Chapter XIX: The Gala Day

As long as the cheerful blaze near the lakeside gathers its scouts about it on summer evenings, Temple Camp will never forget that memorable Saturday night. It is the one subject on which the old scout always discourses to the new scout when he takes him about and shows him the sights.

The one twenty-two train from the city brought John Temple, founder of Temple Camp, sponsor of innumerable scout enterprises, owner of railroads, banks, and goodness knows what all. He was as rich as the blackberry pudding of which Pee-wee Harris (official cut-up of the Ravens) always ate three helpings at mess.

His coming was preceded by telegrams going in both directions, talks over the long distance 'phone, and when at last he came in all his glory, a rainbow troop consisting of honor scouts was formed to go down to Catskill Landing and greet him. One scout who would presently be handed the Gold Cross for life saving was among the number. Others were down for the Star Scout badge, and the silver and the bronze awards. Others had passed with peculiar distinction the many and difficult tests for first-class scout. One, a little fellow from the west, had won the camp award for signaling. There were others, too, with attainments less conspicuous and who were not in this gala troop, but the whole camp was out to honor its heroes, one and all.

Roy Blakeley, of the Silver Foxes, had a wooden rattle which he claimed could be heard for seven miles--eight miles and a quarter at a pinch. The Tigers, with Bert Winton at their head, had some kind of an original contrivance which simulated the roar of their ferocious namesake. The Church Mice, from down the Hudson, with Brent Gaylong as their scoutmaster, had a special squeal (patent applied for) which sounded as if all the mice in Christendom had gone suddenly mad. Pee-wee had his voice--enough said.

The Panthers and the Leopards, with Mr. Warren, watched the departure of this rainbow troop with wistful glances. Then the scoutmaster took his chagrined followers to their bare cabins, stripped of all that had made them comfortable and homelike in their long stay at camp. Hervey was not among them. No one in all the camp knew how he had suffered from homesickness in those two days. He wanted to be home--home with his mother and father.

To his disappointed troop Mr. Warren said:

Scouts, we have not won the coveted award. But in this fraternal
community, every award is an honor to every scout. We will try to
find pride in the achievements of our friends and camp comrades. Our
mistake was in selecting for our standard bearer one whose
temperament disqualified him for the particular mission which he
undertook. No shortcoming of cowardice is his, at all events, and I
blame myself that I did not suggest one of you older boys.

If we have not won the distinction we set our hearts on, our stay
here has been pleasant and our achievement creditable, and for my
part I give three cheers for the scouts who are to be honored and
for the fortunate troops who will share their honors.

This good attempt to revive the spirits of his disappointed troop was followed by three feeble cheers, which ought to have gone on crutches, they were so weak.

Hervey was not in evidence throughout the day, and since no news is good news, one or two unquenchable spirits in his troop continued to hope that he would put in a dramatic appearance just in the nick of time, with the report of a sensational discovery--the tracks of a bear or a wild cat, for instance. It is significant that they would have been quite ready to believe him, whatever he had said.

But Mr. Warren knew, as his troop did not, of Hervey's saying that he wasn't so stuck on eagles, and he was satisfied from the talk that he had had with him that Hervey's erratic and fickle nature had asserted itself in the very moment of high responsibility. He could not help liking Hervey, but he would never again allow the cherished hopes of the troop to rest upon such shaky foundation.

Whatever lingering hopes the troop might have had of a last minute triumph were rudely dispelled when Hervey came sauntering into camp at about four o'clock twirling his hat on the end of a stick in an annoyingly care-free manner. Tom Slade saw him passing Council Shack intent upon his acrobatic enterprise of tossing the hat into the air and catching it on his head, as if this clownish feat were the chief concern of his young life.

"You going to be on hand at five?" Tom queried in his usual off-hand manner.

"What's the use?" Hervey asked. "There's nothing in it for me."

Tom leaned against the railing of the porch, with his stolid, half interested air.

"Nothing in it for me," Hervey repeated, twirling his hat on the stick in fine bravado.

"So you've decided to be a quitter," Tom said, quietly.

Hervey winced a bit at this.

"You know you said you weren't so stuck on eagles," Hervey reminded him, rather irrelevantly.

"Well, I'm not so stuck on quitters either," Tom said.

"What's the good of my going? I'm not getting anything out of it."

"Neither am I," said Tom.

"You got stung when you made a prophecy about me, didn't you?" Hervey said with cutting unkindness. "You and I both fell down, hey? We're punk scouts--we should bother our heads."

Again he began twirling his hat on the stick. "I couldn't sit with my troop, anyway," he added; "I'm in Dutch."

"Well, sit with mine, then; Roy Blakeley and that bunch are all from my home town; they're nice fellows. You know Pee-wee Harris--the little fellow that fell off the springboard?"

"I ought to like him; we both fell down."

"Well, you be on hand at five o'clock and don't make matters worse, like a young fool. If you've lost the eagle, you've lost it. That's no reason you should slight Mr. Temple, who founded this camp. We expect every scout in camp to be on hand. You're not the only one in camp who isn't getting the Eagle award."

"You call me a fool?"

"Yes, you're twenty different kinds of a fool."

"Almost an Eagle fool, hey?"

He went on up the hill toward his patrol cabin, tossing his hat in the air and trying to catch it on his head. As luck would have it, just before he entered the little rustic home of sorrow, the hat landed plunk on his head, a little to the back and very much to the side, and he let it remain in that rakish posture when he entered.

The effect was not pleasing to his comrades and scoutmaster.