Boy scouts of the Wildcat patrol

Contents

L Peanut Has a Day-Dream . . .13

II. Peanut Stops a P'ight and Umpires a

Ball Game 24

CHAPTER I P EANUT MORRISON was very melancholy

It was a beautiful day in spring, and the apple trees were all in bloom in the orchards, the mountains around Southmead were bright green with new foliage, the touring automobiles had begun to appear on the streets. But Peanut had no eyes for the apple blossoms. He was walking along the street toward his home, with eyes cast down on the ground. High school was out for the day, and Peanut was a Senior. In another month he would be graduated.

And after that ? It was the prospect of the

“ after that which made him melancholy.

Art Bruce, his particular chum, was going away to a forestry school in the autumn. Art had always been the best woodsman in the Southmead Scouts. He knew the animal tracks better than any one else, he knew where the muskrats nested, and the foxes, and where to find mink and “ snow-shoe " rabbits.

He knew all the trees, and all the trails; He was never so happy as when he was in the woods, so when his father asked him what he wanted to do for a living, he replied instantly, “ Be a forester.” So he was going away to study in September, and after that he would get a job, no doubt out in the High Sierras, or somewhere else in the great government forests. Anyhow, Peanut wouldn’t see him any more.

Then there was Lou Merritt. He was going in the fall to the State Agricultural College, to learn to be a fruit grower. Peanut, thinking back over the past, remembered how Lou had once been a sneak, but how scouting and Miss Swain, who had adopted him, between them had made a man of him. Now Miss Swain was going to send him through college.

“Good old Lou I” said Peanut to himself. He wasn’t jealous of Lou, nor of Art. But he was pretty blue that he couldn’t go with them. Even Frank Nichols was going away to study. He was going to a business college for a year. Of course, Rob Evarts was now a Senior in Harvard, and was going on through medical school, but that was to be expected. Rob’s folks were well-to-do. When a fellow’s folks have money, of course it makes a big difference. Peanut reflected. “That is,” he added, “if they’re the right kind of folks.”

He was thinking of another classmate, Dennie

O’Brien. Dennie’s father was rich, as rich as Rob’s. He owned the big garage, and lots of houses, too. But Dennie was going to work in the garage. Peanut had to admit, though, that Dennie would probably rather do that than go to college.

Prattle didn’t count much. He had always been fat and lazy. “ The big stiff I ” Peanut said aloud. Prattle would be lucky if he got through high school, let alone passing any college “ exams.” He’d go to work on his father’s farm.

And what was Peanut himself going to do ? He didn’t know. He only knew that there was no chance for him to go to college. His father was a poor man, who worked by the day. There were several little brothers and sisters who ate a terrible lot and used up their shoes at a fearful rate. Peanut had heard of men earning their way through college, with the help of scholarships, but he was old enough now to realize that he had never really studied in the Southmead High School, and he knew he couldn’t get a scholarship. He thought sadly of what one of his teachers had once said to him — “ Morrison, it’s too bad you have such a quick mind. If it were harder for you to learn, you’d learn a whole lot more.” He hadn’t realized what she meant at the time, but now he knew. He had always got his lessons well enough in half the study period to pass in recitation, and then he had fooled the rest of the period. Lou i6

Merritt had always needed the whole study period, but now Lou was going to graduate as valedictorian, and Peanut wasn’t even going to read an original essay at graduation. He had been assigned a ** piece ” to recite.

Feeling rather shamefaced, he picked up a stone and threw it viciously at a tree across the road. As he hit the tree square in the centre, he felt a little better. His baseball arm was all right, anyhow I

But what was he going to do after graduation ? He’d have to, go to work, of course. His father’d make him. Besides, he didn’t want to be a loafer. “ Scouts aren’t loafers,” he thought to himself. There wasn’t much a fellow could do in Southmead. He could work for the town, hauling gravel on the roads, or he could work for somebody as a gardener, or he could get a job, maybe, as a carpenter. Peanut had always liked manual training in school. He had made a bookcase and a sideboard and a table for his mother. He was good at that. Yes, if he’d got to stay in Southmead and work, he’d be a carpenter I

But that wasn’t what he wanted to be, nevertheless. Art was going to be a forester, and roam in the High Sierras — mountains much higher than Washington and Lafayette ! Rob was going to be a doctor, and he’d have charge some day of a big hospital I Lou was going to learn agriculture, and some day he’d own hundreds of acres of apple orchards.

“ An’ I’ll just stick here and shingle barn roofs I ” Peanut exclaimed aloud. “ Gee, I’d like to beat it somewhere and do something big ! ”

He thought of various big things he would like to do. One of them was to climb higher in the Himalayan Mountains than anybody had ever climbed before. Since the famous hike over the Presidentials the previous summer, Peanut had been reading all the works the public library afforded on mountain climbing. There weren’t many such books in the library, to be sure, but he had read Hudson Stuck’s account of the conquest of Mount McKinley in Alaska, he had read a book about the Alps, and he had pored over the pages of the Wakemans’ book about the Himalayas, the highest mountains in the world.

‘‘ Oh, gee, if I could only go and see them ! ” he sighed, realizing the vanity of hope.

Then he fell to dreaming of a different career. No, he wouldn’t be a great mountain climber, except on vacations. Every two or three years he'd take a long vacation and go climb some very high peak which had never been conquered before (“ conquered ” was the word the books used, and Peanut liked it ; it made the mountain seem like a human antagonist you were fighting with). But in the ini8 terim he would edit a great newspaper. That’s it — he’d be an editor I Ever since the Southmead High School, two years before, had started The Clarion, which came out twice a year, and was full of “ gags ” on the pupils and teachers, of school news and of stories and themes written by the scholars. Peanut had found a new enthusiasm. It was to write items for the paper, and to carry the “ copy ” to the printer in the next town, where he loved to watch the typesetting machines, and to see the printing-press throwing off printed sheets at the back, with its almost human wooden arms. Peanut had been one of the editors in his Senior year, with Frank Nichols as business manager. It had been great fun. He had written himself about half the gags. Now he suddenly realized that what he really wanted to be was a great editor.

He began to dream. He dreamed of being a reporter first, in New York, of rushing around that great city with a note-book in his pocket and interviewing famous men or writing big stories on the front page (with huge head-lines) about fires and subway accidents. Then he would do so well that he’d be made a war correspondent, and go to Europe, and his articles would be signed ! Then he’d become editor of the paper — he’d be “ the whole shootin’ match,” and boss all the reporters and own the great printing-presses and

Bang! Peanut ran smack into a doll carriage, which had been left standing in the middle of the sidewalk. The carriage upset, the doll fell out, and from the yard close by Peanut heard a wail of smallgirlish anguish. He realized at once that it was Mr. Rogers^ little girl, and he was in front of Mr. Rogers’ house, and, as he stooped to pick up the fallen carriage and restore the doll to its seat, he saw the Scout Master coming around the corner of the house.

Peanut tucked in the worsted covering over the doll, which little Marjory Rogers, still sniffling, snatched off again, and put back the other way around, tucking it in carefully about the doll’s legs.

“ Oo dunno how ! ” she cried.

“ Well, well, what’s the matter ? ” asked the Scout Master, coming up and patting the baby on the head.

“ He u’set my dolly carriage ! ” Marjory exclaimed. ‘‘ Poor Angelina fell out right on she head I Boohoo ! ”

“ There, there, Angelina’s all right nov/, she’s not hurt a bit. You take her into the yard and give her some cambric tea,” said Mr. Rogers.

Marjory pushed the carriage in at the gate.

** I’m sorry,” said Peanut. “The carriage was standing right in the middle of the sidewalk, an’ I ran into it. I was — I — well, I guess I was kind of dreaming,” he laughed, rather sheepishly.

“ Dreaming of what?” asked the Scout Master.

“ Well, I was kind o’ dreaming of — of being an editor,” Peanut admitted.

“ What are you going to edit ? ” Mr. Rogers laughed.

“Oh, a newspaper, of course ! ” said Peanut.

“ You want to be a newspaper man, do you ? ” The Scout Master looked at him keenly.

“ Surest thing you know 1 ” Peanut cried. “ Gee, Art’s going to be a forest ranger, and Lou’s going to study to grow apples — he always was nutty about growing things — and Frank’s going into business — and I — I’m just going to stick around here, I guess.”

“ Come into the studio and talk it over,” said Mr. Rogers.

He led the way around the house to his studio, which smelled of oil paints.

“ Now,” said he, sitting down, “ why do you want to be a newspaper man ? ”

“ Why — why, I — I just do 1 ” said Peanut.

Both he and the Scout Master grinned. “ That’s not a very clear statement of your reasons, now is it ? ” laughed the Scout Master. “ It sounds like a woman’s reason.”

“ Well,” said Peanut, hunting around in his head for words to express his feelings, “ you see, I’ve been editing the High School Clarion, and it’s lots o’ fun, and if I was on a newspaper I’d be going around and seeing everything and have a lot o’ fun, and some day I’d be editor — maybe ; and I’d like that^ better’n sticking around here and being a carpenter or something. Gee, it’ll be a dead hole with Art gone away 1 ”

“ What mark did you get in English ? ” the Scout Master asked him.

Peanut shuffled his feet. “Sixty-five per cent.,” he confessed.

“ Do you think an editor would stand for sixty-five per cent. English from his reporters ? ” Mr. Rogers demanded.

“ Oh, gee, I’d work harder if I was on a paper,” the boy replied.

“ But editors don’t keep a school,” the man said.

“ They don’t want to have to teach spelling and punctuation and paragraphing. They expect you to know all those things before you come to them. Do you really think. Peanut, that you’re fitted yet to be a reporter ? ”

Peanut shuffled his feet again and looked very solemn. “ I — I suppose not,” he said. “ But what am I gonna do? I get through high school next month, and pa can’t afford to send me to college. Dunno whether I could get into college, anyhow,” he added honestly. “ Couldn’t I start in on a paper somewhere as — as office boy, or something, and study to be a reporter ? Gee, I’d study hard I ”

Mr. Rogers shook his head. “ You’d have to go to a city, and office boys don’t get more than three, or four, or at most five dollars a week. If you had to pay your board and car-fare out of that I’m afraid you’d find it pretty hard sledding.”

“ Well, what am I going to do ?” said Peanut, his face growing still longer.

“ That’s what we’ve got to work out,” said the Scout Master. “We’ve got to find a way so you can earn some money for the next few months, or a year, so you won’t be a burden on your father, who’s worked hard to put you through high school, and so you can also find time to study how to be a reporter.”

“Gee, that don’t sound easy to me!” the boy exclaimed.

“ It doeptU sound easy to me,” said Mr. Rogers, and Peanut colored at the correction of his grammar, “ but a lot of hard nuts can be cracked if you hit ’em right. We’ve got to find a way to crack this one.”

“ Have you got an id«a ? ” asked Peanut hopefully.

“ I’ve got several,” the Scout Master laughed, “ but I’m not telling any of ’em yet. You keep your massive brain on the job, too, and come to see me again in a day or two.”

“Say, my head’s going to smoke, I’ll think so hard 1 ” Peanut cried as he went out.

He felt better, more hopeful, already. He always felt better when he had Mr. Rogers on his side. He started off down the street, trying the Scout pace — fifty running steps and fifty walking steps alternately — and whistling as he went.

“ ril get to be a reporter, or Fll bust I ** he said to himself, and kept on running for a hundred paces, which brought him alongside of the play field, where a lot of the grade school boys were playing baseball.

CHAPTER II Peanut Stops a Fight and Umpires a Ball Game

P EANUT stopped and watched them. They had chosen up sides and were scrapping almost as much as they were playing ball. Peanut strolled down toward the diamond to investigate.

Cop Stanley was evidently captain of one side. Cop got his name because he once said that when he grew up he was going to be town policeman. He was a fat but husky boy, who combined a great deal of good-nature with a great deal of pugnacity. He was always fighting — and always friends with the boy he fought with half an hour afterward. Being a pretty good fighter, and being naturally energetic, he was usually the leader in his crowd.

The captain of the other side was quite a different type of boy, Walter Swan, of the eighth grade. Walter was generally called “Old Hundred,” because whenever the teacher asked for a choice of hymns to sing in school, he always demanded Old Hundred. Peanut liked Old Hundred. He was a thin boy, with a long, thin face, light tow-colored hair and a great many freckles. In fact, he had been called Freckles before he developed his passion for 24

PEANUT STOPS A FIGHT the hymn which had now given him his new name. He was as good-natured in a way as Cop Stanley, but he didn’t laugh so much, nor talk so much, nor fight so much. In fact, he didn’t fight at all. He was a Scout, and liked best to go off on hikes in the woods. But when he did get mad he had a quiet glint in his light blue eyes which meant business.

He was mad now.

The game had stopped entirely, and both sides were gathered around first base, wrangling and shouting. Peanut pressed into the crowd.

“ Aw, you was out, all right ! ” Cop Stanley was shouting. “You was out a mile I I touched yer myself, I guess I know ! ”

“ He wasn’t out, neither,” cried Old Hundred. “Wa’n’t I coaching right here behind first? He had his feet on the bag hours before the ball came.”

“ He didn’t!”

“ He did 1 ”

“ Didn’t I ”

“ Did 1 ”

“ Well, we gave you a close one last inning, you might give us this,” somebody else managed to say.

“ I’ll give yer a close one,” Old Hundred declared, “ but this wa’n’t close. He was safe a mile. You gotter play fair.”

“Who ain’t playin’ fair?” Cop Stanley demanded.

“ You ain’t,” said Old Hundred.

“ Who says I ain’t ? ”

“ I say so,” said Old Hundred.

“ Nobody can say things like that ter me “ Is that so ? Well, somebody’s sayin’ it, right now,” Old Hundred repeated.

“You think you can boss everything and put over a bum decision ”

“ Who says it was a bum decision ? ” Cop yelled.

“ I say it was, and you know it ! ” Old Hundred answered.

The two boys were now facing each other a foot apart, and the rest were crowded around them.

“ You take that back I ” Cop cried.

“I won’t take nothing back, when I know I’m right,” Old Hundred declared.

Then I’ll ”

“Well, go ahead and do it, then !”

Both boys now had their fists doubled up, and Cop swung for Old Hundred’s face, but the other boy ducked and as Cop’s arm swung over his head he suddenly made a football tackle and threw Cop heavily to the ground, and sprang on top of him.

“ Soak him. Cop ! ”

“ Give it to him. Old Hundred I ”

“ Give ’em room, fellers I ”

“ Gee, he got him in the eye ! ”

Both teams had forgotten their game in the ex-

PEANUT STOPS A FIGHT citement of the fight, and they had forgotten Peanut, too.

But Peanut suddenly took a hand in the mix-up. He grabbed Old Hundred by the collar and hauled him off Cop. Then he grabbed Cop by the front of his shirt, and hauled him to his feet. Both boys struggled to get at each other, but Peanut held them apart.

“ Say, if you don’t quit I’ll punch both of you I ” he cried, and he gave both of them a shake that, nearly sent them to the ground.

“ What are you buttin’ in for, anyhow ? ” Cop demanded.

“ Let me at him, I tell yer I ” Old Hundred cried.

He thinks he can trim anybody, does he I I’ll show him I ”

“ Not while I’m here, you won’t ! ” said Peanut. “ Say, you poor stiffs, what did you come down here for? You came to play baseball, didn’t you ? ”

“Sure,” said the crowd.

“ Well, then, why don’t you play ? If you’re going to play ball, play ball. If you’re going to fight, fight.”

“ We can’t play ball when they cheat us, can we ? ” cried Old Hundred.

“ Cheat nothing ! Who was cheating ? You was I ” cried Cop.

They started at each other again, and Peanut gave them a shove apart that sent them sprawling into their respective teams.

“ See here,” he demanded, “ I’ll umpire this game, and the first man that scraps gets sent to the bench, see ? Now go back to your places and play that last point over again.”

Aw, no, he was out ! ” cried Cop.

“ He was safe I ” yelled Old Hundred’s nine.

“There you go again,” said Peanut. “You see, fellers, the only fair way is to play it over. That gives both sides a chance, and I’ll decide. It don’t — doesn’t — make any difference to me who licks. I’ll be fair. Come on, now — back to your places I ”

Everybody obeyed willingly except Cop and Old Hundred. They were still rather sullen. Cop had a bruise under his eye where Old Hundred had hit him, and Old Hundred had a cut on his lip. But they, too, returned. Cop to his post behind the bat and the other to the coaching line at first base. Peanut took his position behind the pitcher, and the game began.

Peanut was a good umpire. In the first place, he was a good ball player himself, which all the smaller boys knew, and he was fair, and he was good-natured, so that everybody liked him. The grade boys had not been used to playing with an umpire, and at first there was a lot of kicking over balls and strikes, but Peanut made them see that it was as fair for one

PEANUT STOPS A FIGHT side as the other and all a part of the game, and before the next inning was over they had settled down to the real business of playing ball. The coaches yelled on the side lines, Peanut rushed from base to base to judge close decisions, he called a balk on Old Hundred, who was pitching for his side, which gave Cop an extra base, much to his delight and Old Hundred’s chagrin, and by the time the game was over everybody was on good terms again, and agreed that they’d had a fine tinie, even Cop’s team, which had lost by a narrow margin.

“ Now,” said Peanut to the two captains, “ you always ought to shake hands after a game.”

“ Sure,” said the fat Cop, grinning, for he was once more in the best of spirits. He put out a very dirty hand, which Old Hundred was ashamed not to take.

“ That’s the stuff I ” cried Peanut. “ And say, fellers, we ought to do something about this diamond. It’s too rough. The grounders bounce any old which way. What do you say if we give it a dragging and rolling next Saturday morning, eh ? ”

“ What we goin’ to drag it with ? ” somebody asked.

“ I’ll show you, if you’ll all promise to be on hand next Saturday. What do you say ? ”

“ Sure’s you know,” said Cop. “ My crowd’ll be here.”

‘‘ Then I guess mine will,” retorted Old Hundred.

Peanut walked up the street with the young Scout.

“ Aw, why didn’t yer let me lick him ? ” Old Hundred complained.

“’Cause that ain’t — isn’t — baseball,” said Peanut. “ I’d just as soon see him get a good trimming — he’s kind o’ stuck on doin’ all the bossing. I did let you get him down. But fighting isn’t baseball — and it’s up to Scouts to play the game right.”

“ I — I suppose so,” said Old Hundred. “ But it’s hard when you ain’t got an umpire.”

“ There’s something in that,” Peanut admitted.

He parted from Old Hundred, and presently met Mr. Rogers walking along the road.

“ Where’ve you been, Peanut ?” the Scout Master asked.

“ Gosh, I’ve stopped a fight and umpired a kids’ baseball game, and played Scout Master for fair,” said Peanut. “ It’s almost more fun playing Scout Master than being a Scout.”

“ And harder work, eh ? ” the Scout Master smiled.

“Well, it ain’t — isn’t — so easy as eating hot gingerbread, that’s a fact,” said Peanut. “ Gee, I guess I’ll go home and get some supper.”

CHAPTER III Fixing up the Baseball Diamond— A Good Turn

P EANUT did not forget his talk with Mr. Rogers, and he kept turning over plans in his head, but none of them seemed practicable. If he went to work for a carpenter when he got through high school he would have to start in as an apprentice, and he could scarcely hope to earn enough, even in a whole year, let alone a single vacation, to send himself to a college anywhere. Of course, there was caddying to be done at the golf club. He could earn a dollar a day at that, after school closed, if he had good luck. That meant six dollars a week, or not more than sixty dollars between graduation and September, when Art and Lou and Frank would be going away for higher studies. That wouldn’t help very much I But it might. Peanut suddenly thought, be enough to pay for a course in a correspondence school. He had read of correspondence schools in advertisements in the magazines, and resolved to ask Mr. Rogers more about them.

But meanwhile there was the diamond to smooth down on Saturday morning. Peanut had jumped into the eighth grade baseball game on an impulse, but after he had stopped the fight and got the game finished in good shape, he had realized that an older boy, if he goes about it right, can do a lot to help smaller boys, and it made him feel rather proud. He wouldn’t have backed out now from his self-appointed task for anything. But he also realized that it was going to be more of a job than he had bargained for at first.

Gee, the kids’ll quit and want to begin playing before we get it half done,” he said to himself. “ Guess I’ll have to ring in Art and some of the other big fellers.”

Art didn’t want to come, he wanted to go off in the woods that Saturday, but Peanut pleaded so hard that he consented. Lou was glad to come, and Frank Nichols, also. With this help. Peanut felt secure.

When Saturday morning arrived, he went to the golf club tennis courts with a wheelbarrow, and borrowed a contraption they used there to smooth the dirt courts in spring. If he hadn’t borrowed this, he could easily have made one. All it consisted of was a heavy beam, eight or ten feet long, with a strip of old carpet tacked on the under side, and a rope at each end. Peanut wheeled it to the play field.

“ Where are you going. Peanut ? ” somebody asked him, as he trundled the barrow along the street.

“Pm taking this home to help mother make a lemon meringue pie,” Peanut answered.

There was an iron hand roller at the play field already, which was supposed to be used to smooth the diamond, only the town was too poor to hire anybody to use it, and the boys and young men who played ball had always been either too careless or too lazy.

The diamond itself was all dirt. The sod had been entirely removed except in the outfield some years before, but constant playing without care had made it rough and hobbly, and it was full of stones.

When Peanut arrived with his smoother, he found Art, Lou, Frank, and about ten smaller boys already there, including Cop Stanley and Old Hundred. Old Hundred was wearing his Scout suit.

“ Any of you fellers got rakes ? ” Peanut demanded.

Nobody had, and as he had forgotten to tell anybody to bring any, he refrained from his first impulse to call them “ big stiffs.” Instead, he sent the boys who lived nearest home for rakes and a shovel or two, and while they were gone he set the smoother to work, the way he had seen it used at the tennis courts.

It was really a simple operation. Art and Frank took hold of one rope, Lou and Cop Stanley of the other, while Peanut on one side and another boy on the other held the ends of the beam down on the ground. Then those on the ropes began to drag the beam across the diamond. The carpet trailed out behind, smoothing the dirt leveled off by the beam into the hollows.

They were still at it when the rakes arrived, and Peanut sent Old Hundred to help hold the beam down, while he took a rake himself and directed the other rakers, following the drag around and still farther smoothing off hummocks, and filling up holes.

“ It would be easier,” said Lou, presently, “ if you fellows with rakes went ahead of the drag, and loosened up the ground. Then the beam would do more work.”

“ Right, oh ! ” said Peanut. “ Come on, you eighth grade 1 ”

The ten small boys stuck to the job pretty well till the diamond was scraped, which didn’t take long, as the beam covered a ten foot strip. But as soon as this was done, they wanted to begin rolling it, and then to play ball.

** No, you don’t I ” Peanut cried. “ Nobody plays on this field to-day till the job is done right, not if I have to sit in pitcher’s box with an automatic in my fist I You pick up stones, now 1 ”

“ Aw, gee, there’s ten billion stones 1 ” wailed Cop Stanley. “ It’ll take till Fourth o’ July.”