He was startled by the banging of the front door knocker downstairs. The sound broke upon his worried cogitations like a hundred earthquakes. Who could that be at half past nine at night? He heard footfalls in the hall below, then muffled voices. He crept to his door, opened it a little, and listened. He was trembling, he knew not why. That justice man had given him till the next day; if⸺ Why it wouldn’t be fair at all.
Yet he distinctly heard the word punished uttered by a strange voice. His heart was in his mouth. Should he climb out through the window and jump from the roof of the kitchen shed, and then run? What were they talking about down there? He heard the word police. Perhaps they knew he could not get the money and were taking no chances. Then he heard the gentle voice of his stepmother saying, “The poor boy.” That was himself. He rushed to the window, threw up the screen, put one foot out. He heard footfalls on the stairs. They seemed to come half way up, then paused.
“Hervey, dear,” Mrs. Walton called.
He did not answer, but in a sudden impulse sprang back into the room and grabbed his outlandish, rimless hat from one of the posts of his old-fashioned bed.
“Hervey, dear?”
She opened the door just as he sat straddling the window-sill ready to slide off the little shed roof.
“Here’s a letter for you, Hervey; a young fellow just left it. What on earth are you doing, my dear boy? You’ll have the room full of flies and moth millers.”
He came back into the room, tore open the envelope which his astonished stepmother handed him, and the next thing he knew he was reading a note, conscious all the while that part of it had fluttered to the floor.
Dear Hervey:—
I was mighty sorry to learn that you’ve given us up. Craig Hobson told me and he seems to think it wouldn’t be worth while talking to you. Of course, it’s better to be out of the Scouts than to be in and not interested. He says you can’t be in anything and maybe after all he’s right.
You care so little about our thriving troop that I dare say you have forgotten about the Delmore prize of five dollars to every boy that introduces another boy to scouting. Chesty McCullen went to give your message to Craig and Warner this morning and stayed at their lawn camp and ate spaghetti and begged to be allowed to take your place in the patrol. Of course, nobody can take the place of Hervey Willetts, but Chesty is all dolled up with a clean face and we’ve taken him in and of course, we feel that you’re the fellow that wished him onto us.
So here’s the five dollars, Herve, for introducing a new member into the troop and please accept my thanks as your scoutmaster, and the thanks of all these scouts who aren’t smart enough to make heads or tails of you. And good luck to you, Hervey Boy. You’re a bully little scout missionary anyway.
Your scoutmaster,
Ebin Talbot
Hervey groped around under the bed and with trembling hand lifted the crisp, new five dollar bill. And there he stood with a strange feeling in his throat, clutching the bill and the letter while gentle Mrs. Walton lowered the wire screen so that the room wouldn’t be full of flies and moth millers.