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Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts

SURE POP AND
THE SAFETY SCOUTS

BY

ROY RUTHERFORD BAILEY

CONTENTS

THE SAFETY SCOUT'S PLATFORM

INTRODUCTION

Safety First—The Prevention of Accidents

The National Safety Council realizes the importance of educating school children in the principles of Safety; for they will be the future industrial workers and the representatives of public opinion; their interest must be aroused to practice and preach "Safety First" everywhere. Children can be taught to become alert to their own safety, and can influence their parents to a deeper realization of their responsibilities.

The National Safety Council has directed the preparation of this book and hopes that through its pages children will be brought to realize the manliness of caution, the importance of courtesy and consideration; that, in short, the Safety way is simply the right way of doing things; and that the efficiency, comfort, and happiness of many individuals will be increased by the practicing day in and day out of "Safety First."

SURE POP AND THE
SAFETY SCOUTS

ADVENTURE NUMBER ONE

BOB THIRSTS FOR ADVENTURE AND GETS IT

"Bully for Uncle Jack!" cried Bob, a stalwart lad just on the edge of twelve, excitedly waving a letter with a South American postmark. "What wouldn't I give to be with him on his exploring trips! Here, Betty, listen to this part about their fight with the natives!"

"Oh, don't, please!" said his twin, clapping both hands over her ears, but listening just the same. "I'm always so afraid Uncle Jack will get killed."

"Uncle Jack get killed? Hardly! Just listen to what he says:

"'This last scrimmage was one of the liveliest I've ever been up against. The warlike up-river tribes, it seems, mistook our native scouts for a war party and lay in ambush for us. Might have been worse, though. Our losses were two men killed and seven wounded—but of course that's only a fraction of what you wound and kill every day back there in the States.'"

"Why, what does he mean by that?" wondered Betty. "There's no war going on in this country, is there?"

"Not that I know of." Even Brother Bob looked puzzled for a moment. "No Indians left to fight! But say, Betty, Uncle Jack's life is just fairly dripping with adventure! Think of it—every day chock-full of thrills and narrow escapes—and adventures every time he turns around! Well, it won't be many years now before I can be a scout and explorer myself."

A yell from their playmates outside brought the twins to the street in a hurry. Bob's legs were longer, but Betty, quick as a cat, got there first.

"You're it, Bob!" "Bob's last, so he's it!" Like a band of savages the screeching boys and girls scuttled across the car tracks and around the corners, while Bob counted up to five hundred "by fives."

"Four hundr' nine' five, FIVE HUNDRED!" yelled Bob, and started to dash across the tracks, for he had caught a glimpse of Jimmy West's new red boots disappearing under his grandmother's porch across the street. The sound of the wind in his ears as he ran drowned out the roar of the coming street car, and of course he had eyes only for those tell-tale red boots.

Another jump and Bob would have been under the wheels—but a strong little hand on his shoulder stopped him. The street car roared by with a startled clang of its gong, for the motorman had seen Bob too late to throw off the power.

Bob gasped in relief—then whirled around to see what had stopped him. And what do you think he saw, right there beside him in the street? Was it a scout—or a pygmy—or what?

He was old and snowy haired, but as fresh as a daisy and as spry as a cricket. His cheeks were as ruddy as Spitzenberg apples and his only wrinkles were the laughter wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. And such eyes! They were big and clear, and so bright that Bob could only look at them a moment and then turn away. It was like trying to stare at the sun.

He was tiny, but straight as a ramrod in his natty khaki uniform. And he was holding up his right hand just like the big policeman on the corner downtown. As he dropped it to shake hands with Bob, there was a sudden flash of green.

"Why, hello there!" Bob could scarcely believe his eyes. "Where on earth did you come from? And who—who are you, anyway?"

"My name is Sure Pop!" answered the scout in a clear voice, like the note of a bugle. "I've dropped in on the United States on my second tour of scouting duty, and I hear you are thirsting for adventure. Well, you've had one, at any rate; if I hadn't grabbed you just in the nick of time—" He shuddered and hustled Bob back to the sidewalk.

"Thanks, old scout!" stammered Bob. "I didn't know there was a car coming, and you see I was in such a hurry—"

"I see!" said Sure Pop, dryly. "I see, Bob, but you didn't. How do you suppose a wee chap like me ever gets across the busy streets downtown?"

"Give it up!" said Bob, "unless you can fly!" And he gave a sly glance at the scout's square little shoulders, half expecting to see wings.

Sure Pop grinned. "No more than you," he chuckled. "So I keep my eyes and ears open. Folks who have no wings must use their wits."

Bob felt a bit uncomfortable to have his mind read so easily, and promptly changed the subject. "What a funny name you have—'Sure Pop'!"

"Well, 'tis a funny one, sure pop! That name was wished on me by a crowd of Borderland folk, and then His Majesty gave it to me for keeps."

"His Majesty—do you mean your King?"

"Right—the King of the Borderland." The two had been walking toward the Dalton house as they talked. Now Sure Pop followed Bob up the steps and curled up in the big porch chair to tell him all about it.

"Once upon a time, some years ago, when I was a younger man than I am now," began Sure Pop, "I was standing on a corner in the largest city in the Borderland. It was noontime, and crowds of horsemen and chariots were dashing up and down the street.

"Suddenly I saw a youngster start over to my side of the street without looking either way. There was a chariot almost upon him when I held up my hand, as I did to you now, and yelled, 'Look sharp!' He stopped short—and those thundering wheels missed him by about an inch.

"He picked his way across the street, then, and held out his hand. 'That was a close shave,' he said. 'You've saved my life, Mr.—Mr.—' For of course he didn't know my name from Captain Kidd's.

"'That's all right!' I said. 'But you should always look before you cross.'

"'Do you?' he asked, with a sudden sharp glance.

"'Sure pop!' I told him. 'Safety First!'

"By this time quite a crowd of Borderland folk had gathered around us, and they all laughed and cheered and called me 'Sure Pop.' And one bold-eyed rascal threw up his pointed cap and shouted, 'Bully for Sure Pop!' and ran off to tell the King. At that all the rest of the crowd clapped their hands, for though they laughed at the name they knew I had the right idea."

"Ha!" said Bob. "So that's how you came by that comical name of yours?"

"Sure pop!" answered the Safety Scout with a twinkle.

ADVENTURE NUMBER TWO

THE ROYAL SIGNET RING

Sure Pop paused in his story as Betty came dashing around the house. Like a shot the stranger jumped to his feet, and again Bob caught that sudden flash of green as he raised his hand in salute.

"Hello, Betty, glad to see you!"

"Why, goodness me!" exclaimed Betty. "You seem to know me, but I don't know who you are—unless you are one of those Boy Scouts Bob is so crazy to join?"

"Not exactly Boy Scouts," chuckled Sure Pop with a wink at Bob, "unless you count us boys till we're ninety-nine years old! Girls are scouts, too, in my regiment."

"Now, Betty," warned Bob, "sit down here and don't you dare interrupt, for Sure Pop's right in the middle of a story—and I think he's come to stay a while, haven't you, Sure Pop?"

"Sure pop! I'll stay as long as the King will let me," laughed the merry little scout.

"Well, after I got away from the crowd," he went on, "my eyes must suddenly have been opened to the thousand-and-one things that might happen even in Borderland to folks who didn't look sharp on the street, for on my way home I saved several others from getting hurt.

"The first was a careless little cabin boy, who went along whistling with his hands in his pockets. He slipped and fell plump in front of a chariot, and of course he couldn't jerk his hands out of his pockets in time to save himself. I grabbed him up in the very nick of time, or he'd have been smashed flatter than a pancake.

"And only a block farther on, I met a carpenter hurrying through the crowd with a ladder on his shoulder. Some one shouted to him, and he whirled around with never a thought of his ladder. The end of it would have hit a fat old banker squarely between the eyes if I hadn't been watching for that very thing and caught it as it swung. I went home and thought no more about all this, till that night, at midnight, I was summoned before the King."

"The King!" cried Betty. "My, weren't you scared?"

"I was, sure pop! When I marched into the throne room it was crowded with richly dressed people. The King and Queen sat on their thrones, and as I went toward them I had to pass between two long lines of trumpeters.

"Suddenly up went the silver trumpets, and the trumpeters blew a mighty blast. Let me tell you, it was enough to send the shivers down your spine, that trumpet call was! It seemed as if I never had climbed a longer flight of steps. But at last I found myself bowing before the King and Queen. The King, who wore a brand new uniform, just like this one I have on, beckoned a herald to his side.

"'Now hark to his words,' he said to me, 'and say if he speaks the truth.' And then the herald read aloud from a long white scroll, with scarlet seals on it, the story of how I had saved the young chap from the chariot that noon, and all about the cabin boy and the fat old banker I'd helped on my way home!

"'Does the herald speak truly?' asked the Borderland King. And all the rest strained their ears for my answer.

"'Sure pop, Your Majesty!' I replied before I knew what I was saying. At that he pulled from his finger a new signet ring, inked it with some magic ink, and motioned for me to hold out my right hand. How do I know it was magic ink? Why, it must have been, for the print it made has never faded. Look!"

Bob and Betty looked at the little scout's right hand, which he held up again like the crossing policeman downtown. And this is what they saw:

"'Hold it up,' commanded the King, 'where all can see!' And then the trumpets sounded again.

"'Long live Colonel Sure Pop, the Safety Scout!' cried the herald. The court wizard stepped forward, waved his hand and mumbled a few magic words over me, and—what do you think!—I found myself dressed in a brand new scouting uniform, the only one just like the King's!"

ADVENTURE NUMBER THREE

THE WOMAN AND THE WIZARD

Sure Pop, the Safety Scout, drew a long breath and watched the automobiles whirling recklessly down the busy street. "But say, haven't you twins had enough stories for one day?"

"Not much we haven't! What did the King do next?"

No doubt about the twins' being thirsty for adventure! Sure Pop smiled.

"Well, a single wave of the King's hand dismissed his people. Looking very sorrowful, he opened the great book in which he keeps the record of everything that happens over here in the New World.

"I looked where he pointed, and trembled. For this was what I read:

"He ran his finger across the page to the totals, and I saw that the first total ran clear up into the thousands—and the second one into the millions!

"'Colonel Sure Pop,' said the King, 'if only the thought you put into the mind of that lad you saved this noon, might be put into the mind of all America!'

"'Your Majesty means—Safety First?' I asked.

"The King nodded. 'All the lives lost in all our battles,' he said grimly, 'are but a drop in the sea as compared with the slaughter of a single year in a single land!'

"'Oh, Your Majesty, let me go and teach them Safety First—now, before another life is thrown away!'

"'No, Colonel. Not yet. The time is not yet ripe. But—perhaps we can make a beginning. Come to me again tomorrow night, at midnight, and we shall see.'

"The next night I went to the throne room and found the King studying a big map. He had a red pencil and a blue one in his hand, and he pointed to a lot of red rings he had drawn on the map.

"'Those,' he told me, 'are America's great mills. In them and the other factories, thousands upon thousands of workmen are killed by accident every year—by accident, Colonel, not in battle.

"'And that is not all,' the King went on. 'These blue lines mark the trails of the great iron horses—the railroads. Last year these iron horses trampled out thousands of lives in America alone. And all because the Americans haven't learned to think Safety!'

"That was too much for me. I pleaded with him to let me come straight to America and help end that awful suffering. But the King shook his head.

"'The more haste, the less speed, Colonel. Before you can help America, you must help yourself; and the quickest way to do that is first to teach Safety to our own people. Let me see you win your spurs here in the Borderland, and then—to America you go!'

"'Teach Safety to our own people?' I repeated, a bit puzzled. 'How ought I to go about it, Sire?'

"'Go through all the Borderland,' said the King, 'and muster an army of Safety Scouts. Train them to know signs that spell DANGER, as an Indian scout reads the signs of the trail. Teach them to report every danger signal they see—and they will teach their neighbors, and so the knowledge will spread. But above all, be sure your Safety Scouts are well chosen.'

"'But how?' I asked. 'Shall I pick out wise people?'

"'Colonel of the Scouts,' said the King, shrewdly, 'the wisest are not always the safest. Have you never thought why it is "bad luck to go under a ladder"?'

"'Never,' I owned up. 'I've always thought of it as just a proverb.'

"'True. But proverbs without reason would be like trees without roots. Stop and think: sometimes a ladder breaks or slips, which is bad for the climber—and bad for any one who happens to be under that ladder just then. And sometimes a painter's heavy paintpot falls—and woe to him who walks under the ladder then, be he the wisest man in the kingdom. Now go, and one moon from tonight bring me a full regiment of Safety Scouts.'

"So out through the Borderland I went, saying over and over to myself, 'It is bad luck to go under a ladder,' and waiting for the King's meaning to be made plain.

"First I went to the home of a great wizard, the wisest man in the Borderland. As I neared the house, the door opened and the wizard came out, a heavy book of wisdom under his arm.

"He had a long black pipe in his mouth. Pulling out a match, he lighted his pipe, threw the burning match over his shoulder, and hurried on toward the city.

"I started to run after him, when a flicker of light caught my eye. There in the straw that littered the roots of the ivy vines by the steps, a little tongue of flame was lapping up the tangle of leaves!"

Bob jumped to his feet as if he had heard the clang of a fire bell. "Good enough for him, the old fossil! Did it burn his house down?"

"Came mighty near it," said Sure Pop, looking at the scars on his hands. "He had a sick wife in there all alone, and if I hadn't happened along just then—

"Well, anyway," he went on cheerfully, "I got the fire out at last. And the King's meaning was made plain—it is one thing to have wisdom and another thing to use it. So I didn't ask the wizard to join the Safety Scouts, after all."

"I should say NOT!" cried Bob and Betty with one voice. "But where did you find your Scouts?" added Bob.

"Well, the next idea I had was to ask mothers, for mothers give up much of their time, anyhow, to keeping children out of harm's way. I found one whose house looked so trim and neat, and her children so clean and happy, that I had almost made up my mind to invite her to join—when my eye fell on a shining butcher knife hanging beside the kitchen table, where even the baby could reach it without half trying.

"And that wasn't all I saw. There was a saucer of fly poison on the window sill! Then I saw the mother starting to carry out a pail of water to scrub the steps, when the brass knocker on the door gave a thump, and she left that hot water right there in the middle of the floor while she talked to a peddler!

"Just then the baby came toddling across the room. He got safely past the scalding water and the fly poison, but the next moment I saw him climb up on a chair, open the medicine chest, and grab a bottle from the bottom shelf—the bottom shelf, Betty, of all shelves in the house! Out came the cork, and up went the bottle to his lips, just as I saw to my horror a skull and crossbones on its label. Like a flash I—"

"What's a skull and crossbones, Sure Pop?" broke in Betty.

"Poison sign!" explained Bob, shortly. "Don't interrupt! Go on, Sure Pop!"

"Like a flash," said Sure Pop, "I bounded to the baby's side and snatched the bottle away. I tell you, I did some earnest thinking as I left that house. I realized that it would never do to ask that mother to join our army of Safety Scouts, for until she herself had formed the Safety habit, she could hardly be expected to teach Safety to others. The adventure of the baby and the poison bottle had opened my eyes to the real meaning of the King's words about finding Scouts who could read the little signs that spell DANGER.

"By the way, I told the poison bottle story to a great doctor the other day, and now he's doing his best to get a law passed requiring that all poison bottles be of some special shape, different from any other bottles. That will make them much safer, even in the dark."

"But how can they be made different in shape?" asked Betty. "What shape, Sure Pop?"

"Three-cornered, probably. That certainly would be a life-saving law, if he could only get it passed. Just think! There were several thousand deaths in the United States last year from that one cause alone—just from mistaking bottles of poison for other medicine."

"But what I can't see," said Bob, "is how anybody could mistake a poison bottle. They all have skulls and crossbones on them, haven't they?"

"Stop and think a moment," said the Safety Scout. "Suppose baby has croup in the night, and mother is roused out of a sound sleep and rushes to the medicine chest; she's only half awake—the light is dim—poor baby is gasping and choking—not a moment to lose. She isn't likely to stop and read labels very carefully, is she? But if she felt her hand close over a three-cornered bottle, it would wake her up in a hurry. Even in the darkness and in the excitement—if she had been trained to think of a three-cornered bottle as meaning DANGER, perhaps death—it would stay her hand as surely as a red light stops an engine."

"I suppose," said Betty, "that when folks are badly hurt, or awfully, awfully sick, other folks lose their heads and don't know what they really are doing."

"Betty, you've hit the nail right on the head. Now that's why we must fix things so safety won't depend on level heads or time to think. The danger signal must pop right into our heads from force of habit. The sooner American boys and girls—yes, and the grown-ups, too—get the Safety habit, the sooner 'Safety First' will change from phrase into fact.

"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!"

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!