“I believe I should do it myself, if it were not too early in the season.”
“Yes, I see you hiking for the woods; before you reached the Grand Central you would switch off to Wall Street. You managed to worry through a few weeks at Southport Island last summer, and then on the first flimsy excuse you could think of, sneaked back to New York and stayed there.”
“I am afraid you are right, Franklin; we didn’t begin early enough. No danger of our boys making that blunder; those youngsters know how to live and they will get all there is coming to them, when they plunge into the wilds of Maine. Not only are their bodies trained but their minds and consciences. I was impressed some weeks ago when the Blazing Arrow Patrol held a meeting in my library and by invitation I was present. I sat back and looked and listened. It was the regular Saturday evening business session, when the Scout Master presided and the usual order or schedule was followed. The one feature that caught me was when the leader called upon each Boy Scout to tell what ‘good turn’ he had done for some one during the day. I then learned that each boy is pledged to do at least one such kindness for some person every twenty-four hours. I felt a lump in my throat as the youths popped up one after the other and modestly told their stories. All the incidents were trifling: one had volunteered to do an errand for his father or mother; another had helped an old lady across the street; a third had assisted a small boy in carrying a big bundle; another, when challenged to fight by a young ruffian, had turned his back without a word and walked away. ‘And I knew all the time I could lick him,’ the scout added with a flash of his eyes; still another had pointed out to a gentleman the best way to reach the Waldorf-Astoria, and so it went.
“Think of it,—a boy on the lookout every day of his life for a chance to do a good turn for some one else. Such a youngster is sure very soon to beat that record; he will hit the four hundred mark every year; that’s four thousand in ten years or twenty thousand in a half century. Won’t that look fine, Franklin, on the credit side of the great Book that will be opened at the Judgment Day? Ah, I fear the balance will be on the other side of the account, so far as I’m concerned.”
“And with me, too,” sighed his friend; “think what a different world this will be when every one, even the children, is hunting for an opportunity to do a kindness for a fellow creature.”
“I wonder if the Boy Scouts would admit us into their organization,” said Landon with a wee bit of earnestness.
“We are both old enough, which is about our only qualification. We have done many turns for others, but they hardly deserve to have the adjective ‘good’ applied to them.”
“Well,” sighed the elder millionaire, “I am so pleased with the principles of the Boy Scouts, and they have had such good effect upon Alvin—”
“The same is to be said of Chester.”
“That I have decided to do the Blazing Arrow, the Stag and the Eagle Patrols (which I believe are those that make up the troop) a good turn which is so slight that it isn’t worth bragging about.”