Roy Blakeley in the Haunted CampFitzhugh, Percy Keese
General
Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp
Fitzhugh, Percy Keese
Boy Scouts of America -- Juvenile fiction
The only other contents of the wallet were a small paper with blanks
filled in, and an engraved calling card. The paper with the blanks
filled in was so smeared from long moisture that the written parts were
undecipherable. The paper was evidently a leave of absence from camp.
The name was utterly blurred out, but by studying the smeared writing in
the space where the date had been written the scouts thought they could
determine the date, or at least part of it. _Sun--1918_ was all
they could be sure of.
But fortunately the calling card appeared to confirm this date. It was a
card of fine quality and beautifully engraved with the name of Helen
Shirley Bates. In the lower left hand corner was engraved Woodcliff, New
Jersey. On the back of the card was written in a free feminine hand
_For dinner Sunday April 14th, 1918. One o'clock._
"What do you make out of it? What does it mean? Who was he anyway?" the
scouts, interrupting each other, asked, as these memorials of an unknown
soldier boy were passed around from hand to hand and eagerly read.
Of all the scouts Westy Martin, of Roy's Patrol, was the soberest and
most thoughtful. He had the most balance. Not that Roy did not have
balance, but he never had much on hand because he was continually losing
it.
"Whoever he was," Westy said, "it looks as if he got a leave of absence
to go to the girl's house for dinner. Going this way would be a shortcut
to Woodcliff. Maybe he was going to take the train up from New Milford."
"I guess he was going to mail the letter to his mother in New Milford,
hey?" Hunt Ward of the Elks suggested.
"Yes, but why didn't he?" Doc Carson asked.
"It's a mystery," said Pee-wee. "Do you know what I'm going to do?"
"Break it to us gently," Roy said.
"Some day soon I'm going to hike to Woodcliff and see that girl and find
out what that soldier's name is and I'm going to send the letter to his
mother."
"What's the use of doing that?" Vic Norris asked. "The soldier has
probably been home two years by now."
"I don't care," Pee-wee insisted; "the letter is to his mother and I'm
going to see that she gets it."
"Are you going to get a soda while you're up at Woodcliff?" Roy asked
him.
"That's all right," Pee-wee said with great vehemence; "if you got a
letter that went astray you'd want it, wouldn't you?"
"You're talking in chunks," Roy said. "Go ahead and see the girl if you
want to. I bet she'll think you're sweet. Only come ahead and let's get
to camp."
"Unanimously carried by a large majority," Dorry Benton said. "Mysteries
aren't going to buy tar-paper for our old car."
"There might have been a thousand dollars in this wallet," Pee-wee
reminded them.
"Except for one thing," Roy said.
"And what's that?" Pee-wee asked.
"That there wasn't," Roy said. "Put it in your pocket and come on."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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