BORROWERS' LUCK

With something of an effort, Bunny wrenched his gaze from the back of the disappointing automobile and turned to Specs.

"No, not everybody," he said, striving hard to be cheerful. "There's the peddler, you know; he isn't busted any more—quite!"

"What peddler?" The farmer lifted an inquiring head.

Everybody squirmed uncomfortably. It was the code of the Black Eagle Patrol not to talk about the good turns it did, because that sounded like bragging. But the farmer was persistent. Bit by bit, with question and guess and prompting, he pieced out the story: how the boys had found the peddler on the road, with his second-hand wagon that had come to grief; how he had confessed he had no money for the necessary repairs; how the boys, because they were Scouts and it was their duty to do a good turn when they could, had given him their last cent and sped him on his way rejoicing. When the last scrap of confession had been dragged from them, the farmer held out his hand to Bunny.

"So you are the patrol leader, are you, Payton? Well, I am glad to know a boy like you. Jenkins is my name; Alfred Jenkins."

Gravely, Bunny introduced the other Scouts. "And this is young Prissler," he concluded. "He is training to be a tenderfoot, and just as soon as there is a vacancy in the patrol he will be taken in."

"So?" Mr. Jenkins nodded understandingly. He scratched at his beard. "I reckon," he added, "you get a lot of satisfaction doing good turns like that. By ginger, I'd like to have that feeling myself. If the old 'bus would only run—"

"What's the matter with it?" demanded the practical Specs.

Mr. Jenkins spread his hands helplessly. "I wish I knew. But I'm no mechanic. She's just dead; dead on her feet, you might say. Won't go. Won't even start."

"Gas line clogged, maybe."

"Loose connections."

"Carburetor float stuck."

"Magneto points burned off."

The farmer's eyes kindled before this volley of suggestions. "Say," he exclaimed, "do you boys know anything about a car?"

"A little," Bunny nodded. "Specs here is trying for a merit badge for automobiling, and we all got sort of interested in his studying. You have to know a good deal about a car to get that badge."

"Well, say!" Mr. Jenkins was as eager as a youngster. "Say, let's trundle her out here and look her over. You might find out what's wrong."

Because Specs had honestly devoted a great deal of his spare time to his ambition of qualifying for a merit badge in automobiling, Bunny put him in charge. It was no trick at all, of course, to release the brake and roll the car out of the homemade garage. Once in the open, Specs hopped into the front seat.

"No, that self-starter hasn't worked for a long time," Mr. Jenkins confessed, as the Scout pressed a tentative foot against it and cocked his ear expectantly for the hum of the motor. "Batteries dead, I 'spose. You'll have to crank her."

"All right, Bi!" called Specs; "you're the boy to wind her up."

Bi grimaced. He might need his good right arm for pitching that afternoon. But at a nod from Bunny, he sprang readily enough to the crank. Unless the car started, it looked like there wouldn't be any baseball game to play.

Balancing the crank once or twice against the compression, he lifted it suddenly and spun it with all his might. But no explosion signaled the success of his effort. Bi straightened up to catch his breath and wipe off the perspiration that was trickling down his face.

"Try her again," Specs ordered. "I'll work the spark when you get going."

Bi bent to his task for the second time. Round and round whirled the crank. But, as before, the motor refused to "catch."

"Prime her," suggested Bonfire.

Once more Bi cranked till he was ready to drop. In the meantime, Bonfire began prowling about and muttering to himself: "Tank full. Gas flows all right. Carburetor float not stuck. Must be the ignition." He tested with a long-bladed screwdriver. "Yep; no spark. Sure you've—Hello! Why, you muckle-headed McGrew, do you expect to get a merit badge for trying to start a motor without throwing on the switch?"

"What!" Bi threw himself on the ground and kicked feebly. "Do you mean to say I've been cranking my head off when you didn't even throw over the switch? Help!"

Specs grinned sheepishly. "I thought you needed the exercise," he said. "All right; she'll start now."

But she wouldn't. Bi cranked till he was red in the face, without the reward of even one feeble puff from the exhaust. With a last spin of the handle, for good measure, he stepped back disgustedly.

"If anybody else thinks he can twist her tail any better than that," he announced, "let him step up and try. I'm through; postilutely through."

By this time, even Specs was ready to admit that the motor was "busted." "It's the ignition," he explained. "As soon as we find out why she doesn't get a spark, we can fix her in a jiffy."

But discovering the nub of the trouble proved no easy job. The spark plugs were taken out; all connections were examined; each wire was traced to coil and magneto; the magneto itself came in for critical inspection. But no break or short circuit revealed itself. Already, the first glowing enthusiasm of the boys was blowing cold and dead.

Bonfire snapped the switch backward and forward. "Feels loose," he said. "Let me have that screwdriver, Specs." With deft hands, he removed the face of the switch-box. "Here's the little nigger in the woodpile, fellows!" he called exultingly. "See, those loose nuts allow the contact plate to drop down. The circuit is not completed even when you throw on the switch. No wonder she won't run!" He twirled the nuts with his fingers and clamped them tight with a wrench. "Now try her."

"Not me!" jeered Bi. "I've cranked her from here to Belden already. Let somebody else crank her home again." But even while he talked, he was walking toward the front of the car. Roundy reached for the swinging handle, only to be pushed aside by Bi. With scarcely an effort, the strongest Scout in the patrol turned her over again—and the motor sprang into life with a roar.

"Throttle her down!" Bi shouted to Specs. "Wake up there! Don't let her race! If ever you win a merit badge for automobiling, I'll eat it for breakfast. Isn't he rotten, Mr. Jenkins?"

The farmer smiled. "Oh, he'll pass, I reckon. Now, let me see. Five of you on the back seat, two on the collapsible chairs—that's seven—and two of you on the front seat here with me. Wait just a minute till I get my coat and tell my wife I'm going, and we'll start."

"With any kind of luck at all," Bunny promised happily, looking at his watch, "we should be at the Belden ball park a little after one o'clock. It's 11:42 right now, and we have about thirty-seven miles to cover."

Specs held up his hand. "I've got my fingers crossed," he said. "Don't forget all the things that have happened to us so far to-day. Touch wood when you say that, Bunny."

But luck seemed at last to be roosting with the Black Eagle Patrol. Once out upon the main highway, the motor settled down to a contented purr, with never a miss or hint of trouble, and the big car rolled placidly toward Belden, piling the miles behind it quite as if it were shod with seven-league boots instead of rubber tires. Mr. Jenkins admitted that he was "no great shucks at driving", but he more than made up for any lack of technical skill by his careful and common-sense handling of wheel and accelerator. An hour before, Belden had seemed to the Scouts some far spot on the rim of the world; now, as everybody felt, it lay just over the hill.

There is no denying that the boys enjoyed the ride. More than once, they had watched enviously as Royal Sheffield dashed into Lakeville with his trim roadster; more than once, too, if the truth be known, they had lingered hungrily as he backed it out of Grady's barn after school and made ready for the homeward trip. But Sheffield lived in Charlesboro, and his motoring was done largely in the roads about that village. True, the Sefton automobile never had a vacant seat when any boy could be found to fit it; but Mr. Sefton used the car for business, and it was also frequently out of town. This was different, too; this was a cross-country jaunt, over unfamiliar roads, mile upon mile, with every turn and rise revealing new wonders.

"Like it?" asked Mr. Jenkins, without turning his head.

There was no adequate way of expressing their gratitude and pleasure, but the farmer seemed well content with Specs' explosive, "You bet we do!" It was curious about Mr. Jenkins. He owned the car, and he must have ridden thousands of miles in it; yet he seemed to be getting just as much fun out of this trip as any of his guests. "Haven't felt so young in thirty years," he said once, with a chuckle, as he swung wide to avoid a bump.

On and on sang the car: uphill, biting on second speed; across a bit of tableland, feeling its oats on high; down a long incline, pulsing with such eagerness that it had to be restrained; through wood roads, bowered with cool, overhanging trees; into the bright sunshine again; past farmhouses, with barking dogs and waving people; over long stretches of concrete, that gave back never a jounce or jolt; through sleepy little villages, waking and nodding a single welcome and good-by in one; out into the country once more, between green fields of sprouting corn and wheat; and on and on, motor humming drowsily and rubber-tired wheels crisping their chorus. It was good just to be outdoors on such a day in June.

They climbed a long, winding hill. At the top was a little cottage, bordered by a trim lawn, which was splashed here and there with gay flower plots. In the background loomed a barn, more than twice the size of the house, with a silo at one side and a windmill just beyond. Mr. Jenkins squinted meditatively from the spout of his radiator, steaming a bit, to the windmill.

"Reckon we'd better stop for water," he announced.

A gray, bent wisp of a man answered his knock on the door and listened gravely to his request for the loan of a pail. He seemed to be looking, not at Mr. Jenkins, but through him, as if he were only vaguely aware of the other's presence. But he said, "Oh, yes," and brought the pail.

It took only a minute to fill the radiator. Mr. Jenkins began to screw on the cap, while the boys piled back into the car. Bunny picked up the pail and carried it to the house. As he lifted his hand to knock on the door, he heard something that made him hesitate.

Inside the house, a woman was crying softly, and a man's voice was soothing, over and over, "Now, Ma! Now, Ma! Don't take on so! It can't be helped! Now, Ma! Now, Ma!"

After a moment of indecision, Bunny rapped. The sobbing stopped. Footsteps approached the door, and presently it was opened, a little hesitatingly, by the man from whom Mr. Jenkins had borrowed the pail. Bunny extended it to him, with a word of thanks. He had meant to turn away at once, but something seemed to hold him.

"Is—is anything wrong there?" he asked, jerking his thumb toward the darkened room within.

"It's just Ma," the little man told him. He spoke meekly, almost apologetically, but his high-pitched voice carried clearly to the other boys. "She's all broke up over not seein' John."

"John?" Bunny put a question in the word; then, when it brought no reply, he added, at a hazard, "He's your son, sir?"

"Yes, John's our boy. He's a good boy, John is. But he's been away a long time, and now—"

"Is he coming home?"

The man raised his hand as if to ward off a blow. "No," he said in a wavering voice. "He's going away, mebbe for years; going away to China. He's an engineer, John is; works for a big construction company in New York City. This spring he wrote that he would come home to visit Ma and me. So we tidied up all about for him." The little man waved an expressive hand, and Bunny understood, all at once, why the grass was so neatly cropped, and why the flowers studded the lawn, and why the pathway to the door was made of clean, white pebbles. It had all been done for their son. "But to-day we got a telegram—delayed, they said over the 'phone. He can't come. He's ordered to China, right away, to help build a new railroad. His boat leaves San Francisco on the sixth, and he can't even stop on his way across the country. But he said—"

"Yes?" Bunny encouraged.

"He wired to meet his train at Middletown on the third—that's to-day. It stops there twenty minutes. But the telegram just came, and we haven't any way of getting there. That's why Ma is all broke up. She won't see him for years more, mebbe."

"Oh!" said Bunny. A queer, numb feeling seemed to be gripping him. "How far is Middletown?"

"Eighteen mile; nearer nineteen, mebbe."

"And Belden?" Perhaps Mr. Jenkins could come back.

"Nine mile and a half."

"When does that train get to Middletown?"

"Goin' on two o'clock, I think."

"Oh!" said Bunny again. He looked at his watch: 12:51. No, even if Mr. Jenkins were willing, it would be out of the question for him to come back to Laurel in time to take the old couple to Middletown. There was just one way out of the difficulty.

The man's wistful eyes were staring again, looking straight through him, just as they had been when he answered Mr. Jenkins' knock. Bunny understood now what they were straining to see. It was another boy, this little man's boy, bound for a foreign country. And inside the house, striving bravely to stifle her sobs, was the mother.

Bunny made up his own mind quickly enough. He knew what he wanted to do. But there were the other fellows to consider. They wouldn't agree to his plan; no, not in a thousand years. They had a right to—

Behind him, he caught the murmur of a low question and answer. Then a voice called, "Oh, Bunny!"

"Yes?" He turned to the car. Save for Mr. Jenkins, it was quite empty. All the boys had climbed to the ground.

"Mr. Jenkins will take them to Middletown." It was Bi speaking. "He says he will be glad to do it. Tell her to hurry."

Bunny's heart gave a glad leap. It wasn't wholly because of the sacrifice they were all making, although that counted, of course, but because of the way in which they had decided the matter, unanimously and without a single objection. He wondered if anywhere else in the world there were fellows like that!

"All right," he said, fighting hard to keep the catch out of his voice. Then to the man in the doorway: "Mr. Jenkins will take you and your wife to Middletown, sir, so you can see your boy. Oh, no, we'll be glad to stretch our legs and walk a bit. That's nothing. Good-by, sir."

"Good-by," said the little man. His eyes were shining now. He held out a trembling hand. "Good-by and God bless you!"

And with this benediction ringing in their ears, the nine boys waved to Mr. Jenkins, who was fussing with something on the dash, and began the hike down the long hill toward the wooded valley at the bottom.