“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.