  Long before eight o’clock that night the boys had gathered at their meeting-place, which was now in the basement of one of the churches, where they were promised a new gymnasium for the coming winter season. When the roll was called, just twenty-nine responded to their names, showing that whatever Billy had told them over the wire, it must have excited their curiosity considerably. There was a buzz of excitement all over the room when, the regular business finished, Hugh started to explain the plan of campaign that had appealed to Billy and himself that very afternoon. He led up to it by telling about the terrible condition of the streets almost everywhere about town. “It’s become a chronic habit with everybody to sweep their waste into the street, so that everywhere you go you’ll find stray papers blowing about and lying in all fence corners. Why, sometimes you’d think a city dump was close by, from the way old stuff flies in the wind. All that could be changed if we just made up our minds to take hold and assist the women of the town. The job they tackled twice has always been too much for them. Let’s see what the scouts can do to help out. And as the majority rules in our meetings, I hope somebody will call for a rising vote.” At that, Alec was before Billy in jumping to his feet and making the proposition that the troop take hold in earnest to put themselves in the running when it came to having a clean city, worth living in. The motion was carried unanimously. If there were any “doubting Thomases” there who feared that the attempt might end in failure, they were carried off their feet by the wild enthusiasm that seemed to pervade the meeting, for every scout registered his willingness to embark in the scheme, no matter what it called for. A little discussion was next in order. Hugh believed in taking the bull by the horns, and hence he told the others what he feared might be their most difficult task: keeping the Corbley crowd from undoing all their work spitefully, just to show that Boy Scouts could not run that town. “We’ll not cross a bridge until we come to it, though,” said Hugh in conclusion, “and now, what’s to hinder our getting in some fine work for a starter to-night?” “Hurrah!” cried a number of the interested scouts in a volley. “It happens that the moon is almost full for the occasion,” said Bud Morgan, one of the Wolves and a boy who could always be depended upon to do his share in everything that came along; Bud had seen considerable practical experience in the field, as he had once been on a Western ranch and had also worked through a vacation season with a surveying party. “But what can we do in such a rushing hurry, Mr. Scout Master?” asked Arthur Cameron, another of the same patrol, whose particular hobby was in the lines of photography and weather bureau work. “For a starter, I thought we might take a turn around the little park and get it in apple-pie shape. People throw away greasy paper from luncheons there, and newspapers they’ve been reading. It’s a shame the way that pretty little square looks. My mother says she avoids passing across it whenever she can, because it seems so much like a pig-pen. Now, boys, what do you say, shall we set to work with a vim and make that a fit spot for any lady to sit or walk?” “We can do it!” cried Blake Merton of the Hawks, a fellow who had a melodious voice and was called on many times by his chums when in camp to start up the songs they loved. “Lead the way, Hugh,” proposed Walter Osborn. “We’ve taken to your scheme like ducks to water, and the sooner we get busy the better it’ll please a lot of us. I’m really getting rusty for want of something to do besides study, now school has begun. Fall in, everybody, and don’t forget your bags.” “Now we know why Billy told us to fetch these bags along,” remarked Sam Winter. “We are to stuff the waste paper in them, so we can carry it to some central place. Is that the idea, Hugh?” “Yes. We’ll put several of the collecting cans in a bunch near the middle of the little park, and in the morning the dump man can take the trash away,” the scout master informed him. “Too bad we couldn’t make a big bonfire and burn it all up,” grumbled Billy. “I’d feel better if that ended the affair, because—Oh, well, if the rest of you think it will be all right to leave it there, I’m not going to kick. How many of you fetched a broom along?” It was found that, all told, there were seven brooms in the party, eight hoes, half a dozen shovels, and two rakes. When this curious assortment of implements had been shouldered by the enthusiastic boys, they looked like a corps of gardeners about to begin work on some public ground. Two by two the scouts marched out of their meeting-room and headed for the open plaza not far away, where the grass was green and many bushes and flowers grew. The spot had really lost much of its beauty through the habit most people had formed of throwing aside all sorts of rubbish. In certain quarters of town it was not an unusual sight to see, perhaps, an old coal scuttle, cast-off shoes, or even a rusty hot-water boiler reposing in the gutter as though that were the ordinary place for such derelicts. As the scouts crossed the main street in order to reach the little park, some people stood and stared. A few gave them a faint cheer, though unable to understand what the parade could be for. Doubtless they imagined that it might only be a prank on the part of the boys, since they carried garden tools and brooms in place of guns. When they reached the small park, Hugh began to give his orders. He knew every foot of that ground and had already planned the attack in his mind. Dividing it into four equal parts, he assigned one to each of the three patrols besides his own. After that, it was up to the leaders to see that their workers did their part in the undertaking. First of all, several of the tall waste paper cans, which nobody ever thought of using any more, were deposited near the center of the open space. There was one for each patrol, and immediately the scouts busied themselves in collecting the worst of the accumulated trash, depositing it in the receptacles where it should have lodged long since. Presently the hoes, rakes and brooms began to get busy. Such a bustling spectacle had certainly not been seen in that vicinity for many a year as the industrious band presented when they started to cover every foot of ground in the little city park. Of course all this could not go on without a certain number of people becoming wise to the fact that an innovation had begun. Small boys and girls who really should have been at home and in bed, but from lack of a curfew bell still played upon the streets shouting and chasing each other, watched what the scouts were doing, and upon discovering that they were actually working, ran to tell others that a wave of reform had struck the town at last. It was not long before fully fifty people stood around and watched the progress of the scouts’ work, commenting on the novelty. Some made great fun of the idea that mere boys could cause the city to take on a different look. They declared that it was bred in the bone with the Italians and other foreigners to be careless, and it could not be beaten out of the flesh. Others were more sanguine. These scouts had succeeded in a number of things where others had made failures, and besides, in this case they surely were animated by the right principles. So a few observers said good words and cheered the boys on. Several of the women were loud in their expressions of gratification, and promised that they would see to it that the almost defunct society for town improvement took on new life and backed up the boy element in their work. It was more or less fun for Hugh and his comrades, too. Boys can put in a lot of hard work and call it a frolic. They laughed and joked as they swept and raked and gathered up armfuls of rubbish to fill the tall cans. In the end there had to be a detachment sent out skirmishing for several more receptacles, such was the vast amount of trash collected on that first night of the fray against dirt. When ten o’clock sounded from the church tower where the clock stood, the round moon looked down on as neat a little park as one could well imagine. Every foot of it had been carefully scraped and cleaned by that enterprising band of workers, until it was what might be called immaculate. By that time it was a pretty tired lot of scouts who began to gather around the one in command. The fun of the thing had vanished, and they were almost as eager to be given the word to start toward home and clean themselves up, as a while before they had seemed to begin operations. “It’s all done, anyhow,” Alec Sands said, as he came up to report that his squad had completed their share of the work. “I’m going to come down here the first thing in the morning, just to listen and hear what folks say when they find out what’s happened. Chances are they’ll rub their eyes and wonder if the little darky twins we see advertised as willing workers haven’t been on the job while people slept.” Hugh laughed as he glanced around at the perspiring scouts. “And if they could see some of the faces here on this festive occasion,” he remarked humorously, “they’d feel dead certain of it, because we are the nearest approach to coons seen around here for many a day. I warrant it’s going to keep a few of us busy cleaning up our uniforms against the next parade. They don’t look as spic and span as when we were in the procession on Labor Day.” “But that ends it for to-night, doesn’t it, Hugh?” asked Alec anxiously, for he was very tired, having worked with his customary zeal,—and Alec had once been the spoiled son of a very wealthy man, too, until he joined the scouts and learned the many benefits that labor brings in its train. “Yes, let’s all make for home now. I hope that when we drift down this way in the morning, we’ll be satisfied with our job,” Hugh replied. The signal being given, the boys drew up in line with military precision, and at the command started away, still flourishing their brooms, hoes, rakes and shovels as though proud of their strange weapons for warfare. Some of the men gave them a parting cheer. Even if they did not have a great deal of faith in the success of this new undertaking of the scouts, at least it did not prevent their admiring the unflinching spirit with which the boys had taken up arms against the tide of uncleanliness that was engulfing the town. There were a few “boos” also, coming doubtless from certain elements that viewed any movement looking to reform with disfavor, because it was likely to cause them to change their careless, easy-going ways. They might actually be compelled to take three steps to deposit a newspaper wrapper in a receptacle, instead of throwing it on the ground as at present to blow where it listed. When Hugh reached his home, he, too, felt the effects of his recent work, for he had not spared himself a particle in setting a good example to his fellows of the Wolf Patrol. And he believed that their section of the little park was just as destitute of rubbish as any other quarter. Hugh was asleep soon after his head touched the pillow, and really he knew next to nothing until long after the sun had arisen. Having dressed, he was proceeding down to the dining room for breakfast, it being Saturday morning, when he heard the telephone bell ring. “Hello! Hello! Who is it?” he asked, reaching the instrument. When he caught the well-known voice of Alec over the wire, Hugh had a sense of coming misfortune. “Well, it’s all up the flue, Hugh!” said the other scout disconsolately. “What do you mean?” demanded the assistant scout master. “Only this,” the other continued sadly, and angrily as well. “I’m down-town now,—came early to gloat over our work,—but would you believe it, everything has been turned out of the trash cans and scattered all over the park again!” |
|
