Roy Blakeley's roundabout hikeFitzhugh, Percy Keese
General
Roy Blakeley's roundabout hike
Fitzhugh, Percy Keese
Adventure stories; Boy Scouts of America -- Juvenile fiction; Hiking -- Juvenile fiction
Jiminies, but I felt sorry for him. I’ll tell you how it was with Dub,
he was an in-and-outer. That’s a Scout that comes to camp alone without
any troop or anything, and just stays a couple of weeks or so. Some of
them only stay one week. Those fellows have to start home as soon as
they get in with anybody. My troop goes up as soon as school closes and
we stay till school opens. All of a sudden I could see how it was with
Dub. Do you remember how even he kind of didn’t want to go get ice cream
cones in Bagley Center? It was because he only had a little bit of money
and he had to take care of it.
After the way he talked coming back then I knew that all the while he
had really been counting on us getting some kind of a reward. Me, I
should worry about those things. I’m out for fun, not money. And now I
knew he was thinking of some way so he could stay at Temple Camp and go
around with us. That fellow would be an Eagle Scout only for one badge,
but that wouldn’t do him any good about staying at camp. If he saved
some fellow’s life he’d get the Gold Medal, and besides he’d get a
hundred dollars--that’s the Ellen Burnside award for anybody that gets
the Gold Medal. But you don’t see fellows risking their lives every day
in the week. It isn’t like trying for a badge. I felt sorry for him.
I was walking with him ahead of the others and he said, “I suppose you
think I’m crazy. But do they give you that hundred dollars as soon as
you win it?”
I said, “Listen Dub, I’ll tell you, no fooling, how it is. There are
lots of different awards at camp--donations, sort of. But that’s the
only one with money.”
“That’s why I’d like to win it, so I can stay,” he said. “I wonder if
you get the money right away?”
I said, “That wouldn’t make any difference, Dub. I think it isn’t given
out till later. But if a Scout wants to stay the camp will give him
credit for it--that’s easy. Tom Slade--he’s chief scout assistant--he
could fix that for you. But what’s the use counting on that, Dub?”
He said, “I know it.”
“Waiting for somebody to get his life in danger! You might be six months
waiting.”
“And it isn’t such a good thing to be waiting for either; is it?” he
said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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