THE LIFE THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN SAVED
“Hey! what d’ye mean by trespassin’ on my ground? I’ll have the law on ye for darin’ to build a big bonfire like that! No tramp convention c’n threaten to set fire to my woods, let me tell ye!”
The man in the lead was shouting this in an angry voice as he bustled forward, with his dog growling and straining to get free. Of course every one of the boys scrambled to his feet in a hurry. The sight of their khaki uniforms seemed to give the big farmer a decided shock, for they saw him come to a stop.
“What’s this here?” he exclaimed, as he stared at the dozen lads. “Tell me, am I seein’ things Bill Scruggs? Is it the State Militia dropped down on us? Is there a war on?”
Mr. Witherspoon, who was of course in uniform, stepped to the front and made the old fellow a military salute that must have gone far toward soothing his ruffled feelings.
“We’re sorry if we’ve intruded on your ground, sir,” he said in that convincing voice of his. “The fact is these are some of the Boy Scouts of Lenox, a troop that has lately been organized. I am Robert Witherspoon, the surveyor, and if I’m not mistaken I did some work for you a few months ago, Mr. Brush.”
“That’s a fact ye did, Mr. Witherspoon,” declared the farmer, with less venom in his tone. “Seems like I didn’t know ye with them togs on.”
“I’m acting as scout master to these lads just now,” continued the other, in his conciliatory way. “One of the rules of the organization is that each troop must have a grown person to serve with them, so that any undue boyish spirits may be kept within reasonable bounds.”
“So I read in the paper, Mr. Witherspoon,” continued the countryman.
“Won’t you tie up your dogs, Mr. Brush, and come and join us here before the fire?” asked the scout master, who doubtless had more or less faith in the ability of a cheery blaze to curb animosity.
They saw the farmer rub his chin with his hand. He seemed to be debating within himself as to whether or not it would be advisable to comply with such a friendly invitation.
“Well, p’raps I mightn’t git such a good chance to look scouts over again as this here one,” he presently said, half to himself. “I’ve been reading a hull lot lately ’bout the doin’s of the boys. Got three lads o’ my own yet,” and there he was seen to swallow something that seemed almost to choke him.
“Then for their sake you ought to be interested in this great movement, Mr. Brush,” said the scout master; “I remember a bright boy of yours who was very much interested in the little surveying work I did for you that day. He helped me some, and said he thought he’d like to be a civil engineer when he grew up. If he joined the scouts that desire might be encouraged, sir, I assure you.”
“Oh, they been pesterin’ the life outen me to let ’em jine, but I ain’t had no faith in the thing,” Mr. Brush went on to say, with a stubborn shake of the head.
He had by this time tied up his dog, and was accepting a seat on the log close to the obliging scout master. The boys were satisfied to let Mr. Witherspoon do the most of the talking. They could see that he meant to open the eyes of this unbeliever, and show him a few things that he ought to know.
“Just why did you frown on the scout movement, may I ask, sir?” Mr. Witherspoon continued, quietly.
“Well, in the fust place I don’t calc’late that my boys be brought up to be food for gunpowder,” replied the farmer.
“Then like a good many people you think Boy Scouts in this country are intended to become a part of the military defences; is that it, Mr. Brush?”
“Do you mean to tell me it ain’t so, Mr. Witherspoon?” asked the farmer.
“Nothing is further from the truth than that, as I’ll prove to you in a dozen ways, if you care to listen,” the scout master told him.
“Fire away, then,” said the farmer. “I’m not hide-bound ye know, and allers open to conviction; so tell me why I orter let my three boys jine the scouts.”
Mr. Witherspoon started in and explained the fundamental principles upon which the new movement was organized. He soon convinced the farmer that there was not the slightest intention on the part of those having the matter in hand to incorporate the scouts into a National Defence Movement.
“Was that the only objection you had, Mr. Brush?” he asked when the farmer frankly admitted that he had been wrong in his opinion.
“I reckoned that these boys only got together and wore uniforms for a big lark,” was the reply to his question. “I ought to know what boys is like, havin’ had four of my own.”
“Then you have lost one, have you sir?” questioned the scout master, not from idle curiosity, either, Tom Chesney felt positive.
The old man heaved a great sigh.
“Yes, my youngest, and the darling o’ his maw’s heart, little Jim. Only last summer he was off swimmin’ with several o’ his chums, and got caught with a cramp. They got him out, brave enough, but—he never kim to agin.”
Mr. Witherspoon cast a quick and meaning glance around the circle of eager faces. Several of the scouts nodded in a significant fashion as though they guessed what was flashing through the mind of their leader.
“Mr. Brush,” said the scout master, gravely, “I’d like to tell you some things that to my own personal knowledge scouts have done; things that they never would have been capable of performing in the wide world had they remained outside of this organization that first of all teaches them to be manly, independent, helpful to others, and true to themselves. May I, sir?”
“Jest as ye please, Mr. Witherspoon,” came the low reply, for the farmer had evidently been partly overcome with the sad remembrance of the vacant chair, and the face he missed so much at his table.
The scout master went about it in a very able manner. Again he explained the numerous duties of a scout, and how he was taught to render first aid to the injured in case, for instance, his services should ever be needed when some comrade cut himself with an ax, and was in peril of bleeding to death.
“There are other ways,” Mr. Witherspoon continued, “in which the scout is instructed to be able to depend on himself should he be lost in the wilderness, caught in a tornado, tempted to take refuge in a barn, or under an exposed tree during a thunder storm.”
“All o’ that sounds mighty interestin’, I must say, sir!” commented the farmer, deeply interested.
“To my own personal knowledge, Mr. Brush,” finally said the other, “on three separate occasions I have known of cases where a boy in swimming was apparently dead when dragged from the water after having been under for several minutes; in every one of those instances his scout companions, working according to the rules that had become a part of their education, managed to revive the fluttering spark of life and save the lad!”
There was an intense silence as the last word was spoken. Every one of those boys realized how terribly the man was suffering, for they could see his face working. Presently he looked up, with a groan that welled from his very heart.
“Jest a year too late, sir!” he said, in an unsteady voice. “Oh, why didn’t ye come last June? My little Jim was alive then, and the apple of my eye. If he’d jined the scouts he might a be’n with us right now. A year too late—it’s hard, hard!”
“But you said you have three boys still, Mr. Brush?” said the scout master.
“So I have, and mighty dear they be to me too!” exclaimed the farmer, as he proceeded to bring down his ponderous fist on his knee, “and arter what you’ve told me this night, sir, they cain’t be scouts any too soon to please me. I’ve had my lesson, and it was a bitter one. I’m right glad ye kim along to-night, and camped in my big woods, where we seen the light o’ yer fire.”
“And we’re glad too, Mr. Brush,” said the scout master, while several of the boys were heard to cough as though taken with a sudden tickling in their throats.
Long they sat there talking. Mr. Brush became an ardent advocate of the scout movement, and even made an arrangement for his boys to join the new patrol being formed, though it would mean many a trip in and out of Lenox for him in his new cheap motor car, in order that they attend the weekly meetings.
After all that was an evening long to be remembered. Tom Chesney, who kept a regular log of the outing, meaning to enter his account in a competition for a prize that had been offered by a metropolitan daily, found a fine chance to spread himself when jotting down the particulars.
The farmer could hardly tear himself away from the crackling fire. Three times he said he must be going, yet did not stir, which quite amused Josh Kingsley and Felix Robbins.
“Our scout master sure must have missed his calling when he set out to be a civil engineer and surveyor,” whispered the former in the ear of Felix.
“That’s so,” replied the other, “for while he may be a pretty good civil engineer, he’d made a crackerjack of a lawyer or a preacher. When he talks somehow you just hang on every word he says, and it convinces you deep down. That old farmer on a jury would do whatever Mr. Witherspoon wanted. But it’s been worth hearing; and I’m a heap glad to be a scout, after listening to what he’s been saying.”
Finally the owner of the woods shook hands all around with them, and accompanied by his hired man and the two dogs respectfully took his departure.