Some months back, fed up with what I'd been finding on the bookshelves, lately, I began re-reading some old SF that'd I'd first read as a teen, back in the 70's.
That lead me to Robert Heinlein, and that got me started on Heinlein's juveniles. Several of these involved Boy Scouts. And that got me looking at Percy Keese Fitzhugh's old Boy Scout novels - Tom Slade, Roy Blakely, Pee-wee Harris, et al.
My grandmother had a copy of "Tom Slade, Boy Scout", and of "Pee-wee Harris, F.O.B. Bridgeboro", that I'd read as a kid. All-in-all, Fitzhugh wrote something like 70 of these, in five different series, over the space of 25 or 30 years.
Only a few of them have been reprinted, and the originals were printed on cheap paper, and aren't in good shape for casual reading. But 28 of them were published prior to 1923, and are in the public domain. Nearly all of these are available as free ebooks, if you go looking.
I'm currently reading "Roy Blakely's Silver Fox Patrol", 1920, Grosset & Dunlap.
It's opening is just fun:
Quote:
While I was sitting on a rock down in our field eating a banana, I had a dandy thought, and I was going to begin this story by telling you about it, only now I forget what it was.
Anyway, Mr. Ellsworth says it's best to begin a story with a conversation. He says conversations are even better than bananas to begin with. But, gee whiz, I like bananas. If I began with conversation that means I have to begin it with Pee-wee Harris, because he always does the talking in our troop. He can even talk and eat a banana at the same time."
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