[*Au revoir is probably what he meant.]

CHAPTER XX

MOSTLY ABOUT SKINNY

This chapter I am going to fill with some stuff about a two dollar bill.

That isn't so bad for poetry, is it? I got that idea out of a story by Sir Walter Scott--putting poetry at the top of the chapters. Mr.

Ellsworth says sometimes a fellow might get killed for writing poetry.

I should worry--a scout is brave.

You can bet that if Pee-wee had his way we'd have all gone into the city that very night and broken into a store to get Skinny's outfit. But nix on that hurry up business when it comes to Mr. Ellsworth. "Scouts are not made in a day," he said to Pee-wee, "and the outfit doesn't make the scout anyway, remember that."

"Any more than a merry-go-round makes a good turn," I said.

So Mr. Ellsworth went to see Skinny and his mother, and then he went to see the doctor, and he found out that Skinny wasn't going to die right then, but that something was the matter with his lungs, and that he'd keep getting sick all the time probably and wouldn't grow up. Oh, boy, when Mr. Ellsworth once gets on your trail, good night! That's just the way he hauled Tom Slade into the troop, head over heels. And look at Connie Bennett, too. Mr. Ellsworth had to hypnotize Connie's mother and now Connie's a first cla.s.s scout. After two or three nights he brought Skinny to meeting, and oh, cracky, but that kid looked bad.

He just sat and watched us do our stunts and he was scared when anybody spoke to him, except Mr. Ellsworth. And he was coughing a lot, too.

After the meeting Westy and I and Mr. Ellsworth took him home, and just when we left him he asked us if maybe he'd live long enough to get the pathfinder's badge. And oh, gee, it made me feel good the way Mr.

Ellsworth answered him.

He said, "Well, I can't exactly promise that because I don't know how long it will take you to win that badge, but if you think you can win it inside of forty or fifty years, I think you'll be there to grab it when it comes." Oh, jingoes, but we've got one dandy scoutmaster. I don't care what you say, he's the best one in America. And when he said that, Skinny kind of smiled and then you could see how thin he was, because the wrinkles came all around his mouth.

Well, on Sat.u.r.day Westy and Dorry Benton and Ralph Warner (they're all in my patrol) went into the city to get Skinny's outfit, so we could give him a surprise at the meeting on Monday night. I didn't go because I wanted Westy to have the say, and I didn't want him to think I was b.u.t.ting in, because Skinny belonged to him, as you might say. Besides I had to cut the gra.s.s to my sisters could play tennis with Johnny Wade--honest, that fellow is there all the time. He's got a machine, but I never saw it. I guess maybe it's a sewing machine, hey?

Now I didn't know how much money Mr. Bennett gave Mr. Ellsworth. All I know is that when the fellows came back they had everything for Skinny, or most everything. Because they came up to Camp Solitaire (that's the tent I have on our lawn) and we opened the whole business. Pee-wee was there and the first thing we knew he Was shouting that there wasn't any beltaxe.

"We used all the money we had," Westy said "and it isn't worth while asking Mr. Bennett for any more, even if there's one or two things missing."

Oh, jiminy, Pee-wee went up in the air. "Why didn't you get a belt-axe,"

he shouted; "don't you know a belt-axe is the most important thing of all? It's the sign of the scout! It's more important than the uniform."

"He'd look nice going down Main Street with a belt-axe and no uniform,"

I said; "you're crazy on the subject of belt-axes. What's the matter, are you afraid Hindenberg is going to invade Bridgeboro? You should worry about a belt-axe. Wait till he's a tenderfoot."

"That shows how much you know about scouting," he yelled; "the belt-axe is the emblem of the woods."

"The which?', Westy said.

"The emblem of the woods," he hollered at the top of his voice. "You have to have a belt-axe first of all. It's more important than the Handbook.

It means woodcraft and--and--and all that sort of stuff!"

Well, first I just laughed at him and jollied him along, because I know how crazy he is about things like that--he'd wear every badge in the Hand.

book on his chest if he had the chance. And he's always getting new suits and things, because his father is rich. Pee-wee's all right only he's daffy about all the scout stuff that you see in the pictures and he always has his belt-axe dragging on his belt, even when he's home, as if he expected to chop down all the telegraph poles on Main Street.

"You have belt-axes on the brain," Westy told him.

"He's got them on the belt anyway," I said.

"You ask Mr. Ellsworth about it and see what he says," Ralph Warner said. "He'll tell you it's better for Skinny to wait till he can earn a little money and then buy a belt-axe. There's time enough."

"Sure he would," I said, because I know just how Mr. Ellsworth feels about things like that. And for all I know, maybe he didn't want Skinny to have everything at the start, just so as he would be able to get some things all by himself later. Because Mr. Ellsworth thinks that's the best way. Of course, we always jollied Pee-wee about his belt-axe and about wearing his scout-knife and his drinking cup hanging from his belt right home in Bridgeboro, as if he was in South Africa, and Mr. Ellsworth always said he was the typical scout--that's the word he used--typical.

But now I began to think maybe it would cause some trouble and I hoped he wouldn't be giving Skinny any of that kind of talk. But he did just the same, and it made a lot of trouble. Pee-wee's all right, but I don't care if he knows what I said, because it's true.

On Monday we had it fixed for Skinny to come up to Camp Solitaire, and Westy and I would teach him some stuff out of the Handbook. Then we were going to give him the new stuff so he could put it on, because we wanted him to feel good--you know what I mean--when he went to meeting. We didn't want him to feel different from the other fellows. But usually we don't do that until a fellow takes the oath first.

Oh, boy, but wasn't he proud when we put the khaki suit on him, and fixed the hat on his head. He smiled in that funny way he had that always made me feel kind of bad, because it made his face look all thin. And he was awful bashful and scared, but anyway, he was proud, I could see that.

So then I opened the Handbook to page 59, where there's a picture of a scout standing straight, making the full salute, and I told him he should stand straight and try to look just like that. He said, "I ain't fat enough," but I told him not to mind, but just to look at that picture and he'd know how he looked as a boy scout.

"How soon will I be one?" he said. And I told him pretty soon.

Now I thought about that picture early in the morning and I made up my mind I would show it to him when he got dressed up. You can bet he didn't look very much like it but a lot I cared about that, as long as it made him feel good. So early in the morning before he came, I took my two dollar bill (that's my allowance my father always gives me Monday morning) and put it in the Handbook at page 59, so that I could find the place all right.

After I showed the picture to Skinny I shut the Handbook because I wouldn't need it any more and I laid the two dollar bill down on the table in a hurry, because I wanted to straighten Skinny's belt and fix his collar right and make him look as good as I could. Anyway I laid an oar-lock on the bill so it wouldn't blow away. I've got two nickel-plated oar-locks that my patrol gave me on troop birthday, and I keep them in my tent except when I go to camp.

Westy was telling Skinny how fine he looked and, oh, gee, Skinny was happy, you could see that. Of course, he didn't look very good, I have to admit it, but he had a smile a mile long.

"You're all right," I told him, "all you have to do is to stand up straight and think about scouting and the oath and the laws, and then you'll look like one."

Then he said, "I have to have one of those axes, don't I?"

"You should worry about an axe," I said! "You didn't see one in the picture did you?"

"Wasn't it because the boy in the picture was facing me, and you wear the axe in back, don't you?"

"Don't you worry," I told him, "I know that fellow in the picture and he hasn't got one on."

"One of your scout fellows says you have to have one," he said, kind of timid.

"Good night!" I said to Westy, "Pee-wee's been at it."

"He knows, too," Skinny said.

"You mean that little fellow?" I said. "Has he been talking to you?"

"Yes," he said.

"Forget it," I told him! "If that kid had his picture taken he'd stand with his back to the camera so as to show his belt-axe. If he had the Gold Cross he'd pin it on the end of his nose so everybody'd see it.

The princ.i.p.al thing to wear is the scout smile, you take it from me.

When you see Mr. Ellsworth to-night you ask him about the belt-axe and go by what he says. That's the one to go to--your scoutmaster."

"But anyway it's in the book about the axe," he said, and oh, gee, I could see how he fell for that axe. I don't know, it was something about it, I supposen "It's all right for a tree to fall for an axe, but don't you," I said. That was a joke.

"You got to have one when you go chopping trees, haven't you?" he asked me.