If you want to catch a bus you don’t sit down and let it run past you, and then say, “How unlucky I am”. You run to it and jump on. It is just the same with what some people call “luck”; they complain that luck never comes to them. Well, luck is really the chance of getting something good or of doing something great. The thing is to look out for every chance and seize it—run at it and jump on—don’t sit down and wait for it to pass. Opportunity is a bus which has very few stopping places.
Choose a Career
“Be Prepared” for what is going to happen to you in the future. If you are in a situation where you are earning money as a boy, what are you going to do when you finish that job? You ought to be learning some proper trade, and save your pay in the meantime, to keep you going till you get employment in your future trade.
And try to learn something of a second trade, in case the first one fails you at any time, as so very often happens.
An employer told me once that he never engaged a lad who had yellow finger-tips (from smoking), or who carried his mouth open (boys who breathe through the mouth have a stupid look). Any man is sure of employment who has money in the bank, keeps away from drink, and is cheery.
Lots of wasters or weaklings have gone out into the world and many of them have failed to make good, but I have never come across a failure among young fellows who have gone out with a real desire to work and with the ability to stick to their job, to act straight, and to keep sober.
Don’t be an idler. Follow a useful
trade if you want Success.
CHAPTER VIII
SAVING LIFE
CAMP FIRE YARN NO. 23
BE PREPARED FOR ACCIDENTS
The Knights Hospitallers of
St. John – Accidents -
Boy Heroes - Life Saving
Medals
HINTS TO INSTRUCTORS
The knights of old days were called “Knights Hospitallers” because they had hospitals for the treatment of the sick, poor, and those injured in accidents or in war. They used to save up their money and keep these hospitals going, and although they were brave fighting men they used also to act as nurses and doctors themselves.
The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem especially devoted themselves to this work eight hundred years ago. The St. John Ambulance Corps and the Red Cross today represent those knights.
Explorers and hunters and other scouts in out-of-the-way parts of the world have to know what to do in case of accident or sickness, either to themselves or their followers, as they are often hundreds of miles away from any doctors. For these reasons Boy Scouts should, of course, learn all they can about looking after sick people and dealing with accidents.
My brother was once camping with a friend away in the bush in Australia. His friend was drawing a cork, holding the bottle between his knees to get a better purchase. The bottle burst and the jagged edge of it ran deeply into his thigh, cutting an artery. My brother quickly got a stone, wrapped it in a handkerchief to act as a pad, and tied the handkerchief round the limb above the wound, so that the stone pressed on the artery. He then got a stick, and, passing it through the loop of the handkerchief, twisted it round
until the bandage was drawn so tight that it stopped the flow of blood. Had he not known what to do the man would have bled to death in a few minutes. As it was he saved his life by knowing what to do and doing it at once.
Accident.
Accidents are continually happening, and Boy Scouts will continually have a chance of giving assistance at First Aid.
TOMMY THE TENDERFOOT No. 10 - TOMMY ON THE ROAD
Tommy’s a “Road Fool”. He steps off a bus
Without looking round and then there’s a fuss.
We all think a great deal of any man who, at the risk of his own life, saves someone else’s. He is a hero.
Boys especially think him so, because he seems to them to be a being altogether different from themselves. But
