Everybody looked happy when they heard the mayor say this. Really, it had been his system of procrastination that had kept matters from reaching a climax long before. No one professed to understand just why he should have acted as he did, since his position as mayor carried no salary with it.
Professor Marvin later on called upon Hugh, as representing the scouts of Oakvale, to outline the idea he had in mind of having the boys made assistant police, with authority to wear badges, and power to order arrests in cases of emergency.
The mayor was somewhat dubious about the propriety of so radical a proceeding.
“It would be almost revolutionary,” he observed, “but then we happen to know how well Hugh can be trusted to keep his troop under strict control, and they have before this amply proven worthy of the citizens’ full trust. I shall call a meeting of the town council for to-morrow night, and as many of you as can, be present; I’d be glad of your backing when this scheme is thrashed out there.”
So at last the uplift movement had come to Oakvale, thanks in part to Hugh Hardin and his fellow scouts.
CHAPTER IV.
WAITING FOR THE GOOD NEWS.
“For home protection! That’s the slogan, fellows, Hugh has given us. We’re going to take our coats off, figuratively speaking, you understand, and purify the atmosphere around the place we live in.”
When Billy Worth gave utterance to these rather boastful remarks he was standing, with a bunch of other fellows in khaki, near the building where the town council, as called together by the mayor, was still in session.
Undoubtedly the fathers of Oakvale were having a warm discussion, since they had been at it for more than two hours. Indeed, the scouts had held their meeting in the room under the church, and made all their arrangements for carrying out their part of the programme, if everything went smoothly as they expected. A goodly number of the energetic lads had immediately, after the meeting was adjourned, decided to hurry around to ascertain what had happened at the council chamber, to which citizens were admitted to the capacity of the room, but the line was drawn at fellows under the voting age.
“Yes,” Jack Durham immediately added, with his characteristic energy, “Oakvale is going to take its periodical bath, so to speak. This time we’ll scrub to the bone, and make an extra clean job of it.”