Scouting, Volume 7, Number 26, June 26, 1919 Page: 11
16 p. : ill. ; 31 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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SCOUTING, JUNE 26, 1919
LL
cALL 'ROUND THE! CIRCLE
" Father and son
hiked side by side
for three miles."
I FOUND by experience that the scout-
master took a certain amount of lead-
ership away from the father and so
when a Scout of my troop suggested a
Father and Son Over-night Hike I en-
deavored, with the help of my Troop
Committee to put one across.
This hike appealed to me because, first,
I wanted the boy to have a big regard
for his dad plus what he holds for his
scoutmaster. Second, I wanted to give
dad a big part, get him to go hiking with
his son and thus make a probable common
ground for the future. Third, make
scouting stronger with dad and the com-
munity.
My first move was to ask the boy how
he would like to take his father on an
over-night hike and express the opinion
that I thought his dad would be a regu-
lar old timer camping out.
I next got the troop committee to get
the fathers together and I told them that
if they would take an over-night hike
with their own sons they would rise
very high in the boys' estimation. I then
presented a very definite programme of
when, how and where we could go. Sev-
enteen fathers paid up in advance. Two
later could not go and so our father and
son hike netted us 26 boys and 15 fathers.
The troop left at noon, in a special car,
and returned Sunday at 5 p. m. An auto
carried the fathers' blankets and one car-
ried our food supplies. Father and Son
hiked side by side three miles to our
camp. The evening meal was prepared
by the scouts whose fathers could not
come. Fathers were not bothered by de-
tails or required to take active part in
our programme (except camp-fire) but
watched closely by the scoutmaster's deci-
sions, how he handled the swimming
proposition, how cooking details worked,
how we kept the boys busy and each par-
ticularly his own son.
Father and son slept side by side, the
son making the camp bed. This guar-
dianship by the father alone in the woods
by night was much bigger than simply
sending the boy to bed, as at home. At
least once in the night the primitive man,
father, was awakened. Every father took
part around the camp fire and how they
did make their son's eyes pop open with
either stories or experiences from their
own lives. The camp fire was two and
one-half hours long. We served a camp
fire lunch of griddle cakes and hot choco-
late. There was individual cooking in
the morning, the son cooking his father's
breakfast. We held religious service in
the woods Sunday, meals were on time
and events went through as scheduled.
Result: The fathers are planning an-
other get-together outing.
BRADFORD H. FIELD, SON,
Providence.
" Father and £•'
son slept
side by side."
Saving property at a large fire was one
of the duties which fell to the lot of
troop 3 Montgomery, Ala."
With the aid of an American flag and
a little applauding, Kansas City, Mo.,
troop 5 raised $133 for a local hospital
during their war-ending celebration.
" It seems to me that the greatest mis-
take new scoutmasters make is in trying
to shoulder too much of the responsi-
bility of the weekly running of their
troops and not giving the boys that are
worthy of it sufficient duties and respon-
sibilities which serves a double purpose,
it keeps these boys interest up to a high
pitch and saves the scoutmaster a dickens
of a lot of work." C. F. PRATT,
San Francisco, Cal.
A San Francisco scout ran two miles
at top speed to get a life-saver to help
a boy who was stuck on a cliff.
A bathing pool for the public was fixed
up by Troop No. 1 of Cuba, Ala.
A Chinese troop in Oakland, Cal., fur-
nished interpreter-orderlies to the China-
town Emergency Station in the influenza
epidemic. Each scout was supposed to
do two hours' duty on alternate days, but
one assistant patrol leader volunteered 18
days, 8 hours a day.
A San Francisco scout wheeled a para-
lyzed neighbor eight blocks every day
for two years.
Danny Lyon went away from far East
Sixteenth Street twenty years ago, be-
came a successful business man in the
West, recently returned to visit his boy-
hood haunts, met an old friend, Mrs.
Murphy, reintroduced himself, and after
a long gossip about old acquaintance
asked:
"And Paddy Sweeney? What became
of my old pal Paddy?"
(Continued on page 12)
The Hero
By Mark Loran
'E was dirty, 'e was clumsy, and 'e 'adn't
even size
To make 'im look acceptable before our
cautious eyes.
But we let the beggar in
And we showed him what a sin
It was to let the sun set on a day
When he didn't lend a hand,
And we made him understand
That a " turn " that's any good is its own
pay.
'E was slow a-makin' second, slower still
upon 'is first.
The boners to 'is credit made our bone-
head records burst.
But we let 'im 'av 'is try,
Though we often wondered why;
And we thought the troop had better
" can " him off the roll.
'E was not a model scout
Like you like to think about,
But always ploddin' like a turtle to his
goal.
'E was backward, 'e was homely, 'e was
sleepy in the eyes.
We took 'im in and realized 'e wasn't any
prize.
But for all that 'e was queer
'E just stuck right through the year
And he lived the oath and law with all
his might.
Now our hats are off to him
An' our eyes are wet and dim
And we're thanking God for making fel-
lows right;
'E was scrawny, 'e was awkward, most
unpromising of guys,
An' 'is sole redeeming feature was the
way 'e ups and tries.
But the day was mighty brief
When some big or little grief
Wasn't steered the other way by 'is good
turns;
He got scalded pretty bad,
But God knows I wish I had,
For he saved a baby's life, a-gettin' of
those burns.
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 7, Number 26, June 26, 1919, periodical, June 26, 1919; New York, New York. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth283079/m1/11/: accessed May 4, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.