I was sitting on his cot looking over the snapshots he had taken. He was always taking snapshots to take home and show his mother and his little sister. I guess neither of them knew what a scout camp was like. Dub didn’t either, before he came to Temple Camp. Oh boy, it was a big thing for him all right.
I said, “Dub, if your mother and your little sister are as interested as all that—that they want to see pictures and all—are you sure you won’t let me tell how you saved Will, so you’ll get the Gold Medal? It isn’t too late,” I said. “Will’s folks have got lots of money and he can go to the seashore with them. His father’s one peach of a father, I’ll say that, and he won’t be sore because Will gets sent home. Listen Dub, maybe Will wouldn’t get sent home, you can’t tell.”
“That wouldn’t fix it for me to stay, would it?” he said. He just gave me a push in the face and he said, “Didn’t I tell you I don’t want the medal? You go read that bulletin-board. I don’t like the sound of that word summary. Summary dismissal from camp.”
“Will you come to Bridgeboro and see me when my troop goes home?” I asked him.
“Sure I will,” he said.
“Most always Scouts up here in camp don’t see each other when they go home,” I said, “But I want to see you. Will you come, and we’ll go round to Pee-wee’s house. He lives in a great big house. You wouldn’t think so, would you?”
“I’d like to see Will, too,” he said.
“Sure, you’ll see him,” I said. “He lives right near me. I’d have Sandy too, only he lives so far. Rye bread, or Rye Beach, or whatever you call it. But, oh boy, if you came, being an Eagle Scout! And if you had the life saving medal besides! Gee, it would be in the Bridgeboro paper.”
“Maybe I have got it,” he said.
I said, “What do you mean, Dub?”