“Great tracts of wilderness
Wherein the beast was ever more and more,
But man was less and less till Arthur came.”
“Fellows, every age needs its King Arthur and a Round Table of knights who think more of redressing human wrong and abating human suffering than they think of their own bodies and meat and drink. That is what our Congress at Washington should be. I wish it might become the fashion to go to Congress for what men could put into the nation, not for what they can get out of it.”
He rose and reached his hand up toward the stars, showing bright in the small open space above the tall trees. “Think of it! Just to do nothing but feed oneself, earn, spend, sleep, and die,—an ox does that. Yet most of us think that if we do that and keep out of jail we do enough; we are men.”
“Just what are you driving at, Billy?” Bump yawned.
Billy, out of patience, went over and shook him. “Driving at? I’m thinking of the chances I waste every day while I moon over the great things men used to do: that if we can only find that child and I can get back to work, I’ll dig! I’ll ‘be prepared’ even if my sword is a shovel instead of Excalibur. I’m going to—”
He stopped abruptly. “It’s time to turn in, boys,” he said quietly, turning away, ashamed of having shown his emotion.
Rubber blankets over boughs were all “to the good.” They spent little time in chaff or “rough-house,” and in a few minutes all but Billy were asleep. He could not rest. The day had been too exciting to give room to any of his own affairs; but now Erminie intruded.
Why had she not come out the night of the playground rally? He knew her contention that she should keep out of sight, yet she had almost promised. Had her father learned of their night on the island? He had thrashed this over before, but in each quiet moment the question came again insistently. He tossed and turned wondering that he should notice that the bed was hard, that his blanket was short, that the others snored; usually these things were as nothing.