“Scout’s Honor” is a story about an unnamed narrator and his friends, Horse and Max, who go on a camping trip that ends in disaster because of their inexperience and lack of preparedness. There is much irony in the story, including the title of the story itself. The term “Scout’s Honor” refers to the idea that scouts are obligated to tell the truth. Indeed, it is one of the central tenets of scouting. However, the boys lie to their parents about being accompanied during their camping trip, justifying the lie by treating truth-telling by the same standards as a batting average: “we figured a 900 batting average was not bad.” Additionally, when they return home without actually sleeping in the wilderness, they promise that they will not tell the scoutmaster and pretend that they actually camped. Early in the story, the scoutmaster tells the narrator that there is no way to prove that one has gone camping; instead, they rely on Scout’s Honor. The final line of the story spoken by the narrator, “Scout’s Honor,” is an ironic echo of this idea, because the boys ultimately promise each other that they will maintain the lie. Indeed, there is honor here, but it is a kind of honor among thieves, an underhanded honor defined by a pact to be untruthful.

There is also a keen irony in the fact that the Boy Scout motto, which the narrator cites early on, is “Be Prepared.” Throughout the story, the boys are anything but prepared, and the narrator seems willing to acknowledge this to a degree. He knows, for instance, that he has never been outside the city limits and that he has no experience living in nature. When the boys arrive with their provisions, it quickly becomes clear how poorly prepared they are: they have no tent, no knowledge of how to start a fire, and no clear idea of where they are going or how to get there. Indeed, Horse hauls a mattress all the way to New Jersey, a difficult endeavor and a clear sign of his utter inexperience in camping. At the first sight of trees, they believe they are in nature, and the trip ends in disaster when they fail to attain shelter, start a fire, or properly feed themselves. In short, they fail because they are so unprepared. More broadly speaking, the story has a farcical quality. The narrator’s motivations for joining the Boy Scouts—primarily to seem tough—are questionable, and the boys exhibit none of the qualities that are generally associated with Boy Scouts. In some ways, the boys’ adventure represents a kind of mockery of the organization, given that many of their actions seem to be the opposite of what the scouts would endorse.

Contributing largely to their lack of preparedness is misinformation. The boys exhibit a vague awareness of what they might need to survive in the wilderness. This is shown in Max’s insistence that they must always travel north, for instance, and that any compass other than the most expensive will point them in other directions. While it is true that a compass could show them which way is north, it cannot help them decide which way is the right way to go. It is also unlikely that they have made it to any kind of campsite when they arrive on the other side of the bridge. Although there are some trees, the site is just off of the freeway, and they make note of the trash that has piled up, relieved that this supposed swathe of nature is not so different from the city....