THE BOY SCOUTS
FOR
CITY IMPROVEMENT
BY
SCOUT MASTER ROBERT SHALER
AUTHOR OF “BOY SCOUTS OF THE SIGNAL CORPS,” “BOY SCOUTS
OF PIONEER CAMP,” “BOY SCOUTS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY,”
“BOY SCOUTS OF THE LIFE SAVING CREW,” “BOY
SCOUTS ON PICKET DUTY,” “BOY SCOUTS OF THE FLYING
SQUADRON,” “BOY SCOUTS AND THE PRIZE
PENNANT,” “BOY SCOUTS OF THE NAVAL
RESERVE,” “BOY SCOUTS IN THE
SADDLE,” ETC., ETC.
NEW YORK
HURST & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1914,
BY
HURST & COMPANY
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER. PAGE.
I. Under the Spreading Oak 5
II. A Friend in Need 17
III. The Fire Call 30
IV. Willing Workers 43
V. Repairing Damages 56
VI. On Duty 69
VII. The Alarm 82
VIII. Mocking the Mayor 95
IX. What Scouts Know 108
X. The Accusation 121
XI. The Turning Point 133
XII. Thanks to the Scouts 151
The Boy Scouts for City Improvement.
CHAPTER I.
UNDER THE SPREADING OAK.
“I guess old summer must have forgotten something and has come back to
find it again, eh, Billy?”
“It feels more like the August dog-days than the tail end of September,
that’s a fact, Hugh.”
“But right here, Billy, sitting on the stone curbing in the shade of the
big General Putnam oak, we can cool off. Let’s rest up a bit and talk,
while we watch the people go by.”
“That suits me all right, Hugh. I love to sit and watch others work on a
hot afternoon. Suppose we chin a little about skating, tobogganing and
all those nice pleasant things? They help to cool you off and make you
feel that life is worth living, after all.”
The two lads were dressed in khaki uniforms, sufficient evidence that
they were members of the local Boy Scout troop, of which their home town
was rather proud. In fact, the young fellow who had been called Hugh and
whose last name was Hardin, had lately succeeded in attaining the
position of Assistant Scout Master, when the former incumbent resigned,
owing to removal from the place.
His chum, Billy Worth, also a member of the Wolf Patrol, was a
first-class scout, as his badge denoted. He was inclined to be rather
stout in build, and his face expressed genial good nature. Billy and
Hugh had been doing some shopping on the main street of their town and
were sauntering along, when the heat of the September day caused them to
make a halt under the grateful shade of the tremendous oak, which for
some reason or other had been called after that staunch New England
patriot of Revolutionary days, Israel Putnam.
While these two energetic lads will be readily recognized by any reader
who has perused former books in this series, for the benefit of those
who may be meeting them for the first time it might be advisable to say
something concerning them and the local organization.
The troop now consisted of four full patrols of eight members each, and
another was forming. These were, first of all, the Wolf, to which both
boys belonged, Hugh being the leader; the Hawks, with Walter Osborne at
their head; the Otters, once again having Alec Sands, Hugh’s old-time
rival, as their leader; and last of all, the Fox Patrol, in which Don
Miller occupied the place of honor.
For several seasons now these scouts had been having the time of their
lives under the charge of a retired army officer named Lieutenant
Denmead, who, having more or less spare time on his hands and being
deeply interested in the upbuilding of boy character, had long ago
accepted the office of Scout Master to the troop.
They had camped many times, usually up at Pioneer Lake among the rugged
hills close to old Stormberg Mountain. Besides this experience, they had
had chances to see considerable of life in other places, as will be
found detailed in previous volumes of this series.
On one occasion they had been given an opportunity to accompany the
State Militia on their annual training trip, when a mock battle was
fought. Some of the scouts, serving as a signal corps, proved themselves
of considerable value to the armies engaged in the sham fight.
Then again, a favored few had been given a chance to see how the life
savers of the Florida coast conduct their work during the stormy season
of the year, and had even assisted in the work of rescue.
On another occasion they had accompanied the Naval Reserve Corps aboard
a war vessel that had been placed at their disposal by the authorities
at Washington, and in this manner had learned many valuable lessons that
were bound to be profitable to them in the future.
The summer vacation of the present year had come to an end some little
time before, and these lads were once more in school harness. Some of
them may have been really glad to get back to work again, as the long
weeks of idleness began to pall upon them; but these were few in number.
Times were different these days, since the scout movement had captured
the town. So many delightful excursions were being planned for those who
had the good fortune to belong to the troop that they could hardly find
time to attend to all of their engagements. You never found these scouts
lounging around through the August days with an aimless look on their
faces. They were planning and executing right along, always full of
business.
While Hugh and his chum lay there under the big oak and cooled off, a
sudden gust of wind came sweeping along the street, causing the dust to
rise.
“Whee! Look at the old scraps of paper and stuff flying through the
air!” exclaimed Billy, laughing at the flurry the puff of wind had
created. “Honest Injun, I do believe what some of the visitors at the
hotel say: that we have the dirtiest little city of its size in the
whole state! It doesn’t seem as though anybody cared a rap what goes on
here. In nearly every street you’ll find paper blowing into fence
corners, and all sorts of rubbish lying around. I sometimes blush for my
town when anybody visits at our house from other places where the mayor
is wide-awake and does things.”
“You know that the women tried to take it in hand a year ago. They’ve
got a club called the Town Improvement Association, and for a little
while they really did make a dent in things. Those tall cans with the
letters ‘T. I. A.’ on them were bought and placed everywhere about. But
does anybody bother putting papers and trash in them? Well, hardly ever.
Watch that farmer coming along, and you’ll see just the sort of spirit
that seems to have gripped the whole place by the throat. Everybody’s
doing it, they say, and so they follow suit.”
Evidently the man in the farm wagon had brought a lot of tomatoes to
market for which he had been unable to find a purchaser at any price.
Perhaps they were not fresh, and as he was now going home and had no
desire to burden his horses with an unnecessary load, he began
deliberately to turn the crates over and allow the contents to trail in
the road after him, doubtless expecting that the Italian children would
immediately get busy and pick them up.
There was something like a rush and scramble for the spoils, but when
the dust had settled again it could be seen that quite a number of the
tomatoes had been crushed underfoot or refused as unworthy. At any rate,
there they lay by dozens, only adding to the untidy condition of this,
one of the streets leading into the main thoroughfare of the town.
The two scouts exchanged looks.
“That’s the way it keeps on going,” remarked Hugh with a shrug of his
shoulders. “You see, we have quite an Italian population now, and
somehow those people never seem to know the first thing about keeping
things tidy. Perhaps they’ve had no one to show them. I sometimes think
that the scouts will have to get busy and see what they can do about
it.”
“Say, that’s a great scheme, Hugh!” exclaimed Billy, sitting up suddenly
as if he had received a shock from a battery. “We’ve done a good many
things that called for praise from the citizens of our home city;
perhaps we might be able to set this thing working. Take the matter up,
seriously, won’t you, Hugh? Propose something along that line to the
boys at the meeting to-night. As sure as you live, I believe they’d jump
at it like wildfire. And say, maybe the women folks would back us up if
we started in to clean the town. Do you really think it could be done,
Hugh?”
“If we had a fair show, I believe we could manage it,” replied the other
thoughtfully; “but it’s sure to set people talking. I know a gang of
boys who’d make all manner of fun to see the scouts acting as
scavengers, picking up paper, asking people not to throw things around,
and trying to start a ‘clean-up week’ here like they have in lots of
places.”
“Hugh, when you speak of boys acting that way, I guess you don’t mean
any scouts, do you,—Alec Sands, for instance, who used to oppose nearly
everything you started?” Billy questioned.
“Oh! Alec is a good friend of mine these days,” replied the other; “and
I hardly believe we’ll ever go back to the old conditions again. I was
thinking of the one boy in town who seems to scorn the scouts and say
all sorts of mean things about us,—Lige Corbley, you know.”
“Oh! you’re right about him! He is the worst boy in town this summer,”
said Billy, shaking his head. “I never can understand that fellow. He’s
as smart as they make ’em, only he has a bitter tongue in his head, as
if he was born with a grouch against everybody that tries to be decent.
Yet I’ve seen him carrying that little crippled brother of his across
the muddy street, and say, it couldn’t have been done more tenderly if
it had been you! Yet he’d as soon fight as eat his supper. And so you
kind of think Lige would give us a heap of trouble, do you, if ever we
started to clean up the town?”
“Well,” Hugh replied, “he has a few boys about as bad as himself
trailing after him in a sort of gang, and I expect they’d try all they
could to upset our work for us. But if we have the women of the place
and public sentiment back of us, we might be able to make a decent
showing. I’d want to consider our chances well before making a start.
Scouts don’t like to be looked down on as failures. Once they put their
shoulders to the wheel, they want to see things move.”
“If only we had a mayor with any sort of backbone, things could never be
done like that clodhopper of a farmer dumping his waste tomatoes out of
the tail of his wagon along the road! Well, I should say not! I
sometimes wonder if it would make any sort of change if the women did
get a vote here and we had a woman for mayor!”
At that mental picture, Hugh laughed loud and long.
“Honest, I’d like to see the day that happens,” he remarked seriously.
“Things couldn’t be any worse, and chances are they’d improve a thousand
per cent. Men get so shiftless. Any old thing does for them, rather than
have a lot of trouble. They think they get enough of that during spring
cleaning or moving time.”
“But you’ll bring the matter up before the boys to-night, won’t you,
Hugh?” Billy insisted. “Because Lieutenant Denmead is down to Boston,
won’t make any difference. We can undertake the work by ourselves
without consulting anybody. And once we concluded to make the dust fly,
you could partition the whole town off between the different patrols,
and offer a prize to the one that showed the cleanest streets and yards
two weeks later. How’s that for an idea, Hugh?”
“It sounds good to me, Billy, and to tell you the truth, I’m thinking
more and more about going into the scheme, as we get to talking about
it. I know my folks would be glad to see the place look halfway decent.
If public sentiment can only be waked up, the thing is as good as done
in spite of Lige and his gang.”
Billy was all animation now. The heat of the afternoon seemed to have
passed entirely out of his mind. As was always the case when he went
into any scheme, Billy was ready to throw himself heart and soul into
the fray.
He was just about to say something further along the line of their
interesting conversation, when a sudden wild racket arose, in which the
yelping of a dog vied with loud laughter and hoots from around the
corner.
Hugh and his fellow scout scrambled to their feet, wondering what was
coming, possibly with half formed visions of a mad dog scare in their
minds.