at would kind of lure
him. I thought if he saw the cooking set it would remind him about
camp-fires and eating and everything."

"What did he say?" Westy wanted to know.

"He said he had no use for scouts," the kid said. "He said they have to
be all the time doing kind acts every day and that there isn't any fun
playing soldiers. I told him there are different kinds of kind acts,"
the kid said. "I told him you don't have to be so awful kind. I told him
it might be a kind act to break a window--if a house was on fire; that's
what I told him. I told him he might do a good turn by throwing a lot of
broken glass on the road to cut automobile tires----"

"What kind of a good turn do you call that?" Dorry asked him. I was
laughing so hard I couldn't speak.

"That's a new one on me," Ralph Warner said.

"Suppose there were bandits in the automobile?" the kid shouted.
"_There!_ You think you're so smart. I know lots of good turns that are
fun. Suppose I tripped you up so you couldn't chase a--a--poor little
girl so as to steal--a--a----"

"A piece of candy from her," I said.

"That would be a good turn," the kid shouted.

I said, "Well, Kid, if a fellow doesn't believe in breaking windows and
throwing broken glass in the street and tripping people up, he would
never make much of a scout. I wouldn't want a fellow like that in my
patrol. Forget it. We're just as much obliged to you, but the Public
Library is the place for that wild animal. We could never tame him."

"Maybe if he could only see that scouts have a lot of fun," the kid
said; "because he thinks they don't do anything but good turns. I wish I
could get him for you, I know that, because you did a lot of things for
me. But he only just laughed at me and he said we didn't have any fun."

I said, "Kid, you're a little brick. When it comes to good turns you eat
them alive. We should worry about Warde Hollister. If he wants to camp
out on his wild and woolly front porch, we should bother our young lives
about him. Let him lurk in his hammock. Some day the rope will break and
he'll die a horrible death. What are you squinting your eye at?" I asked
Westy.

He was sitting on the swinging seat beside me squinting his eye awful
funny.

He said, "Keep still, stop swinging for a second. Do you see that tree
away, way over on the ridge? Do you know what kind of a tree that is?"

"It's a large tree," I said; "correct the first time. What about it?"

"It's a poplar t