"I want to get a stamped envelope," he said.
At the writing shelf he tore a sheet out of his scout blank book and wrote:
"DEAR ROSCOE:
"I got your letter and I"m glad you got registered and that n.o.body knows. If you had told, it would have spoiled it all.
"I see I did get misjudged, and if they want to think that I tell lies and break promises, let them think so. As long as they think that, anyway, I"ve decided I will go and help the government in a way I can do without breaking my word to anybody.
"You can see, yourself, I"m not one of the kind that tells lies.
"I"ve got my mind made up now; I made it up all of a sudden like, as long as that"s what they think. So I"m not coming back to Bridgeboro. I"m going away somewhere else. The thing I care most about is that you got registered. And next to that I"m glad because it helped us to get to be friends, because I like you and I always did, even when you made fun of me.
"Your friend, "TOM."
He put the letter in his pocket, thinking it would be better to mail it from New York. Then he went out and over to where young Archer was sitting.
"I"ve decided I"ll go if you can get me a job," he said "and if you"re sure I don"t have to tell them I"m eighteen. Maybe you wouldn"t call it being in the war exactly, but----"
"Sure you would," Archer interrupted, with great alacrity, "I"ll tell you something I didn"t tell you before, but you have to keep your mouth shut. We"re going to be a transport pretty soon--as soon as the boys begin coming out of the camps. We"ll be taking them over by the thousands around next November--you see!"
"Do you think they"ll take me?" Tom asked.
"They"ll grab you--you see!"
To be sure, this a.s.surance of a job was not on very high authority, but it was quite like Tom to place implicit confidence in what this engaging young stranger told him. His faith in people was unbounded.
He sat down on the carriage step beside Archer as if there were nothing extreme or unusual in his momentous decision, and with his usual air of indifference waited for the trolley car which would take them to the station at Catskill Landing.
"What d"you say we hit up a couple more apples?" said Archer.
"Will you have plenty left for Tommy Walters?" said Tom.
"Sure! I got enough to last him right through the danger zone."
"Through the danger zone," Tom mused.
For a few minutes they sat munching their apples in silence.
"There"s two reasons," said Tom abruptly. "One is because I just got a letter that shows people think I"m a liar and break promises. The other is on account of what you told me about that little girl. If we take food and things over now and take soldiers over later, I guess that"s helping, all right. Anyway, it"s better than making badges. In another year I"ll be eighteen, and then----"
"Here comes the car," said Archibald Archer.
CHAPTER XIV
TOM GETS A JOB
The momentous step which Tom had resolved to take did not appear to agitate his stolid nature in the least. Nor did he give any sign of feeling disappointment or resentment. His whole simple faith was in young Archer now, and he trusted him implicitly.
He sat in the train, sometimes looking straight ahead and sometimes out at the beautiful Hudson where he had spent so many happy hours in the troop"s cabin launch, the _Good Turn_.
After a while he said abruptly, "If a feller does what"s right and does a good turn and he gets misjudged, then after that he"s got a right to do as he pleases."
His companion did not offer any comment upon this, but looked at Tom rather curiously.
After about ten minutes of silence, Tom observed: "I like mysteries; I"m glad we don"t know where we"re going. It makes it like a book, kind of.
I hope the captain won"t tell me."
"You can trust him for that," said Archer; "don"t worry!"
If mystery was what Tom craved, he soon had enough to satisfy him.
Indeed, no author of twenty-five-cent thrillers could possibly produce such an atmosphere of mystery as he found when he and young Archer reached the pier in New York.
The steamship company, aided and abetted by Uncle Sam, had enshrouded the whole prosy business of loading and sailing with a delightful covering of romance, and Tom realized, as he approached the sacred precincts, that the departure of a vessel to-day is quite as much fraught with perilous and adventurous possibilities as was the sailing of a Spanish galleon in the good old days of yore.
A high board fence protected the pier from public gaze, and as Tom read the glaring recruiting posters which decorated it he felt that, even if his part in the war fell short of actual military service, he was at last about to do something worth while--something which would involve the risk of his life.
A little door in the big fence stood open and by it sat a man on a stool. Two other men stood near him and all three eyed the boys shrewdly.
"This is the first barbed-wire entanglement," said Archer, as they approached. "You keep your mouth shut, but if you have to answer any questions, tell "em the truth. These guys are spotters."
"What?" said Tom, a little uneasy.
"Secret Service men--they can tell if your great-grandfather was German."
"He wasn"t," said Tom.
"h.e.l.lo, you old spiff-head!" said Archer to the gate-keeper, at the same time laying down his satchel with an air of having done the same thing before. The two Secret Service men opened it and rummaged among its contents, one of them helping himself to an apple.
"You bloomin" grafter!" said Archibald.
"That"s all right, Archie," said the other man, likewise helping himself. "It"s good to see your smiling phiz back again. Who"s your friend?"
"He"s goin" in to see the steward," said Archer, "I told him I"d get a feller for the butcher----"
"All the pa.s.ses are taken up," said the gate-man, as he took Archer"s pa.s.s. "Everybody"s on board, and there"s n.o.body needed."
"Oh, is that so?" said Archer derisively. "Just because everybody"s on board it don"t prove n.o.body"s needed. I didn"t say there was any vacancies."
"He"ll only come back out again," said the gate-keeper.
"Oh, will he?" said Archer ironically.