Part 14 (1/2)

[*Au revoir is probably what he meant.]

CHAPTER XX

MOSTLY ABOUT SKINNY

This chapter I am going to fill with some stuff about a two dollar bill.

That isn't so bad for poetry, is it? I got that idea out of a story by Sir Walter Scott--putting poetry at the top of the chapters. Mr.

Ellsworth says sometimes a fellow might get killed for writing poetry.

I should worry--a scout is brave.

You can bet that if Pee-wee had his way we'd have all gone into the city that very night and broken into a store to get Skinny's outfit. But nix on that hurry up business when it comes to Mr. Ellsworth. ”Scouts are not made in a day,” he said to Pee-wee, ”and the outfit doesn't make the scout anyway, remember that.”

”Any more than a merry-go-round makes a good turn,” I said.

So Mr. Ellsworth went to see Skinny and his mother, and then he went to see the doctor, and he found out that Skinny wasn't going to die right then, but that something was the matter with his lungs, and that he'd keep getting sick all the time probably and wouldn't grow up. Oh, boy, when Mr. Ellsworth once gets on your trail, good night! That's just the way he hauled Tom Slade into the troop, head over heels. And look at Connie Bennett, too. Mr. Ellsworth had to hypnotize Connie's mother and now Connie's a first cla.s.s scout. After two or three nights he brought Skinny to meeting, and oh, cracky, but that kid looked bad.

He just sat and watched us do our stunts and he was scared when anybody spoke to him, except Mr. Ellsworth. And he was coughing a lot, too.

After the meeting Westy and I and Mr. Ellsworth took him home, and just when we left him he asked us if maybe he'd live long enough to get the pathfinder's badge. And oh, gee, it made me feel good the way Mr.

Ellsworth answered him.

He said, ”Well, I can't exactly promise that because I don't know how long it will take you to win that badge, but if you think you can win it inside of forty or fifty years, I think you'll be there to grab it when it comes.” Oh, jingoes, but we've got one dandy scoutmaster. I don't care what you say, he's the best one in America. And when he said that, Skinny kind of smiled and then you could see how thin he was, because the wrinkles came all around his mouth.

Well, on Sat.u.r.day Westy and Dorry Benton and Ralph Warner (they're all in my patrol) went into the city to get Skinny's outfit, so we could give him a surprise at the meeting on Monday night. I didn't go because I wanted Westy to have the say, and I didn't want him to think I was b.u.t.ting in, because Skinny belonged to him, as you might say. Besides I had to cut the gra.s.s to my sisters could play tennis with Johnny Wade--honest, that fellow is there all the time. He's got a machine, but I never saw it. I guess maybe it's a sewing machine, hey?

Now I didn't know how much money Mr. Bennett gave Mr. Ellsworth. All I know is that when the fellows came back they had everything for Skinny, or most everything. Because they came up to Camp Solitaire (that's the tent I have on our lawn) and we opened the whole business. Pee-wee was there and the first thing we knew he Was shouting that there wasn't any beltaxe.

”We used all the money we had,” Westy said ”and it isn't worth while asking Mr. Bennett for any more, even if there's one or two things missing.”

Oh, jiminy, Pee-wee went up in the air. ”Why didn't you get a belt-axe,”

he shouted; ”don't you know a belt-axe is the most important thing of all? It's the sign of the scout! It's more important than the uniform.”

”He'd look nice going down Main Street with a belt-axe and no uniform,”

I said; ”you're crazy on the subject of belt-axes. What's the matter, are you afraid Hindenberg is going to invade Bridgeboro? You should worry about a belt-axe. Wait till he's a tenderfoot.”

”That shows how much you know about scouting,” he yelled; ”the belt-axe is the emblem of the woods.”

”The which?', Westy said.

”The emblem of the woods,” he hollered at the top of his voice. ”You have to have a belt-axe first of all. It's more important than the Handbook.

It means woodcraft and--and--and all that sort of stuff!”

Well, first I just laughed at him and jollied him along, because I know how crazy he is about things like that--he'd wear every badge in the Hand.

book on his chest if he had the chance. And he's always getting new suits and things, because his father is rich. Pee-wee's all right only he's daffy about all the scout stuff that you see in the pictures and he always has his belt-axe dragging on his belt, even when he's home, as if he expected to chop down all the telegraph poles on Main Street.

”You have belt-axes on the brain,” Westy told him.