The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw | Page 6

penetrate. What do you think?"
"It's the dandiest idea I ever heard!" exclaimed Warren, his face lighting. "We will have to depend on passing the word to them as we find them here and there, but it's the only thing to do, so let's go to it."
"First the workman's clothes," said Ivan.
"Assuredly!" exclaimed the Professor. "Let us disguise ourselves and go forth. I know that we will find the dear children playing near the corner."
"Father, you must stay here," said Warren, determination in his voice.
"Of course not; of course not!" said the Professor. "Do you expect me to sit idly here while my youngest child needs my protection?"
A smile as sad as tears crossed Evelyn's pale face. "You must stay here, father," she said. "You would certainly get lost, and then we would have to hunt for you. It has happened so before, you know."
"That was very different," said the Professor. "A man uses all his powers of concentration at times, and if it has happened that I have occasionally been so intent on my studies of Warsaw's past history that I have for the time forgotten my surroundings, it is scarcely to be wondered at. The present occasion is different. You will need a man, with a man's wisdom, and a man's ability to act quickly. I must go; I am ready."
Warren, knowing his father's stubbornness, hesitated. Catching his sister's eye, she shook her head slightly. Professor Morris was scrambling to his feet, still clasping his book.
Warren led his father around the narrow aisle that ran between the great machines, until they were alone. Then he spoke.
"Father," he said, "you cannot go. Today has made a man of me. I am sorry, father, but we children are the ones who are always the victims of your forgetfulness, and we have suffered many times before today. This is the worst of all. Perhaps we shall never see our little Elinor again; and I am the one who promised mother when she died that I would always look out for her. It is my fault that she is lost. I should have known better than to have left her with you, but I meant to see the others safely here, and get back before you started.
"I know you, father; you mean to do the right thing by us always, but I certainly don't know what would happen if we did not look out for you as well as ourselves." His voice trembled. "I know this does not sound like proper talk from a boy to his father; but I've got to say it for once. I promise that I'll never speak so to you again, but I'm going to get it out of my system this time. Since I can remember we have been looking out for you. We have had to take care of you and help you remember your meal times, and your rubbers, and your hat, and overcoat and gloves and necktie. We have had to see that you went to bed, and ate and got up and everything else. And all because of books. It makes you sore at me because I hate them. I ought to hate them! Your writing and reading and studying have been the curse of our lives. I tell you, father, it has been just as bad as any other bad habit or appetite. Why, when you are reading up for some article or digging into some musty old work, you are dead to everything else. And we have had to suffer for it. Do you think any other man you know would have left those children a minute in a time like this?"
He paused and once more pressed a hand carefully on the red stain across his fair hair.
"Oh, you must forgive me for talking so, dad, but I'm pretty sore. Little Elinor --" He turned sharply, and hurried away to Ivan. The three boys hurried down the steep stairs and disappeared. Professor Morris for a moment, a long, dazed moment, stood looking blankly at the dark doorway through which his son had disappeared. Then he sank weakly down on a bench.
As a boy and as a man, he had been noted for his ability to memorize remarks.
In college the worst of the lectures, no matter how dry, had been all imprinted on his mind. Now as he sat thinking, he could fairly see his son's accusing words like large print before his eyes.
For once in his life Benjamin Morris had heard the plain truth from the lips of his favorite son. Yet he did not realize the seriousness of his son's charge. He had heard the words, but their real meaning did not seem to pierce his brain, so filled with knowledge that there was no room there for any interest