A SOLEMN PLEDGE

So then we were all eating peanuts.

I said, “Go ahead, Kid, and tell us. You’re a little brick to try to find us a new member. He didn’t fall, hey?”

“He didn’t even trip,” Westy said.

“Keep still,” I told him, “and let the kid tell us.”

Pee-wee said, “I dressed all up and wore all my stuff so he’d see just what a scout is like. Because I thought maybe that would kind of lure him. I thought if he saw the cooking set it would remind him about camp-fires and eating and everything.”

“What did he say?” Westy wanted to know.

“He said he had no use for scouts,” the kid said. “He said they have to be all the time doing kind acts every day and that there isn’t any fun playing soldiers. I told him there are different kinds of kind acts,” the kid said. “I told him you don’t have to be so awful kind. I told him it might be a kind act to break a window—if a house was on fire; that’s what I told him. I told him he might do a good turn by throwing a lot of broken glass on the road to cut automobile tires——”

“What kind of a good turn do you call that?” Dorry asked him. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t speak.

“That’s a new one on me,” Ralph Warner said.

“Suppose there were bandits in the automobile?” the kid shouted. “There! You think you’re so smart. I know lots of good turns that are fun. Suppose I tripped you up so you couldn’t chase a—a—poor little girl so as to steal—a—a——”

“A piece of candy from her,” I said.

“That would be a good turn,” the kid shouted.

I said, “Well, Kid, if a fellow doesn’t believe in breaking windows and throwing broken glass in the street and tripping people up, he would never make much of a scout. I wouldn’t want a fellow like that in my patrol. Forget it. We’re just as much obliged to you, but the Public Library is the place for that wild animal. We could never tame him.”

“Maybe if he could only see that scouts have a lot of fun,” the kid said; “because he thinks they don’t do anything but good turns. I wish I could get him for you, I know that, because you did a lot of things for me. But he only just laughed at me and he said we didn’t have any fun.”

I said, “Kid, you’re a little brick. When it comes to good turns you eat them alive. We should worry about Warde Hollister. If he wants to camp out on his wild and woolly front porch, we should bother our young lives about him. Let him lurk in his hammock. Some day the rope will break and he’ll die a horrible death. What are you squinting your eye at?” I asked Westy.

He was sitting on the swinging seat beside me squinting his eye awful funny.

He said, “Keep still, stop swinging for a second. Do you see that tree away, way over on the ridge? Do you know what kind of a tree that is?”

“It’s a large tree,” I said; “correct the first time. What about it?”

“It’s a poplar tree,” he said.

Dorry said, “All right, it’s a large, popular tree. What about it?”

Westy said, “Take your hands off the swing, you fellows. I’m trying to get a bee-line on it. Do you know what I’d like to do?”

“Go down to Bennett’s for ice cream cones?” I said.

“Come ahead!” Pee-wee shouted.

“You’d be arrested if you went on Main Street looking that way,” I told him.

“Close one eye and look straight at that tree,” Westy said. “Get right behind me. Now. Look.”

“All right,” I said, “I’m looking.”

“Well, what’s in a bee-line with that tree?” he asked me.

“A lot of stuff,” I said; “buildings and things—and villages and landscapes.”

“The line cuts Allison College right in half,” Westy said. “See?”

“If it sliced a couple of slices off the High School that would be better,” I said. “The High School just escapes. It crosses Main Street, I hope nobody trips over it.”

“What do you mean? Trip over an imaginary line!” Pee-wee shouted at me.

“Sure,” I said, “if you have a strong enough imagination. Oh, look where it goes right through Bennett’s.”

“Where?” the kid shouted. “Show me! Where?”

“Excuse me, I’m mistaken,” I said. “It goes right—straight—wait a minute—it goes right straight through the dentist’s—Dr. Wade’s——”

“You make me tired!” Pee-wee yelled.

“Do you know what I’d like to do?” Westy said. “I’d like to start from here and go straight for that tree. A bee-line hike, that’s what I’d call it. Let’s see your compass, Kid. That tree is—just—wait a minute, hold still—that tree is just exactly—west. I’d like to start and hike right straight for it.”

“How about buildings?” Hunt Manners wanted to know.

“If we came to buildings we’d have to go through them,” Westy said. “Through them or over them. Or under them. Or else we’d have to move them out of the way. We’d make a solemn vow that we wouldn’t turn to the right or left for anybody or anything. We’d hike right straight for that tree. What do you say?”

Oh, boy, you should have heard those fellows shout. That shows how crazy we are.

I said, “Carried by a large minority. All those who are unanimously in favor of a bee-line hike, eat another peanut. Settled. When shall we start? To-morrow morning? Righto!”

“No matter what happens we’ll go right straight west,” Dorry said.

“For the tree,” Hunt Manners shouted.

“Even if we have to go a little——” the kid started.

“No, you don’t,” I said. “We go straight through the dentist’s.”

“If things get in our way we’ll use resources, hey?” he piped up.

“We’ll use dynamite,” I said. “Scouts of the Silver Fox Patrol and Pee-wee Harris, First Bridgeboro, New Jersey, Troop B.S.A., all gather around your patrol leader and each give him six peanuts as a token of loyalty. That’s the way the knights used to do in history——”

“It’s a cinch being a patrol leader,” Dorry said.

“Keep still,” I told him, “and give me two more peanuts. Do you think I don’t know how to count? Now all raise your hands and stick your thumbs in your ears while I say the vow. Ready? Go:

“Even if we have to go through the mathematics room,” Dorry shouted.

“Have a heart,” Westy said; “what is this? A hike or a monopoly?”

“It’s a go,” I said. “Nothing will stop us now. The world must be made safe for the Boy Scouts of America! Give me another peanut, somebody. Food will win the war. Hurrah, for the Silver-plated Fox Patrol and the bee-line hike!”

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