Part 3 (1/2)

”Oh, sure, mine too,” laughed Walt. ”They always say that. Seems as if they thought we were splitting kindlings because we liked to split kindlings, instead of because we like old Joey.”

”That's the dope,” said Tom. ”Funny how folks don't see things sometimes.”

”Ain't it?” said Bob. ”Well, so long, Joe, old scout. Hope you sleep well in the tent.”

”So long, Bob.”

”So long”--from the others.

”So long, fellows--much obliged.”

Only Tom was left.

”It's pretty nice to have so many friends,” said Joe, ”even if you have to get sick to find it out.”

”Now you've found out, you get well again,” Spider laughed. ”I'll stop on my way to school in the morning and see you, and find out what books you want brought home. So long, old top.”

”So long, Spider.”

Tom went out of the gate, or, rather, over it, vaulting it with one hand. Joe's mother came out on the porch and put one arm around the boy's neck, and with the other hand felt his forehead.

”I don't think you've got so much fever to-night,” she said.

”It's 'cause the fellers have cut all the wood and hauled the coal, that used to make me so tired. Gee, they're good scouts, aren't they, ma--'specially old Spider.”

”Yes, Joe,” said she, ”there are a lot of good people in the world.”

”You bet,” said Joe.

CHAPTER III--Spider Finds a Way to Get to the Rocky Mountains, to ”Pump Joe's Pipes Full of Ozone”

There are no doubt a lot of good people in the world, as Mrs. Clark said, but there is no doubt that a great many of them are forgetful. Tom Seymour found this out in the next few weeks. The scouts meant well, but every two or three days the one whose turn it was to look after the Clark wood and coal and do whatever heavy work there was to be done,--work too heavy for Joe's little brother and sister--would forget the duty. Tom, however, never forgot, for he went there every day, to study his lessons with Joe so Joe could keep up in his school work, and when the kindlings had not been split or the coal brought up, he did it.

”I don't know what I should do without you, Tom,” said Mrs. Clark. ”I feel guilty, too, because I feel as if you ought to be at home doing it for your own mother.”

Tom laughed. ”It's a funny thing,” he said, ”but having this on my mind has stopped my forgetting at home. I used to forget all the time, but now, when I go home, ma's wood-box is the first thing I think of. I kind of got the habit, I guess!”

Meanwhile Tom was turning over and over in his mind plans for getting Joe out into the high, dry air of the Rocky Mountains as soon as school was over. The first thing to think about was how to raise the money to get there. In his own case, it would be easy, because he had over a hundred dollars in the savings bank, which he had earned in the past five years, or which had been given to him at Christmas, and which he had saved up. But Joe had never been able to save his earnings--he had needed them all for his clothes and to help his mother out. It was Bob Sawtelle who solved that problem.

”Let's us scouts give a dance and a strawberry festival for old Joey,”

he said. ”We can all of us pick some strawberries, enough for the feed, an' get our mothers to make cake, an' Bill Andrus's father'll give us the cream from his dairy, an' the girls'll help us serve, an'

everybody'll come when they know it's for old Joey, an' there'll be two hundred people there, an' we'll soak 'em fifty cents, and that'll clear 'most a hundred bones, an'----”

”And you'd better take in some breath,” laughed Tom, ”while I tell you that's a fine idea. It's as good as settled now.”

Tom was so sure of the success of the strawberry festival, in fact, that he began at once to consider what they were going to do when they got out West. Here he had to have Mr. Rogers' help. The scout master wrote some letters, and a week later called Tom into the studio.

”I think I've got it,” he said, ”that is, if you are willing to work, and don't care what you do.”