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As our laid-back days wane, I’ll remember the boy with the bloody stump.

“Mr. Whoa! Mr. Whoa! Pull my TOOF!’’

At first, I needed a translator. But I looked at Tommy’s bloody napkin within inches of my lunch, and I figured right quick what had happened: Tommy was losing a tooth, and he wanted me to pull it.

“PULL. MY. TOOOOOOOF!’’

I passed. I let a dad of five do it. He had more experience.

Still, staring at Tommy’s gap-toothed grin, I knew right then my four days in the Randolph County wilderness had hurled me into the Unexplainable, Illogical, Weird World of Boy.

What, am I crazy? Well, yes.

I’m a Cub Scout leader. That means I chase boys, lecture boys, round up boys, teach boys, single-file boys and holler for boys, especially when their young-boy testosterone starts doing jumping jacks.

Last year, when my son reached Webelos, I thought hard about helping out. My dad was a Scoutmaster. Why not me? So, I did it. I slipped into a time-capsule uniform, new when Beaver Cleaver was around, and became a co-den leader with Greensboro’s Pack 111.

That decision led me to Camp Woodfield for four days last month.

Let me break it down for the uninitiated among you. You hardly sleep, barely shower and constantly herd boys, no more than 9 and 10, from one place to another from the day’s first light to way past dark.

And you’ll hear all kinds of pleas at all hours, every hour of the day.

Like this one. At 1:30 in the morning. It rattled me awake quicker than a double shot of espresso.

“My tooth came out, and my mom wanted me to call her. I’m a hemophiliac.’’

Beautiful.

You often feel like a ref in a cage match, a spectator in a soap opera. Boys poke boys, boys punch boys, boys paddle-splash boys. All because someone said something that insinuated he did ... whatever.

And the hellbent “Aaaaaa-eeeeee!’’ across an open field or a canoe-filled lake? Always a dead giveaway.

But there are no Game Boys, no Nintendo DS players, no iPods. Just pixels provided by Mother Nature, in 800 acres west of Asheboro, where Mary’s Mountain hovers green and broad over Lake Reese .

Everything is part of a playground, full of trails, tepees and ticks. And everywhere you turn, whether they’re armed with compasses or building a lean-to fire out of pretzel sticks, boys are finding their place.

With themselves. And their world. All you have to do is listen.

“Is poison ivy like chicken pox?’’

“I just said, 'Dang it.’ I’m not freaking out or anything.’’

“That’s my third cut in one day.’’

“No offense, dad. But I had a lot more fun once you got out of the boat.’’

Or my favorite, during another sweltering day, trudging to some activity and listening to a boy discuss whether “Paradise City’’ by Guns N’ Roses was the best rock song ever.

Right then, a commercial for male enhancement crackled on the radio. I told them to shut it off, but a boy named Alex was full of questions.

“What does male enhancement mean?’’ he asked.

At first, I said nothing. Then, I figured Camp Woodfield, our classroom, our cage match, was as good a place as any. So, I told them, in a G-rated way, about men wanting their “private parts’’ to be … um … bigger.

“Oooooooooo,’’ Alex wailed. “Who wants a bigger butt?!’’

A Camp Woodfield moment.

Since 1999 , when Camp Woodfield became a Webelos Camp, Cub Scouts from across the Triad have spent their summers there. And right now, so many Cub Scouts are coming that camp officials may have to add a fifth week next summer.

Go figure, particularly in our personal headache of an economy. A 9 percent increase in attendance the past two years. Chalk it up to a need to stay close to home, hip-deep in nature without breaking a family’s checkbook.

But maybe there’s something else to it.

Last month at Camp Woodfield, during the night’s campfire, our crew from Pack 111 heard an older man named Mike, dressed in Native American dress, talk about the need for respect of Mother Nature and the world around them.

That group included the boys who had badgered each other since the first day of camp.

They sat near one another, and above the chirp of insects, they heard Mike play on his wooden flute a song about sunrise.

They didn’t say a word. They just listened. Mike didn’t even need a microphone.

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com