Chapter 2

"The first day I ever spent in America opened my eyes to the price your country is paying for the word 'guess.' The more I studied the situation, the oftener I noticed folks saying 'I guess' where they should have said '_I know_.' In nearly all of America's accidents, guesswork is the real cause.

"The moment I realized that, I said to myself, 'It's high time America dropped guesswork out of its daily life.' My work was cut out for me: I began right then and there to study out ways of getting folks to stop guessing, once for all, _and be sure_--sure pop!"

_Stop guessing, once for all, and be sure._ --SURE POP

ADVENTURE NUMBER FOUR

THE PERSISTENT PIGMY

"Say, Sure Pop!" burst out Bob, as the Safety Scout paused in his story. "A whole regiment--did you realize that was a lot of Scouts to get together in one month?"

"Did I?" echoed Sure Pop with a chuckle. "_Did_ I? Well, if I didn't when I set out on my search, I did before the first day was over. I had lost out on the wisest man in the Borderland--_he_ wouldn't do, for all his wisdom. He only served to remind me of what the King had said, that the wisest are not always the safest."

"Sure--sure pop!" Bob broke in again. "But how did you ever get a whole regiment together in one month? You simply couldn't disappoint the King, you know."

"You're right, Bob, I simply couldn't. So as fast as I did find one that would do for the army, I set him to work finding others--passing the good work along. I soon saw I could never make good with the King by trying to do it all myself, and I do believe the King knew all along that there was only one way a really big work could be done--by getting _everybody_ stirred up and enthusiastic. So I turned each new Scout loose to hunt for more.

"You'd laugh to know who was the first Scout enrolled. As I slipped out of the poison-bottle house, I saw a funny little pigmy hurry out of a cottage across the lane and go z-z-zam! down the front steps. We'd had a nip of frost the night before, and the slippery steps took him by surprise. For a moment he stood rubbing his head, with his merry little face puckered up into a comical sort of bowknot. Then he picked his way slowly up the steps into the house.

"A minute or two and out he came again with a bag of salt and sprinkled the steps with it. Though he was in just as big a hurry as our friend the wizard, the Safety First idea had got him, and he plainly had made up his mind to begin right then and there.

"'Well, I declare!' I said to myself. 'I've a notion to muster him into the scouting service--but what would the King say to my enrolling a pigmy?' Just as I was wondering about it, down he went again, flat on his little back!

"This time it was on the sidewalk in front of his house. Some careless youngster had thrown a banana skin on the walk. Poor little pigmy, what a bump he did get that time! But again he picked himself up, and this time he didn't wait a moment--just poked the banana skin off into the gutter where it could do no more harm.

"Such persistence was too much for me! I told him the King wanted him for the royal army of Safety Scouts, and that he was to have the honor of being the first one enrolled. His eyes fairly popped out of his head as he listened, and before you could say 'Jack Robinson,' he had scampered off to help me raise an army--with one of these buttons in the lapel of his leather jerkin."

Sure Pop pulled a sparkling button out of his pocket and laid it before the twins.

"There, that's the Safety Scouts' badge of honor, and no Scout can wear one till he earns the right. The King himself designed it."

"My! I wish--!" The twins remembered their manners and stopped short, but Sure Pop understood. He threw back that wise little head and how he did laugh!

"You wish--eh? That's what they all say, the minute they lay eyes on that button! You see, that's a magic button, so it's no wonder everybody wants one. Friends, that button can _talk_!"

Bob stared at the button as if he couldn't believe his ears. Betty, taking Sure Pop at his word, grabbed the button and laid it to her ear. She gave a squeal of delight.

"It does! It does talk--doesn't it?" she cried.

"Sure pop it does!" laughed the Safety Scout. "That's all it can say, just four words at a time--but those four are enough to save thousands of lives every year."

"What four words?" yelled Bob, clapping the magic button to his ear. How his jaw dropped when he heard--or seemed to hear--the magic button's words, four words he will never, never forget, even if he lives to be a hundred years old!

"_Safety First_," whispered the magic button in his ear. "_Get Busy!_"

Bob sprang to his feet, so startled that he nearly dropped the button.

"Get busy?" he echoed. "Well, let's!"

"And let's be quick about it," chimed in Betty. "I want to earn one of those magic buttons myself."

"Here too!" Bob whirled around to Sure Pop. "But we'll have to get the soil ready first, won't we, just as the King told you? So the seed won't be wasted, you know."

"That's the first move, Bob. Waste is something no Scout can bear to see. Waste of life, waste of health, waste of time, waste of food--even waste of money seems a crime to a Safety Scout."

Betty was thinking hard. "Then before we can plant the Safety First idea in other people's minds, shan't we have to start it growing in our own, Sure Pop?"

"Sure pop, we shall! And now listen, friends. When I first came to America, after years of Safety training among my own people, I took up the task of planting the Safety First idea among the great American mills and factories. Some day I'll tell you about those years of Safety work among the mill hands, but just now what I want to explain is this: when I had got the work well established among the mills, I thought at first that my work in America was finished; but the more I thought it over, the plainer it became that my most important work still lay before me."

"Your most important work," echoed Betty. "What do you mean, Sure Pop--teaching Safety to the President of the United States?"

"No, Betty. A far more important work than that--teaching Safety to children. I saw that by making Safety Scouts out of the boys and girls, I should be solving the whole problem of the years to come--for workmen, Presidents, and all. So I drew a long breath and started in again, this time in America's homes.

"Now how do you suppose I came to choose your home to begin on? Just as I was wondering which house to tackle first, I overheard Bob wishing he had Uncle Jack's life of adventure--though the United States has more real adventure to the square mile than all South America put together!"

"You don't mean it? Why, this is a civilized country!"

"You Americans think so, Bob. And you're trying to bring about world-wide peace, because you feel that war is out of place in civilized life. But what about the thousands you kill and the millions you wound every year? More than you killed and wounded, remember, in the whole Civil War. What about that? Does that sound so very civilized?

"You want adventure. Good! You shall have it--early and often. And you won't have to go to any other country to find it, either."

"Well," said Bob, "here's hoping. What comes first?"

"First, we must get our eyes and ears open. That's the first thing for any Scout to learn, and he isn't good for much until he gets the habit of noticing things. Scout-craft means reading signs in everything you come across and acting on little silent hints that most folks wouldn't notice.

"Now, to begin with, here are three practical rules for you to bear in mind--three things we found out in our first year of Borderland Safety Scouting: First, a true Scout is always on the alert. Second, a Scout always keeps cool. Third, a Scout does one thing at a time. Do you suppose you can remember these three things?"

"That's easy," said Betty.

"Easy as anything," said Bob. "Keep wide awake, keep cool, and keep your mind on one thing at a time. Three 'keeps'--anybody can remember them!"

"Think so?" Sure Pop's voice sounded surprisingly far away. "All right, we'll see!" And before the twins' very eyes he faded away into thin air!

_A true Scout is always on the alert._--SURE POP

ADVENTURE NUMBER FIVE

THE MAGIC BUTTON'S WARNING

"He's gone!" Bob and Betty stared at each other. For a moment the whole thing seemed like a dream, and they hated to think of waking up.

"But it _was_ real!" Bob turned the magic button over and over in his hand, glad to have something left to prove the reality of their new friend, something they could still see and touch.

"We can't wear that button, though," Betty reminded him. "We've got to earn it first. What shall we do with it?"

Bob stuck it into his deepest pocket. "I'll hang on to it till Sure Pop comes back--if he does come back. Oh, hello, Joe!"

Joe Schmidt, a wiry boy of Bob's own age, but fully half a head shorter, turned around and gazed up at the Daltons' porch.

"Why, hello, Bob! What are you doing?"

"Nothing." Bob ran down the steps and began talking with Joe. In fact, the two lads were so busy talking that they did not see George Gibson till he purposely bumped into Joe's back with a sudden "Hey, there! Get off the walk!"

Joe bristled like a ruffled sparrow. "Let's see you throw me off!" When George good-naturedly took him at his word, Joe clinched with him and managed to get a half-Nelson hold on him. Joe always went at things in dead earnest, anyway. Bob and Betty, laughing and shouting, hopped gleefully around the swaying wrestlers, Bob yelling encouragement to George, and Betty yelling just as hard for Joe.

Suddenly--was it just Bob's imagination?--something seemed to give a wiggle in his pocket--then a warning flop. It must be that magic button!

Bob jumped, gave a snort of surprise, and jammed his hand into his pocket. What had got into the button anyway?

Then an idea flashed across his mind--perhaps the Safety button was trying to warn him. To be sure, if the wrestlers went down hard on the cement sidewalk, it might mean a broken skull! In his hurry to get them off the walk and over on the grass, Bob lost his head. He made the mistake of trying to do it by force; he caught hold of George's elbow, and got a sharp dig in the pit of his stomach for his pains.

"Hey, fellows--danger!" he yelled, when he could catch his breath. "Get over on the grass--look out!"

His warnings came too late. George, much the bigger of the two, got a hip-lock on Joe, and, forgetting everything else in his struggle to "lay him out," gave a sudden heave that sent Joe sprawling on his back. His head struck the sidewalk with a thud.

That was all. Joe lay like a lump of lead.

"He's _dead_!" screamed Betty wildly. She threw herself at the gasping George. "You--you've _killed_ him!"

George, puffing and blowing from his struggle, held her at arm's length. A big policeman suddenly came around the corner. "Here, what's all this?" he asked sternly, bending over the fallen wrestler.

"He struck on the back of his head," spoke up Bob. "They were wrestling--just in fun, you know--and Joe struck his head on the sidewalk. Is--is he dead?"

"Small thanks to you young rascals if he isn't," growled the officer. "Crazy Indians, wrestling on a cement walk! Where does he live?"

He lifted the limp body in his arms and hurried to the Widow Schmidt's modest little cottage with the green blinds and the neatly scrubbed doorstep. George and Bob, feeling very sick, trailed sadly along after him; they hated to think of the look that would come into the Widow Schmidt's motherly face. Joe was all she had in the world.

Betty, womanlike, was first to think of the doctor. Almost before the policeman had reached Joe's side, she was running to the corner drug store as fast as her feet would carry her. The druggist would know where to reach a doctor with the least delay--she could telephone.

It seemed ages before the fluttering lids opened and Joe's black eyes looked out on the world again. "No bones broken," said the doctor at last. "Half an inch farther to the right or left, though--"

He stopped, but the twins understood. Silently they gripped Joe's hand as it lay helpless on the bed, nodded to George, and the three tip-toed out of the hushed little room.

That night, before Bob and Betty went to bed, Sure Pop came back. He found the twins sitting with their heads together, studying Bob's _Handbook of Scout-Craft_ as if their lives depended on learning it by heart in one evening. Bob still lacked a few months of being old enough to join the Boy Scouts; he had long looked forward to his coming birthday, but it had never meant so much to him as now.

Sure Pop nodded and smiled as he saw the familiar handbook. "Good work!" he said. "All true Scouts are brothers, you know. Well, how about the 'three keeps' of the Scout Law? Did you find them as easy as you thought?"

Bob and Betty grew very red. They did not know what to say.

The Safety Scout saved them the trouble. "Joe's better tonight," he told them, comfortingly. "I've just come from there, and the doctor says he'll be up again in a day or so. What shall we do tomorrow, friends--begin hunting for adventure and planting Safety First ideas?"

Bob looked at Betty and swallowed hard at a lump in his throat. Somehow this wise little Sure Pop knew everything that happened!

"I think," said Bob, frankly, "we really planted one today!"

_All true Scouts are brothers._ --SURE POP

ADVENTURE NUMBER SIX

THE LIVE WIRE

Sure Pop saw, the moment he laid eyes on Bob and Betty next morning, that they had made up their minds to earn a magic button apiece that day.

"Where shall we go for today's adventure?" was the first question.

The Safety Scout laughed. "We probably shan't have to go far. Once a Scout's eyes are really open, so that danger signs other folks wouldn't notice begin to mean something to him, why, adventure walks right up to him. It walked right up to you two yesterday, but you didn't read the signs till too late. Being a Scout, remember, means doing the right thing at the right moment. Now let's start out and walk a few blocks, and see what danger signals we come across that other folks are overlooking."

Just as they opened the gate, Mrs. Dalton came to the door. "Bob! Come here a moment, please. I want you to take a note over to Mrs. Hoffman's for me. Their telephone is out of order."

She lowered her voice as she handed him the letter, and added, "Who is that out there with Betty?"

"Oh, that's one of the Scouts. We're going out for a little practice scouting."

Mrs. Dalton knew how eagerly Bob had been awaiting the day when he could become a Boy Scout. She trusted the Scouts and was glad to have Bob and Betty spend their vacation time in scouting. She little guessed that the three friends were to start an order of Safety Scouts which even fathers and mothers would join.

Bob hurried back to Betty and Sure Pop. "Can you wait while I run over to Mrs. Hoffman's with this? All right, I'll be back in no time!"

Hurrying though he was, he looked both ways before he crossed the car tracks, for already the habit of "thinking Safety" was growing on him. He reached Mrs. Hoffman's in record time, delivered the note, and raced back toward home.

As he slowed down to catch his breath, he met a crowd of yelling youngsters "playing Indians." Several of them wore Indian suits. One, dressed as a cowboy, tried to rope him as he passed. This gave the Indians an idea, and they came howling after Bob, waving their tomahawks and promising to scalp him. Two yelping dogs joined in the chase.

Bob grinned and broke into a long, easy run which soon shook the redskins off his trail. But at a sudden delighted whoop from the enemy he stopped and looked back.

"Hi-yi!" yelled the biggest Indian. "Look at that telephone wire on the ground! Come on, let's chop it off and use it to bind the palefaces to the stake."

Pellmell across the street swarmed the little fellows, each bound to get there first. But Bob was too quick for them. Hatless, breathless, he threw himself between the Indians and the swaying wire. "Get back!" he roared. "That's no telephone wire--it's alive! Keep back, I say! You'll be killed!"

It was no easy thing to stand between the youngsters and the deadly wire. They were laughing and yelling so hard, and the dogs were barking so wildly, that at first Bob couldn't get the idea of danger into their heads. He fairly had to knock two or three of them down to keep them from hacking at the wire with their hatchets. Would they never understand? "I won't forget this time, anyway!" muttered the boy, gritting his teeth as he remembered the "three keeps" of the Scout Law.

Up ran one of the dogs, capering around with sharp, ear-splitting barks, and tried to get his teeth into Bob's ankle. When Bob tried to kick him away, of course the Indians and cowboys yelled harder than ever. The dog stumbled and fell across the electric wire--gave one wild yelp of pain--and lay there kicking and struggling, unable to jerk himself loose. Worst of all, he had landed in a puddle of water, so that the electric current was pouring straight through his twitching body into the wet earth.

At last Bob managed to drive all the boys back out of harm's way, only to see one of the cowboys rush for the dog with a cry that tore at Bob's heartstrings.

"It's Tige! Oh, Tige!--poor old Tige! Let me go! I've _got_ to save my dog!"

Bob had grabbed the little fellow and held him tight. "Too late, old scout," he said, with tears in his own eyes as he saw the dog kicking his last. "Tige's done for, I'm afraid. Keep back, there--that wire will get you too!" For the boys were crowding nearer again.

"Who has a telephone at home?" asked Bob.

"We have," said one of the larger boys.

"Then run home quick, call up the Electric Light Company, and have them send their repair crew. Tell them a live wire has killed Tige and may kill the boys if they don't hurry. Tell 'em it's at the corner of Broad Street and Center Avenue. Run!"

While he waited for the repair wagon, Bob managed to get the boys lined up in all directions, where they could mount guard over the danger zone. Then he stood guard with the rest, and they succeeded in keeping all teams and passers-by from running into danger till the repair men came.

It seemed a long while before the clatter of hoofs and the rumble of heavy wheels told him the rescue party was coming at last. He jumped with surprise when the repair wagon dashed around the corner and pulled up beside the curb, for there beside the driver sat Sure Pop, the Safety Scout! Puzzled by Bob's long stay and hearing the gong as the wagon hurried up, he had decided to come along.

Ten minutes later the live wire was back in place, the repair crew had clattered off again, and a little band of mourning Indians and cowboys had carried poor Tige's body over to his master's back yard, where they buried him after a solemn funeral service. Only a dog--but the tears they dropped on his little grave were very real and sincere, for he had been a jolly playmate and a loyal friend.

Bob was very sober as he walked home with Sure Pop. "Wish I could have saved Tige, somehow!"

The Safety Scout laid his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Bob, you did just right. You remembered the 'three keeps' this time--you kept wide awake, kept cool, and kept your mind on one thing at a time. No Scout could have done more. If you had risked touching that wire, it would have cost a good deal more than the life of a dog, I fear. It's important to know what _not_ to do, sometimes. Robert Dalton, I'm proud of you! Here--you've earned it this time, sure pop!"

He reached down into his pocket, pulled out the Safety button, and fastened it in Bob's coat lapel. The boy flushed with pride as he lifted the magic button to his ear. And never had words thrilled him more than those which greeted him now--for two of them were new words which his own quick wits had earned:

"_Safety First!_" whispered the button, clear and sweet as a far-away bugle call. "_Good Work!_"

_Safety first--not part of the time, but all the time._--SURE POP

ADVENTURE NUMBER SEVEN

BETTY EVENS THE SCORE

All through supper time Betty schemed and plotted.

"I certainly am proud of the way Bob won his," she said to herself. "But I've never been behind Bob _yet_, and that magic button's going to be twins before tomorrow night, _somehow_!"

The hot summer sun woke her early next morning, and she hurried downstairs to be through breakfast before Sure Pop came for the day's adventures.

"Where do we go today?" she asked Sure Pop an hour later, dancing up and down and looking wistfully at Bob's new Safety button.

"Sorry, friends," said the Safety Scout, "but I can't be with you today. I'm due for a little outside scouting duty--something you twins aren't quite ready for yet."

"Oh, say!" Bob's face fell. "What are we going to _do_ then, all day alone?"

"Do?" laughed the merry Colonel, waving them goodby. "Why, you'll be out scouring the neighborhood for new adventures, I fancy. And as for Betty, if I'm any mind reader, she has something up her sleeve sure enough!"

Sure Pop was right, as usual. Bob fussed around the yard awhile, managed to open a box of crockery out on the back steps for Mother, and soon rambled off to see what new adventures he could find in the name of Safety First.

Betty spent most of the morning in the kitchen, helping Mother. As soon as Bob was off again after lunch, she began to roam about the yard, eyeing everything like a hawk. Soon Mother saw her picking up the boards Bob had pried loose from the box and scowling at the ugly nails that stuck up where little feet might so easily be stabbed by their rusty points. These she carefully bent down with a big stone.

"That's one on Bob, anyway," said Betty to herself, and went on looking around the yard.

Her eye roved upward to the bright geraniums on the sill of Mother's window upstairs. "Mother," she called, "have you ever read _Ben Hur_?"

"Why, yes, Betty--a long time ago. Why?"

"Don't you remember how that loose tile from Ben Hur's roof--the one he tried to snatch back as he saw it fall--struck the Roman soldier on the head, and how Ben Hur went to prison for it? Well, what about those flower pots up there?"

"Why, Betty!" cried her mother, more puzzled than ever. "Ben Hur--flower pots--what is the dear child talking about?"

Betty laughed. "I read in the paper last night that one of the big hotels has put up signs in every room, and they say:

=PATRONS--ATTENTION=

=Please do not place articles of any kind ON WINDOW SILL (bottles and chinaware most dangerous). They may fall or be blown into the street, causing serious if not fatal accidents.=

"That's because a flower pot fell from an upper window on a woman's head. Baby's sand pile is right below your window, and one of the flower pots might fall while she was out there playing. A sudden draft could do it, or a door slammed hard. Do you mind if I fasten them on with wire so they can't fall? Then I'll do it right now before anything happens!"

She had just finished the job to her satisfaction, and was looking about for something else, when Mother called softly: "Betty, if you'll keep a lookout and let me know if anybody comes, or if Baby wakes up, I'll take a nap."

Betty was pleased. Here was a fine chance to play housekeeper. Mother left a soup bone simmering over one burner of the gas stove, and a steam pudding bubbling away over another, and went upstairs for her nap.