The Boy Scouts on the Roll of Honor

At a meeting of the troop in a cosy room under one of the Oakvale churches, allotted to their use by the men who firmly believed in scout work, Billy had only the preceding evening been elected secretary. He was consequently inclined to be full of the subject and, occasionally, would burst out in some speech regarding the books he had been poring over. So now, as he softly touched the lazy horse with his whip to coax him to increase his pace as they were drawing near the outskirts of the town, Billy once again allowed his relatively slow mind to recur to the subject of his perusal of the organization books.

“D’ye know, Hugh,” he remarked, “I’ve been making out a list of present members and the patrols to which they belong. It shows that we’ve struck the thirty-three number, with two patrols chock full and three lacking seven to be complete.” “How’s that come, Billy?” demanded Arthur, seated on his left. “We ought to have four full patrols out of that number.”

“Oh! Well, you forget that we lost several fellows when their folks moved away from town,” replied the influential secretary, and that some new members joined the latest patrol by choice, which was the Owl.” “I’d like to know just how the troop stands right now, Billy,” ventured Hugh, who could read the fat boy as he might a printed page and knew that the secretary was pretty itching to give the scout membership and division details.