The Scoutmaster

There isn't any pay for you, you serve without reward,
The boys who tramp the fields with you but little could afford,
And yet your pay is richer far than those who toil for gold,
For in a dozen different ways your service shall be told.

You'll read it in the faces of a troop of growing boys,
You'll read it in the pleasure of a dozen manly joys,
And down the distant future - you will surely read it then,
Emblazoned through the service of a band of loyal men.

Five years of willing labor and of brothering a troop,
Five years of trudging highways, with the Indian cry and whoop,
Five years of camp fires burning, not alone for pleasure's sake,
But the future generation which the boys are soon to make.

They have no gold to give you, but when age comes on to you,
They'll give you back the splendid things you taught them how to do,
They'll give you rich contentment and a thrill of honest pride,
And you'll see your nation prosper, and you'll all be satisfied.