“Just a moment and then you may have your way. Hervey Willetts cared no more about the opinion of you scouts than this big oak tree over my head cares about the summer breeze. There were two trails there, one visible, the other invisible. One on the ground, the other in his heart. And Hervey Willetts was a scout and he hit the right trail. If it were not for our young assistant camp manager here, Hervey Willetts would this minute be witnessing these festivities from yonder tree, and little would he have cared, I think.
“But he reckoned without his host, as they say, when he sought the aid of Tom Slade. (Deafening applause.) Tom Slade knew him even if he did not know himself.
“My friends, many scouts have sought the Eagle award and a few have won it. But the Eagle award now seeks Hervey Willetts. He threw it aside but still it comes to him and asks for acceptance. He deserves something better, but there is nothing better which we have to give. For there is no badge for a noble good turn. Tom Slade was right.”
“You said something!” some one shouted.
“To be enough of a scout to win the Eagle award is much. To be scout enough to ignore it is more. But twenty-one badges is twenty-one badges, and the animal first aid badge is as good as any other. The technical question of whether a bird is an animal——”
“Sure a bird’s an animal!” called a voice from a far corner which sounded suspiciously like the voice of Pee-wee Harris. “Everybody’s an animal—even I’m an animal—even you’re an animal—sure a bird’s an animal! That’s not a teckinality! Sure a bird’s an animal!”
“Well, then, that settles it,” laughed Mr. Temple amid a very tempest of laughter, “if that is Mr. Harris of my own home town speaking, we have the opinion of the highest legal expert on scouting——”
“And eating!” came a voice.
Thus, amid an uproarious medley of laughter and applause, and of cheering which echoed from the darkening hills across the quiet lake, Hervey Willetts stood erect while Mr. John Temple, founder of the camp and famous in scouting circles the world over, placed upon his jacket the badge which made him an Eagle Scout and incidentally brought him the canoe on which so many eyes had gazed longingly.
And then one after another, pell-mell, scouts clambered onto the platform and surrounded him, while the scouts of his own troop edged them aside and elbowed their way to where he stood and mobbed him. And amid all this a small form, with clothing disarranged from close contact, but intent upon his purpose, squirmed and wriggled in and threw his little skinny arms around the hero’s waist.