Waltie was the son of Axel and Ella Frank, who worked for my grandfather at our big summer house in Quissett. He had been a Boy Scout since he was eleven, and he’d earned the rank of Star, which is just two positions short of Eagle, the ultimate honor, which to this day is so exalted that only a handful of American boys have achieved it since Lord Baden-Powell established the organization in 1908.
In the summer of 1953 Waltie was seventeen, and he was doing his Good Deed For The Day by guiding me and his cousin Carlie to the Deer Park in the woods. He was also picking up another Merit Badge for orienteering- plotting a course by using a compass and his wrist watch. Carlie and I were eleven, no longer Tenderfeet but Second Class Scouts; Waltie’s journey would advance us a rung of the ladder to First Class, with shoulder patches to prove it. Of course we were in full uniform: brown ankle boots, khaki shirts and shorts, and blue neckerchiefs with wooden clasps.
We had canteens of water clipped to our web belts, and Waltie wore a back-pack with ham sandwiches in it. I thought we ought to be singing a marching song, but Waltie told us to keep quiet so as not to spook the deer.
So we proceeded silently, Indian-file, up a rise covered with sumac. There was a stand of scrub pines at the top of the rise, and Waltie motioned us to squat down and look between their scraggy trunks.
We were downwind of a small herd of does placidly cropping grass, completely unaware of us. They were so beautiful my eyes teared up. I didn’t dare wipe them, and the drops ran down my cheeks. Carlie’s remained dry; I assumed he’d seen the little. bunch before. But he smiled at me and nodded.
We watched them until the breeze shifted and they caught our scent. In a heart-beat they pronked deeper into the woods and disappeared. We sat up, and Waltie passed out the sandwiches.
“Some people shoot them”, he said. “Not always in season. But I don’t like venison. Too gamy. I like beef better. Cattle are raised to be slaughtered and turned into steaks and hamburger, right? Deer should be left alone.”
“To do what?” Carlie asked.
“Make new deer, goofus”, said Waltie.