“If that kid had got a hair-cut when he ought to have, he’d have felt that eggplant. That head of his is a regular shock absorber.”
“How long is a hair-cut, anyway?” queried Roy, sitting on the table and stirring a bowl of batter.
“Never you mind them riddles,” said the chief cook. “You git that batter ready—pour some more milk in from that pitcher.”
“Then I’ll have a batter and a pitcher both, hey?” said Roy. “Pretty soon I’ll have a whole baseball team. But honest, this is what I mean. A boy gets a hair-cut. Is it a hair-cut the next day? It is a hair-cut the day after? When does it stop being a hair-cut? And here’s another thing——”
“Never you mind,” laughed the cook. “You git that stirred and then I’ll let you make some raisin cakes—seein’ as you say you can.”
While Roy was busying himself in the cooking lean-to other scouts were forming the three mess-boards into one long table.
At five o’clock, an hour earlier than usual, the camp bugle sounded and patrols and troops, in formation, marched from their tents and cabins to the long board which was heaped with such a varied and bountiful repast as Temple Camp had never before seen. It was a pleasant scene as the boys came with their patrol pennants waving, and took their allotted places at the long rustic table under the trees.
Jeb Rushmore sat at the head of the table, one of the two visiting trustees on either hand. The scoutmasters sat each with his troop, and behind each patrol leader his staff bearing the patrol pennant was stuck in the ground so that one could easily distinguish the different patrols. Scouts who were visiting camp singly or in teams or small parties, like Harry Arnold and his friend, were seated toward the foot of the board. The three patrols of the well-organized Bridgeboro Troop, the Ravens, Silver Foxes and Elks, sat toward the head of the table on either side, close to the trustees. On the plate of each member of the Elk Patrol was a strip of ribbon bearing the words neatly printed by hand “Many Happy Returns.”
“I’ve got two here stuck together,” said Connie Bennet.
“That’s because you think you’re twice as good a scout as anyone else,” piped up Roy. “You should worry.”