Chapter 5

"For instance: if a Safety Scout sees a mop and a pail of scalding water on Mrs. Muldoon's back steps and one of her babies in danger of pitching into it headfirst, he'd better not walk up and begin to scold about it. Mrs. Muldoon may have done that for years without scalding any one yet. More likely than not she'd just order you off the place--and go right on as before. But if, instead, a Scout steps up and begins playing with the baby, he can first get baby out of harm's way and _then_ watch his chance to say, 'Baby seems to have his eyes on that pail of hot water, Mrs. Muldoon. Two babies over on the west side were scalded to death last week; did you hear about it?' Chances are Mrs. Muldoon will be around warning all her neighbors before you've been gone ten minutes. Get the idea?--honey instead of vinegar."

"Honey works better down in South America, anyhow!" said a deep voice, and a tall, handsome man stepped forward, saluted, and shook hands cordially with Colonel Sure Pop. He was brown as a berry from the tropical sun and he carried his left arm in a sling.

"Uncle--Uncle Jack!" The Dalton twins forgot that the troop was on review, forgot Mrs. Muldoon's babies, forgot everything and everybody but Uncle Jack. What a surprise! And he knew Sure Pop, too!

"Sure pop, I do!" laughed the explorer, kissing Betty warmly before the whole admiring troop. "Here, look out for that lame arm, you rascals! Our surgeon told me it would be well in a month, but he was too optimistic, for once!" For Bob and Betty were fairly swarming over their favorite uncle, home at last from the jungle.

"Nellie," said Uncle Jack to Mrs. Dalton that night, when the Safety Scouts were off to bed at last, "those twins of yours are making history--do you realize that?"

"Well," said his sister, "they have their faults, like all the rest, but they're pretty fine youngsters at that. But, oh, Jack, they're growing up so fast!"

"They are, sure enough, like weeds; but their harvest isn't going to be any weed crop, now mark my words. I heard most of what was said at their patrol review this afternoon before anybody saw me; and on my word, Nell, those youngsters have started something bigger than they have any idea of, something that no power on earth is going to be able to stop. After all, I'm just as pleased that the old chief's spear thrust sent me home in time to see the Safety Scouts of America in the making!"

_A real Scout knows how to take care of himself--and of others._--SURE POP

ADVENTURE NUMBER FOURTEEN

SIX TIMELY TIPS

Sure Pop and Uncle Jack were sprawled out side by side on the green river bank, talking over old times. Bob and Betty were hanging on every word.

"My first few months of Safety work among American factories and mills," Sure Pop was saying, "was largely planting. I planted the Safety First idea and gave it time to grow. I began with the steel mills; then I turned to the railroads, then to the wood-working shops, and so on."

Uncle Jack gazed thoughtfully at the sparkling river. "Well," he said at last to Sure Pop, "what results and how?"

"How?" repeated the little Colonel. "First, by putting the idea, Safety First, into the mind of every workman we met. Second, by whispering in his ear new ways of cutting out accidents--_after_ the Safety First idea had had a chance to sink in. Results? Three fourths of the deaths and injuries in the steel mills were cut out entirely in six years' time; in the railroads, the number of accidents was cut squarely in two in three years' time; in other kinds of work--all except one--big reductions all along the line."

"Great!" There was no mistaking the admiration in Uncle Jack's voice. "What about the one exception--what line was that?"

"It's a certain class of mills that is practically controlled by one man, a very able man, but exceedingly self-willed and stubborn. He owns a chain of mills from coast to coast, and the rest of the manufacturers in his line follow his lead in everything. He has fought the Safety First idea from the start--calls it 'one of these new-fangled notions'--will have nothing at all to do with it--and he has held back the Safety movement in his whole line of work."

"Hm-m-m! Hard nut to crack, eh? What's the old codger's name?"

"Bruce. He's done more to handicap Safety work than any other man in the country--and I do believe he's proud of it," said Sure Pop, grimly.

"Bruce--isn't that the man your father works for, Bob?"

Bob nodded. "He has a heart, though"--and he told them how the mill owner had come to Chance Carter's aid, and how like a different man he had seemed when little Bonnie threw her happy arms around him.

"Queer mixture, isn't he?" said Uncle Jack.

"Yes, he is. But don't you suppose our patrol could do something to change his mind?"

Uncle Jack waved the idea aside. "Forget it, Bob, forget it! Don't lose sight of what the Colonel told you Scouts yesterday about the right way to go at things. Well, the right way to go at Bruce is to leave him alone for a while. If he's as prejudiced as all that, interfering would only make him worse. He'll come around by and by, won't he, Colonel?"

"All in good time," said Sure Pop. "Your work is cut out for you, Bob, as I told you yesterday. Get the Safety First idea well rooted in the homes, and then we'll begin on the streets, and get folks in the habit of thinking Safety every time they cross the street."

Uncle Jack yawned and stretched himself.

"Can you spare these twins of ours for the day, Colonel? I've a frolic of my own I want to borrow them for, if I may."

"Sure pop! Go ahead, sir."

Uncle Jack stepped across the street to a telephone, and the first thing Bob and Betty knew, a big red automobile drew up beside them. "Jump in, folks--look out for my arm, please. Now--we're off! Goodby, Colonel."

"My, but isn't this glorious!" Betty nestled closer to her uncle as they sped along toward the shopping district. "Is this your car, Uncle Jack?"

"For today it is," laughed her uncle. "Today we'll just make believe I own the mint. Careful there, driver!"

Forgetful of his lame arm, he jumped to his feet and waved his hand in warning. They had been running smoothly along the car tracks, and another automobile had cut in ahead of them from around the corner. A tow-headed lad of about Bob's age, who was stealing a ride on it, holding himself on by main strength as the automobile jounced along over the crossing, had just made up his mind he would ride no farther and was getting ready to jump. Down he came, kerflop, in the street, stubbing his toe as he tried to catch his balance.

Uncle Jack's chauffeur, warned by his shout, gave the steering wheel a quick turn--and cleared the boy by a hand's breadth! Uncle Jack sank back on the cushions, his eyes flashing.

"Reckless young rascal! Trying to make murderers of us, is he? What are you Safety Scouts going to do about the boys' hitching on like that, Bob?"

Bob pulled a notebook out of his pocket. "Here's how Sure Pop has summed up our patrol reports on street accidents. He calls it--

SIX TIMELY TIPS ON STREET SAFETY

Tip 1: Make the street car stop before you step on or off--the car can wait. But step lively!

Tip 2: Face forward in getting off. Hold the grip iron with your left hand--it's a friend in need. Left foot to the step, right foot to the ground, eyes front!

Tip 3: Before leaving the car, look both ways for automobiles, wagons, and motor cycles.

Tip 4: In passing behind a car, first peek around to see what's coming. When carrying an umbrella, peek around that, too.

Tip 5: Before you hitch on or steal rides on street cars, automobiles, or wagons, better make your will.

Tip 6: Keep wide awake in getting on and off cars and in crossing streets. Walk fast, _but don't run_. Use all the sense you have; you're likely to need it and to need it quick!

"Those six tips are not guess work either, Uncle Jack. They're boiled down from weeks of street scouting by every boy and girl in our patrol."

"Those are good, sensible tips," said his uncle. "What use are you going to make of them?"

"Well, by the time vacation's over, we will have a special School Safety Patrol drilled and ready to get down to business on this particular work among the youngsters--to get them out of the habit of hitching on, and that sort of thing. Our idea is to begin with the smaller school children; there have been a good many bad accidents to them, you see, going to and from school. Most of them have to cross the tracks; it's altogether too easy for them to get confused and run down by a street car or engine or auto."

"That's right, Bob. How are you going to stop it?"

"Why, each Scout in the School Patrol takes charge of the school children in his block for one month. It's his job to get them together at a convenient corner in the morning, then herd them across the tracks and through the crowded streets to school; to do the same thing on their way home; and to keep an eye on their games during recess, reporting any risky condition to their teachers. We've planned it so this team work will not only keep the youngsters from being run over and all that, but will also be training them to take care of themselves and keep out of danger just like any Safety Scout. How does the idea strike you?"

"Fine! It's a good, practical plan! Makes me wish I were a boy again myself. Hello, here we are--out we go!"

"Why, where are we?"

"I'll soon show you." Uncle Jack led the way to the elevator and they shot up, up, clear to the roof.

"Hungry?" he asked, as a white-clad waiter showed them to a table. He enjoyed the surprise of Bob and Betty; they had never had luncheon downtown before. Mr. Dalton's hard-earned wages left no room for such celebrations as this. And a roof garden--! No wonder it seemed very strange and very grand to the Dalton twins.

They must have spent a good half-hour ordering that meal: it was fun to study the big bill of fare and pick out delicious things which they "never had at home." Uncle Jack seemed to find it just as much fun as they did, and he understood pretty well how they felt as they ate and ate, while they gazed out on the roofs of the city spread out below them. It wasn't so _very_ many years, you see, since he had been a youngster himself!

_Plant the Safety First idea and watch it grow._ --SURE POP

ADVENTURE NUMBER FIFTEEN

TWIN UNIFORMS

"How nice and cool it is up here!"

Betty, looking very grown-up and quite as if she were used to taking luncheon in a roof garden every day, smiled contentedly at Uncle Jack over her glass of lemonade.

"Cool as a cucumber," said her uncle. "Hard to realize how sweltering hot it is down there in the street, isn't it? Betty, what's _your_ Safety work going to be when school begins?"

Betty glanced at Bob; she had not yet told even him about her plan. "First, I suppose, I'll serve my month on the School Safety Patrol; and then--then, I'm going to talk to my teacher about starting Safety Games in the lower grades."

"Safety Games!" Bob's tone showed his surprise.

"Yes, Bob. Funny sounding idea, isn't it? But I've thought out a lot of games that the kindergarten children can play, games that will be brand new to them, and lots of fun, and at the same time will get them into the habit of thinking Safety and looking out for themselves on the street."

"Tell us one," demanded Bob.

"Well," said Betty, "one of them I call 'Little Safety Scout.' We can begin by asking the little folks in one grade what things they ought to keep in mind when crossing a busy street. The one that gives the best answer is made 'Little Safety Scout.' One of the biggest boys plays he's the crossing policeman, other children play street cars, others make believe they're automobiles, and so on. The rest are just people trying to get across the street, and they have trouble trying to understand what the policeman's whistle signals mean, and some get run over, and some are saved by the 'Little Safety Scout,' and others show the right way to get on and off a car, and all that."

"Well, Betty Dalton," cried Uncle Jack, "you're a regular little witch! Why, that's a dandy plan. The first thing you know, you'll have the little folks able to take care of themselves on the streets better than the grown-ups do!"

"Fine!" chimed in Bob. "And we can give them Sure Pop buttons, too!"

"That's right, we can," said Betty. "We can give buttons to the children who pass an easy little Safety First examination after we've played the Safety Games a few weeks. And perhaps we might make some Safety posters to hang on the schoolroom walls; just big posters in colored crayons, with a picture of Sure Pop and one of his Safety mottoes below it in big letters,--like, 'Folks that have no wings must use their wits,'--something that would make the children remember the point of the story longer. Don't you think that would help along?"

Thus the three friends went on planning, till the jolly head waiter asked them for the ninth time if they wouldn't have something more, and Uncle Jack looked at his watch with a start of surprise.

"Four o'clock! Whew! We must get out of this. We have lots to do yet before we go home, and I told the chauffeur to be back here at five. Let's stop in the cold-storage room below."

"Is that what makes the roof so cool?" asked Betty, as they looked around on the floor below.

"Ha, ha! Not a bad idea--perhaps it does have something to do with it. No, this is where the store keeps its furs during the summer months. Moths can't stand the cold, you know. Come on, we'll go on down now."

The elevator car was nearly full of people from the roof garden. Betty started to step in, hesitated, then turned back. Uncle Jack motioned her and Bob in, stepped in after them, and carefully turned so that he faced the elevator door.

"That was a risky thing you did just then," he whispered to Betty. "Three quarters of all the elevator accidents are due to stepping in or out in the wrong way. Never do the thing halfway, you know. Always wait till the elevator man stops the car at the floor level and throws the door wide open."

Next to them in the elevator stood two boys--cash boys in the store--who were fooling and scuffling so close to the door that the elevator man cautioned them twice as the car dropped swiftly downward. Finally one of them brought his heel down on the other's foot so hard that the other jumped backward, forgetting everything else for the pain. Forward went his head--bang went his face against the iron grating of the door they were just passing.

The elevator stopped with a jerk. They carried the boy out and sent for the store doctor. Bob and Betty never had to be reminded, in all the years to come, to look sharp when riding in elevators. The memory of that bruised and battered face was warning enough.

"It's a dangerous machine," said Uncle Jack as they left the store. "A fellow who will scuffle in an elevator is foolish enough for almost anything. Here's our next stop," and he showed them into a shop with a big sign over the double door:

UNIFORMS--READY MADE OR TO ORDER

"Uncle Jack must be going to have a new uniform," whispered Betty to her twin as the tailor came up with his tape over his shoulders. But it was not around their uncle that the tape measure went, it was around Bob!

"Yes, the regulation khaki," Uncle Jack was saying. "Cut and finish it just like this one," and he handed the tailor a photograph of Sure Pop.

"Your turn next, Betty," said Uncle Jack, and to Betty's great delight and the tailor's surprise, _she_ was measured for a special Safety Scout uniform too!

Uncle Jack did not stop there. He bought the twins Safety Scout hats of fine, light felt, made for hard service, and he was on the point of buying them leather puttees or leggings, but Bob stopped him.

"Canvas leggings are plenty good enough," he said. "The fellows couldn't afford leather, most of them, and we want them all to match."

"Canvas it is, then," nodded his uncle, and went on making up the outfits. Betty sighed happily as they followed him into another store. It all seemed too good to be true! The first thing she knew, they were sitting at a glass-topped table.

Uncle Jack mopped his steaming forehead again. "That tailor shop beats the jungle all hollow for heat!" he exclaimed. "What kind of ice cream do you want, Scouts?"

Betty thought it was time to object. "Oh, Uncle Jack, we've had enough! You've done too much for us already!" All the same, she enjoyed the ice cream just as much as the others did, and when Uncle Jack tucked a box of chocolates under her arm, her cup of joy was full.

"What are you thinking about, Betty?" asked Uncle Jack as the big red automobile bore them merrily homeward; for Betty had not said a word for blocks and blocks.

She patted Uncle Jack's arm--the well one--with a grateful smile. "I was thinking what a perfectly, perfectly _lovely_ day we've had! And wishing," she murmured, wistfully, "that Mother had been along too."

"Now that part's all taken care of," said Uncle Jack. "Your mother's going out for a spin with me tonight after Baby's asleep; she couldn't leave today, she said. She and I will have a good long ride down the river front in the moonlight. Be sure you get a good sleep tonight, now, you two; I want you to be in good trim for a little exploring party I'm planning for tomorrow."

"We'll be up bright and early, ready for anything," Bob told him. "Whew! but this has been a whirlwind of a day! Glad you're going to take Mother out--that's the only way she'd get a cool breeze tonight, all right!"

"But it can't be as nice as the roof garden, even then!" cried his happy twin, as she lifted out her big box of candy and skipped up the front steps two at a time.

ADVENTURE NUMBER SIXTEEN

WHERE SAFETY WAS A STRANGER

True to their word, Bob and Betty were up bright and early, ready for Uncle Jack's exploring trip.

"We're going to visit one of the big wood-working mills," he explained as they left the house after breakfast. "I'm curious to see the result of Colonel Sure Pop's Safety patrolling, and it seems to me that will be about as interesting a shop as we can begin on. It will be fun to see what they're doing to make it safer for the men--perhaps we can get some ideas for your outside patrols, Bob."

The twins looked around them sharply as they went into the mill by way of its lumber yard. "I don't see anything here that looks dangerous," was Bob's first remark. "Hold on, though--what about those piles of lumber? Don't you think they're piled too high to be safe?"

"I can tell you this much," said Uncle Jack, who had been reading up on the year's long list of accidents. "The danger of being hit by falling or flying objects in mills and factories is the biggest risk in the whole country today."

He walked around to the laborers who were piling lumber and began talking with the foreman. The twins stepped nearer so that they could hear what he was saying.

"They're getting that pile rather high," said Uncle Jack, as if he had only just noticed it. "It's beginning to look a bit wobbly on its pins. Isn't there danger of its toppling over and hurting somebody?"

"Oh, I don't know," was the foreman's answer. "We do have a few men smashed up that way, off and on; it's all in the day's work, though."

Hardly were the words out of his mouth when a heavily loaded wagon in passing beside the lumber piles swayed and came squarely up against the one the men were working on. With a crash and a clatter the whole thing went over. One man jumped clear of the wreck, another slid down with the lumber, bruised but not much hurt--and two disappeared under the huge mass of falling boards.

The three Safety Scouts stood watching the ambulance, fifteen minutes later, as it carried off the two men to the hospital, one with a broken arm and a gash over one eye, the other hurt inside so badly that he died that night. Both of them had boys and girls of their own--families whose living depended on their daily wages at the mill!

"Hard luck for their folks," said Uncle Jack, as the ambulance rumbled away. "The Colonel told me yesterday his men had done a lot of successful Safety scouting among the wood-working mills. I can't understand it. By the way, Bob, that ambulance reminds me: what drill are you giving your Safety Scouts on how to call the fire department, and the police and the ambulance and so on?"

"We've got that well covered in our Saturday reports, Uncle Jack. Once a week each Scout adds to his report the telephone number of the police and the fire department--it's usually a number that's easy to remember, like 'Main 0' for fire and 'Main 13' for police--as well as the street address of the nearest station."

"Bob, how did they happen to choose those numbers?" wondered Betty.

Her brother grinned. "I suppose because after a bad fire there's nothing left, and because it's unlucky to fall into the hands of the police!" and he cleverly ducked the box Betty aimed at his ear.

Uncle Jack's twinkle didn't last long, though. He was too much puzzled over the carelessness he was noticing in this mill, carelessness where he had expected to find up-to-date Safety methods. He poked with his foot at a board with several ugly nails sticking up in it and jammed them carefully down into the ground.

"That's the fourth bad case of upturned nails I've found here already," he said quietly. "There's no end of broken bottles and such trash under foot, and just look at that overloaded truck, will you? One sharp curve in the track and that load will spill all over the place. Why, these chaps don't realize the first thing about Safety, Bob."

They moved on into the engine room. One of the engineer's helpers, a boy who looked hardly older than Bob, stood beside a swiftly moving belt, pouring something on it out of a tin can. His sleeve was dangling, and every time the belt lacing whirled past, it flipped the sleeve like a clutching finger trying to jerk his arm into the cruel wheel.

Uncle Jack walked over for a word with the engineer, a fat, jolly looking man who seemed well satisfied with life. "Do your helpers often put belt dressing on while the belt is running?" he asked.

The jolly engineer was plainly surprised. "Why, they never do it any other time!" he exclaimed. "Why do you ask?"

"Only," said the explorer, dryly, "because there are several hundred men killed in just that way every year--and most of them have families. Don't you put guards around any of your belts in this mill, either?"

Again that puzzled look in the engineer's eyes. "No, not here," he answered slowly. "There was some talk about putting them on, but nothing came of it. It wouldn't be a bad idea, either; every now and then some poor fellow loses a hand or an arm. Last spring a new man from out in the yards was walking through here, and the wind blew his sleeve too near the belt. It yanked him clear in between the belt and pulley--smashed him up so he didn't live more'n a couple of hours. That certainly was hard luck."

"Luck!" snorted Uncle Jack, when the three were out of hearing. "A moving belt is almost as dangerous as a can of gunpowder! Yet these men call it luck when it takes off an arm or snuffs out a life. It's disgusting."

All through the plant they found the same state of affairs--careless men, unguarded machinery, guesswork everywhere. In the machine shop they found men and boys cleaning machines that were running at top speed. Any one could see how easily the rags and soft cotton waste they were using could catch in the moving parts and draw a hand or an arm into the flying wheels.