“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?”