Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1914-04-07
THE BOY J I. SCOUTS
MAKING RECORDS
Take Three or Four Hikes During
the Past Week.-Arthur Vail
Writes of his Travels.
IS A VERY OBSERVING LAD.
Took Careful Note Of Everything of
Interest on the Route and
Tells of Them.
IS A VERY OBSERVING LAD.

During the past week three or
four hikes were taken by several of
the boy scouts. One of these was
taken by Arthur Vail, thirteen
year old lad who is trying to quail
ify for first class scout. One of the
requisites of this test is that the
scout take a fourteen mile hike and
write an article about it. The arti-
Gle is good one as will be seen, and
shows how carefully the boy made
observations, as to trees, rock for
nations, directions, etc.
1--WE started at s a. M, April 4,
1914, at our homes, stopped at the
meat market to get some weinies,
and go to the hospital hill at SIZE.
We crossed Brewer creek, then went
up hill where we found two or three
houses in a group. We brought for
dinner, weinies, doughnuts, bread
and butter sandwiches, pork chops,
and sugar and cocoa, also a pail for
water, and our stats. We then
came to plowed cornfields and also to
some old ones. We went on for
about three-quarters of mile when
we came to another group of three
houses, where we saw two chicken
hawks. We went on for a mile
when we came to house where we
stopped for a drink, to find out how
far away we were and to rest awhile,
and also to find out what time it
9:15. We found that we were out
two miles from Hospital hill. Here
plowed fields. We went down the
hill and around the curve where we
saw a little run and hills which had
very green grass on their south side.
We went one-quarter mile, then
came to woods, mostly white oak. We
went on farther on the straight
road. 1t began to be crooked and
hilly. We turned and there were cliffs
on our left. We saw some crows,
meadow-larks, chickadees, sparrows
and chicken hawks along the road.
We went up the hill and took a
short rest, then went on till we
came to farm house which was five
miles from Hospital hill. While we
were on the road we could not tell
what way was north but for the
moss on the north side of the trees.
We came to the last mentioned
farmhouse and, because of the differ
ent roads, inquired where Albright's
lived. We were told to go to the
west mile and quarter. We went
up there then came back. We after
wards found that another Albright
the one the scout master meant
was on our road. We came back and
followed the road running up to the
house instead of the one running to
the river. A man told us to go
through a furrow to the road run
ming to the river. This was a wheat
field. We crossed the bridge to the
east side of the river One pecu-
liar thing was that we never saw a
horse and buggy along the road, but
we saw farmers blowing. We went
up the river for about a half mile
where we ate our dinner. Here we
tried to ford the river and go up to
the farmhouse on the other side to
get some water, but could not. We
got some water out of the river. eS-
pecting to purify it by boiling. But.
owing to the wet condition of the
wood, We had to blow the fire all
the time we We're cooking our VEIN
les. We could not get the water hot
enough to boil and make cocoa, but
we warmed our pork chops, which
had been already fried, and then
cooked our weinies and ate our sand
witches and doughnuts. We enjoyed
our meal very much. as we were in
the open air. We stayed there for
an hour, then made our way over
the cliffs OF limestone. We came to
spring where we found a path. We
followed this till we came to a
creek. The water was very clear in
1t so we took drink. 1t ran on
limestone terraces. We followed our
path along the river. We then came
to a smooth sandbar along the river.
We again lost our directions and
looked at the moss on the north side
Of the trees. We went on till we
came to the big bend. We saw
Woodmansee's house which we
knew was near Mr.. Carpenters.
Along the river almost all the time