For an instant there was a dazed silence throughout the room. Then a yell broke forth which could have been heard–and was–as far as the green. Breaking ranks, boys clutched one another in exuberant embraces and pranced madly about the hall. Then there was more shouting, and throwing-up of hats, and general disorder, which Mr. Curtis made no attempt to check. When failing breath brought comparative quiet, he raised his hand for silence.
“I gather that the invitation meets with your approval,” he remarked with a smile. “Shall I send Mr. Thornton the grateful acceptance of the whole troop?”
“You bet!” came back promptly and emphatically from a dozen voices. “Wough! He’s some good sport!” “Think of it, fellows! A new mess-shack! A whole week in camp in April!” “Pinch me, somebody; I don’t believe I’m awake at all!”
The last speaker was promptly accommodated, and after a little additional skylarking, things quieted down. Before the meeting broke up, Mr. Curtis wrote a letter of sincere thanks and acceptance to John Thornton, which each one of the scouts signed with a flourish. After that, with youthful inconsequence, they hustled home to obtain parental sanction.
CHAPTER XXVIII
WAR!
In some miraculous fashion the necessary permission was obtained by each and every one of the boys of Troop Five, and bright and early on the morning after school closed the whole crowd was packed into the motor-truck, jouncing southward over roads very much the worse for spring thaws. It was, in fact, a vastly more uncomfortable trip than the one last summer. But overhead the skies were cloudless; warm breezes, faintly odorous of spring and growing things, caressed their cheeks, and youth was in their hearts. What cared they for hard seats, for jolts and jounces, for mud-holes, delays, and the growing certainty of a late arrival? A thrilling week, golden with possibilities, lay before them, and nothing else mattered. They chattered and sang and ate, and stopped by wayside springs, and ate again. The sun was setting when they lumbered into Clam Cove and tumbled out of the truck to find the old Aquita waiting at the landing. Then came the chugging passage of the bay, and the landing at the new dock they had not even heard of, but where they did not pause long, so eager were they all to inspect the mess-shack, bulking large and unfamiliar through the gathering dusk.
It wasn’t really a shack at all, but a commodious log structure some forty feet by twenty–big, airy, and spacious. There were benches and tables of rough yet solid construction, bracket-lamps, many windows, and a cavernous stone fireplace in which a roaring blaze of logs leaped and crackled. The size and scale of it all fairly awed the boys, and they stared eagerly around for Mr. Thornton. To their disappointment the banker was not to be seen.
“He had to go to Washington unexpected,” explained the man in charge to Mr. Curtis. “But he sent word you was to make yourselves at home, and he’d be back just as soon as he could.”
This put a momentary damper on the affair, but it was not of long duration. There was too much to see and do in the short time at their disposal for regrets of any sort. There was little accomplished that night, however. After a hearty supper, beds were made up on the floor and every one was glad to turn in early.
They were up with the sun, and then began a strenuous period of mingled work and play which filled to overflowing each waking hour of the three days that followed. They got out the tents and erected them in the old places. They took hikes and motor-boat trips; they fished and explored, talked to each other with signal-flags, and put in a commendable amount of time on their drill. They were so constantly employed extracting the last atom of enjoyment from the brief vacation that they quite failed to notice the slight abstraction of their scoutmaster, or the manner in which he watched the mails and fairly devoured the daily paper. Not one of them found time even to glance at that paper himself, much less think of, or discuss the affairs of the nation and the world. Then, suddenly, came the awakening.