Sure enough, presently Thad dropped back and joined him. Looking up out of the tail of his eye, Giraffe saw that the other was observing him severely. He fully expected to hear something unpleasant about the duty one scout ought to assume toward his fellows. To his surprise Thad started on another tack entirely.
“I want to tell you a little story I read the other day, Giraffe,” he said quietly, “and, if the shoe fits, you can put it on.”
“All right, Thad; you know I like to hear stories first rate,” mumbled Giraffe, glad at least that the others of the party were far enough ahead so that none of them could hear what passed between himself and the patrol leader.
“I think,” began Thad, “it was told to illustrate the old saying that ‘curses, like chickens, come home to roost.’ The lecturer went on to say that when a boy throws a rubber ball against a wall it bounds back, and, unless he is careful, it’s apt to take him in the eye; and that’s the way everything we do comes back to us some time or other.”
“Sure thing it does; and p’raps some day I expect Bumpus will be getting one over on me to pay the score,” admitted Giraffe; but Thad did not pay any attention to what he said, only went on with his story.
“There was once a boy, a thoughtless boy, with a little cruel streak in his make-up, who always wanted to find a chance for a good laugh, without thinking of what pain he might be causing others,” Thad went on, at which Giraffe winced, for the shaft went home. “One day he was playing on a hillside with their big dog, Rover. He would roll a stone down the hill, and Rover would obediently run after it, and bring it back. He seemed to be enjoying the sport as much as the boy.
“Then all at once the boy discovered a big hornet’s nest almost a foot in diameter, hanging low down on a bush. He saw a chance to have a great lark. He would roll a stone so as to hit the nest, and send Rover after it. Then the hornets would come raging out, and it would be such a lark to see them chasing poor Rover down the hill.
“Well, the stone he rolled went true to the mark, and came slam against the hornet’s nest. Rover was in full pursuit, and he banged up against it, too. Out came a black swarm of furious hornets, and of course they tackled poor Rover like everything.
“The boy up on the hill laughed until he nearly doubled up, to hear Rover yelp, and whirl around this way and that. He thought he had never had such a bully time in all his life as just then. Rover was a fine dog, and the boy thought just heaps of him; but then it was so comical to see how he twisted, and bit at himself, and he howled so fiercely, too, that the boy could hardly get his breath for laughing.
“But all at once he saw to his alarm that poor Rover, unable to help himself, was running up the hill straight to his master, as though thinking that the boy could save him. Then the boy stopped laughing. It didn’t seem so funny then. And, Giraffe, inside of ten seconds there was a boy running madly down the hill, fighting a thousand mad hornets that stung him everywhere, and set him to yelling as if he were half crazy. When he got home finally, and saw his swollen face in the glass, and felt Rover licking his hand as if the good fellow did not dream that his master had betrayed him so meanly, what do you suppose that boy said to himself, if he had any conscience at all?”