“About five dollars a week for board and a dollar extra for transportation.”
The troubled expression deepened in Dale’s face, and he scarcely heard the various other questions and answers that followed. Six dollars a week–twelve in all! There would be other necessities, too, in the way of clothes fit for camp. He had no shorts, for instance, or decent sneakers. Fifteen dollars would barely cover the outlay; and though he had worked hard for two months at least, he had little more than half of the amount saved. Where was the rest to come from?
When Mr. Curtis, with pencil and paper in hand, started at the head of the line to note down what boys were going, Tompkins roused himself and listened with a touch of envy to the ready answers: “Yes, sir!” “You can count me in every time, sir!” “Can’t a fellow stay longer than two weeks?” or, from Larry Wilks, “No, sir; I’m going up to Maine as soon as school is over.” Not one of them seemed troubled by the problem which worried him.
“How about you, Dale?” asked the scoutmaster, after jotting down Vedder’s prompt acquiescence.
“I–don’t know, sir.”
“What’s the trouble? Want to talk it over at home?” said the scoutmaster, dropping his voice.
“N-o, sir. They’ll let me go all right,” answered Dale, adding, in a still lower tone, “only I–I’m not sure about the–money.”
Mr. Curtis nodded understandingly. “I see. Well, there will be at least two weeks before even the first crowd goes. We’ll have to get together and think up ways and means.”
He passed on, leaving Dale not very greatly encouraged. It would be like Mr. Curtis to invent some work about his place whereby the scout might earn the required amount, but Dale was determined to stay at home rather than take advantage of the scoutmaster in that way.
“He’s done enough for me already,” the boy said to himself with a stubborn squaring of the jaws. “If I can’t raise the funds some other way, I’ll just have to go without camp.”