“You better look out how you talk,” Pee-wee said in a whisper.
By that time the man was right there. He was an awful nice man. He said, “There isn’t the slightest thing to worry about.”
I said, “We thought maybe we were going to get arrested.”
He said, “Oh dear me, no. I wouldn’t think of arresting Boy Scouts.”
“You might do it without thinking,” Dub said.
The man said, “I always look before I leap.” Then he said, “May I sit down and make myself at home?”
He sat down on the grass with his knees up and his arms around them. Gee, he was nice and friendly like. He said, “I’m tired myself. I’ve had a long walk.” When I told him we were Scouts from Temple Camp, he was a lot interested. He said he knew all about Temple Camp.
I asked him, “Do you live around here?”
“Not just here,” he said; “I live in Bagley Center. This is Bagley’s Green. I’m Saul Bagley. My people settled all this country around here. My father was Ephraim Bagley. This was all the old Bagley farm through here. Where that station is, used to be an apple orchard. You know if I had my way that whole strip of forest land east of Black Lake would belong to Temple Camp now. No one was sorrier than I was, when the camp didn’t get it; it was a pretty mean business all through. I told Mr. John Temple so myself. He’s a very fine man, Mr. John Temple.”
“Even I’ve been to his house,” Pee-wee piped up. “Even I had supper at his house—he’s a magnet. He owns so many railroads, he has a kind of a collection of them. Didn’t I make him a willow whistle to blow in case he gets held up by bandits—I leave it to Roy if I didn’t.”