“How about your life saving medal?” Will asked Dub.
“Sure, explain all that,” I said. “Do you think we’re yellow just because we eat lemon cake?”
“Have a little sense,” Dub said. “I don’t have to be sent home in disgrace at all, because nobody saw me bring the boat in. And Will doesn’t have to be sent home in disgrace because nobody knows he had the boat out. That leaves the life saving medal. All right, I don’t want it. If I could have been the first to win it and get that hundred dollars too, you can bet I’d have scooped up both awards because I want to stay here. I never said I didn’t. That’s what I wanted most of all, and that’s all I did want. Just because I have to go home day after to-morrow, is that any reason why Will should get sent home and all your plans busted up? I can get my Eagle badge any time I want to. The other one I don’t want. And what I want I can’t get. Listen here, Roy Blakeley, I don’t give you the right to go telling on me—what I did. That’s my business and not yours. You take care of your own patrol and you’ll have your hands full.”
“Good night, you said it,” I told him.
He said, “All right. If I was getting sent home in disgrace it might be different. But I’m not. I’d rather do Will Dawson a good turn than get the Gold Medal, and that’s my business, isn’t it? You can be a Scout in your way and I’ll be a Scout in my way. About two thousand, eight million and three-quarter times I heard Pee-wee Harris tell you to keep your mouth shut. That’s what I tell you now. Take Pee-wee’s advice and keep your mouths shut about what happened to-night. Let’s see how much you don’t know about scouting.”
Will just started to laugh. He said, “It’s easy to see Dub has been going around with you and Pee-wee! He talks like the two of you put together.”
“Sure—separated together,” Dub said. “Does that remind you of yourself? Or are you too busy thinking about my business?”
CHAPTER XXVI
THE DAY BEFORE
So now you know why Dub Smedley didn’t get the Gold Medal for saving Will Dawson’s life. That was twice he didn’t get it. And you needn’t think Will and I let it go like that just on account of ourselves. If a Scout would rather do a good turn than get the Gold Medal, that’s up to him. As long as Dub put it that way, that it wasn’t any of our business, we decided to do like he wanted and not say anything. Maybe I was wrong, I don’t know. As long as Dub said it was none of our business what he did, we decided to mind our own business. I knew that what he really did want was to stay at camp. And we couldn’t help him that way, that was what I said. So Will Dawson stayed all season. If I told you about the corn-roast we had on Labor Day night this would be a Pee-wee Harris story—I wish to the dickens he’d keep out of my stories anyway. He comes into my stories and he eats my patrol’s corn, a lot he cares.
The next morning after that hike around the lake I helped Dub pack up his things. He didn’t have any duffle bag, he had an old oilcloth suitcase. He bunked in the big dormitory where all the Scouts bunk who don’t come with troops or patrols. Gee whiz, I don’t often go in there. They’re coming and going all the time in there. I felt good and sorry for him because he was going—jiminy, the season was only just getting started.