ceans don't
forget about the water by the woodshed and do what I told you.
So now good-bye dear old Mum and don't worry, and I won't go
near Paris like you said. Hicksville is good enough for me.

Your loving son.

There was something about this old missive which sobered the bantering
troop of scouts and made even Pee-wee quiet and thoughtful.

"It's a letter he was going to send," Artie Van Arlen finally said.

"Who?" Doc Carson asked.

Artie shrugged his shoulders. "Somebody or other, that's all _we_
know," he said. "We don't even know who he was going to send it to;
there are a whole lot of dear old mothers."

"You said it," commented Roy.

"Let's see the other papers," one of the scouts said.

The only other contents of the wallet were a small paper with blanks
filled in, and an engraved calling card. The paper with the blanks
filled in was so smeared from long moisture that the written parts were
undecipherable. The paper was evidently a leave of absence from camp.
The name was utterly blurred out, but by studying the smeared writing in
the space where the date had been written the scouts thought they could
determine the date, or at least part of it. _Sun--1918_ was all
they could be sure of.

But fortunately the calling card appeared to confirm this date. It was a
card of fine quality and beautifully engraved with the name of Helen
Shirley Bates. In the lower left hand corner was engraved Woodcliff, New
Jersey. On the back of the card was written in a free feminine hand
_For dinner Sunday April 14th, 1918. One o'clock._

"What do you make out of it? What does it mean? Who was he anyway?" the
scouts, interrupting each other, asked, as these memorials of an unknown
soldier boy were passed around from hand to hand and eagerly read.

Of all the scouts Westy Martin, of Roy's Patrol, was the soberest and
most thoughtful. He had the most balance. Not that Roy did not have
balance, but he never had much on hand because he was continually losing
it.

"Whoever he was," Westy said, "it looks as if he got a leave of absence
to go to the girl's house for dinner. Going this way would be a shortcut
to Woodcliff. Maybe he was going to take the train up from New Milford."

"I guess he was going to mail the letter to his mother in New Milford,
hey?" Hunt Ward of the Elks suggested.

"Yes, but why didn't he?" Doc Carson asked.

"It's a mystery," said Pee-wee. "Do