Then I took all the stuff into the galley and put it in the food locker. I was just crunching up the newspaper that they brought the corn in, and was going to throw it out of the window, when I saw a heading that read: _Fishermen Have Harrowing Adventure_. Oh, boy, didn"t I sit down on the barrel and read that article through! First, I looked to see the date of the paper and I saw it was a couple of days old. After I read that article I cut it out, because I knew I was going to tell you about all these things. So here it is now for you to read:
FISHERMEN HAVE HARROWING ADVENTURE
The fishing schooner Stella B arrived in port to-day with two castaways, who had drifted for three days in an open boat in the stormy waters off Rockaway. The two men, Mike Corby and Dan McCann, hail from Jersey, and were carried out to sea in their twenty-two foot launch from about a mile south of Sea Gate, where they were fishing.
Their engine broke down and their small boat, beaten by the waves, was leaking rapidly when they were picked up. One of the men was unconscious from lack of nourishment and the other in a state of utter exhaustion from bailing, in an all but futile effort to keep the frail little craft above water. After being resuscitated, one of the men gave a vague account of having encountered a waterlogged life-boat containing several people who had perished from exposure, and of certain papers and possessions found on one of them.
Later when a reporter made an effort to see the men for confirmation of this statement, neither could be found. Both are said to have carried considerable money on their persons, but this was explained by the exceptionally large catches of fish which they sold, during their fishing trip. No means of tracing them is known since the boat, in which one of them resumed his journey home after repairs, had no license number.
Maybe you think I didn"t read that article twice. And it made me wonder a lot of things about that fishing trip. One thing, it looked as if they might have had more adventures than Lieutenant Donnelle had told me about, and maybe he didn"t want to tell me everything--that"s what I thought. Anyway, he didn"t say anything about a life-boat, that"s sure.
But maybe he forgot to.
Just the same I wondered if maybe he had any other reason for being in such a hurry and so excited, kind of. Then I remembered how he said he would tell me all about it some day. Anyway, I said, he"s had a lot of adventures, that"s sure. You bet I"d like to have a lot of adventures like that.
CHAPTER V
TELLS ABOUT SKINNY"S MERIT BADGE
The next day was Sunday and two things happened, not counting dinner.
Early in the morning we drew lots to see who"d be deck steward for the day, and Skinny was the one. That meant he"d have to sweep up the deck and wipe the rail and do everything outside like that. Anyway, there wasn"t much to do.
At about twelve o"clock I went into the galley to cook dinner and Charlie Seabury and Brick Warner went along to help me. While we were peeling the potatoes, Skinny came in and showed me three or four dimes and some pennies, and said he found them on the deck, when he was sweeping. He said, "I"ve been to every fellow in the troop and n.o.body lost any money. Are they yours?"
I told him no and so did Brick and Charlie and we said he had better give them to Mr. Ellsworth. "One of them is a French coin," Brick said, and he showed it to me and I saw that it was.
"I guess one of the fellows dropped some change climbing over the rail," Charlie said, "and maybe didn"t miss it on account of not losing all he had, hey?"
"He"d know if he had a French coin and lost it," Brick said.
It made me feel kind of funny, because all the while I knew where those coins came from. Anyway, Skinny went and gave them to Mr. Ellsworth and when we were all together at dinner, Mr. Ellsworth asked us if any fellow owned a French coin that was missing. n.o.body said yes, and then he said, kind of funny like, "Well, I suppose this is what our young friend Mr. Walter Harris would call a mystery," and he said we"d put the money in the troop treasury. Then he gave it to Will Dawson (he"s in my patrol), because Will is troop treasurer.
Somebody said, "How about the French coin? That"s no use in the treasury." And Mr. Ellsworth said we"d give that to Skinny, because he found the money. He said it would be a kind of a merit badge to Skinny, for keeping his eyes open.
I was mighty glad Mr. Ellsworth didn"t ask us if anybody knew anything about the money, because then--jiminy, I don"t know what I would have done. Maybe it would have been all right to keep still because I wasn"t _dead_ sure whose it was. But all the while I knew I _was_ sure. Maybe I would have said I knew only I didn"t want to tell, hey? Anyway, he didn"t ask and that was one good thing.
After dinner Skinny came to me all smiles and said, "I"ve got a merit badge, it"s for keeping my eyes open, and will you bore a hole in it so I can wear it around my neck?" Oh, but that kid was happy.
I said, "Did you have a good dinner, kiddo?" And he said, "Yes, but will you bore a hole in it so I can wear it around my neck?" He looked awful thin and his scout suit didn"t fit him and his belt wasn"t tight enough and he didn"t look anything like pictures you see of scouts--you know what I mean. And when he smiled it made wrinkles in his cheeks.
One thing sure, he was different from all the rest of the fellows. Even if it was only a little thing that he was interested in, he got all excited about it, and his eyes got all bright and if he grabbed you by the arm you could feel that his hand was trembling--he"d be so excited.
We made a lot of allowance for him, because he was sick and came out of the slums, but anyway, one trouble with him was, that Mr. Ellsworth couldn"t make him study up scouting the way other fellows do. All of a sudden he"d go crazy for the gold medal or the eagle badge and you couldn"t tell him that a fellow has to get to be a first cla.s.s scout, before he can be an eagle scout. "He wants what he wants when he wants it," that"s what Mr. Ellsworth said, and he only just laughed and said, "He"ll hammer into shape all right, let him enjoy the trip."
And it was just like him--I mean about that French coin. He was always coming to me, too, as if I was scoutmaster and everything else. He began clutching me by the arm and saying, "I got it for keeping my eyes open, didn"t I? I got it for being honest and asking all the scout guys, didn"t I?"
I had to just pull his hand off my arm, he was holding so fast to it.
Cracky, I didn"t know what to tell him. Then I said, "I tell you what you do Alf." (I wasn"t going to be calling him Skinny,) I said, "You go and ask Vic Norris if he"s got an awl or a small gimlet--see? Then I"ll fix it for you." Vic had charge of the locker where we kept the lights and oil and tools and all that kind of stuff.
Pretty soon he came back with an awning needle and asked me if it would do. I think he would have gone crazy if I had told him no.
I said, "Yes, I guess so. Come ahead, and let go my arm, do you hear?
I"m not going to run away."
Then he said, "I like you better than any of the scout guys."
"We"re not guys, we"re just scouts," I told him; "you can cut out the guys. Didn"t Mr. Ellsworth tell you that?"
The fellows were sitting around on the deck, reading. Some of them were sprawling around on the cabin roof, killing time and jollying Pee-wee.
I don"t know where Mr. Ellsworth was, but I guess he was inside writing letters. Anyway, it was nice and sunny and you could see the sun in the water. Over on sh.o.r.e, in St. George, I could hear a church bell and it sounded clear. There weren"t many boats out, except sometimes the boats to Coney Island went by and we could hear the music. I thought I"d rather be where I was, anyway. Maybe it was because it was Sunday and because it was so still all around that I had a good idea. Anyway, I thought it was a good idea, but _good night_, it got me into a kind of a sc.r.a.pe.
That"s one thing about me, I"m always getting in sc.r.a.pes.
So then I took Skinny and we climbed in through the galley window. I guess n.o.body noticed us; n.o.body said anything except El Sawyer. He asked me if I was going to get supper.
"Supper!" I said. "Didn"t you just have dinner?" Honest, that fellow never thinks of anything except eats.
When we got into the galley, I said to Skinny, "Let"s sit up on the board so we can look out and see the bay." So we sat on the board that was on two barrels. I used it to open cans on and slice bread and all that. And I always washed it good and clean, you can bet. Oh, but it was nice sitting there and it was just as quiet as it is in the woods.
Sometimes a motor boat would go by and we could hear it chugging.
"One thing, n.o.body"ll bother us here," I said, "some fellows don"t like Sunday, but I do."
Skinny said, "I like Christmas best, because rich people bring baskets of food."
Cracky, I felt awful sorry for him.
CHAPTER VI
TELLS HOW SKINNY AND I GOT TOGETHER
First I bored a hole in the coin and hung it around Skinny"s neck. He was all excited and said, "Now I"ve got a regular merit badge, ain"t I?"
I said, "No you haven"t, but it"s a good badge, all right" Then I said, "Now I"m going to tell you some things about merit badges. You get merit badge because you"re able to do special things, see? You get them for being able to do things that some other fellows can"t do--kind of.
Not exactly that," I told him, "because most fellows can do the things if they try hard enough. But, anyway, there isn"t any merit badge for keeping your eyes open. Mr. Ellsworth was only joking about that. And especially you don"t get any merit badge for being honest, because that would be too easy. If you could get one for that, gee-whiz, all the fellows would have them, that"s sure."
He said, "Ain"t it good to be honest?"
I told him sure it was, but it was too easy and that all the scouts were honest anyway, even without badges. Then I said, "If you wore that on account of being honest, that would insult all the other fellows, wouldn"t it?" He just stared at me, but didn"t say anything. "So you have to be careful," I told him, "not to be saying that you have a reward for being honest, see?"
Then I told him about there not being any badge for keeping his eyes open and finding things. "But there"s a badge for something else like that," I said, "only you can"t get it yet, because you have to learn a lot of things first, and it"s a lot of fun learning them, too."
He said, "Can I learn them right now?"
I said, "No, but you"ll learn a lot of them up in camp." Then I told them that the one that had most to do with keeping his eyes open was the stalking badge. So then I got out the Handbook and showed him the picture of it and read him what it said. Gee williger, I don"t see where there was any harm in that, do you? I read him the three conditions and the four sub-divisions.
"So you see, that means keeping your eyes open all right," I told him, "because you have to be all the time watching for signs and tracks in the snow or in the dirt, so as you can tell where a bird went, maybe, and sneak up and watch him."
"That"s one thing I can do," he said, "sneak. I"m a little sneak, everybody said so."