him the biggest send-off I ever heard at Temple Camp. Even the scoutmasters and the trustees joined in and old Uncle Jeb kept shouting, "Hooo—ray! Hooo—ray!' Cracky, you would have laughed if you'd heard him. Oh, bibbie! when Temple Camp once gets started, the west front in France is Sleepy Hollow compared to it.
And oh, didn't it make me feel good to see Skinny. He looked as if he was going to start to run away, but Connie had him by the collar, and all the Elks were laughing, and now I could see they were proud of him, anyway.
Then Mr. Ellsworth held up his hand and as soon as the racket died down, he began to speak. This is what he said, because Mr. Barrows (he's a trustee) knows shorthand, and afterwards he gave it to me all written out to copy in our troop book. He said: .
"Scouts, you have heard that speech is silver and silence is golden. I think this kind of shouting is highest grade sterling silver. It is chunks of silver, as one might say. But since this is a matter of the gold cross, I ask for just a moment or two of golden silence, while I speak to you. I see about me, scouts from Ohio, and Michigan, and New Hampshire—
