one of you kids got a cigarette
about you?"

I told him no, that scouts didn't smoke cigarettes.

He said, "Well, drop in and see me down at Poughkeepsie or Newburgh if you
happen in when we're there. You're always welcome."

Gee, we just couldn't make heads or tails of that fellow. Anyway, I liked
him. And I had to admit that that was good advice he gave me about making
up my mind whether to be human or not.

CHAPTER XXII

BRENT GAYLONG

The fellows were all waiting for us when we came out and we hiked out to
where those scouts had their camp. There were only five of them, one
patrol, and the biggest one was a kind of scoutmaster and patrol leader
rolled into one. His name was Brent Gaylong. I walked with him behind the
others and he told me all about his patrol and the troubles they had. He
was an awful nice fellow, kind of quiet like; but he was funny, too.
Christopher, that little troop must have been started on Friday the
thirteenth, that's one thing sure.

I said, "What's the name of your patrol?"

"Well," he said, "we call ourselves the Church Mice, because we're so poor.
First we were going to call ourselves the Job's Turkeys, but we decided
that a church mouse was poorer than Job's turkey."

I had to laugh. I said, "I've heard of most every kind of an animal's name
used for patrols, but never a church mouse. My patrol is the Silver Fox."

"That's a bully name," he said.

"Anyway," I told him, "the name hasn't got so much to do with it. There was
a patrol up at Temple Camp named the Polliwogs and they were all nice
fellows. But they couldn't keep still, they were always wriggling. Maybe
they're frogs by this time, hey? A fellow up there told me about a patrol
named the Caterpillars and afterwards they changed it to the Butterflies.
He said there's a patrol out west named the Mock Turtles. There's a lot of
crazy fellows come to Temple Camp. One of them said there was a fellow in
his troop named Welsh and he was chosen leader of a new patrol and they
wanted to call it the Welsh Rabbits. Church Mice is all right, I think."

He said, "It's appropriate anyway. I'd like to see a camp like that Temple
Camp; it must be great. Trouble with us is we've had such plaguey hard
luck. I guess there's only one thing harder than our luck and that's the
biscuits we make."

I said, "I can make hard ones."

Then he said, "You see, first our scoutmaster had to go to war. We were
just starting then. It hit us a