The Boy Scout | Page 2

boy with bare knees, passed at "half
speed," Jimmie stiffened his shoulders and stepped jauntily forward.
Even when the joy-riders mocked with "Oh, you Scout!" he smiled at
them. He was willing to admit to those who rode that the laugh was on
the one who walked. And he regretted--oh, so bitterly--having left the
train. He was indignant that for his "one good turn a day" he had not
selected one less strenuous. That, for instance, he had not assisted a
frightened old lady through the traffic. To refuse the dime she might
have offered, as all true scouts refuse all tips, would have been easier
than to earn it by walking five miles, with the sun at ninety-nine
degrees, and carrying excess baggage. Twenty times James shifted the

valise to the other hand, twenty times he let it drop and sat upon it.
And then, as again he took up his burden, the Good Samaritan drew
near. He drew near in a low gray racing-car at the rate of forty miles an
hour, and within a hundred feet of Jimmie suddenly stopped and
backed toward him. The Good Samaritan was a young man with white
hair. He wore a suit of blue, a golf cap; the hands that held the wheel
were disguised in large yellow gloves. He brought the car to a halt and
surveyed the dripping figure in the road with tired and uncurious eyes.
"You a Boy Scout?" he asked.
With alacrity for the twenty-first time Jimmie dropped the valise,
forced his cramped fingers into straight lines, and saluted.
The young man in the car nodded toward the seat beside him.
"Get in," he commanded.
When James sat panting happily at his elbow the old young man, to
Jimmie's disappointment, did not continue to shatter the speed limit.
Instead, he seemed inclined for conversation, and the car, growling
indignantly, crawled.
"I never saw a Boy Scout before," announced the old young man. "Tell
me about it. First, tell me what you do when you're not scouting."
Jimmie explained volubly. When not in uniform he was an office-boy
and from pedlers and beggars guarded the gates of Carroll and Hastings,
stockbrokers. He spoke the names of his employers with awe. It was a
firm distinguished, conservative, and long-established. The
white-haired young man seemed to nod in assent.
"Do you know them?" demanded Jimmie suspiciously. "Are you a
customer of ours?"
"I know them," said the young man. "They are customers of mine."
Jimmie wondered in what way Carroll and Hastings were customers of

the white-haired young man. Judging him by his outer garments,
Jimmie guessed he was a Fifth Avenue tailor; he might be even a
haberdasher. Jimmie continued. He lived, he explained, with his mother
at One Hundred and Forty-sixth Street; Sadie, his sister, attended the
public school; he helped support them both, and he now was about to
enjoy a well-earned vacation camping out on Hunter's Island, where he
would cook his own meals and, if the mosquitoes permitted, sleep in a
tent.
"And you like that?" demanded the young man. "You call that fun?"
"Sure!" protested Jimmie. "Don't you go camping out?"
"I go camping out," said the Good Samaritan, "whenever I leave New
York."
Jimmie had not for three years lived in Wall Street not to understand
that the young man spoke in metaphor.
"You don't look," objected the young man critically, "as though you
were built for the strenuous life."
Jimmie glanced guiltily at his white knees.
"You ought ter see me two weeks from now," he protested. "I get all
sunburnt and hard--hard as anything!"
The young man was incredulous.
"You were near getting sunstroke when I picked you up," he laughed.
"If you're going to Hunter's Island why didn't you take the Third
Avenue to Pelham Manor?"
"That's right!" assented Jimmie eagerly. "But I wanted to save the ten
cents so's to send Sadie to the movies. So I walked."
The young man looked his embarrassment.
"I beg your pardon," he murmured.

But Jimmie did not hear him. From the back of the car he was dragging
excitedly at the hated suitcase.
"Stop!" he commanded. "I got ter get out. I got ter walk."
The young man showed his surprise.
"Walk!" he exclaimed. "What is it--a bet?"
Jimmie dropped the valise and followed it into the roadway. It took
some time to explain to the young man. First, he had to be told about
the scout law and the one good turn a day, and that it must involve
some personal sacrifice. And, as Jimmie pointed out, changing from a
slow suburban train to a racing-car could not be listed as a sacrifice. He
had not earned the money, Jimmie argued; he had only avoided paying
it to the railroad. If he did