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The Boy Scouts at the Panama Canal
The Boy Scouts at the Panama Canal
CHAPTER I
BOY SCOUTS TO THE RESCUE
Farmer Hiram Applegate had just finished breakfast. For this reason, perhaps, he felt exceptionally good-humored. Even the news he had read in his morning paper (of the day before) to the effect that his pet abomination and aversion, The Boy Scouts, had held a successful and popular review in New York and received personal commendation from the President failed to shake his equanimity.
Outside the farmhouse the spring sun shone bright and warm. The air was crisp, and odorous with the scent of apple blossoms. Robins twittered cheerily, hens clucked and now and then a blue bird flashed among the orchard trees.
As Hiram stepped out on his “vendetta,” as he called his verandah – or, to use the old-fashioned word and the better one, “porch” – he was joined by a rather heavy-set youth with small, shifty eyes and a sallow skin which gave the impression of languishing for soap and water. A suit of loud pattern, new yellow boots with “nobby” toes, and a gaudy necktie did not add to young Jared Applegate’s general appearance.
“Pop,” he began, after a glance at the old man’s crabbed and wrinkled features, just then aglow with self-satisfaction, “Pop, how about that money I spoke about?”
Old Applegate stared at his offspring from under his heavy, iron-gray brows.
“A fine time to be askin’ fer money!” he snorted indignantly, “you just back frum Panamy – under a cloud, too, and yet you start a pesterin’ me fer money as ef it grew on trees.”
“What d’ye want it fer, hey?” he went on after a pause. “More Bye Scut nonsense?”
Jared shook his head as if denying some discreditable imputation.
“I’ve had nothing to do with the Boy Scouts since the day I was kicked out of – that is, since I left the Black Wolf troop in New York.”
“Dum glad of it, though you never tole me what you quit for,” muttered the old man.