For a moment no one spoke. Mr. Ellsworth would not spoil the effect of Tom’s words by uttering so much as a single word himself. It was John Temple who broke the silence, quieting his daughter who seemed about to break forth again.
“I will do more than remember,” said he. “Come here, my boy. There will be no charge made against your father, so there will be no need of a service unless it is a service of my own. It has been borne in upon me lately that your good scoutmaster is a wonder-worker, and what you have just said strengthens that growing conviction. I have been thinking, too, how I might further the movement so well represented by him, and the story of your experience with your father has quite decided me. For every one of those five precious dollars that you were sensible enough to save and noble enough to give away, there shall be given a thousand to the cause whose precepts and principles you represent.
“Let this poor man be taken to your camp in the woods if you like, and let your doctor take care of him, and see that he does his duty. I will visit your camp myself to-morrow if I may.”
Mr. Ellsworth assured him that he might, and as for Doc, a half dozen chimed forth that he was the only ever, etc., etc.
Tom said nothing. He had never been much of a scout missionary, and the unexpected and altogether amazing conversion of John Temple quite overwhelmed him. He did not realize that he himself had done it, in his own stolid, crude way.
But would his hope be borne out? Would the Wizard Ellsworth indeed “get away with it,” and make a new man of poor, wretched Bill Slade? I should hesitate to affirm it; but I wouldn’t dare to deny it—not before the boys. So let us rest in the hope born of Tom’s own words that Mr. Ellsworth had never yet failed. Let us believe that the woods and the camp-fire yarns and the company of these boys may be a helping hand to the broken wretch who had no First Bridgeboro Troop to look to when he was a boy.
As they bore the stretcher over the bridge toward the woods beyond, Tom heard the sound of footfalls a little distance behind them, and paused.
It proved to be Mary Temple.
“Tom, is that you?” she said.
“Yes-it is.”