Tom Slade at Black Lake Part 2

One thing he did win for himself as a scout and that was the Gold Cross for life saving, but he didn't know how to wear it, and it was Margaret Eillson who pinned it on for him properly. I think she had a sneaking liking for Tom.

Poor Tom, sometime or other in his stumbling career he had probably gotten out of the wrong side of his bed, or perhaps he was born on a Friday. That was what Roy and the scouts always said.

And so you see, here he was back from the big sc.r.a.p with nothing to show for it but a case of sh.e.l.l-shock, and you don't have bandages or crutches for sh.e.l.l-shock. There was young Lieut. Rossie Bent who worked downstairs in the bank, who had come home with two fingers missing and all of the girls had fallen at his feet and Tom had had to salute him.

But there was nothing missing about Tom--except his wits and his grip on himself, sometimes.

But no one noticed this particularly, unless it was Mr. Burton and Margaret Ellison, and certainly no one made a fuss over him on account of it. Why should anybody make a hero of a young fellow just because he is not quite sure of himself in crossing the street, and because his mouth twitches? Boy scouts are both observant and patriotic, but they could not see that there was anything _missing_ about Tom. All they had noticed was that in resuming his duties at the office he had seemed to be drifting away from them--from the troop. And when he came on Friday nights, just to sit and hear Roy jolly Peewee and to enjoy their simple nonsense, they thought he was "different since he had come back from France"--perhaps just a little, you know, _uppish_.

It would have been a lucky thing for Tom, and for everybody concerned, if Mr. Ellsworth, scoutmaster, had been at home instead of away on a business trip; for he would have understood.

But of course, things couldn't have gone that way--not with Lucky Luke.

CHAPTER V

ABOUT SEEING A THING THROUGH

But there was one lucky thing that Tom had done, once upon a time. He had hit Pete Connegan plunk on the head with a rotten tomato.

That was before the war; oh, long, long before. It was a young war all by itself. It happened when Tom was a hoodlum and lived with his drunken father in Barrel Alley. And in that little affair Tom Slade made a stand. Filthy little hoodlum that he was, instead of running when Pete Connegan got down out of his truck and started after him, he turned and compressed his big mouth and stood there upon his two bare feet, waiting. It was Tom Slade all over--Barrel Alley or No Man's Land--_he didn't run_.

The slime of the tomato has long since been washed off Pete Connegan's face and the tomato is forgotten. But the way that Tom Slade stood there waiting--that meant something. It was worth all the rotten tomatoes in Schmitt's Grocery, where Tom had "acquired" that particular one.

"Phwat are ye standin' there for?" Pete had roared in righteous fury.

Probably he thought that at least Tom might have paid him that tribute of respect of fleeing from his wrath.

"'Cause I ain't a goin' ter run, that's why," Tom had said.

Strange to relate, Pete Connegan did not kill him. For a moment he stood staring at his ragged a.s.sailant and then he said, "Be gorry, ye got some nerve, annyhow."

"If I done a thing I'd see it through, I would; I ain't scared," Tom had answered.

"If ye'll dance ye'll pay the fiddler, hey?" his victim had asked in undisguised admiration....

Oh well, it was all a long time ago and the only points worth remembering about it are that Tom Slade didn't run, that he was ready to see the thing through no matter if it left him sprawling in the gutter, and that he and the burly truck driver had thereafter been good friends. Now Tom was an ex-scout and a returned soldier and Pete was janitor of the big bank building.

He was sweeping off the walk in front of the bank as Tom pa.s.sed in.

"h.e.l.lo, Tommy boy," he said cheerily. "How are ye these days?"

"I'm pretty well," Tom said, in the dull matter-of-fact way that he had, "only I get mixed up sometimes and sometimes I forget."

"Phwill ye evver fergit how you soaked me with the tomater?" Pete asked, leaning on his broom.

"It wasn't hard, because I was standing so near," Tom said, always anxious to belittle his own skill.

"Yer got a mimory twinty miles long," Pete said, by way of discounting Tom's doubts of himself. "I'm thinkin' ye don't go round with the scout boys enough."

"I go Friday nights," Tom said.

"Fer why don't ye go up ter Blakeley's?"

"I don't know," Tom said.

"That kid is enough ter make annybody well," Pete said.

"His folks are rich," Tom said.

That was just it. He was an odd number among these boys and he knew it.

Fond of them as he had always been, and proud to be among them, he had always been different, and he knew it. It was the difference between Barrel Alley and Terrace Hill. He knew it. It had not counted for so much when he had been a boy scout with them; good scouts that they were, they had taken care of that end of it. But, you see, he had gone away a scout and come back not only a soldier, but a young man, and he could not (even in his present great need) go to Roy's house, or Grove Bronson's house, or up to the big Bennett place on just the same familiar terms as before. They thought he didn't want to when in fact he didn't know how to.

"Phwen I hurd ye wuz in the war," Pete said, "I says ter meself, I says, 'that there lad'll make a stand.' I says it ter me ould woman. I says, says I, 'phwat he starts he'll finish if he has ter clane up the whole uv France.' That's phwat I said. I says if he makes a bull he'll turrn the whole wurrld upside down to straighten things out. I got yer number all roight, Tommy. Get along witcher upstairs and take the advice of Doctor Pete Connegan--get out amongst them kids more."

I dare say it was good advice, but the trouble was that Lucky Luke was probably born on a Friday, and there was no straightening _that_ out.

As to whether he would turn the world upside down to straighten out some little error, perhaps Pete was right there, too. Roy Blakeley had once said that if Tom dropped his scout badge out of a ten-story window, he'd jump out after it. Indeed that _would_ have been something like Tom.

Anyway the saying was very much like Roy.

CHAPTER VI

"THE WOODS PROPERTY"

When Tom reached the office he took a few matters in to Mr. Burton.

"Well, how are things coming on?" his superior asked him cheerily.

"Getting back in line, all right? This early spring weather ought to be a tonic to an old scout like you. Here--here's a reminder of spring and camping for you. Here's the deed for the woods property at last--a hundred and ninety acres more for Temple Camp. We'll be as big as New York pretty soon, when we get some of that timber down, and some new cabins up.

"I'm glad we got it," Tom said.

"Well, I should hope," Mr. Burton came back at him. "That's off the Archer farm, you know. Gift from Mr. Temple. Runs right up to the peak of the hill--see?"

Tom looked at the map of the new Temple Camp property, which almost doubled the size of the camp and at the deed which showed the latest generous act of the camp's benevolent founder.

"Next summer, if we have the price, we'll put up a couple of dozen new cabins on that hill and make a bid for troops from South Africa and China; what do you say? This should be put in the safe and, let's see, here are some new applications--Michigan, Virginia--Temple Camp is getting some reputation in the land."

"I had an application from Ohio yesterday," Tom said; "a three-patrol troop. I gave them the cabins on the hill. They're a season troop."

Mr. Burton glanced suddenly at Tom, then began whistling and drumming his fingers on the desk. He seemed on the point of saying something in this connection, but all he did say was, "You find pleasure and relaxation in the work, Tom?"

"It's next to camping to be here," Tom said.