But the right way is wrong when you start on a hike.”
CHAPTER III
HERVEY AND THE CAMP
I don’t know, it seemed kind of natural, sort of, for us to see Hervey Willetts like that, away from all the other scouts at camp. I said to Westy I was kind of glad we saw him first just the way we did and that he wasn’t in the crowd at the landing.
Westy said the same thing. I don’t know why he said that, but it seemed as if Hervey was different from everybody else; I guess that’s what we were thinking. Most always he was alone.
He had lots and lots of friends, but they weren’t scouts at camp. He knew all the farmers around the country, and sometimes he stayed at their homes all night. He got acquainted with peddlers and tramps and stayed away and, gee whiz, you couldn’t blame the trustees for getting mad. He was funny in some ways.
He could do most anything, but yet he never bothered his head about merit badges. Mr. Ellsworth (he’s our scoutmaster) said Hervey was an adventurer, not a scout. He said he could do stunts, but he could never do tests. Mr. Ellsworth said scouting is a kind of a harness, and Hervey couldn’t wear a harness. Anyway, just the same he liked Hervey because he just couldn’t help it.
I had to laugh to myself when I thought how he was sitting on that shutter just waiting for it to be let down so he could have a swim after hours. He could say he fell in and had to swim to the landing. If anybody would be to blame it would be Chocolate Drop, who always let the shutter down from the inside.
I was wondering how Hervey got out there on that shutter. He must have climbed over the roof of the cooking shack and let himself down on the side over the lake. I had to laugh when I thought how funny it would look when the shutter was let down to see him go sprawling accidentally on purpose into the lake, which would be just what he wanted. I knew he intended to beat the rule, but gee, I couldn’t help seeing the funny side of it.
But anyway, soon we forgot all about it on account of the scouts all being at the landing to meet us. I guess every scout I ever saw at Temple Camp was there. Bert Winton was there and Brent Gaylong. He was just as lanky as ever, and his spectacles were half-way down his nose like a schoolmaster, and he had that same slow, drawly, funny way about him.
There’s always a big fuss when our troop gets to camp, because Mr. Temple, who started the camp, lives in our town. Pee-wee says Mr. Temple donated the camp, and he thinks that means he supplied it with doughnuts. The reason why Mr. Temple doughnutted the camp is because he was interested in Tom Slade when Tom was a hoodlum in our town.