired girl in his arms thought differently of their day's
work.
[Illustration]