On the return journey the party suffered great hardships from intense cold and terrible weather. The men became weaker and weaker. One of them, Petty Officer Evans, died.
Then Oates became badly frost-bitten in hands and feet. He bore intense sufferings without complaint, but realized more and more that he was becoming a burden to the others. He knew that even if he could struggle on he would only delay his comrades. If he dropped out it would be one less mouth to feed, and the others might just have a chance of reaching the next depot.
So one morning he crept from their little tent into the blinding blizzard outside—and dropped out. He was never seen again. He gave his life that his comrades might live.
Unfortunately Oates’ heroic self-sacrifice did not after all save his comrades. Starved and frozen they all died together. There they were found some months later by a search party, all lying as if asleep in their tent.
Boys, too, can show just the same spirit.
A lad of eighteen named Currie saw a little girl playing on a railway line at Clydebank in front of an approaching train. He tried to rescue her, but he was lame from an injury he had suffered at football, and it delayed him in getting her clear. The train knocked both of them over, and both were killed.
But Currie’s gallant attempt is a true example of chivalry. It was sacrifice of himself in the attempt to save a child.
Thousands of cases of gallantry in saving life by Scouts have occurred.
Kindness
“Kindness and gentleness are great virtues”, says an old Spanish proverb. And another says, “Oblige without regarding whom you oblige”, which means be kind to anyone, great or small, rich or poor.
A Scout does everything he can to help others, especially old people and children. He does
at least one Good Turn a day.
The great point about a knight was that he was always doing kindnesses or good turns to people. His idea was that everyone must die, but you should make up your mind that before your time comes you will do something good. Therefore do it at once, for you never know when you may be going off.
So, with the Scouts, it has been made one of our promises that we help other people at all times. It does not matter how small that good turn may be, if it only be to help an old woman lift her bundle, or to guide a child across a crowded street, or to put a coin in the poor-box.
Something good ought to be done each day of your life. Start today to carry out this rule, and never forget it during the remaining days of your life. Remember the knot in your neckerchief and on your Scout Badge—they are reminders to you to do a Good Turn. And do your good turn not only to your friends, but to strangers as well.
Generosity
Some people are fond of hoarding their money and never spending it. It is well to be thrifty, but it is also well to give away money where it is needed—in fact, that is part of the object of saving up your money.
In being charitable, be careful that you do not fall into the mistake of false charity. That is to say, it is very easy and comforting to you to give a penny to a beggar in the street, but you ought not to do it. That beggar in ninety- nine times out of a hundred is an arrant old fraud, and by giving your penny you are encouraging him and others to go on with that trade. There may be, probably are, hundreds of really poor and miserable people hiding away, whom you never see and to whom that penny would be a godsend. The charity organizations know where they are, and who they are, and if you give your penny to them they will put it into the right hands for you.
You need not he rich to be charitable. Many of the knights were poor men. At one time some of them wore, as their crest, two knights riding on one horse, which meant they were too poor to afford a horse apiece.
Tips
Then “tips” are a bad thing.
Wherever you go, people want to be “tipped” for doing the slightest thing which they ought to do out of common good feeling. A Scout will never accept a “tip”, unless it is to pay for work done. It is often difficult to refuse, when it is offered, but for a Scout it is
easy. He has only to say, “Thank you very much, but I am a Scout, and our rules don’t allow us to accept anything for doing a good turn”. “Tips” put you on a wrong footing with everyone. You cannot work in a friendly way with a man if you are thinking how much “tip” you are going to get out of him, or he is thinking how much he’ll have to “tip” you. And all Scout’s work for another ought to be done in a friendly way.
Here is an example of what refusing a tip for a good turn may mean:
The Boy Scouts of America now number over three million Scouts. That’s a big lot, and it was started by the action of one English Boy Scout in London in 1909. This Scout offered to show the way to a gentleman as his good turn for the day.
When the stranger offered to pay for his trouble, of course the Scout said: “No, thank you, sir. I am a Scout.”
“A Scout! What is that?” The gentleman had never heard of Scouts. He questioned the boy, and finally paid a visit to Scout Headquarters in London and learned all there was to know about Scouts.
He was an American. He went back to America with his tale of the wonderful Brotherhood of Scouts, who were ready to do good turns to anyone needing help, but he would take no reward for doing them.
The idea caught on quickly in America, and Troops sprang up all over the States. Now there are almost as many Scouts there as there are in the rest of the world put together.
That was the result of helping without thinking of a tip.
