Page 19 - Save the Last Dance for Me

Fought the fire half the night. Didn’t think a fire

could burn like that in a rainstorm. Almost lost
both pickups and the van.”

He shook his head and continued to babble

on. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so
sad. I wondered if he would ever recover, but by

Tuesday night, he was back to his confident self.

We bought them a new scout tent, and we
suggested that he probably could use an assistant,

but he was not ready to back down yet. Scout

month was barely two months away, and he was

looking forward to shaping the boys up for the
Klondike Derby. He could envision dozens of

merit badges hanging on the board at the scout

banquet.
The meeting nights seemed to be a tug-of-war

from then on between Harry and the boys. He did

learn that the boys were not interested in pin-the-

tail-on-the-donkey. He tried some other scout
games with more success, but it never seemed to

make up for the fact they wanted to play basketball.

The number of boys coming to the meetings was
dwindling, and we started to worry about the young

men in our community.

As the Klondike Derby approached, there
seemed to be heightened interest among the boys.

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