te, it was as an oak tree might be
swayed in a summer breeze. He knew what he wanted to say and he was
going to say it. He waited, he _had_ to wait, for at least five minutes,
till Temple Camp had had its say.

Then he said, slowly, deliberately, with a kind of mixture of clumsiness
and assurance which was characteristic of him.

"Maybe I haven't got any right to speak. I'm not on the staff, and
as you might say, I'm through being a scout----"

"Never, Tomasso!" said a voice.

"But I saw something that none of you saw and I know something that
none of you know about--except Mr. Temple, that I told it to, and
the trustees.

"Since I been assistant to Uncle Jeb--that's two years--I saw the
Eagle award given out twice----"

"You won it yourself, Tomasso!"

"I saw it given to a scout from Virginia and one from New York. You
always hear a lot of talk about the Eagle award here in camp. Lots
of scouts start out big and don't get away with it. I guess
everybody knows it isn't easy. If you're an Eagle Scout you're
everything else. You got to be.

"I've seen scouts get it. But in the last couple of days I saw one
chuck it in the dirt and trample on it. That's because when a fellow
gets so far that he's really an Eagle Scout, he doesn't care so
much about it. A fellow's got to be a scout to win the Eagle badge.
And if he's enough of a scout for that, he's enough of a scout to
give it up if there's any reason. What does _he_ care? If he's scout
enough to be an Eagle Scout, and gives it up, he doesn't even bother
to tell anybody. Being willing to give it up is part of winning it,
as you might say.

"Maybe you people didn't know who you were cheering when you cheered
Alfred McCord. But I'll tell you who you were cheering. You were
cheering the only Eagle Scout in Temple Camp. And he doesn't care
any more about the Eagle badge than he does about what every little
tin scout in his own troop thinks of him, either. And I'm standing
here to tell you that. I saw that scout give up one badge and win
another at the same time. I saw him lose the stalking badge and win
the animal first aid badge all inside of an hour. He thought he lost
out by giving up his tracks to Alfred McCord, when he might have
scared the life out of the little fellow and chased him back to
camp.

"But all the time he had an ex