Dear Billy:⸺
There’s a place for you in my patrol if you want to come up. We have awards and initiations Wednesday. Walter Harris (I guess you know that fellow) is pulling out to start a new outfit. He’s the scream of the troop, I guess you know him. His mouth is always black from eating roasted potatoes. We’ll ring you in as a tenderfoot and you can learn a lot up here at camp. You’ve got the booklets already so I guess you know all about it. Tom Slade is camp assistant—everybody in Bridgeboro knows him. We’ll see Harris all the time so it will be all right—he’s everywhere at once.
It’s going to be a lively season, they’re camping all around the lake I understand. You’ll make a hit all right only don’t let your mother sneak any rubbers or cough drops or that kind of stuff into your suitcase. They’re always trying to do that. Watch your step and feel down in the corners of your bag for witch hazel and don’t bring an overcoat whatever you do. Pee-wee (that’s what we call our wandering boy) says for you to come ahead and he’ll show you how to get drowned in the lake. He’s a four reel comedy, that kid is. Don’t bring a book about “My Summer in Camp”; you’ll be too busy to spill ink. The bus will be at the station (5.22) and if it isn’t, I will.
So long,
Artie Van Arlen, P. L. Ravens.
P. S. Don’t worry about the kid, it’s all fixed.
The funny thing about this letter was that it was mostly about Pee-wee. Artie seemed to welcome the coming guest, but to be thinking mostly about the departing guest. But there was one thing in the letter which perhaps threw some light on the character of Billy Simpson. And then again, perhaps it did not.
“Don’t worry about the kid, it’s all fixed.”
Was Billy Simpson that kind of a fellow? The kind who would be likely to worry? The kind that would want to make sure that everything was all right? The kind that wouldn’t step into another fellow’s shoes? If he was, why then he had a pretty good preliminary equipment for scouting.
Evidently Artie knew something about him....
CHAPTER XII—ADVICE FROM THE VETERAN
Pee-wee saw Billy Simpson for the first time on Wednesday when the awards were given out. At Temple Camp this was done at the beginning and at the end of the season. The first of these two occasions was mostly for the purpose of enrolling new scouts, the latter for the purpose of tendering the badges and other awards won during the season. The ceremonies were sometimes held under the Honor Oak, as it was called, or, if the weather was bad, in the pavilion.
If Pee-wee was beset by any lingering regrets at seeing another admitted to his place among the Ravens, he did not show it. He applauded and shouted uproariously when Billy Simpson had taken the oath and in a voice of thunder volunteered a valuable hint or two to the new scout.
“Make them let you sit in my place next to Uncle Jeb and you’ll always get two helpings of dessert,” he shouted. “Don’t get near the foot of the messboards because there isn’t any more by the time they get that far.”
And again, while the tenderfoot badge was being placed on Billy’s new khaki suit, and just as Artie was placing a Raven Patrol pennant in his hand, the voice of the veteran arose again, “Grove Bronson owes me two gumdrops for our hike up; tell him I said to give them to you so they don’t have to go outside the patrol.”