Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts Part 11

Ten days later, Colonel Sure Pop was reviewing Dalton Patrol.

"Safety Scouts," he said, saluting the even ranks drawn up before him, "your Colonel is proud of the work you're doing. These 'observation hikes,' as your Scout Master calls them, show better than anything else how much more alert you are to danger signs than you were a month ago.

"Now, I've been sizing up these risks as covered by your patrol reports.

They seem to be of three kinds--home, street, and railroad risks.

"n.o.body can study these reports without seeing that our work is plainly cut out for us for the next few months. Charity and every other good work begin at home--though they end there only with the weak-minded! So our work in Safety patrolling will naturally begin in our homes and with ourselves, and will begin with the risks which these reports show to be most common. Let me read you a few of the common risks reported by the Scouts of this patrol:

Matches: left on floor where they may be stepped on; or where mice may nibble them; or next the stovepipe or chimney; or thrown down before the last spark is out.

Celluloid things: brushes and combs handled near the gas jet, where they may burst into flame.

Kerosene: poured on the fire to make it burn faster (three bad cases of burns reported from this cause alone).

Gasoline: left near a flame, or anywhere except clear outside the house.

Gas: lighting oven of gas stove without first opening oven door; leaving gas jet burning near window, where breeze may blow curtains across (five fires started that way during last month).

Electric wires: loose wires crossing, which often cause fires.

Bathers: venturing too far out in deep water. In nearly every case, it is the rescuer who drowns.

Never take a chance that may cost another's life.

Safety pins: left open within baby's reach. You all know what happened to Mrs. Fuller's baby girl two weeks ago, all through an open safety pin.

Hot water and grease: left standing where children may get into them.

Dogs: left unmuzzled and running loose.

"These are only a few of the common dangers shown in your scouting reports. So far, our work has been hunting out these risks and listing them. From now on, we'll fall to with a will and set them right as fast as we can, in our own homes first and next among our neighbors.

"Just one word of caution before we take up this new patrol duty. Let's be careful how we go about setting these things right. Remember, we can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, so let's not give people the idea we are criticizing them--just suggesting.

"For instance: if a Safety Scout sees a mop and a pail of scalding water on Mrs. Muldoon's back steps and one of her babies in danger of pitching into it headfirst, he'd better not walk up and begin to scold about it.

Mrs. Muldoon may have done that for years without scalding any one yet.

More likely than not she'd just order you off the place--and go right on as before. But if, instead, a Scout steps up and begins playing with the baby, he can first get baby out of harm's way and _then_ watch his chance to say, 'Baby seems to have his eyes on that pail of hot water, Mrs. Muldoon. Two babies over on the west side were scalded to death last week; did you hear about it?' Chances are Mrs. Muldoon will be around warning all her neighbors before you've been gone ten minutes.

Get the idea?--honey instead of vinegar."

"Honey works better down in South America, anyhow!" said a deep voice, and a tall, handsome man stepped forward, saluted, and shook hands cordially with Colonel Sure Pop. He was brown as a berry from the tropical sun and he carried his left arm in a sling.

"Uncle--Uncle Jack!" The Dalton twins forgot that the troop was on review, forgot Mrs. Muldoon's babies, forgot everything and everybody but Uncle Jack. What a surprise! And he knew Sure Pop, too!

"Sure pop, I do!" laughed the explorer, kissing Betty warmly before the whole admiring troop. "Here, look out for that lame arm, you rascals!

Our surgeon told me it would be well in a month, but he was too optimistic, for once!" For Bob and Betty were fairly swarming over their favorite uncle, home at last from the jungle.

"Nellie," said Uncle Jack to Mrs. Dalton that night, when the Safety Scouts were off to bed at last, "those twins of yours are making history--do you realize that?"

"Well," said his sister, "they have their faults, like all the rest, but they're pretty fine youngsters at that. But, oh, Jack, they're growing up so fast!"

"They are, sure enough, like weeds; but their harvest isn't going to be any weed crop, now mark my words. I heard most of what was said at their patrol review this afternoon before anybody saw me; and on my word, Nell, those youngsters have started something bigger than they have any idea of, something that no power on earth is going to be able to stop.

After all, I'm just as pleased that the old chief's spear thrust sent me home in time to see the Safety Scouts of America in the making!"

_A real Scout knows how to take care of himself--and of others._--SURE POP

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

ADVENTURE NUMBER FOURTEEN

SIX TIMELY TIPS

Sure Pop and Uncle Jack were sprawled out side by side on the green river bank, talking over old times. Bob and Betty were hanging on every word.

"My first few months of Safety work among American factories and mills,"

Sure Pop was saying, "was largely planting. I planted the Safety First idea and gave it time to grow. I began with the steel mills; then I turned to the railroads, then to the wood-working shops, and so on."

Uncle Jack gazed thoughtfully at the sparkling river. "Well," he said at last to Sure Pop, "what results and how?"

"How?" repeated the little Colonel. "First, by putting the idea, Safety First, into the mind of every workman we met. Second, by whispering in his ear new ways of cutting out accidents--_after_ the Safety First idea had had a chance to sink in. Results? Three fourths of the deaths and injuries in the steel mills were cut out entirely in six years' time; in the railroads, the number of accidents was cut squarely in two in three years' time; in other kinds of work--all except one--big reductions all along the line."

"Great!" There was no mistaking the admiration in Uncle Jack's voice.

"What about the one exception--what line was that?"

"It's a certain cla.s.s of mills that is practically controlled by one man, a very able man, but exceedingly self-willed and stubborn. He owns a chain of mills from coast to coast, and the rest of the manufacturers in his line follow his lead in everything. He has fought the Safety First idea from the start--calls it 'one of these new-fangled notions'--will have nothing at all to do with it--and he has held back the Safety movement in his whole line of work."

"Hm-m-m! Hard nut to crack, eh? What's the old codger's name?"

"Bruce. He's done more to handicap Safety work than any other man in the country--and I do believe he's proud of it," said Sure Pop, grimly.

"Bruce--isn't that the man your father works for, Bob?"

Bob nodded. "He has a heart, though"--and he told them how the mill owner had come to Chance Carter's aid, and how like a different man he had seemed when little Bonnie threw her happy arms around him.

"Queer mixture, isn't he?" said Uncle Jack.

"Yes, he is. But don't you suppose our patrol could do something to change his mind?"

Uncle Jack waved the idea aside. "Forget it, Bob, forget it! Don't lose sight of what the Colonel told you Scouts yesterday about the right way to go at things. Well, the right way to go at Bruce is to leave him alone for a while. If he's as prejudiced as all that, interfering would only make him worse. He'll come around by and by, won't he, Colonel?"

"All in good time," said Sure Pop. "Your work is cut out for you, Bob, as I told you yesterday. Get the Safety First idea well rooted in the homes, and then we'll begin on the streets, and get folks in the habit of thinking Safety every time they cross the street."