"What for?" asked Barney.

"To keep watch, and do any duty that may be wanted of them."

Tim had got this idea of an organization from his piratical literature.
Indeed, the plan of encamping upon the island was an humble imitation of
a party of buccaneers who had fortified one of the smallest of the
islands in the West Indies. The whole scheme was one of the natural
consequences of reading bad books, in which the most dissolute,
depraved, and wicked men are made to appear as heroes, whose lives and
characters are worthy of emulation.

Such books fill boys' heads with absurd, not to say wicked ideas. I have
observed their influence in the course of ten years' experience with
boys; and when I see one who has named his sled "Blackbeard," "Black
Cruiser," "Red Rover," or any such names, I am sure he has been reading
about the pirates, and has got a taste for their wild and daring
exploits--for their deeds of blood and rapine. One of the truant
officers of Boston, whose duty it is to hunt up runaway boys, related to
me a remarkable instance of the influence of improper books. A few years
ago, two truant boys were missed by their parents. They did not return
to their homes at night, and it was discovered that one of them had
stolen a large sum of money from his father. A careful search was
instituted, and the young reprobates were traced to a town about ten
miles from the city, where they were found encamped in the woods. They
had purchased several pistols with their money, and confessed their
intention of becoming highwaymen! It was ascertained that they had been
reading the adventures of Dick Turpin, and other noted highwaymen, which
had given them this singular and dangerous taste for a life in violation