“The impudent drivers and chauffeurs must be made to respect the law, if fines and imprisonment will do the trick!” asserted Dick Ballamy, who, for a wonder, seemed able to turn his thoughts from fishing to a subject that was of far more importance.
“Huh! Not only that,” Sam Winter burst out impetuously, “but those sneaking dives known as ‘speak-easies’ have got to be squelched. Some people don’t believe any liquor is being sold in Oakvale just because we’re called a dry town. That fire the other day proved the foolishness of that joke, let me tell you, boys.”
“Just what it did!” declared Mark Trowbridge, who often lisped when he talked, an infirmity that was likely to follow him through life; “why, I thaw with my own eyeth two barrelth of bottleth half covered with a blanket, that had been carried from the cobbler’th thop.”
“Worse than that, even,” asserted Arthur Cameron in disgust. “I saw a man deliberately lift the cover, take out a bottle, and drain it there, with a dozen people standing around and laughing. Shows you how some of our laws are being made a joke. The police are aware of what’s going on, too; but they believe the sentiment of the town has heretofore been against enforcing certain statutes.”
“Well, they’re going to get a rude shock pretty soon, believe me,” said Billy. “Half an hour ago the mayor and Council sent for Chief Andy Wallis. He’s in there with them now, listening to the law being laid down. I reckon the Chief knows by this time that it’s going to be a clean town or we get a new head of police. The women have taken things in hand, and mean to purify the atmosphere, so that Oakvale boys and girls can breathe without being contaminated.”
“How fast the news spread all over town this morning,” observed Walter Osborne, the leader of the Hawk Patrol, a fine, manly looking fellow well liked by all his associates of the troop. “Why, my mother says they were talking of it in every store she visited, and father added that he was buttonholed half a dozen times by men who seemed chock full of the subject.”
“Old Doc Kane,” added Sam Winter, “carried the news wherever he went. He said it was going to be next door to a millennium for Oakvale, and that when the movement had exhausted its force he expected to have his business reduced one-half, because of the improved sanitary conditions that would prevail. That was one of the Doc’s little jokes.”
“He’s loaded to the muzzle with ammunition meant to boost the good cause along,” asserted another scout. “It’s among the mill people the good doctor does most of his missionary work. He knows how much a clean town means to fellows who haven’t comfortable homes to spend evenings in.”
“Of course, there’s no danger that the members of the town Council will try to dodge the question again, as they’ve done so many times?” Jack Durham was saying.
Billy gave a scoffing laugh.