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, nobody seemed 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, you couldn'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, and seems 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 commented upon 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 representing ourselves 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 corner Pop 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 get well 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."