good badge, all right" Then I said,
"Now I'm going to tell you some things about merit badges. You get
merit badge because you're able to do special things, see? You get them
for being able to do things that some other fellows can't do--kind of.
Not exactly that," I told him, "because most fellows can do the things
if they try hard enough. But, anyway, there isn't any merit badge for
keeping your eyes open. Mr. Ellsworth was only joking about that. And
especially you don't get any merit badge for being honest, because that
would be too easy. If you could get one for that, gee-whiz, all the
fellows would have them, that's sure."

He said, "Ain't it good to be honest?"

I told him sure it was, but it was too easy and that all the scouts
were honest anyway, even without badges. Then I said, "If you wore that
on account of being honest, that would insult all the other fellows,
wouldn't it?" He just stared at me, but didn't say anything. "So you
have to be careful," I told him, "not to be saying that you have a
reward for being honest, see?"

Then I told him about there not being any badge for keeping his eyes
open and finding things. "But there's a badge for something else like
that," I said, "only you can't get it yet, because you have to learn a
lot of things first, and it's a lot of fun learning them, too."

He said, "Can I learn them right now?"

I said, "No, but you'll learn a lot of them up in camp." Then I told
them that the one that had most to do with keeping his eyes open was
the stalking badge. So then I got out the Handbook and showed him the
picture of it and read him what it said. Gee williger, I don't see
where there was any harm in that, do you? I read him the three
conditions and the four sub-divisions.

"So you see, that means keeping your eyes open all right," I told him,
"because you have to be all the time watching for signs and tracks in
the snow or in the dirt, so as you can tell where a bird went, maybe,
and sneak up and watch him."

"That's one thing I can do," he said, "sneak. I'm a little sneak,
everybody said so."

Good night, that kid was the limit!

"I don't mean that way," I told him, "but you have to _stalk_. That
means to follow a bird or an animal and watch them without them knowing
anything about it--see?"

He said, all excited like, "I can sneak up on 'em, so then can I have
the badge--for sneaking--like you said?"

Gee whiz, I just sat back and laughed. Then I said, "_Stalk