"Come ahead over; don't be scared," Connie Bennett shouted. So then Skinny went over, kind of bashful and staring all around him, and sat down with the Elk patrol.
Westy leaned over and whispered to me, "Can you beat that? His own patrol leader telling him not to be afraid to go and sit down with his own patrol! I'll fix that bunch," he said.
Then he stood right up and shouted—oh, boy, you ought to have heard him. He said, "Let's give three cheers for Alfred McCord, of the 1st Bridgeboro Troop, B.S.A., the second fellow to win the gold cross in his troop and the first one to win it in his patrol—the only one in his patrol that could win it!"
Oh, boy, that was some whack.
Well, you should have heard the fellows shout for Skinny. Merry Christmas! but that was some noise. They all stood up, the Elks too, and gave him the biggest send-off I ever heard at Temple Camp. Even the scoutmasters and the trustees joined in and old Uncle Jeb kept shouting, "Hooo—ray! Hooo—ray!" Cracky, you would have laughed if you'd heard him. Oh, bibbie! when Temple Camp once gets started, the west front in France is Sleepy Hollow compared to it.
And oh, didn't it make me feel good to see Skinny. He looked as if he was going to start to run away, but Connie had him by the collar, and all the Elks were laughing, and now I could see they were proud of him, anyway.
Then Mr. Ellsworth held up his hand and as soon as the racket died down, he began to speak. This is what he said, because Mr. Barrows (he's a trustee) knows shorthand, and afterwards he gave it to me all written out to copy in our troop book. He said:
"Scouts, you have heard that speech is silver and silence is golden. I think this kind of shouting is highest grade sterling silver. It is chunks of silver, as one might say. But since this is a matter of the gold cross, I ask for just a moment or two of golden silence, while I speak to you. I see about me, scouts from Ohio, and Michigan, and New Hampshire—"
"And Hoboken!" Pee-wee piped out. Jiminy, that kid is the limit.
"Yes, and Hoboken," Mr. Ellsworth said, trying not to laugh. "I speak to all of you from north, south, east and west—"