Читать книгу Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 6

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The concerted assault which the scouts made upon their parents for permission to proceed with their plan ended in a compromise. Late that same afternoon Mr. Ellsworth, scoutmaster of the troop, drove up to the old camp in his auto and looked over the situation. He talked with Blythe also and was evidently not unfavorably impressed, for he returned to Bridgeboro quite converted to the enterprise.

“He’s a queer kind of a duck,” he said to Mr. Blakeley, referring to Blythe. “I think he’s out of luck and rather discouraged. He doesn’t say much. I think he took this job in desperation not knowing exactly how he was going to go ahead with it. He expects to get three hundred dollars for what he’s undertaken. He means to divide evenly, he said, but of course that will leave him with only twelve dollars, if the whole troop goes up. He doesn’t seem to have any grasp of things at all.

“I proposed to him that he keep one hundred dollars for himself and give the boys the other two hundred. This fellow has lost his grip and I doubt if he’ll do much work, but of course it’s his job. It’s as much to help him as anything else that I’d like to see the troop go up there. It ought to be fun camping in the ramshackle old place; I’d rather like it myself.”

“This Blythe, he doesn’t belong around these parts, does he?” Mr. Blakeley asked.

“No, I believe not, but I think he’s all right. I size him up for a disheartened member of the big army of unemployed who stumbled on this opportunity. He has a look in his eyes that goes to my heart. He needs to be out-of-doors, that’s sure. If the troop doesn’t give him a hand he’ll have to pass it up. The boys want a little money and here’s a good chance to earn it and do a good turn at the same time.”

“You liked him, eh?” Mr. Blakeley asked.

“Yes, on the whole I did. He’s an odd case and I can’t altogether make him out, but I liked him. I don’t think he’s very well, for one thing.”

“Well I guess it’s a good chance for the boys,” Mr. Blakeley said.

That, indeed, was the consensus of opinion of the men higher up and there was another demonstration of the remarkable power which the scouts had over their parents.

“We know how to manage them all right,” said Pee-wee to Roy. “I told your father I’d see that you got back all safe; I told him to leave it to me.”

Pee-wee’s responsibilities, according to his own account, were many and various. He promised Doc Carson’s mother that he would personally see to it that Doc wore his sweater at night. He gave his word to Mr. Hollister that Warde would not over-eat—Pee-wee was an authority on that subject. He distributed his promises and undertook obligation with a generosity that only a boy scout can show. He advised Mrs. Benton, Dorry’s mother, not to worry, that her son should be the subject of his especial care.

He magnanimously volunteered to be responsible for the safety of the whole troop. And he announced that Mr. Ellsworth’s judgment was the same as his own precisely.

With such assurances the troops’ parents could not do otherwise than surrender unconditionally, and Pee-wee of the Ravens was the hero, the George Washington, of the expedition.

At all events he carried his little hatchet with him, and it pulled on his belt so that he had to be continually hoisting it up and tightening his belt so that before the expeditionary forces had gone far he looked not unlike a bolster tied in the middle.