Jiminies, but I felt sorry for him. I’ll tell you how it was with Dub, he was an in-and-outer. That’s a Scout that comes to camp alone without any troop or anything, and just stays a couple of weeks or so. Some of them only stay one week. Those fellows have to start home as soon as they get in with anybody. My troop goes up as soon as school closes and we stay till school opens. All of a sudden I could see how it was with Dub. Do you remember how even he kind of didn’t want to go get ice cream cones in Bagley Center? It was because he only had a little bit of money and he had to take care of it.
After the way he talked coming back then I knew that all the while he had really been counting on us getting some kind of a reward. Me, I should worry about those things. I’m out for fun, not money. And now I knew he was thinking of some way so he could stay at Temple Camp and go around with us. That fellow would be an Eagle Scout only for one badge, but that wouldn’t do him any good about staying at camp. If he saved some fellow’s life he’d get the Gold Medal, and besides he’d get a hundred dollars—that’s the Ellen Burnside award for anybody that gets the Gold Medal. But you don’t see fellows risking their lives every day in the week. It isn’t like trying for a badge. I felt sorry for him.
I was walking with him ahead of the others and he said, “I suppose you think I’m crazy. But do they give you that hundred dollars as soon as you win it?”
I said, “Listen Dub, I’ll tell you, no fooling, how it is. There are lots of different awards at camp—donations, sort of. But that’s the only one with money.”
“That’s why I’d like to win it, so I can stay,” he said. “I wonder if you get the money right away?”
I said, “That wouldn’t make any difference, Dub. I think it isn’t given out till later. But if a Scout wants to stay the camp will give him credit for it—that’s easy. Tom Slade—he’s chief scout assistant—he could fix that for you. But what’s the use counting on that, Dub?”
He said, “I know it.”
“Waiting for somebody to get his life in danger! You might be six months waiting.”
“And it isn’t such a good thing to be waiting for either; is it?” he said.
I said, “No it isn’t, if it comes to that—if you want to look at it that way. I never thought about that. Gee, I’d like to see you stay, Dub. I’d try to work you in on the hospitality award if I could. Any Scout that swims all around the lake without landing can ask another fellow to stay at camp all summer. But you see the trouble with all those awards is that they’re only given once in the season. Now there’s a Scout here named Wyne Corson and he won that award the first week he was here. You know Hervey Willetts, don’t you? That fellow with the funny little hat? Well, he’s the one that’s staying all summer with Corson. Now nobody else can win that award this season, or I’d try for it. If I had done it I’d get one of my patrol to do it. Only, you see, it’s only given out once in a season. The award is for just one fellow’s board at camp. It’s the same with the Ellen Burnside award. You’ve got to be the first one to save a life or you don’t get the hundred dollars. See? The money is only given to one Scout in a season. It’s a private award, not a B. S. A. award.