Finally the scout master clapped his hands, and called in a loud voice, “Come and get it!” This was the first time Spider and Bennie had heard the western camp call to grub. But they didn’t need to be told what it meant.
As soon as the food was eaten, the scout master rose in his place, and announced that troop leader Tom Robinson would welcome their guests to Oregon. Tom Robinson, a tall, powerful boy of sixteen, got up looking extremely scared, and everybody shouted and applauded, whereupon he looked scareder still. But he made a nice little speech, in spite of his nervousness, telling Spider and Bennie how glad the Salem scouts were that they had come so far to see Oregon, which, he said, had the finest climate in the world, and hoping they’d have a good time, and inviting them to come and visit the Salem scouts in their camp up in the mountains in August.
Everybody applauded again, and then looked at Spider and Bennie, yelling, “Speech, speech!”
“You do it,” whispered Bennie to Spider.
“Go on—you got to do it,” Spider retorted.
“You’ve both got to do it,” the scout master laughed.
So Bennie got up. He felt queer in his knees, which didn’t seem to half hold him up, and his mouth felt dry. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded strange to him, as if it belonged to somebody else.
“We’re awfully glad to be here,” he said, “and you scouts are sure good to us to give us this grand feed. I ate so many Bing cherries this morning I thought all I could do would be to make a noise like a robin, but I sure got away with my share of the grub. It’s pretty fine to come 4,000 miles, all across the U. S. A., and find a bunch of scouts out here just the same as at home. Some organization, the Boy Scouts! ’Course, we came to see the wilderness, and about all the wilderness we’ve seen so far is a big city like Portland, and Salem, and about ten million fruit trees, and sixteen million automobiles. And we heard it was a good climate out here, too, but my uncle’s garage man says it rains twelve months in the year and isn’t very pleasant the rest of the time. But we sure like Oregon, and you fellows are a great bunch of scouts, and—and I guess that’s all I got to say.”
Bennie sat down abruptly, amid much applause.
“Some speech!” Spider whispered.