The Boy Scouts on Swift River

Boy Scouts #2

by Thornton W. Burgess

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922 edition. ... chapter xviii Plympton's Story By means of the rope which Woodhull's foresight had provided Louis was at once lowered into the pit. He quickly looped the rope under the arms of the unconscious boy and lifting him up gave the word to pull. As it came to the surface eager hands reached to tenderly lift the limp body and lay it on the coats which Hal had spread on a smooth place. While the guide and Hal once more lowered the rope for Woodhull and pulled him out of the hole Walter bent over the senseless form of his comrade. " Thank heaven it's only a faint! " he exclaimed as he felt the weak but rapid pulse and noted the colorless face. He at once slipped a big stone under the feet so as to elevate them higher than the head that the blood might run toward the brain. Opening the boy's coat and shirt he sprinkled chest and face with water from his canteen and then as Louis appeared called for spirits of ammonia from the first aid kit in Woodhull's knapsack. Meanwhile he briskly rubbed Plympton's limbs toward the body. With the application of the ammonia to his nose Plympton's eyelids fluttered, then slowly opened and a wan smile parted the colorless lips. It was plain that the boy was suffering from shock and exhaustion as well as from the faint, and Woodhull quickly prepared a hypodermic injection by dissolving a one fortieth grain tablet of strychnia in ten drops of water. This he injected into the outside of one arm between the elbow and the shoulder. The patient showed a marked effect almost immediately. The action of the heart became stronger and a little color began to creep into his face. Meanwhile Walter and Hal kept up a brisk rubbing of the limbs to restore circulation. By Woodhull's orders the guide had built a brisk little fire of...

58 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1999

About the author

Thornton W. (Waldo) Burgess (1874-1965), American author, naturalist and conservationist, wrote popular children's stories including the Old Mother West Wind (1910) series. He would go on to write more than 100 books and thousands of short-stories during his lifetime.

Thornton Burgess loved the beauty of nature and its living creatures so much that he wrote about them for 50 years in books and his newspaper column, "Bedtime Stories". He was sometimes known as the Bedtime Story-Man. By the time he retired, he had written more than 170 books and 15,000 stories for the daily newspaper column.

Born in Sandwich, Massachusetts, Burgess was the son of Caroline F. Haywood and Thornton W. Burgess Sr., a direct descendant of Thomas Burgess, one of the first Sandwich settlers in 1637. Thornton W. Burgess, Sr., died the same year his son was born, and the young Thornton Burgess was brought up by his mother in Sandwich. They both lived in humble circumstances with relatives or paying rent. As a youth, he worked year round in order to earn money. Some of his jobs included tending cows, picking trailing arbutus or berries, shipping water lilies from local ponds, selling candy and trapping muskrats. William C. Chipman, one of his employers, lived on Discovery Hill Road, a wildlife habitat of woodland and wetland. This habitat became the setting of many stories in which Burgess refers to Smiling Pool and the Old Briar Patch.

Graduating from Sandwich High School in 1891, Burgess briefly attended a business college in Boston from 1892 to 1893, living in Somerville, Massachusetts, at that time. But he disliked studying business and wanted to write. He moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he took a job as an editorial assistant at the Phelps Publishing Company. His first stories were written under the pen name W. B. Thornton.

Burgess married Nina Osborne in 1905, but she died only a year later, leaving him to raise their son alone. It is said that he began writing bedtime stories to entertain his young son, Thornton III. Burgess remarried in 1911; his wife Fannie had two children by a previous marriage. The couple later bought a home in Hampden, Massachusetts, in 1925 that became Burgess' permanent residence in 1957. His second wife died in August 1950. Burgess returned frequently to Sandwich, which he always claimed as his birthplace and spiritual home.

In 1960, Burgess published his last book, "Now I Remember, Autobiography of an Amateur Naturalist," depicting memories of his early life in Sandwich, as well as his career highlights. That same year, Burgess, at the age of 86, had published his 15,000th story. He died on June 5, 1965, at the age of 91 in Hampden, Massachusetts.