CHAPTER XXVI

THE DAY BEFORE

So now you know why Dub Smedley didn’t get the Gold Medal for saving Will Dawson’s life. That was twice he didn’t get it. And you needn’t think Will and I let it go like that just on account of ourselves. If a Scout would rather do a good turn than get the Gold Medal, that’s up to him. As long as Dub put it that way, that it wasn’t any of our business, we decided to do like he wanted and not say anything. Maybe I was wrong, I don’t know. As long as Dub said it was none of our business what he did, we decided to mind our own business. I knew that what he really did want was to stay at camp. And we couldn’t help him that way, that was what I said. So Will Dawson stayed all season. If I told you about the corn-roast we had on Labor Day night this would be a Pee-wee Harris story--I wish to the dickens he’d keep out of my stories anyway. He comes into my stories and he eats my patrol’s corn, a lot he cares.

The next morning after that hike around the lake I helped Dub pack up his things. He didn’t have any duffle bag, he had an old oilcloth suitcase. He bunked in the big dormitory where all the Scouts bunk who don’t come with troops or patrols. Gee whiz, I don’t often go in there. They’re coming and going all the time in there. I felt good and sorry for him because he was going--jiminy, the season was only just getting started.

I was sitting on his cot looking over the snapshots he had taken. He was always taking snapshots to take home and show his mother and his little sister. I guess neither of them knew what a scout camp was like. Dub didn’t either, before he came to Temple Camp. Oh boy, it was a big thing for him all right.

I said, “Dub, if your mother and your little sister are as interested as all that--that they want to see pictures and all--are you sure you won’t let me tell how you saved Will, so you’ll get the Gold Medal? It isn’t too late,” I said. “Will’s folks have got lots of money and he can go to the seashore with them. His father’s one peach of a father, I’ll say that, and he won’t be sore because Will gets sent home. Listen Dub, maybe Will wouldn’t get sent home, you can’t tell.”

“That wouldn’t fix it for me to stay, would it?” he said. He just gave me a push in the face and he said, “Didn’t I tell you I don’t want the medal? You go read that bulletin-board. I don’t like the sound of that word _summary_. _Summary dismissal from camp._”

“Will you come to Bridgeboro and see me when my troop goes home?” I asked him.

“Sure I will,” he said.

“Most always Scouts up here in camp don’t see each other when they go home,” I said, “But I want to see you. Will you come, and we’ll go round to Pee-wee’s house. He lives in a great big house. You wouldn’t think so, would you?”

“I’d like to see Will, too,” he said.

“Sure, you’ll see him,” I said. “He lives right near me. I’d have Sandy too, only he lives so far. Rye bread, or Rye Beach, or whatever you call it. But, oh boy, if you came, being an Eagle Scout! And if you had the life saving medal besides! Gee, it would be in the Bridgeboro paper.”

“Maybe I have got it,” he said.

I said, “What do you mean, Dub?”

“If you do a thing, you do it, don’t you?” he said.

“Sure,” I said, “but you want the proof of it, don’t you?”

“If I know I did it why do I want any proof?” he said. “That’s what Pee-wee calls a dandy argument.”

“You’re a funny fellow, Dub,” I said.

He just gave me a shove and he said, “Maybe when I come to see you I _will_ be an Eagle Scout. Now let’s talk about something else. You come in here to see my snapshots and all you do is razz me. Where’s Will to-day?” he wanted to know.

“Oh, he’s off after his bird study badge,” I said. “He’s only got that and the carpentry badge to get. Then he’s a Star Scout. Jiminies, he’s pulling shingles off and nailing them on again up at the old burned storehouse. Every time he sees a piece of wood he wants to saw it in half. To-day he’s got a date with a couple of blue jays or something. He’s got his little kodak with him.”

Dub said, “Do you know there is one thing I’d like?”

“Name it,” I said, “and I’ll give it to you twice.”

He said, “Do you remember when I first got in with you fellows, we started out on a hike, didn’t we?”

“Sure, whichever way the wind stopped blowing,” I said. “We went after wills and robbers and everything.”

Dub said, “I’d like you and Pee-wee and Sandy and Will Dawson to hike down to the train with me to-morrow. Catskill isn’t so much of a hike is it?”

“Sure not,” I said, “but it will seem funny coming back without you.”

“Let’s finish up with a hike,” he said. “We had a lot of fun hiking together--I did anyway. I’d kind of like to start home that way. Will you? Just you and Sandy and Pee-wee and Will Dawson and I, hey? I can send this old grip down on the bus, can’t I?”

“Sure you can,” I said. “But, gee, I don’t want you to go, Dub.”

“I’d treat you all to ice cream in Catskill if I wasn’t so blamed hard up,” he said. “But will you fellows hike down with me? We’ll start good and early and just sort of mope along like that day we hiked to Beaver Chasm, and you and Pee-wee can have one of those mortal comebacks. Will you? We’ll make it crazy, hey?”

“Sure, Dub,” I said. “You bet we will, only----”

I don’t know, I couldn’t say anything, I just started looking at the snapshots.