SOWING THE SEED.
The second day of the County Fair promised to show even a greater
attendance than the opening one had done. Of course, the really fine
weather had considerable to do with the success of the undertaking, for
it would be hard to imagine a more complete failure than such an
exhibition always proves when an unfortunate rainy spell comes along
just after it had started.
Once again did the scouts appear in full numbers, eager to undertake
another afternoon’s work. At home and abroad, as well as in the
school-room, they had been hearing nothing but encouraging words, and
were thus primed for excelling their previous record.
Walter Osborne saw the scout master looking at him with a quizzical
smile on his face, as soon as he arrived at the camp. He shook his head
rather dolefully in the negative.
“That name gets on my nerves, for a fact, Hugh!” the Hawk leader
confessed.
“Then, after all, you didn’t dream the answer last night, or have it pop
into your head the first thing this morning?” asked Hugh.
“Same old story,” said Walter. “I’d open my mouth to say where I had met
that boy, and then get no further. I mean to keep an eye on him part of
the afternoon. Perhaps I may glimpse some little way he has about him
that will freshen up this silly old memory of mine. A fine scout I’m
turning out to be when I can’t remember a little thing like that.”
“Oh! don’t bother your head too much about it,” Hugh advised him; “that
is, I hope you won’t let it interfere with your duties.”
“I can promise you that, Hugh. My folks had word from Uncle Reuben and
Aunt Ruth this morning. They hope to land in Oakvale on that six-twenty
train this evening, so I expect to go right down from here and meet them
in time for supper.”
“I’m glad they’ll be here for the last two days of the Fair,” remarked
Hugh, “for it certainly will be worth seeing.”
He soon had his various detachments at work. Some were sent to the
station to meet the next train; others wandered about the grounds, and
into the various buildings where all manner of exhibits of great
interest to the farmer and the housewife were being admired by thousands
of visitors.
“I wonder whether we’ll have any serious cases to-day?” remarked Arthur
Cameron, as he joined Hugh, and looking around expectantly as he spoke
at the passing throng.
“It’s to be hoped not,” the other replied. “I wouldn’t seem so anxious
if I were you, Arthur. If they come we’ll try our best to take care of
them; but all the same we shouldn’t allow ourselves to wish for anything
like that.”
“Oh! I didn’t mean it that way, Hugh,” exclaimed Arthur, turning red
with confusion; “though a fellow begins to have a professional curiosity
concerning the character of his next job. That was so easy what we had
yesterday, you know.”
“Was it?” remarked Hugh. “Well, all the people who spoke to me about it
seemed to think the other way. Several said they admired the nerve you
showed; and one old lady even went so far as to tell me—now don’t get
proud, Arthur—that you were a born surgeon.”
Arthur drew in a long breath. That praise did him more good than
anything he had ever heard; for he meant to be a surgeon; and nothing
must be allowed to stand in the way of his following whither inclination
and destiny beckoned.
Again there were scores of visitors attracted by the trim camp, and the
sight of the manly looking boys in scout uniforms. They stopped to ask
questions, and were shown the complete camping arrangements, all of
which interested them. Hugh could not but notice that a look of doubt
and skepticism crossed many of the faces of these strangers when they
heard that the second tent was to be used as an emergency hospital, and
that the boys stood ready to perform any needed surgical operation as
covered by the rules of “first aid to the injured.”
The good people could readily understand how boys might camp out, take
care of themselves in the woods if lost, and engage in various games
connected with life in the open—such as reading signs left by small wild
animals, or following the trail of a comrade—but they were unwilling to
believe the boys could actually save human life by prompt attendance.
“We ought to have a little pamphlet to hand out to these Doubting
Thomases, according to my way of thinking,” said Don Miller, the leader
of the Fox Patrol, after a party of rustics had gone on, smiling, and
exchanging nods after hearing of that useful tent’s part in the
arrangements.
“The chances are,” said Hugh, “that even then they’d think we were
blowing our own horns a little. The only thing that convinces some
people is a practical demonstration.”
“Oh! well, our folks know we can do what we claim, so what’s the use
bothering about what these other people think?” said Buck Winter, who
had happened along in time to overhear this little talk.
In the very next lot of visitors Hugh saw a boy who was all eyes and
ears for the different devices looking to giving the scouts comfort when
in camp. Apparently the lad was wild to join a troop, but his father had
a sour look on his face that would seem to indicate he did not approve
of such a thing.
“I’d like to sow a few seeds there that may take root and grow,” Hugh
told himself, and immediately he took great pains to explain a dozen
different ways whereby scouts are bound to become better boys at home on
account of the training they receive when in company of their mates.
After he had managed to interest the man he began telling him of a
number of instances he could vouch for where backward boys had been
aroused from their condition of seeming torpor, and surprised their
parents by the new spirit with which they took hold of things.
All the while the boy was tugging at the coat of his father, and every
jerk he gave when Hugh made some likely assertion seemed to say:
“There, didn’t I tell you so, dad? What do you think of that? If other
fellows can do it why don’t you give me a chance to try and see?”
The man began to ask questions. He also looked at his boy as though
debating the matter with himself, for it was hard to change his mind,
when he had been running down this Boy Scout movement the way he had.
Still, Hugh had appealed to him in a manner that was almost
irresistible.
“I’ve got a good notion to make the venture,” he said to Hugh,
presently; “his maw’s been plaguing me nearly to death to let Johnny
jine, but somehow I had an idea it was a fool thing, and he’d only waste
his time. You see he’s not as bright as he might be; and since you’ve
been telling me about other boys that woke up, it sot me to thinking
perhaps Johnny might get some good out of it.”
Hugh would never forget the look on the boy’s face as he heard his
father make this confession. He was so utterly overwhelmed with joy that
he hardly seemed to breathe as he looked first at Hugh and then at his
father.
“The chances are ten to one,” said the scout master, “that you’ll never
regret it if you decide to let him come in. Do you live anywhere near
Oakvale, sir; I don’t remember meeting you before?”
“My name is Wheeler, and I’ve bought the old Lyons farm about three
miles out,” the other explained. “I’ve been hearing a whole lot about
the scouts, and what big things they’ve been doing over there at the
cement works riot, and so on. Course it seemed impossible to me, but
since coming to the Fair I’ve struck an old friend who said he helped
keep back the crowd yesterday when you boys took care of the man that
was hurt in that runaway accident.”
“Oh! you must mean Mr. Jones,” said Hugh, mentioning the name the big
man had given him before taking his departure.
“Yes, he’s the one. Somehow, after I’d heard him tell a few things I
began to feel sort of different toward you scouts. I had to own up to
myself that I was prejudiced, and hadn’t been fair to you. Now, I come
in on Saturday afternoons, and could fetch Johnny along with me, picking
him up about ten o’clock when I passed by on the way home.”
“Oh! dad!” gasped the delighted Johnny; while Hugh gave him a sunny look
and a handshake that meant everything to the boy whose one longing
seemed to be to see himself one of the scouts whom he had admired so
long from a distance.
Hugh never allowed a chance to slip past when he could say a good word
for the advancement of the cause. He knew that thousands of boys would
be eager to wear the khaki and start on the upward climb if it were not
for the decided opposition they experienced at home. According to Hugh’s
viewpoint that was the very place where they should be receiving the
most encouragement.
If parents, instead of blindly denouncing any movement like this, would
only candidly examine it, see what it has done for other boys in their
own town, and then decide the question on its merits, thousands of
additions would be made to the scout ranks.
As the afternoon wore on there were several cases requiring first aid.
They happened to all be of a minor character, though Arthur gave them
his best attention, for he believed in doing everything well. One boy
was taken with a bad case of cramps, and howled dismally until “Old Doc
Cameron,” as Billy had nicknamed Arthur, succeeded in relieving the
griping pain by the use of some remedy he always carried in the medicine
chest. Boys, when out in camp, are apt to be reckless in their manner of
eating, and devour green apples or any other fruit calculated to double
them up with _cholera morbus_. Then some remedy that contains camphor
and pepper is needed to warm the stomach, and counteract the effects of
the dangerous food.
Arthur did manage to have one rather difficult operation later on. A man
came limping over to the tent, claiming that he had made a bad stroke
with an axe he was wielding and managed to cut his foot. On examination
the hurt proved to be a serious one; but Arthur washed the foot,
cleansed the wound perfectly, so that all danger of blood poisoning was
avoided, and after binding it up properly, the man was sent to his home
in a car offered by an accommodating visitor (who had been an interested
spectator of the whole operation).
He had just gone off when Hugh discovered Billy coming up. It dawned on
him that Billy had kept himself aloof from the camp ever since they
opened their headquarters that afternoon, though he must have been doing
scout work elsewhere, for Billy was not the one to shirk.
Hugh noticed that the stout chum looked excited, and while there was
really no reason for connecting this fact with what they had talked
about on the preceding afternoon, the scout master found himself
remembering the cause of their conversation on that same occasion.
“You’ve been up to something, Billy, if looks count,” Hugh told him as
the other came up, panting a little from hurrying.
“Well, I don’t know that you could hardly call it that, Hugh,” said
Billy. “I own up I’ve been keeping an eye on that medicine fakir and
Cale, because I like to study human nature, you remember, and that pair
certainly make a fellow sit up and take notice.”
“Anything new in that quarter?” asked Hugh, carelessly, to draw the
other out.
“Just what I hurried here to tell you, Hugh.”
“Oh! then there have been developments?”
“I think the queer influence that slick fakir Old Doctor Merritt has
been exercising over that chap Cale must be weakening around now, Hugh.
How do I know? Well, I’ll tell you. As I passed close to their medicine
tent I heard a loud voice. It was the fake doctor threatening violence
to the boy if he didn’t keep on doing his part to victimize the public.
Hugh, I believe Cale is trying to break away; and I tell you—it’s about
time we stepped in to take a hand in the game.”