CHAPTER VIIITHE PEACE PICNICThis is the story of Molly Sefton's great peace picnic, which was held on the following Saturday afternoon. It didn't seem funny at the time; in fact, nobody could have been more serious or in earnest than Molly when she planned the picnic. But afterward—!At any rate, here is what happened:In the first place, the game with Grant City had done one very good thing, among many others. After seeing Buck stop Grant's trick play, Master Specs changed his mind about not muddying a football suit that season. He would not admit, of course, that Buck could compare with Bunny; but he began to feel that Buck had some good points, after all. So he was back in the squad, trying hard for an end position and with a fair chance of winning the place. That was one difficulty ironed out."But here's the reason for the picnic," Molly chattered to Bunny the day before. "First, I want the Black Eagle Patrol to like Rodman Cree; and, second, I want the rest of the school to like you Scouts. Now ifwe have a nice, jolly picnic, everybody will get acquainted and understand everybody else. You see, they all have wrong ideas about each other. For instance, Specs thinks Rodman isn't good for anything.""Well—I," admitted Bunny cautiously, "he isn't much of a track athlete or football player.""But he can play baseball. I know he can. I saw him bat the first day of school, even if he does say he hit the ball accidentally."Bunny agreed. "All right. We'll take along a bat and ball and a couple of gloves, and maybe Specs and the others will like him better after they see him play.""Of course." Molly was growing more and more enthusiastic. "As for the others: Peter Barrett thinks you are a lot of snobs and won't associate with fellows who happen to have patches on their clothes and that kind of thing; Buck Claxton says that you try to run things, and that if anybody outside the patrol has a plan, you oppose it, just because you didn't happen to think of it first; Royal Sheffield thinks you are a bunch of sissies, who don't dare walk across the road without asking permission from your Scout Master; Genevieve Chester says you hate her because she was elected president of the student association, and are always hoping something awful will happen to her; Clarence Prissler honestly believes you never think of a thing but athletics, and aren't interested in books or education—and you know he is planning to be a teacher." Mollypaused to take breath. "Now, I say that if we have a nice, lively, get-acquainted picnic, everybody will find out his mistakes. Don't you think so?"Whatever Bunny really thought made no difference, because the picnic was already under way; and at precisely two o'clock Saturday afternoon some thirty-five boys and girls, accompanied by Mrs. Sefton, boarded three borrowed launches and crossed the lake to Turkey Point.And this is how everybody succeeded in misunderstanding everybody else.How Specs Found He had been Mistaken in Rodman Cree"How about playing a little scrub ball?" proposed Bunny at three-fifteen that afternoon. "You come in on this, Rodman."Rodman Cree wrinkled his nose in perplexity. "But I can't play baseball. You know I can't. I've told you so.""Oh, rats! You knocked a home run that first day of school, and you can do it again. Come on, Buck; let's choose up."The game lasted only three innings, for by that time the girls had started a marshmallow roast; but it was quite long enough. In the first inning, Rodman played third until he had muffed two perfect throws, when Bunny shifted him to the outfield. Here he misjudged an easy fly and strained to correct his error by throwingthe ball twenty feet over the head of Bi, who was wildly trying to nip a runner at second.At bat, in the third inning, with two out, bases full, and Bob Kiproy pitching a straight ball, poor Rodman had his last shred of reputation removed.Three times Kiproy pitched wide, high balls. Rodman scraped the dust trying to hit, and lunged two feet across the plate trying to hit, and jumped high in the air trying to hit.And he never touched the ball."I see I was mistaken," observed Specs, as he walked in from third, where he had been stranded high and dry as a runner. "I thought he was some good at baseball, anyhow, but he's no good at anything."How Peter Barrett Observed the Way Scouts Regarded Patched ClothesAt four o'clock Peter Barrett was walking in a little grove back of an open field, attempting to memorize a poem for Monday's class. Also, between times, he was endeavoring to be fair to the Black Eagle Patrol; for a talk with Molly had convinced him that perhaps he had made a mistake in supposing the Scouts to be snobs. At this juncture, he caught sight of Bunny, legs apart, talking defiantly to a ragged youngster from the nearest farm."No, you can't come in here," Bunny was saying shortly. "We have this place for the afternoon. You will have to go somewhere else.""But I won't hurt anything."Bunny became even sharper. "I've told you already to go home. Run along now. We don't want you here, and you know why. Hurry up!"Reluctantly and sorrowfully, the boy in the ragged clothes turned and slouched back to the farmhouse."Exactly!" said Peter Barrett grimly to himself. "Just what I thought right along. They're snobs. They haven't any use at all for poor folks."How Buck Claxton Tested the Scouts' Willingness to Co-operate with OutsidersFive o'clock had come, with the time for serving the lunch brought by the girls still two hours away, when a bright idea dawned on Buck Claxton."What do you say to this?" he began enthusiastically to Roundy. "About a quarter of a mile down the road, there is a little store where they sell ice cream. Suppose we all chip in and buy enough for the crowd? It would be a nice thing to do."Roundy's face assumed a wistful expression, and he nodded his head. "But I—I'm afraid I can't," he declined.Buck turned to Nap. "How about you?""Waterloo!" said Nap firmly. "Can't think of it!""Busted!" added S. S. lamely.Four other Scouts gave the same answer."Oh, all right!" remarked Buck, with a superior smile on his face. "I'll see some of the others."A little later, he came back with ice cream for everybody. But no Scout had paid for even one little frozen chunk.How Royal Sheffield Discovered Whether the Scouts Dared Cross the Road Without Asking PermissionAt five-thirty, to the west of the picnic grounds, Royal Sheffield and S. S. observed a husky young farmer blazing away at a tin can with a rifle."That's my cousin," observed S. S."Fine!" exclaimed Sheffield. "We'll borrow the rifle, pay for some cartridges, and have a big shooting match."S. S. seemed troubled. "I don't think we ought to do that," he objected. "Horace Hibbs isn't here, and somebody might get hurt."Sheffield stared in amazement. "We would shoot at a target, of course," he explained.S. S. continued stubborn. "There are too many of us. Somebody might get shot.""Tell you what we will do, then: you and I will slip over there and get him to give us a couple of shots."S. S. was more embarrassed than ever. "No, I don't think we ought to do that, either, Roy. No, we certainly ought not to do that." He turned toward the picnic crowd. "Let's get back to the bunch. Maybe they are starting something. Yes, let's go back.""All right!" snorted Sheffield contemptuously."But it's too bad Horace Hibbs won't be here when we eat.""Why?" S. S. asked innocently."If he isn't here, how will you know whether you may eat two kinds of sandwiches and cake, and how hot you may drink your coffee?"And Royal Sheffield walked away, leaving S. S. without an answer.How Marion Genevieve Chester Proved (to Her Own Satisfaction) How Much the Scouts Cared for HerIt was ten minutes past six when Bi and Marion Genevieve Chester, very gay in her new red dress, started over to a little spring to get water for the coffee. Bi suggested skirting the rail fence to the lane, instead of cutting across fields.Marion Genevieve tossed her head. "What's the use of being in the country if you can't walk on the grass. You go any way you want to. I'm going straight across."Bi's shoe had become untied, and he was stooping to lace it when wild screams, mingled with angry bellowing, came from the field into which Marion Genevieve had ventured. Looking up, he saw the girl dashing toward the fence, her mouth open and her eyes wide with fright. Meanwhile, the bellowings grew loud and furious."Oh, you're all right," he called, as she reached the fence. "You have plenty of time."For a bit, due to her frightened exhaustion, it looked as if Marion Genevieve might not be able to climb over the fence. Bi sauntered toward her."Come on," he said. "You're all right.""If I am all right," snapped Marion Genevieve, once more out of the field, "it's not your fault. For all you cared, that bull could have tossed me over, and you wouldn't have made a move to help me.""But—""Yes, and I believe you knew the bull was in there all the time, and you never said a word about it." She pointed her finger at him. "Didn't you know the bull was in there?""Why, yes," said the hapless Bi. "I did, of course, but—""Then don't you ever dare to speak to me again, you hateful boy."And with this farewell, Marion Genevieve Chester flounced angrily back to the picnickers, leaving Bi and the pail by the side of the fence.How Clarence Prissler Interviewed the Scouts to Learn Their Views on Educational MattersIt was the shouts of laughter that drew Molly to the bit of sandy beach near the boat landing. Lunch was ready, and she crossed over to let the jolly ones know about the coming meal.There were three principal actors and two spectators in the group. Specs, Jump and little Prissler stood inline on the sand, while Bob Kiproy and Jim Collins, stretched at full length, were doing most of the laughing. Around Prissler's waist circled a sort of rope harness, with a dangling line on each side. These ends, at the moment when the boy began his somersault in the air, were grasped by Jump and Specs."I'm not going to try it again," whined Clarence Prissier. "I'm not going to; that's all there is to it.""Oh, you're coming along in fine style," said Jump comfortably. "Never mind those fellows. Just try it once more.""Go on," Specs commanded. "We're waiting.""Yes, try it again, Prissy," said Kiproy feebly, between shrieks of laughter."I'm not—""We're waiting," snapped Specs, giving the rope a tug.Prissier bent his knees, swung back his arms, and then, with a desperate leap, essayed a back flip through the air. It was not forceful enough, however, and he came down on his hands and knees. Though Specs and Jump kept him from crashing, he landed hard enough to lurch forward into the sand.Kiproy and Collins rolled over in violent laughter."You're getting it," said Jump encouragingly. "You're getting it.""Sure, you're getting it," agreed Specs."But I tell you, I don't want to get it," protestedPrissier, rubbing the sand out of his clothes. "And what's more, I'm not going to do it again."Molly interrupted. "Lunch is ready," she said, in a voice so different from her ordinary tones that Specs looked at her in astonishment."What's the matter?" he ventured, after Clarence Prissier, still weakly complaining, had managed to slip the rope from his waist and was walking with the others toward the spread tablecloths."You know well enough what the matter is," said Molly severely; "and if you're not ashamed. I'm ashamed for you." Deliberately, she turned her back on him.The balance of the evening was not a success. Though the picnic lunch would have satisfied anybody, the picnickers felt ill at ease. The Scouts were uncomfortable, and Buck, Barrett, Sheffield, Prissier and Company were more so, to say nothing of Marion Genevieve Chester. Even the launch ride around the lake, which ended the picnic, was a dismal failure, because nobody seemed to want to sing. When the party broke up, it made about as much noise as so many homeward-bound rabbits.Almost in tears, Molly Sefton walked home with her mother, accompanied by Bunny as basket bearer."It—it all went wrong." Molly was very near sobbing as she said good night. "Oh, why did you do it? I tried so hard, and Specs and Bi and—andeverybody just went and spoiled everything. I heard all about it."Bunny looked genuinely astonished. "What did we do that was wrong? You can't blame me because Rodman can't play ball. I didn't know he was going to pieces like that.""It wasn't just Rodman. Why did you keep that poor little boy with the ragged clothes from coming over to the picnic? We had enough to eat for a dozen more. Peter Barrett said you chased him away. Why did you do it?"Bunny heaved a sigh of relief. "There was a scarlet fever sign on the house. When I found he lived there, I told him to go away and stay away. I couldn't do anything else, could I?""No," admitted Molly. "But why wouldn't any of you help buy the ice cream?""We spent our last cent paying for gasoline for the three launches. We borrowed the boats, but we had to pay for the gas. None of us had a penny left.""S. S. wouldn't borrow his cousin's rifle, even for a single shot.""S. S. told me about that. He was right to argue against bringing the gun over for any target shooting. There were too many of us; it would have been dangerous. But it would have been more dangerous for Roy Sheffield if S. S. had taken him over where his cousin was, though Roy doesn't know it. You see, about twoyears ago, this cousin was driving in town, and Roy threw a newspaper in front of the rig, which frightened the horse so much it nearly ran away. The fellow has had it in for him ever since."Molly thought for a moment. "Bi let Marion Genevieve Chester get almost killed by a wild bull. He knew it was in that field, and he saw that she had on a red dress.""There wasn't a bit of danger," Bunny laughed. "The bull was tied up and fenced off from that field. Anyhow, Marion Genevieve was never as close as fifty yards to the bull. She never even saw it.""You'll admit that was an awful thing they did to poor little Clarence Prissler."Bunny grinned. "I was to blame for that. You see, Molly, I thought it best not to tell the boys about those people who don't like us, because I figured that if we just acted natural they would find out that we don't mean to be snobbish or stingy or anything else low-down. But I did tell the Scouts about Prissy's thinking we weren't interested in learning things. So when Clarence went up to Jump and began to ask questions about the circus, and how the acrobats got to be acrobats, and all that, why, Specs insisted that Jump teach Prissy the back flip. Honestly, Molly, I believe Specs thought he was doing the right thing."Molly and Bunny looked at each other. Then the girl, brushing her hand across her eyes, broke into a laugh, in which the boy joined."It is funny," she said. "I didn't see it that way before, but it is funny. Only everything's in a worse tangle now than it ever was before.""But we'll fix it," Bunny said. "We'll fix it somehow."
THE PEACE PICNIC
This is the story of Molly Sefton's great peace picnic, which was held on the following Saturday afternoon. It didn't seem funny at the time; in fact, nobody could have been more serious or in earnest than Molly when she planned the picnic. But afterward—!
At any rate, here is what happened:
In the first place, the game with Grant City had done one very good thing, among many others. After seeing Buck stop Grant's trick play, Master Specs changed his mind about not muddying a football suit that season. He would not admit, of course, that Buck could compare with Bunny; but he began to feel that Buck had some good points, after all. So he was back in the squad, trying hard for an end position and with a fair chance of winning the place. That was one difficulty ironed out.
"But here's the reason for the picnic," Molly chattered to Bunny the day before. "First, I want the Black Eagle Patrol to like Rodman Cree; and, second, I want the rest of the school to like you Scouts. Now ifwe have a nice, jolly picnic, everybody will get acquainted and understand everybody else. You see, they all have wrong ideas about each other. For instance, Specs thinks Rodman isn't good for anything."
"Well—I," admitted Bunny cautiously, "he isn't much of a track athlete or football player."
"But he can play baseball. I know he can. I saw him bat the first day of school, even if he does say he hit the ball accidentally."
Bunny agreed. "All right. We'll take along a bat and ball and a couple of gloves, and maybe Specs and the others will like him better after they see him play."
"Of course." Molly was growing more and more enthusiastic. "As for the others: Peter Barrett thinks you are a lot of snobs and won't associate with fellows who happen to have patches on their clothes and that kind of thing; Buck Claxton says that you try to run things, and that if anybody outside the patrol has a plan, you oppose it, just because you didn't happen to think of it first; Royal Sheffield thinks you are a bunch of sissies, who don't dare walk across the road without asking permission from your Scout Master; Genevieve Chester says you hate her because she was elected president of the student association, and are always hoping something awful will happen to her; Clarence Prissler honestly believes you never think of a thing but athletics, and aren't interested in books or education—and you know he is planning to be a teacher." Mollypaused to take breath. "Now, I say that if we have a nice, lively, get-acquainted picnic, everybody will find out his mistakes. Don't you think so?"
Whatever Bunny really thought made no difference, because the picnic was already under way; and at precisely two o'clock Saturday afternoon some thirty-five boys and girls, accompanied by Mrs. Sefton, boarded three borrowed launches and crossed the lake to Turkey Point.
And this is how everybody succeeded in misunderstanding everybody else.
How Specs Found He had been Mistaken in Rodman Cree
"How about playing a little scrub ball?" proposed Bunny at three-fifteen that afternoon. "You come in on this, Rodman."
Rodman Cree wrinkled his nose in perplexity. "But I can't play baseball. You know I can't. I've told you so."
"Oh, rats! You knocked a home run that first day of school, and you can do it again. Come on, Buck; let's choose up."
The game lasted only three innings, for by that time the girls had started a marshmallow roast; but it was quite long enough. In the first inning, Rodman played third until he had muffed two perfect throws, when Bunny shifted him to the outfield. Here he misjudged an easy fly and strained to correct his error by throwingthe ball twenty feet over the head of Bi, who was wildly trying to nip a runner at second.
At bat, in the third inning, with two out, bases full, and Bob Kiproy pitching a straight ball, poor Rodman had his last shred of reputation removed.
Three times Kiproy pitched wide, high balls. Rodman scraped the dust trying to hit, and lunged two feet across the plate trying to hit, and jumped high in the air trying to hit.
And he never touched the ball.
"I see I was mistaken," observed Specs, as he walked in from third, where he had been stranded high and dry as a runner. "I thought he was some good at baseball, anyhow, but he's no good at anything."
How Peter Barrett Observed the Way Scouts Regarded Patched Clothes
At four o'clock Peter Barrett was walking in a little grove back of an open field, attempting to memorize a poem for Monday's class. Also, between times, he was endeavoring to be fair to the Black Eagle Patrol; for a talk with Molly had convinced him that perhaps he had made a mistake in supposing the Scouts to be snobs. At this juncture, he caught sight of Bunny, legs apart, talking defiantly to a ragged youngster from the nearest farm.
"No, you can't come in here," Bunny was saying shortly. "We have this place for the afternoon. You will have to go somewhere else."
"But I won't hurt anything."
Bunny became even sharper. "I've told you already to go home. Run along now. We don't want you here, and you know why. Hurry up!"
Reluctantly and sorrowfully, the boy in the ragged clothes turned and slouched back to the farmhouse.
"Exactly!" said Peter Barrett grimly to himself. "Just what I thought right along. They're snobs. They haven't any use at all for poor folks."
How Buck Claxton Tested the Scouts' Willingness to Co-operate with Outsiders
Five o'clock had come, with the time for serving the lunch brought by the girls still two hours away, when a bright idea dawned on Buck Claxton.
"What do you say to this?" he began enthusiastically to Roundy. "About a quarter of a mile down the road, there is a little store where they sell ice cream. Suppose we all chip in and buy enough for the crowd? It would be a nice thing to do."
Roundy's face assumed a wistful expression, and he nodded his head. "But I—I'm afraid I can't," he declined.
Buck turned to Nap. "How about you?"
"Waterloo!" said Nap firmly. "Can't think of it!"
"Busted!" added S. S. lamely.
Four other Scouts gave the same answer.
"Oh, all right!" remarked Buck, with a superior smile on his face. "I'll see some of the others."
A little later, he came back with ice cream for everybody. But no Scout had paid for even one little frozen chunk.
How Royal Sheffield Discovered Whether the Scouts Dared Cross the Road Without Asking Permission
At five-thirty, to the west of the picnic grounds, Royal Sheffield and S. S. observed a husky young farmer blazing away at a tin can with a rifle.
"That's my cousin," observed S. S.
"Fine!" exclaimed Sheffield. "We'll borrow the rifle, pay for some cartridges, and have a big shooting match."
S. S. seemed troubled. "I don't think we ought to do that," he objected. "Horace Hibbs isn't here, and somebody might get hurt."
Sheffield stared in amazement. "We would shoot at a target, of course," he explained.
S. S. continued stubborn. "There are too many of us. Somebody might get shot."
"Tell you what we will do, then: you and I will slip over there and get him to give us a couple of shots."
S. S. was more embarrassed than ever. "No, I don't think we ought to do that, either, Roy. No, we certainly ought not to do that." He turned toward the picnic crowd. "Let's get back to the bunch. Maybe they are starting something. Yes, let's go back."
"All right!" snorted Sheffield contemptuously."But it's too bad Horace Hibbs won't be here when we eat."
"Why?" S. S. asked innocently.
"If he isn't here, how will you know whether you may eat two kinds of sandwiches and cake, and how hot you may drink your coffee?"
And Royal Sheffield walked away, leaving S. S. without an answer.
How Marion Genevieve Chester Proved (to Her Own Satisfaction) How Much the Scouts Cared for Her
It was ten minutes past six when Bi and Marion Genevieve Chester, very gay in her new red dress, started over to a little spring to get water for the coffee. Bi suggested skirting the rail fence to the lane, instead of cutting across fields.
Marion Genevieve tossed her head. "What's the use of being in the country if you can't walk on the grass. You go any way you want to. I'm going straight across."
Bi's shoe had become untied, and he was stooping to lace it when wild screams, mingled with angry bellowing, came from the field into which Marion Genevieve had ventured. Looking up, he saw the girl dashing toward the fence, her mouth open and her eyes wide with fright. Meanwhile, the bellowings grew loud and furious.
"Oh, you're all right," he called, as she reached the fence. "You have plenty of time."
For a bit, due to her frightened exhaustion, it looked as if Marion Genevieve might not be able to climb over the fence. Bi sauntered toward her.
"Come on," he said. "You're all right."
"If I am all right," snapped Marion Genevieve, once more out of the field, "it's not your fault. For all you cared, that bull could have tossed me over, and you wouldn't have made a move to help me."
"But—"
"Yes, and I believe you knew the bull was in there all the time, and you never said a word about it." She pointed her finger at him. "Didn't you know the bull was in there?"
"Why, yes," said the hapless Bi. "I did, of course, but—"
"Then don't you ever dare to speak to me again, you hateful boy."
And with this farewell, Marion Genevieve Chester flounced angrily back to the picnickers, leaving Bi and the pail by the side of the fence.
How Clarence Prissler Interviewed the Scouts to Learn Their Views on Educational Matters
It was the shouts of laughter that drew Molly to the bit of sandy beach near the boat landing. Lunch was ready, and she crossed over to let the jolly ones know about the coming meal.
There were three principal actors and two spectators in the group. Specs, Jump and little Prissler stood inline on the sand, while Bob Kiproy and Jim Collins, stretched at full length, were doing most of the laughing. Around Prissler's waist circled a sort of rope harness, with a dangling line on each side. These ends, at the moment when the boy began his somersault in the air, were grasped by Jump and Specs.
"I'm not going to try it again," whined Clarence Prissier. "I'm not going to; that's all there is to it."
"Oh, you're coming along in fine style," said Jump comfortably. "Never mind those fellows. Just try it once more."
"Go on," Specs commanded. "We're waiting."
"Yes, try it again, Prissy," said Kiproy feebly, between shrieks of laughter.
"I'm not—"
"We're waiting," snapped Specs, giving the rope a tug.
Prissier bent his knees, swung back his arms, and then, with a desperate leap, essayed a back flip through the air. It was not forceful enough, however, and he came down on his hands and knees. Though Specs and Jump kept him from crashing, he landed hard enough to lurch forward into the sand.
Kiproy and Collins rolled over in violent laughter.
"You're getting it," said Jump encouragingly. "You're getting it."
"Sure, you're getting it," agreed Specs.
"But I tell you, I don't want to get it," protestedPrissier, rubbing the sand out of his clothes. "And what's more, I'm not going to do it again."
Molly interrupted. "Lunch is ready," she said, in a voice so different from her ordinary tones that Specs looked at her in astonishment.
"What's the matter?" he ventured, after Clarence Prissier, still weakly complaining, had managed to slip the rope from his waist and was walking with the others toward the spread tablecloths.
"You know well enough what the matter is," said Molly severely; "and if you're not ashamed. I'm ashamed for you." Deliberately, she turned her back on him.
The balance of the evening was not a success. Though the picnic lunch would have satisfied anybody, the picnickers felt ill at ease. The Scouts were uncomfortable, and Buck, Barrett, Sheffield, Prissier and Company were more so, to say nothing of Marion Genevieve Chester. Even the launch ride around the lake, which ended the picnic, was a dismal failure, because nobody seemed to want to sing. When the party broke up, it made about as much noise as so many homeward-bound rabbits.
Almost in tears, Molly Sefton walked home with her mother, accompanied by Bunny as basket bearer.
"It—it all went wrong." Molly was very near sobbing as she said good night. "Oh, why did you do it? I tried so hard, and Specs and Bi and—andeverybody just went and spoiled everything. I heard all about it."
Bunny looked genuinely astonished. "What did we do that was wrong? You can't blame me because Rodman can't play ball. I didn't know he was going to pieces like that."
"It wasn't just Rodman. Why did you keep that poor little boy with the ragged clothes from coming over to the picnic? We had enough to eat for a dozen more. Peter Barrett said you chased him away. Why did you do it?"
Bunny heaved a sigh of relief. "There was a scarlet fever sign on the house. When I found he lived there, I told him to go away and stay away. I couldn't do anything else, could I?"
"No," admitted Molly. "But why wouldn't any of you help buy the ice cream?"
"We spent our last cent paying for gasoline for the three launches. We borrowed the boats, but we had to pay for the gas. None of us had a penny left."
"S. S. wouldn't borrow his cousin's rifle, even for a single shot."
"S. S. told me about that. He was right to argue against bringing the gun over for any target shooting. There were too many of us; it would have been dangerous. But it would have been more dangerous for Roy Sheffield if S. S. had taken him over where his cousin was, though Roy doesn't know it. You see, about twoyears ago, this cousin was driving in town, and Roy threw a newspaper in front of the rig, which frightened the horse so much it nearly ran away. The fellow has had it in for him ever since."
Molly thought for a moment. "Bi let Marion Genevieve Chester get almost killed by a wild bull. He knew it was in that field, and he saw that she had on a red dress."
"There wasn't a bit of danger," Bunny laughed. "The bull was tied up and fenced off from that field. Anyhow, Marion Genevieve was never as close as fifty yards to the bull. She never even saw it."
"You'll admit that was an awful thing they did to poor little Clarence Prissler."
Bunny grinned. "I was to blame for that. You see, Molly, I thought it best not to tell the boys about those people who don't like us, because I figured that if we just acted natural they would find out that we don't mean to be snobbish or stingy or anything else low-down. But I did tell the Scouts about Prissy's thinking we weren't interested in learning things. So when Clarence went up to Jump and began to ask questions about the circus, and how the acrobats got to be acrobats, and all that, why, Specs insisted that Jump teach Prissy the back flip. Honestly, Molly, I believe Specs thought he was doing the right thing."
Molly and Bunny looked at each other. Then the girl, brushing her hand across her eyes, broke into a laugh, in which the boy joined.
"It is funny," she said. "I didn't see it that way before, but it is funny. Only everything's in a worse tangle now than it ever was before."
"But we'll fix it," Bunny said. "We'll fix it somehow."
CHAPTER IXTHE TENDERFOOTIf Specs had not stopped on his way to school that morning to play with Felix; and if Miss Seeby, the botany teacher, had not expressed a desire for a specimen ofaspidium fragrans, which is a variety of fern; and if Professor Leland had not called a mass meeting for four o'clock that afternoon, there is no telling how the day might have ended for the Black Eagle Patrol.Felix was the Magoons' dog. He included in his affections all friends of the family and particularly Roundy's brother Scouts. There were people, indeed, who claimed that Felix was the eighth member of the patrol. But that was ridiculous, of course; for how could a dog pass the tenderfoot tests of tying knots, or take the Scout oath, or know the history of the flag?Felix probably didn't worry about his official position. What counted with him was the friendship of the Scouts; and that morning, when care-free Specs McGrew hove in sight, with a stick in his hand, Felix barked happily and said, as plainly as a dog can, "Throw it! I'll retrieve it for you!"So Specs whipped the stick fifty feet away, and Felix rushed after it. As soon as he had thrown, Specs raced for the corner, to get out of sight before the dog could recover the bit of wood and return it. But Felix was too quick for him, too wise in the game. All the way to school they played it till, at the very door, with the last bell ringing, Specs hurled it farther than he had any time yet, and then took advantage of Felix by dodging into the hall and running upstairs to his seat in the big assembly room.This was a mistake. The way to end a game with Felix was to stand sternly before him and say, "Go home, Felix; go home, sir!" and wait till the dog dropped his tail between his legs and crept away.The school day started like any other for Specs. He answered "present" at roll call, joined the others in singing, and listened attentively to the five-minute address by Professor Leland. It was not until he had marched with the class to Room 4 for his botany recitation, indeed, that he thought of Felix again."Theaspidium fragrans, or fragrant fern," Miss Seeby was saying, "is a rare and hardy little species, growing in clefts on the faces of precipices. It is aromatic, with an odor said to be like new-mown hay composed largely of sweet-briar rose leaves. This fern is to be found in our State, and I should like very much to have a specimen to show the class. Look for a place where there is a bare cliff, overhanging a little, perhaps, so the rain cannot reach the plant, and up above all thetrees, so that it can have no shade at all. If you find a fern there, test it by its fragrance, its stickiness and its beautiful brown, curling fronds." She paused, walked toward Specs and said, in a wholly different voice, "Is that your dog?"Specs looked down. Faithful Felix had evidently followed him through the hall when he left the assembly room and was now lying beside his desk, thumping an eager tail against the floor. His unexpected presence provoked discreet mirth from everybody except the teacher and Specs himself."No—no ma'am. It's the Magoons'." Common honesty made him add, "But he followed me to school, I guess. I was playing with him.""Indeed!" said Miss Seeby, looking more offended than ever. "Indeed!Well, put him out—immediately!"Specs coerced Felix into the hall and warned him to go home and behave himself like a good dog. But there must have been meekness and apology in the command; for, instead of obeying, Felix went only as far as the outer corridor, where he slunk into a dark comer. Two minutes later, in any event, he was scratching at the classroom door and whining for admittance.Miss Seeby had just shown her pupils a drawing of the fragrant fern and asked again that any one who knew where it was to be found secure a specimen at the first opportunity. She paused suddenly, and her face hardened."Take that dog away," she ordered Specs; "yes, take him home. And you need not come back to school yourself until you have a note from your father to Professor Leland, stating that you are sorry for this outrage and promising that you will not bring that animal here again."Very penitent, although somewhat confused over the exact nature of his guilt, Specs rose and made dizzily for the door. As he closed it behind him, he could hear the giggling of the class and a smothered reference—he credited it to Rodman Cree—about "Mary's little lamb", interrupted by the teacher's sharp admonition for silence.To Specs' credit, be it recorded that he followed instructions to the best of his ability. With an affectionate twist of Felix's ear, he strode down the hall and outdoors, even forgetting his cap in his hurry, with the dog tagging at his heels. Straight to the Magoons' he led Felix; sternly he told him to stay there. Then he ambled downtown, to explain to his parent as best as he could the disgrace that had befallen him."Your father's out in the country," the clerk in the McGrew hardware store told him. "He'll be back in an hour or two, though."Deep thought slowed Specs' steps on the return trip. In front of the Magoons' the forgiving Felix crept out and made it plain he was sorry and wanted to be friends again. The Scout stared at him with a slow smile."Come on!" he called. "I can't go back to schooltill I get that note, and I can't get that note till father comes back to town. Tell you what, Felix; you and I will chase out along the lake shore and find one of those smelly ferns for Miss Seeby. I know where they grow. Come on, old boy!"Directly after school that afternoon, as has been intimated, Professor Leland called a mass meeting. After Marion Genevieve Chester, as president of the student association, rapped for order, the principal rose from his chair on the platform and stepped forward."To-morrow afternoon," he began, "Lakeville High School plays its second football game. I have called this meeting to suggest that we organize to encourage the team during the game. We made enough noise at the other; but some of us cheered at the wrong times, when it wasn't quite fair to our opponents, and not at the right times, when it might have heartened our own boys; and some of us cheered all by ourselves, without any attempt to swell the volume of applause and encouragement. What I wish to suggest is practicing the Lakeville cheer, till we can pour it forth like theboom-boom-boomof a cannon, and the appointing of cheer leaders for the different sections."Nominations were promptly offered, and the candidates as promptly elected. Profiting by that other meeting, the Scouts made no attempt to win a place."I wonder," continued Professor Leland, "if all of us realize that we may help, even if we are not playing on the team itself. Let me show you what I mean."And then, while Bunny and Buck listened just a little more intently than the others, perhaps, he told them of the drop-kicks that had failed in the first game because of wind and dust and bad passes, and how Rodman Cree had pointed out the handicaps and made possible the goal when the teams changed sides.A little applause rippled over the room. Everybody squirmed about in his seat to see how Rodman took it, but it was soon evident that the boy had not attended the meeting."The Grant City team," went on the speaker, "had a curious and effective trick formation, which was solved by our boys in the nick of time, thanks to Captain Claxton. Now, if some one of us who was not playing had discovered that trick and warned our team, it would have helped.""Mr. Chair—I mean, Miss Chairman!"It was Buck Claxton who interrupted. Very embarrassed he looked as he stood there, and very white, but very determined, too."Mr. Claxton," recognized Marion Genevieve Chester."Somebody did discover that trick," blurted Buck. "Rodman Cree did. He told me about it between quarters. That was why I knew what to expect. That—that's all." He sat down with an audible thump.Very wisely, Professor Leland dismissed the subject with a brief, "Then we have something more forwhich to thank Cree," and turned to another subject. "Suppose we practice the Lakeville cheer now," he said. "Let's shake the rafters."If the cheers inspired by the new leaders did not actually shake the rafters, it was because the school building was new and rigid. They echoed and re-echoed from basement to attic; they forced Marion Genevieve Chester to thrust hurried fingers into her aristocratic ears; they made you believe that Lakeville was the best and biggest and most loyal high school in all the world. In some mysterious way, everybody seemed to think he could help win the morrow's game by yelling just a little bit louder than his neighbor.At the door, as they filed out, Bunny Payton stopped each member of the Black Eagle Patrol long enough to say, "Scout meeting at the club house to-night. Seven sharp. Be sure and come."Roundy was the last to leave. "Seen Specs?" Bunny asked him. The patrol leader was not in Miss Seeby's nine-o'clock botany class and knew nothing of the morning incident. "H'm! Neither have I. That's funny. Well, don't forget the meeting."Rodman Cree was not a Boy Scout, but Felix may have overlooked this point. Perhaps he realized that Rodman was worthy of his friendship, or perhaps it was merely the cap in the boy's hand that drew him like a magnet. Whatever the reason, at four that afternoon, when school was dismissed, Felix ran straight toRodman and tried to tell him, in dog language, that something was wrong, and that it had to do with somebody connected with Specs' cap, which Rodman had observed hanging in the coatroom, although he knew its owner had not returned since his exile from Miss Seeby's botany class.Felix nuzzled Rodman, yelped sharply and trotted away. When the dog saw that he was not followed, he came back again, very patient with the dull human who couldn't understand plain signs, and repeated his actions. But it was not till the third time that the boy began to get an inkling of the truth. Felix clinched the matter by sniffing at the cap held toward him, barking excitedly, and racing off at full speed.Rodman may not have been a Boy Scout, but he constructed this problem and its answer with a deft brain. Miss Seeby had asked for a specimen of the fragrant fern, which grew on the sides of cliffs. Specs had been sent away from school in disgrace, accompanied by Felix. He had not returned. The only cliffs near Lakeville were to the west, along the shore of the lake. Felix had smelled Specs' cap and run in that direction. It followed, as surely as two plus two make four, that he was endeavoring to lead somebody to the missing boy."Maybe poor Specs fell over a precipice and hurt himself," Rodman said, shivering uneasily. "All right, Felix, I'm coming. The old mass meeting can go hang!"At first, while the dog kept to the road, there was nothing that Rodman could do save follow. But later, when Felix left the main highway where it curved to avoid the sandstone cliffs near the lake, and began pushing his eager nose through the underbrush and over tangles of grass, the boy recognized that this was virgin country. Specs could not have come that way without unconsciously leaving signs for anybody who came afterward.Where some less observant boy might have found nothing, Rodman readily picked up the trail. A pebble, lying with its damp side up, proved that a careless foot had turned it over. A splatter of partially dried mud on the trunk of a tree revealed that the passer-by had left the spot some hours before. Broken branches, their tips toward the lake, pointed the way like arrows. Grass and leaves added their mute evidence by lying brushed forward till their under sides showed. It was comforting, at least, to be certain Specs had hiked over this very stretch."Yes, he came this way," Rodman told Felix. "Find him, old fellow!"At the top of the wooded rise they had been ascending, the hill culminated in barren knobs, which broke off abruptly in sandstone cliffs, sheer to the lapping water of the lake. In places, the rock was solid, save for little dirt-filled crevices, from which hardy vegetation sprouted; in others, the stone had crumpled into fine sand, which day by day sifted downward till a nichehad been formed in the solid wall. It was toward the top of one of these indentations that Felix raced, with Rodman hard on his heels.Throwing himself flat on his stomach, the boy wriggled to the edge and peered down. Some twelve or fifteen feet below him, squatting on a narrow patch of sand, Specs McGrew was engaged in disconsolately tossing pebbles upon the placid bosom of the lake. On either side of his little prison, the walls of the precipice fell straight to the water's edge, apparently extending for hundreds of yards in both directions. Specs was safe enough, to be sure, but he was as effectually cooped upon the tiny plot of sand by the smooth rock cliffs and the deep lake as if the iron bars of a cage encompassed him."Hello, Specs!"The imprisoned boy looked up. "Oh, it's you," he said sullenly. "Got a rope?""No.""Oh, of course not! You'd have one if you were a Scout. Well, what are you going to do about it?""How did you get down there?" Rodman asked."Fell down, you chump!" snapped Specs.Rodman wanted to snap back, "Well, fall up here, then!" But he fought back the temptation. Instead, "Sit tight," he called, "and I'll have you out in a jiffy."Back in the woods, wild grapevines twined over the trees. It was the work of only a few minutes to cutand trim one eight or ten feet long and lower it over the sandy cliff."Grab hold," he called to Specs, "and you can walk up the side of this sloping sand-pit as easy as falling off a log. Ready! Up you come! Steady there! Careful! Careful! There you are, safe and sound and on top of the world once more. Now, is there a fragrant fern anywhere around here?"At seven o'clock that evening the Boy Scouts of the Black Eagle Patrol met in their clubhouse. Before seven-thirty they had threshed out the problem of electing another member, and there was not a dissenting vote when the name of Rodman Cree was proposed to fill the patrol roster."Which is just as it should be," Horace Hibbs approved. "Unless every single one of us thinks he is the best fellow for the place, he should not be invited to join. Now, if Specs—""Yes, Specs!" groaned Bi. "We'll never convert Specs; no, not in a thousand years. He says Rodman is no good, and I guess he'll grow long white whiskers before he'll admit he's wrong. No, siree, if we wait for Specs to make it unanimous, this patrol will be one man shy the rest of its life.""I wish," began Bunny, "that Specs—"The sentence was chopped short by the rattle of the latch. As the Scouts turned, the door flung wide, and Specs himself popped into the room."Come on in, Rodman," he called. "Say, fellows,Rodman is a whiz. You know the cliffs out near Old Baldy. Well, I fell down one of them this morning, reaching for a fragrant fern, and Rodman came looking for me. Found me, too, by following my trail and—""Felix led me to him," Rodman said depreciatingly."Rats!" scorned Specs. "You did it. Felix didn't make a grapevine rope, did he, and pull me up the cliff? I guess not. And who reached down and plucked this fern? Felix? Huh! Smell it, Bunny. Listen, fellows! Rodman knows all the things we do about trailing, and the woods, and the birds, and tying knots, and making fires without matches, and—oh, everything. I always told you he was all right!" Specs made this statement gravely and sincerely; he had forgotten his former opinion of the new boy. "Well, then, what's the matter with making him a Scout in the Black Eagle Patrol? Anybody object?"He stared at them fiercely, defiantly, as if daring one of them to protest. Nobody did. Horace Hibbs stroked his chin in high glee."Rodman," the Scout Master said, "can you tie—let me see—these knots: the square or reef, sheet-bend, bowline, fisherman's, sheepshank, halter, clove hitch, timber hitch and two half hitches?""Yes, sir. I know some others, too.""And do you know the Scout laws, motto, sign, salute and significance of the badge?""Yes, sir.""How about your country's flag. Do you know its composition and history and the customary forms of respect due it?""Yes, sir." The boy was both eager and confident in his replies.Horace Hibbs smiled. "One more question: Would you like to join the Black Eagle Patrol of Boy Scouts?"There was no formal "Yes, sir!" this time. Instead, Rodman Cree gulped once or twice, as if it were difficult to speak, and then fairly shouted, "You bet I would!""In that case," pronounced Horace Hibbs judicially, fitting the tips of his fingers together, "I see no reason why you should not take the tenderfoot tests at once. Bunny, will you get us a rope?"Twenty minutes later, when Specs rose to replenish the dying flames in the great brick fireplace, his eyes fell upon Rodman Cree."Shucks!" he laughed, "what's the use of wasting our wood when that fellow's head is a regular bonfire?" He paused to digest his remark. "Say—say, let's call Rodman 'Bonfire' after this. It's a dandy name for him."Horace Hibbs glanced shrewdly across the table at the recruit. "Do you mind?" he asked.The boy grinned happily. "Of course, I don't. I—I like it," said Bonfire Cree, tenderfoot of the Black Eagle Patrol.
THE TENDERFOOT
If Specs had not stopped on his way to school that morning to play with Felix; and if Miss Seeby, the botany teacher, had not expressed a desire for a specimen ofaspidium fragrans, which is a variety of fern; and if Professor Leland had not called a mass meeting for four o'clock that afternoon, there is no telling how the day might have ended for the Black Eagle Patrol.
Felix was the Magoons' dog. He included in his affections all friends of the family and particularly Roundy's brother Scouts. There were people, indeed, who claimed that Felix was the eighth member of the patrol. But that was ridiculous, of course; for how could a dog pass the tenderfoot tests of tying knots, or take the Scout oath, or know the history of the flag?
Felix probably didn't worry about his official position. What counted with him was the friendship of the Scouts; and that morning, when care-free Specs McGrew hove in sight, with a stick in his hand, Felix barked happily and said, as plainly as a dog can, "Throw it! I'll retrieve it for you!"
So Specs whipped the stick fifty feet away, and Felix rushed after it. As soon as he had thrown, Specs raced for the corner, to get out of sight before the dog could recover the bit of wood and return it. But Felix was too quick for him, too wise in the game. All the way to school they played it till, at the very door, with the last bell ringing, Specs hurled it farther than he had any time yet, and then took advantage of Felix by dodging into the hall and running upstairs to his seat in the big assembly room.
This was a mistake. The way to end a game with Felix was to stand sternly before him and say, "Go home, Felix; go home, sir!" and wait till the dog dropped his tail between his legs and crept away.
The school day started like any other for Specs. He answered "present" at roll call, joined the others in singing, and listened attentively to the five-minute address by Professor Leland. It was not until he had marched with the class to Room 4 for his botany recitation, indeed, that he thought of Felix again.
"Theaspidium fragrans, or fragrant fern," Miss Seeby was saying, "is a rare and hardy little species, growing in clefts on the faces of precipices. It is aromatic, with an odor said to be like new-mown hay composed largely of sweet-briar rose leaves. This fern is to be found in our State, and I should like very much to have a specimen to show the class. Look for a place where there is a bare cliff, overhanging a little, perhaps, so the rain cannot reach the plant, and up above all thetrees, so that it can have no shade at all. If you find a fern there, test it by its fragrance, its stickiness and its beautiful brown, curling fronds." She paused, walked toward Specs and said, in a wholly different voice, "Is that your dog?"
Specs looked down. Faithful Felix had evidently followed him through the hall when he left the assembly room and was now lying beside his desk, thumping an eager tail against the floor. His unexpected presence provoked discreet mirth from everybody except the teacher and Specs himself.
"No—no ma'am. It's the Magoons'." Common honesty made him add, "But he followed me to school, I guess. I was playing with him."
"Indeed!" said Miss Seeby, looking more offended than ever. "Indeed!Well, put him out—immediately!"
Specs coerced Felix into the hall and warned him to go home and behave himself like a good dog. But there must have been meekness and apology in the command; for, instead of obeying, Felix went only as far as the outer corridor, where he slunk into a dark comer. Two minutes later, in any event, he was scratching at the classroom door and whining for admittance.
Miss Seeby had just shown her pupils a drawing of the fragrant fern and asked again that any one who knew where it was to be found secure a specimen at the first opportunity. She paused suddenly, and her face hardened.
"Take that dog away," she ordered Specs; "yes, take him home. And you need not come back to school yourself until you have a note from your father to Professor Leland, stating that you are sorry for this outrage and promising that you will not bring that animal here again."
Very penitent, although somewhat confused over the exact nature of his guilt, Specs rose and made dizzily for the door. As he closed it behind him, he could hear the giggling of the class and a smothered reference—he credited it to Rodman Cree—about "Mary's little lamb", interrupted by the teacher's sharp admonition for silence.
To Specs' credit, be it recorded that he followed instructions to the best of his ability. With an affectionate twist of Felix's ear, he strode down the hall and outdoors, even forgetting his cap in his hurry, with the dog tagging at his heels. Straight to the Magoons' he led Felix; sternly he told him to stay there. Then he ambled downtown, to explain to his parent as best as he could the disgrace that had befallen him.
"Your father's out in the country," the clerk in the McGrew hardware store told him. "He'll be back in an hour or two, though."
Deep thought slowed Specs' steps on the return trip. In front of the Magoons' the forgiving Felix crept out and made it plain he was sorry and wanted to be friends again. The Scout stared at him with a slow smile.
"Come on!" he called. "I can't go back to schooltill I get that note, and I can't get that note till father comes back to town. Tell you what, Felix; you and I will chase out along the lake shore and find one of those smelly ferns for Miss Seeby. I know where they grow. Come on, old boy!"
Directly after school that afternoon, as has been intimated, Professor Leland called a mass meeting. After Marion Genevieve Chester, as president of the student association, rapped for order, the principal rose from his chair on the platform and stepped forward.
"To-morrow afternoon," he began, "Lakeville High School plays its second football game. I have called this meeting to suggest that we organize to encourage the team during the game. We made enough noise at the other; but some of us cheered at the wrong times, when it wasn't quite fair to our opponents, and not at the right times, when it might have heartened our own boys; and some of us cheered all by ourselves, without any attempt to swell the volume of applause and encouragement. What I wish to suggest is practicing the Lakeville cheer, till we can pour it forth like theboom-boom-boomof a cannon, and the appointing of cheer leaders for the different sections."
Nominations were promptly offered, and the candidates as promptly elected. Profiting by that other meeting, the Scouts made no attempt to win a place.
"I wonder," continued Professor Leland, "if all of us realize that we may help, even if we are not playing on the team itself. Let me show you what I mean."
And then, while Bunny and Buck listened just a little more intently than the others, perhaps, he told them of the drop-kicks that had failed in the first game because of wind and dust and bad passes, and how Rodman Cree had pointed out the handicaps and made possible the goal when the teams changed sides.
A little applause rippled over the room. Everybody squirmed about in his seat to see how Rodman took it, but it was soon evident that the boy had not attended the meeting.
"The Grant City team," went on the speaker, "had a curious and effective trick formation, which was solved by our boys in the nick of time, thanks to Captain Claxton. Now, if some one of us who was not playing had discovered that trick and warned our team, it would have helped."
"Mr. Chair—I mean, Miss Chairman!"
It was Buck Claxton who interrupted. Very embarrassed he looked as he stood there, and very white, but very determined, too.
"Mr. Claxton," recognized Marion Genevieve Chester.
"Somebody did discover that trick," blurted Buck. "Rodman Cree did. He told me about it between quarters. That was why I knew what to expect. That—that's all." He sat down with an audible thump.
Very wisely, Professor Leland dismissed the subject with a brief, "Then we have something more forwhich to thank Cree," and turned to another subject. "Suppose we practice the Lakeville cheer now," he said. "Let's shake the rafters."
If the cheers inspired by the new leaders did not actually shake the rafters, it was because the school building was new and rigid. They echoed and re-echoed from basement to attic; they forced Marion Genevieve Chester to thrust hurried fingers into her aristocratic ears; they made you believe that Lakeville was the best and biggest and most loyal high school in all the world. In some mysterious way, everybody seemed to think he could help win the morrow's game by yelling just a little bit louder than his neighbor.
At the door, as they filed out, Bunny Payton stopped each member of the Black Eagle Patrol long enough to say, "Scout meeting at the club house to-night. Seven sharp. Be sure and come."
Roundy was the last to leave. "Seen Specs?" Bunny asked him. The patrol leader was not in Miss Seeby's nine-o'clock botany class and knew nothing of the morning incident. "H'm! Neither have I. That's funny. Well, don't forget the meeting."
Rodman Cree was not a Boy Scout, but Felix may have overlooked this point. Perhaps he realized that Rodman was worthy of his friendship, or perhaps it was merely the cap in the boy's hand that drew him like a magnet. Whatever the reason, at four that afternoon, when school was dismissed, Felix ran straight toRodman and tried to tell him, in dog language, that something was wrong, and that it had to do with somebody connected with Specs' cap, which Rodman had observed hanging in the coatroom, although he knew its owner had not returned since his exile from Miss Seeby's botany class.
Felix nuzzled Rodman, yelped sharply and trotted away. When the dog saw that he was not followed, he came back again, very patient with the dull human who couldn't understand plain signs, and repeated his actions. But it was not till the third time that the boy began to get an inkling of the truth. Felix clinched the matter by sniffing at the cap held toward him, barking excitedly, and racing off at full speed.
Rodman may not have been a Boy Scout, but he constructed this problem and its answer with a deft brain. Miss Seeby had asked for a specimen of the fragrant fern, which grew on the sides of cliffs. Specs had been sent away from school in disgrace, accompanied by Felix. He had not returned. The only cliffs near Lakeville were to the west, along the shore of the lake. Felix had smelled Specs' cap and run in that direction. It followed, as surely as two plus two make four, that he was endeavoring to lead somebody to the missing boy.
"Maybe poor Specs fell over a precipice and hurt himself," Rodman said, shivering uneasily. "All right, Felix, I'm coming. The old mass meeting can go hang!"
At first, while the dog kept to the road, there was nothing that Rodman could do save follow. But later, when Felix left the main highway where it curved to avoid the sandstone cliffs near the lake, and began pushing his eager nose through the underbrush and over tangles of grass, the boy recognized that this was virgin country. Specs could not have come that way without unconsciously leaving signs for anybody who came afterward.
Where some less observant boy might have found nothing, Rodman readily picked up the trail. A pebble, lying with its damp side up, proved that a careless foot had turned it over. A splatter of partially dried mud on the trunk of a tree revealed that the passer-by had left the spot some hours before. Broken branches, their tips toward the lake, pointed the way like arrows. Grass and leaves added their mute evidence by lying brushed forward till their under sides showed. It was comforting, at least, to be certain Specs had hiked over this very stretch.
"Yes, he came this way," Rodman told Felix. "Find him, old fellow!"
At the top of the wooded rise they had been ascending, the hill culminated in barren knobs, which broke off abruptly in sandstone cliffs, sheer to the lapping water of the lake. In places, the rock was solid, save for little dirt-filled crevices, from which hardy vegetation sprouted; in others, the stone had crumpled into fine sand, which day by day sifted downward till a nichehad been formed in the solid wall. It was toward the top of one of these indentations that Felix raced, with Rodman hard on his heels.
Throwing himself flat on his stomach, the boy wriggled to the edge and peered down. Some twelve or fifteen feet below him, squatting on a narrow patch of sand, Specs McGrew was engaged in disconsolately tossing pebbles upon the placid bosom of the lake. On either side of his little prison, the walls of the precipice fell straight to the water's edge, apparently extending for hundreds of yards in both directions. Specs was safe enough, to be sure, but he was as effectually cooped upon the tiny plot of sand by the smooth rock cliffs and the deep lake as if the iron bars of a cage encompassed him.
"Hello, Specs!"
The imprisoned boy looked up. "Oh, it's you," he said sullenly. "Got a rope?"
"No."
"Oh, of course not! You'd have one if you were a Scout. Well, what are you going to do about it?"
"How did you get down there?" Rodman asked.
"Fell down, you chump!" snapped Specs.
Rodman wanted to snap back, "Well, fall up here, then!" But he fought back the temptation. Instead, "Sit tight," he called, "and I'll have you out in a jiffy."
Back in the woods, wild grapevines twined over the trees. It was the work of only a few minutes to cutand trim one eight or ten feet long and lower it over the sandy cliff.
"Grab hold," he called to Specs, "and you can walk up the side of this sloping sand-pit as easy as falling off a log. Ready! Up you come! Steady there! Careful! Careful! There you are, safe and sound and on top of the world once more. Now, is there a fragrant fern anywhere around here?"
At seven o'clock that evening the Boy Scouts of the Black Eagle Patrol met in their clubhouse. Before seven-thirty they had threshed out the problem of electing another member, and there was not a dissenting vote when the name of Rodman Cree was proposed to fill the patrol roster.
"Which is just as it should be," Horace Hibbs approved. "Unless every single one of us thinks he is the best fellow for the place, he should not be invited to join. Now, if Specs—"
"Yes, Specs!" groaned Bi. "We'll never convert Specs; no, not in a thousand years. He says Rodman is no good, and I guess he'll grow long white whiskers before he'll admit he's wrong. No, siree, if we wait for Specs to make it unanimous, this patrol will be one man shy the rest of its life."
"I wish," began Bunny, "that Specs—"
The sentence was chopped short by the rattle of the latch. As the Scouts turned, the door flung wide, and Specs himself popped into the room.
"Come on in, Rodman," he called. "Say, fellows,Rodman is a whiz. You know the cliffs out near Old Baldy. Well, I fell down one of them this morning, reaching for a fragrant fern, and Rodman came looking for me. Found me, too, by following my trail and—"
"Felix led me to him," Rodman said depreciatingly.
"Rats!" scorned Specs. "You did it. Felix didn't make a grapevine rope, did he, and pull me up the cliff? I guess not. And who reached down and plucked this fern? Felix? Huh! Smell it, Bunny. Listen, fellows! Rodman knows all the things we do about trailing, and the woods, and the birds, and tying knots, and making fires without matches, and—oh, everything. I always told you he was all right!" Specs made this statement gravely and sincerely; he had forgotten his former opinion of the new boy. "Well, then, what's the matter with making him a Scout in the Black Eagle Patrol? Anybody object?"
He stared at them fiercely, defiantly, as if daring one of them to protest. Nobody did. Horace Hibbs stroked his chin in high glee.
"Rodman," the Scout Master said, "can you tie—let me see—these knots: the square or reef, sheet-bend, bowline, fisherman's, sheepshank, halter, clove hitch, timber hitch and two half hitches?"
"Yes, sir. I know some others, too."
"And do you know the Scout laws, motto, sign, salute and significance of the badge?"
"Yes, sir."
"How about your country's flag. Do you know its composition and history and the customary forms of respect due it?"
"Yes, sir." The boy was both eager and confident in his replies.
Horace Hibbs smiled. "One more question: Would you like to join the Black Eagle Patrol of Boy Scouts?"
There was no formal "Yes, sir!" this time. Instead, Rodman Cree gulped once or twice, as if it were difficult to speak, and then fairly shouted, "You bet I would!"
"In that case," pronounced Horace Hibbs judicially, fitting the tips of his fingers together, "I see no reason why you should not take the tenderfoot tests at once. Bunny, will you get us a rope?"
Twenty minutes later, when Specs rose to replenish the dying flames in the great brick fireplace, his eyes fell upon Rodman Cree.
"Shucks!" he laughed, "what's the use of wasting our wood when that fellow's head is a regular bonfire?" He paused to digest his remark. "Say—say, let's call Rodman 'Bonfire' after this. It's a dandy name for him."
Horace Hibbs glanced shrewdly across the table at the recruit. "Do you mind?" he asked.
The boy grinned happily. "Of course, I don't. I—I like it," said Bonfire Cree, tenderfoot of the Black Eagle Patrol.
CHAPTER XHALLOWE'ENClarence Prissler lay motionless upon bed Number 9 in the free ward of the model little hospital that the Fair Play Factory had built in Lakeville. The nurse pointed him out to Bunny Payton, and the latter tiptoed softly to the sick boy's side. Before Prissler opened his eyes and looked up at him, the caller had clenched his hands nervously and swallowed hard. He wondered if he would be welcome, and what he was going to say. In spite of the fact that Clarence Prissler had been a schoolmate of his since the first of the year, he hadn't exchanged a dozen sentences with him in that time.The misunderstanding at Molly's picnic had been deplorable. On the following Monday morning, Bunny had resolved to seek out the boy and apologize and explain; in a way, that would be a Scouts' good turn. But Prissler had not come to school that day. He was missing again on Tuesday and the succeeding days of that week. Saturday the football team played and beat Elkana High, and the victory was enough to make a fellow forget almost everything. Besides, nobodyseemed to know what had become of Prissler; nobody, indeed, seemed to have missed him. But when a second week had faded into the past, and part of a third, Bunny stirred into action.Professor Leland gave him the first clue. With something of an ache in his heart, Bunny went straight to Horace Hibbs."Yes," said the Scout Master, "he is in our hospital. He has been very ill." The man looked thoughtfully at Bunny. "Do you recall the seventh Scout law?" he asked, and quoted it slowly, "'A Scout is friendly.'"At the hospital now, while Bunny fumbled with his cap, the halting conversation got under way. Prissler was glad to see him; he said so very politely and very meekly. After Bunny had told him how sorry he was about the picnic incident, they talked of general topics. Presently, though, there came another of the embarrassing pauses."To-night's Hallowe'en, isn't it?" ventured Prissler."Why, yes," said Bunny. He fancied he detected a note of wistfulness in the other's tone. "Why, yes; so it is. I—I wish you could come out with us.""I wish I could." The sick boy tried bravely to put some simulation of enthusiasm in his voice, but failed.Bunny rose to his feet. He couldn't imagine the bookish and hermit-like Prissler skylarking with the fellows; the boy didn't—well, didn't just "fit." He wasn't "one of the crowd." But, of course, youcouldn't say that to a fellow who was sick. And you could say something nice!"I'll tell you what, Prissler," he proposed. "I'll be your proxy to-night when we're out. I'll pretend, you know, that I'm walking about on your legs, and using your arms and your brain; and then to-morrow I'll come again and tell you all the things you did—through me, by proxy, you understand. It will be the next best fun to your being actually one of the bunch, won't it?""Yes," answered Prissler dutifully; "yes, I suppose so." He held out a weak hand. "Well, good-by, Bunny. It was fine of you to come and see me. Good-by."Out in the hall, Bunny met Doctor Maxwell. A sudden impulse made him stop the man."Doctor," he said, "I am a classmate of Clarence Prissler's at the high school. Can you tell me how he is getting along?"The physician eyed him thoughtfully. "I am glad you called upon him," he said presently. "The truth is, young Prissler isn't recovering as he should; he isn't building up in mind or body after his siege. I've thought, once or twice, that he needed a more intimate touch with the outside world; that's why I am glad you called upon him. Nobody else has.""He—well, sir, he isn't what you call a very popular fellow in school," apologized Bunny. "Doesn't play any games, and keeps to himself, you know, sir, andseems to prefer his own company to anybody else's. There isn't any—any danger that he won't get well, is there, sir?""There is every danger," replied Doctor Maxwell soberly. "He is in a weak, despondent condition, from which he does not seem to be able to arouse himself. He has no interest in what is going on, no apparent desire to rally and grow stronger. If it were possible to inject fresh enthusiasm into him, some actual ambition to get up from his bed and out into the world again, it would mean more than any attention or medicine we can give him here. He—well, I'm glad you called, anyhow. We shall hope for the best."There was a big lump in Bunny's throat when he left the hospital. It was as if the physician had accused him of some deliberate neglect. After all, he had failed in practice to observe that seventh Scout law. He remembered times when he might have sung out a cheery greeting to Prissler in the days that were past, or stopped to chat with him a minute, or flung an arm over his shoulder and walked a ways with him, as he often did with the other fellows. But he hadn't done any of these things; he hadn't even suspected that the boy was hungry at heart for companionship, and wanted to share in the joys and disappointments of those about him.Bunny Payton wasn't quite himself when he joined the other Scouts that evening for the usual round of Hallowe'en pranks. Two or three of them commentedupon his moody silence, and eventually he had to explain that he couldn't free his mind of the picture of Clarence Prissler in the hospital, lying pale and weak and ready to give up on his white cot. He even told them how he had proposed becoming Prissler's proxy for the night; told them about it grimly, in short, jerky sentences, as if he dared them to laugh at the idea. None of them did.The following afternoon, directly after school, he called again to see the patient. This time he greeted the sick boy boisterously, as he might an old friend."Here's a glass of jelly," he said, after he had shaken hands. "Mrs. Lannigan sent it to you.""Mrs. Lannigan? Why, I—I don't understand.""Well," laughed Bunny, "I think she means it as a sort of thanks offering. Fact is, you helped her quite a bit last night.""I? How could I—""You did it by proxy. You see, we fellows went out last night to celebrate Hallowe'en. We strolled past Mrs. Lannigan's. Her gate was swinging loose on one hinge, and sagging down the whole strip of fence in front of her cottage. That wasn't right, of course; our sense of the orderly told us that. So we—""So you took the gate with you, I suppose." Clarence Prissler's lips pursed a little."Well, I'll confess that some of us thought of doing just that. But we didn't. If we had been representingourselves alone, we might have yielded to the temptation in a thoughtless moment. But, you know, I was acting as your proxy. I said to myself, 'What would Prissy do?' And so—well, anyhow, we satisfied our sense of beauty by cautiously repairing that fence and bolstering up that giddy gate. About the time we were through, the good Mrs. Lannigan herself pounced upon us; thought we were walking away with the whole fence, I guess. When she realized what we had done, she was inclined to weep. Women are funny that way, you know. But she smiled at the same time, and asked:"'Who was responsible for this?'""'Clarence Prissler, over at the hospital,' I told her; and then she thanked me for you, and insisted upon my taking a glass of her new jelly for you, and she's coming around to see you in a day or two, and—"The sick boy lifted a protesting hand. Bunny saw two faint pink spots on his cheeks. "But I wasn't really responsible for what you did," he declared."Nonsense! Of course, you were. I was your proxy, and you had to stand or fall by my actions. And I might have done something else—something for which I should have been very sorry afterwards—if I had been acting for myself only."Prissler pondered this for a long minute. Then he looked up at his caller quizzically. "Did I do anything else last night?" he asked with genuine interest."Lots of things. You wheeled back to its old cornerPop Gan's peanut roaster, after some fellows—young kids who didn't know any better—had run away with it; and you enjoyed racing it back to its old stand as much as you could if you'd been running away with it. Pop's put a sack of goobers aside for you, against the day when you'll come around personally to call for it. And you took Mrs. Ginty's baby carriage, that had strayed downtown, and put a sack of potatoes in it, and wheeled that back home, too. And you stopped one youngster who was forgetting himself, and lectured him—oh, mightily eloquently—till he saw things a little clearer, and insisted upon joining your crowd. And you happened to be of service to your old landlady.""Mrs. Stone?" The pink spots in Prissler's cheeks vanished."Yes, Mrs. Stone. Seems your trunk had been put out of your room, and you stopped to ask about it. She didn't quite understand that you'd be home shortly and make up the work you do to pay the rent of your room. There were lots of chores undone, and you got the crowd to pitch in and carry the wood to the shed, and cut some kindling, and clean up the yard; and then, over your protest, mind you, the fellows in your crowd agreed to come around daily and do the work you'd been doing, until you were able to do it yourself. You said—""The Boy Scouts are going to do it, you mean.""Well-l, yes. You said that would make you getwell in a hurry, and Mrs. Stone said she hadn't realized how matters stood with you, and it didn't matter if the fellows pitched in as your work proxies or not. But they're going to, just the same.""Oh!" said Clarence Prissler softly. "Oh!" The pink spots in his cheeks crimsoned suddenly—and the color lasted."And you ran across little Jimmy Bobbs, too," continued Bunny, smiling a little over the recollection. "He was standing on a corner and looking mighty lonesome, and when you invited him to fall in with the other fellows in the bunch he jumped at the chance and said 'Thank you!' away down in his throat. And he turned out to be a dandy sort of fellow himself. Seems he's wanted to know you for a long time; says you're the smartest boy in school. He's coming around to the hospital this afternoon to see if you'd mind his bucking up on his studies with you as an audience. He thinks it will help you to catch up and help him, too, at the same time. Want to see him?""Why—why, yes, I certainly do. I—I've been worrying a lot, Bunny, about my lessons.""You needn't any more, then. Because Nap Meeker is planning to do exactly the same thing. Wants to. And all the other Scouts are coming to see you, too, if you don't mind their crowding in here."Prissler blinked his eyes. "I—I don't mind," he said, with a catch in his voice."Well, let's see. I think that was about all you did.Oh, yes, I nearly forgot Professor Leland. I think he was a bit suspicious of our actions. Anyhow, he loomed up suddenly in a dark spot and demanded to know if we had done or were planning to do any ma—malicious mischief. I just wish, Prissy, you could have been there in your own body to hear yourself—your proxy, I mean—deny any such intentions. Specs McGrew asked if he didn't understand that you, Clarence Prissler, were leading the crowd. Professor looked at me kind of funny, and I had to explain. He just smiled and begged our pardons, and said that if he had known you were at our head, even in spirit, he wouldn't have bothered to question us. He knew you!"There followed a brief silence. Bunny broke it by remarking, in a careless manner:"Now that Rodman Cree is a member of the Black Eagle Patrol—you knew that, didn't you?—and almost ready to be promoted from tenderfoot to second-class Scout, he's beginning to worry about ever getting to be a first-class one. You see, Prissler, before he can be advanced, he must train some other boy to become a tenderfoot, and he can't find anybody in town who thinks enough of the Scouts to want to be one of them."The boy on the bed squirmed uneasily."But when he does—""Bunny!""Yes?""Would—would he train me?" gasped Prissler."I—I think I am just beginning to understand you Scouts, and—and"—the words came out in a torrent—"and—Oh, Bunny, I want to be a Scout!"Bunny jumped up and put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Why, Bonfire will be tickled to death to train you; yes, sir, plumb tickled to death! Do you mean it, Prissy?"The sick boy could only nod dumbly, but there was undeniable happiness in the eager bobs of his head.For ten minutes more, the two were deep in the intricacies of Scoutcraft. When Bunny finally rose to go, the patient was breathing rapidly, and his cheeks were flooded with color.A day or two later, Bunny met Doctor Maxwell on the street."I don't pretend to understand young Prissler's case," the physician said; "but he's taken the most marvelous turn for the better. He will be out of the hospital in a week now. As nearly as I can diagnose the improvement, something has aroused his interest in the outside world again. Something has restored his faith in mankind, and made him want to live and help and be helped. I suspect—" And the man laid an approving hand on Bunny Payton's shoulder and left the sentence unfinished."By the way," he added, "what about Hallowe'en? I forgot all about it, and nothing in the way of results happened to remind me of the occasion. Didn't you boys get out? Or was the night a failure?""We were out, sir," said Bunny, grinning happily, "and I think—in fact, I know—that there was never a better nor a more successful Hallowe'en in this town. Ask Clarence Prissler over at the hospital. He led our crowd."
HALLOWE'EN
Clarence Prissler lay motionless upon bed Number 9 in the free ward of the model little hospital that the Fair Play Factory had built in Lakeville. The nurse pointed him out to Bunny Payton, and the latter tiptoed softly to the sick boy's side. Before Prissler opened his eyes and looked up at him, the caller had clenched his hands nervously and swallowed hard. He wondered if he would be welcome, and what he was going to say. In spite of the fact that Clarence Prissler had been a schoolmate of his since the first of the year, he hadn't exchanged a dozen sentences with him in that time.
The misunderstanding at Molly's picnic had been deplorable. On the following Monday morning, Bunny had resolved to seek out the boy and apologize and explain; in a way, that would be a Scouts' good turn. But Prissler had not come to school that day. He was missing again on Tuesday and the succeeding days of that week. Saturday the football team played and beat Elkana High, and the victory was enough to make a fellow forget almost everything. Besides, nobodyseemed to know what had become of Prissler; nobody, indeed, seemed to have missed him. But when a second week had faded into the past, and part of a third, Bunny stirred into action.
Professor Leland gave him the first clue. With something of an ache in his heart, Bunny went straight to Horace Hibbs.
"Yes," said the Scout Master, "he is in our hospital. He has been very ill." The man looked thoughtfully at Bunny. "Do you recall the seventh Scout law?" he asked, and quoted it slowly, "'A Scout is friendly.'"
At the hospital now, while Bunny fumbled with his cap, the halting conversation got under way. Prissler was glad to see him; he said so very politely and very meekly. After Bunny had told him how sorry he was about the picnic incident, they talked of general topics. Presently, though, there came another of the embarrassing pauses.
"To-night's Hallowe'en, isn't it?" ventured Prissler.
"Why, yes," said Bunny. He fancied he detected a note of wistfulness in the other's tone. "Why, yes; so it is. I—I wish you could come out with us."
"I wish I could." The sick boy tried bravely to put some simulation of enthusiasm in his voice, but failed.
Bunny rose to his feet. He couldn't imagine the bookish and hermit-like Prissler skylarking with the fellows; the boy didn't—well, didn't just "fit." He wasn't "one of the crowd." But, of course, youcouldn't say that to a fellow who was sick. And you could say something nice!
"I'll tell you what, Prissler," he proposed. "I'll be your proxy to-night when we're out. I'll pretend, you know, that I'm walking about on your legs, and using your arms and your brain; and then to-morrow I'll come again and tell you all the things you did—through me, by proxy, you understand. It will be the next best fun to your being actually one of the bunch, won't it?"
"Yes," answered Prissler dutifully; "yes, I suppose so." He held out a weak hand. "Well, good-by, Bunny. It was fine of you to come and see me. Good-by."
Out in the hall, Bunny met Doctor Maxwell. A sudden impulse made him stop the man.
"Doctor," he said, "I am a classmate of Clarence Prissler's at the high school. Can you tell me how he is getting along?"
The physician eyed him thoughtfully. "I am glad you called upon him," he said presently. "The truth is, young Prissler isn't recovering as he should; he isn't building up in mind or body after his siege. I've thought, once or twice, that he needed a more intimate touch with the outside world; that's why I am glad you called upon him. Nobody else has."
"He—well, sir, he isn't what you call a very popular fellow in school," apologized Bunny. "Doesn't play any games, and keeps to himself, you know, sir, andseems to prefer his own company to anybody else's. There isn't any—any danger that he won't get well, is there, sir?"
"There is every danger," replied Doctor Maxwell soberly. "He is in a weak, despondent condition, from which he does not seem to be able to arouse himself. He has no interest in what is going on, no apparent desire to rally and grow stronger. If it were possible to inject fresh enthusiasm into him, some actual ambition to get up from his bed and out into the world again, it would mean more than any attention or medicine we can give him here. He—well, I'm glad you called, anyhow. We shall hope for the best."
There was a big lump in Bunny's throat when he left the hospital. It was as if the physician had accused him of some deliberate neglect. After all, he had failed in practice to observe that seventh Scout law. He remembered times when he might have sung out a cheery greeting to Prissler in the days that were past, or stopped to chat with him a minute, or flung an arm over his shoulder and walked a ways with him, as he often did with the other fellows. But he hadn't done any of these things; he hadn't even suspected that the boy was hungry at heart for companionship, and wanted to share in the joys and disappointments of those about him.
Bunny Payton wasn't quite himself when he joined the other Scouts that evening for the usual round of Hallowe'en pranks. Two or three of them commentedupon his moody silence, and eventually he had to explain that he couldn't free his mind of the picture of Clarence Prissler in the hospital, lying pale and weak and ready to give up on his white cot. He even told them how he had proposed becoming Prissler's proxy for the night; told them about it grimly, in short, jerky sentences, as if he dared them to laugh at the idea. None of them did.
The following afternoon, directly after school, he called again to see the patient. This time he greeted the sick boy boisterously, as he might an old friend.
"Here's a glass of jelly," he said, after he had shaken hands. "Mrs. Lannigan sent it to you."
"Mrs. Lannigan? Why, I—I don't understand."
"Well," laughed Bunny, "I think she means it as a sort of thanks offering. Fact is, you helped her quite a bit last night."
"I? How could I—"
"You did it by proxy. You see, we fellows went out last night to celebrate Hallowe'en. We strolled past Mrs. Lannigan's. Her gate was swinging loose on one hinge, and sagging down the whole strip of fence in front of her cottage. That wasn't right, of course; our sense of the orderly told us that. So we—"
"So you took the gate with you, I suppose." Clarence Prissler's lips pursed a little.
"Well, I'll confess that some of us thought of doing just that. But we didn't. If we had been representingourselves alone, we might have yielded to the temptation in a thoughtless moment. But, you know, I was acting as your proxy. I said to myself, 'What would Prissy do?' And so—well, anyhow, we satisfied our sense of beauty by cautiously repairing that fence and bolstering up that giddy gate. About the time we were through, the good Mrs. Lannigan herself pounced upon us; thought we were walking away with the whole fence, I guess. When she realized what we had done, she was inclined to weep. Women are funny that way, you know. But she smiled at the same time, and asked:
"'Who was responsible for this?'"
"'Clarence Prissler, over at the hospital,' I told her; and then she thanked me for you, and insisted upon my taking a glass of her new jelly for you, and she's coming around to see you in a day or two, and—"
The sick boy lifted a protesting hand. Bunny saw two faint pink spots on his cheeks. "But I wasn't really responsible for what you did," he declared.
"Nonsense! Of course, you were. I was your proxy, and you had to stand or fall by my actions. And I might have done something else—something for which I should have been very sorry afterwards—if I had been acting for myself only."
Prissler pondered this for a long minute. Then he looked up at his caller quizzically. "Did I do anything else last night?" he asked with genuine interest.
"Lots of things. You wheeled back to its old cornerPop Gan's peanut roaster, after some fellows—young kids who didn't know any better—had run away with it; and you enjoyed racing it back to its old stand as much as you could if you'd been running away with it. Pop's put a sack of goobers aside for you, against the day when you'll come around personally to call for it. And you took Mrs. Ginty's baby carriage, that had strayed downtown, and put a sack of potatoes in it, and wheeled that back home, too. And you stopped one youngster who was forgetting himself, and lectured him—oh, mightily eloquently—till he saw things a little clearer, and insisted upon joining your crowd. And you happened to be of service to your old landlady."
"Mrs. Stone?" The pink spots in Prissler's cheeks vanished.
"Yes, Mrs. Stone. Seems your trunk had been put out of your room, and you stopped to ask about it. She didn't quite understand that you'd be home shortly and make up the work you do to pay the rent of your room. There were lots of chores undone, and you got the crowd to pitch in and carry the wood to the shed, and cut some kindling, and clean up the yard; and then, over your protest, mind you, the fellows in your crowd agreed to come around daily and do the work you'd been doing, until you were able to do it yourself. You said—"
"The Boy Scouts are going to do it, you mean."
"Well-l, yes. You said that would make you getwell in a hurry, and Mrs. Stone said she hadn't realized how matters stood with you, and it didn't matter if the fellows pitched in as your work proxies or not. But they're going to, just the same."
"Oh!" said Clarence Prissler softly. "Oh!" The pink spots in his cheeks crimsoned suddenly—and the color lasted.
"And you ran across little Jimmy Bobbs, too," continued Bunny, smiling a little over the recollection. "He was standing on a corner and looking mighty lonesome, and when you invited him to fall in with the other fellows in the bunch he jumped at the chance and said 'Thank you!' away down in his throat. And he turned out to be a dandy sort of fellow himself. Seems he's wanted to know you for a long time; says you're the smartest boy in school. He's coming around to the hospital this afternoon to see if you'd mind his bucking up on his studies with you as an audience. He thinks it will help you to catch up and help him, too, at the same time. Want to see him?"
"Why—why, yes, I certainly do. I—I've been worrying a lot, Bunny, about my lessons."
"You needn't any more, then. Because Nap Meeker is planning to do exactly the same thing. Wants to. And all the other Scouts are coming to see you, too, if you don't mind their crowding in here."
Prissler blinked his eyes. "I—I don't mind," he said, with a catch in his voice.
"Well, let's see. I think that was about all you did.Oh, yes, I nearly forgot Professor Leland. I think he was a bit suspicious of our actions. Anyhow, he loomed up suddenly in a dark spot and demanded to know if we had done or were planning to do any ma—malicious mischief. I just wish, Prissy, you could have been there in your own body to hear yourself—your proxy, I mean—deny any such intentions. Specs McGrew asked if he didn't understand that you, Clarence Prissler, were leading the crowd. Professor looked at me kind of funny, and I had to explain. He just smiled and begged our pardons, and said that if he had known you were at our head, even in spirit, he wouldn't have bothered to question us. He knew you!"
There followed a brief silence. Bunny broke it by remarking, in a careless manner:
"Now that Rodman Cree is a member of the Black Eagle Patrol—you knew that, didn't you?—and almost ready to be promoted from tenderfoot to second-class Scout, he's beginning to worry about ever getting to be a first-class one. You see, Prissler, before he can be advanced, he must train some other boy to become a tenderfoot, and he can't find anybody in town who thinks enough of the Scouts to want to be one of them."
The boy on the bed squirmed uneasily.
"But when he does—"
"Bunny!"
"Yes?"
"Would—would he train me?" gasped Prissler."I—I think I am just beginning to understand you Scouts, and—and"—the words came out in a torrent—"and—Oh, Bunny, I want to be a Scout!"
Bunny jumped up and put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Why, Bonfire will be tickled to death to train you; yes, sir, plumb tickled to death! Do you mean it, Prissy?"
The sick boy could only nod dumbly, but there was undeniable happiness in the eager bobs of his head.
For ten minutes more, the two were deep in the intricacies of Scoutcraft. When Bunny finally rose to go, the patient was breathing rapidly, and his cheeks were flooded with color.
A day or two later, Bunny met Doctor Maxwell on the street.
"I don't pretend to understand young Prissler's case," the physician said; "but he's taken the most marvelous turn for the better. He will be out of the hospital in a week now. As nearly as I can diagnose the improvement, something has aroused his interest in the outside world again. Something has restored his faith in mankind, and made him want to live and help and be helped. I suspect—" And the man laid an approving hand on Bunny Payton's shoulder and left the sentence unfinished.
"By the way," he added, "what about Hallowe'en? I forgot all about it, and nothing in the way of results happened to remind me of the occasion. Didn't you boys get out? Or was the night a failure?"
"We were out, sir," said Bunny, grinning happily, "and I think—in fact, I know—that there was never a better nor a more successful Hallowe'en in this town. Ask Clarence Prissler over at the hospital. He led our crowd."