“Was that the only objection you had, Mr. Brush?” he asked when the farmer frankly admitted that he had been wrong in his opinion.
“I reckoned that these boys only got together and wore uniforms for a big lark,” was the reply to his question. “I ought to know what boys is like, havin’ had four of my own.”
“Then you have lost one, have you sir?” questioned the scout master, not from idle curiosity, either, Tom Chesney felt positive.
The old man heaved a great sigh.
“Yes, my youngest, and the darling o’ his maw’s heart, little Jim. Only last summer he was off swimmin’ with several o’ his chums, and got caught with a cramp. They got him out, brave enough, but—he never kim to agin.”
Mr. Witherspoon cast a quick and meaning glance around the circle of eager faces. Several of the scouts nodded in a significant fashion as though they guessed what was flashing through the mind of their leader.
“Mr. Brush,” said the scout master, gravely, “I’d like to tell you some things that to my own personal knowledge scouts have done; things that they never would have been capable of performing in the wide world had they remained outside of this organization that first of all teaches them to be manly, independent, helpful to others, and true to themselves. May I, sir?”
“Jest as ye please, Mr. Witherspoon,” came the low reply, for the farmer had evidently been partly overcome with the sad remembrance of the vacant chair, and the face he missed so much at his table.
The scout master went about it in a very able manner. Again he explained the numerous duties of a scout, and how he was taught to render first aid to the injured in case, for instance, his services should ever be needed when some comrade cut himself with an ax, and was in peril of bleeding to death.
“There are other ways,” Mr. Witherspoon continued, “in which the scout is instructed to be able to depend on himself should he be lost in the wilderness, caught in a tornado, tempted to take refuge in a barn, or under an exposed tree during a thunder storm.”