ay. I just
didn't want to bother. I was--well, I was thinking too much about
myself I suppose."

"Youth is apt to. There were other things too. When they asked you to
take charge of the Fourth of July pageant, to dig up Dunbury's past
history and make it live for us again, your father and I both thought you
would enjoy it. He was tremendously excited about it, full of ideas to
help. But the project fell through because nobody would undertake the
leadership. You were too busy. Every one was too busy."

"But, Mums, I was busy," Phil defended himself. "It is no end of a job to
put things like that through properly."

"Most things worth doing are no end of a job. Your father would have
taken it with all the rest he has on his hands and made a success of it.
But he was hurt by your high handed refusal to have anything to do with
it and he let it go, though you know having Fourth of July community
celebrations is one of his dearest hobbies--always has been since he used
to fight so hard to get rid of the old, wretched noise, law breaking and
rowdyism kind of village celebration you and the other young Dunbury
vandals delighted in."

Phil flushed at that. The point went home. He remembered vividly his
boyish self tearing reluctantly from Doctor Holiday's fireworks impelled
by an unbearably guilty conscience to confess to Stuart Lambert that his
own son had been a transgressor against the law. Boy as he was, he had
gotten out of the interview with his father that night a glimpse into the
ideal citizenship which Stuart Lambert preached and lived and worked for.
He had understood a little then. He understood better now having stood
beside his father man to man.

"I am sorry, Mums. I would have done the thing if I'd known Dad wanted me
to. Why didn't he say so?"

Mrs. Lambert smiled.

"Dad doesn't say much about what he wants. You will have to learn to keep
your eyes open and find out for yourself. I did."

"Any more black marks on my score? I may as well eat the whole darned
pie at once." Phil's smile was humorous but his eyes were troubled. It
was a bit hard when you had been thinking you had played your part
fairly creditably to discover you had been fumbling your cues wretchedly
all along.

"Only one other thing. We were both immensely disappointed when you
wouldn't take the scout-mastership they offered you. Father believes
tremendously in the movement. He thinks it is going to be the making of
the next generation