392
PARTISAN REVIEW
bodies whenever they excluded
all
the world from their conversation.
To the exclusion of all the world Uncle Jake was now become
a Scout Master. I felt myself deserted by the last human soul to whom
I might turn. He, rather, had turned and hidden himself in some–
thing more serious than laughter and song and more relentless than
even persistent, endless, trivial conversation with a chosen mate. He
stood before us like a gigantic replica of all the little boys on the
benches, half ridiculous and half frightening to me in his girlish khaki
middy and with his trousers disappearing beneath heavy three-quarter
length woolen socks. In that cold, bare, bright room he was saying
that it was our great misfortune to have been born in these latter
days when the morals and manners of the country had been corrupted,
born
in
a time when we could see upon the members of our own fam–
ilies-upon our own sisters and brothers and uncles and aunts-the
effects of our failure to cling to the teachings and ways of our fore–
fathers. And he was saying that it was our duty and great privilege,
as Boy Scouts, to preserve those honorable things which were left
from the golden days when a race of noble gentlemen and gracious
ladies inhabited the land of the South. He was saying that we must
preserve them until one day we might stand with young men from
all over the nation to demand a return to the old ways and the old
teachings everywhere.
