"Don't you pay any attention to him," said Miss Bates.

"I never do," said Pee-wee; "he's crazy, he belongs to a crazy patrol.

If I can get an envelope big enough I'll write everything on it that will help the post office people, and maybe they'll be resourceful, hey?"

"I'll give you the envelope my examination papers came in," said the girl enthusiastically.

"Did you study rhetoric?" Pee-wee demanded.

"Yes, and I just _hate_ it," she said. "Just you wait a minute,"

she added, going into the house. She presently reappeared with an envelope large enough to contain a brief history of the world on its outside, and together she and Pee-wee made up the detailed address which, in Pee-wee's handwriting, was destined to astonish Postmaster Hiram Hicks, of Hicksville, North Carolina.

CHAPTER XV

WITHIN REACH

"Maybe she'll get it, you can't tell," Pee-wee said as they took their way back to camp, the big envelope stuck under his belt, like a death warrant carried by some awful dignitary of old. "Anyway I'm glad we came because it will make Warde a first cla.s.s scout."

Pee-wee was strong for the scouts and the troop even though he looked with a kind of lofty scorn on the Silver Foxes. That Warde should become a first cla.s.s scout was a matter of honest joy to him.

"It was a full seven miles all right," said Roy, referring to the distance mentioned in the test, "so I guess you're as good as in the first cla.s.s. I'm good and tired, I know that. You gave them good measure."

"I bet you're proud," said Pee-wee.

"I bet I am," Warde answered. "I feel like a real scout now. A fellow isn't a real scout till he gets into the first cla.s.s."

"Sprouts and scouts," said Roy.

"When you write up your account don't forget to put down about my talking to that girl," said Pee-wee.

"Oh I'll put everything down, don't you worry," said Warde, clearly elated at the thought that the coveted badge was as good as won. "Do you think I'm going to have Mr. E. going over the ground and putting anything over on me? Not so you'd notice it."

"I bet Blythe will be glad," said Roy.

"Oh boy! Won't he!" vociferated Pee-wee. "I can just see him smiling when I tell him about it," said Warde.

"He knows a lot about scouting since he met me," Pee-wee informed them.

"Anyway, maybe we killed two birds with one stone, hey? Maybe that fellow's mother will get the letter and we know Warde is a first cla.s.s scout."

"That shows what kind of a scout you are," said Roy; "throwing stones at birds."

"You're crazy," Pee-wee said, "that's an adverb."

"You mean a proverb," said Roy. "A lot you know about grammar; you don't know the difference between a proposition and an injunction. He thinks Boys' Life is a musical instrument because it's the scouts' official organ. You're lucky not to be wished onto the Ravens," he said to Warde.

"I'm a full scout, that's all I'm thinking of," Warde laughed.

"Well I'm an empty one," said Roy.

"Same here," Pee-wee shouted.

"I'm glad to see you agree about something," Warde laughed. He felt like laughing. He seemed to walk on air. "I'm an empty one, too," he added.

"Let's hike back through Westwood and get something to eat there."

"Carried by an unanimous majority," said Roy.

It was just exactly like Warde Hollister to give himself up to frank elation at this achievement of full scouthood. For so he regarded it. He had been the only second cla.s.s scout in the troop, and those words _second cla.s.s_ had not been pleasant to his ears. With him it was all or nothing. His thoughts were fixed on high.

To the natural enthusiasm of the new scout was added his own natural enthusiasm and fine, high spirit. He did not want to be a star scout; he must be an eagle scout. He did not want the bronze cross or the silver cross; he would win the gold cross. The tenderfoot and second cla.s.s ranks were not steps _in_ scouting, they were steps to scouting.

And until now he had thought of himself as an outsider. He was wrong in this, of course, but that was Warde Hollister.

Since Warde was in the troop it was a kind of disgrace to the troop and to his patrol that he should not be a first cla.s.s scout. So he thought.

The tests in the handbook he had found not difficult to pa.s.s. In the case of this final one it was just a question of appropriate opportunity. Until this day he had scorned to lay down his work. For that also was a test. You see that all the tests are not in the handbook, and that is the trouble. Wherever a scout goes he b.u.mps into tests which the very wise men who made the handbook never dreamed of.

To pa.s.s a test is one thing. To _stand_ a test is something else.

Little Warde Hollister knew of the great test that awaited him.

CHAPTER XVI

RIGHT SIDE OUT

And so Warde Hollister, with the gateway leading to every merit badge and scout honor now thrown open to him, hiked back with his two companions, and was not weary, for there is no weariness when joy dances in the heart.

Their hike back took them through the pleasant town of Westwood where our young hero with his formidable envelope still stuck in his belt must have looked like an official come to read the riot act or a proclamation or, perchance, to demand a hostage. But they are a fearless race in Westwood and only smiled as the doughty hero pa.s.sed through, and one inquisitive little girl asked her mother why he had his hat on inside out.

The bakery in Westwood was closed so they deferred their refreshment till they should reach the next village southward. Warde did not see much of the town for wherever he looked the first cla.s.s scout badge seemed to be staring him in the face. It loomed up larger than towns and villages.

Their way took them now southward along the Kinderkamack Road with its high terraced houses to the right and to the left the low marshy land stretching away to the river. Along the road they had to pa.s.s several villages before reaching the point where it would be well to leave the road and cut through the country eastward to camp.

Into the post office of one of these places strode Scout Harris. He stamped his letter, dropped it through the slot, then having done his good turn he proceeded to turn his hat right side out, and his conscience was at rest.

So it happened that two or three days later old Mrs. Haskell, in her tumbling-down white house, read the letter which her soldier boy had written her more than two years before. Little did she dream as she laid this reverently away with that blunt, harsh notification of his death, that a scout had taken off his hat to her as scouts do across all those miles and miles of country....

CHAPTER XVII

A REVELATION