Then I told him about there not being any badge for keeping his eyes open and finding things. "But there's a badge for something else like that," I said, "only you can't get it yet, because you have to learn a lot of things first, and it's a lot of fun learning them, too."
He said, "Can I learn them right now?"
I said, "No, but you'll learn a lot of them up in camp." Then I told them that the one that had most to do with keeping his eyes open was the stalking badge. So then I got out the Handbook and showed him the picture of it and read him what it said. Gee williger, I don't see where there was any harm in that, do you? I read him the three conditions and the four sub-divisions.
"So you see, that means keeping your eyes open all right," I told him, "because you have to be all the time watching for signs and tracks in the snow or in the dirt, so as you can tell where a bird went, maybe, and sneak up and watch him."
"That's one thing I can do," he said, "sneak. I'm a little sneak, everybody said so."
Good night, that kid was the limit!
"I don't mean that way," I told him, "but you have to stalk. That means to follow a bird or an animal and watch them without them knowing anything about it—see?"
He said, all excited like, "I can sneak up on 'em, so then can I have the badge—for sneaking—like you said?"
Gee whiz, I just sat back and laughed. Then I said, "Stalking badge; not sneaking, but stalking. That's the badge you're after. So that's the one you want to think about. Don't think about a whole lot of things but just think about that."
He said, "I like you a whole lot, and that's the one I'm going to get, because you say so."