THE TWENTY-FIFTH BOY

Bunny was sure the young man who shared his seat on the train must be mistaken.

"You see," he told him, "there are only eight Boy Scouts in a patrol, and there is only one patrol in Lakeville. Besides, I am one of those eight. That leaves only seven you could have seen, because I have been visiting my uncle in Elkana for a week."

The young man was stubborn. "I know what I saw with my own eyes," he insisted. "Last Thursday afternoon, when I was in Lakeville, there were at least twenty kids around town in Boy Scout uniforms."

Bunny nodded politely. "Maybe some patrols from other places were there," he suggested, beginning to wish he had postponed his visit to Uncle George, instead of stopping over on the trip back from the Belden baseball game. Perhaps the Black Eagles had been entertaining, and he had missed some fun.

"That may be," agreed the young man, ready to dismiss the subject. He glanced impatiently at his watch, and clutched the sleeve of the passing conductor. "How late is this train, anyhow?"

The conductor looked out the car window. "We are just coming into Lakeville," he said. "We are due there at 6:03, and it is now 7:08; call it an hour behind time. Those two hot-boxes—" He passed on, leaving the balance of the sentence dangling apologetically in the air.

As familiar objects swept into view, several passengers rose from their seats. The train passed the Fair Play Factory at full speed, began to brake opposite Horace Hibbs' modest home in the outskirts, and ground to a stop at the station. The very first person to alight was Bunny Payton.

Peter Hinkle, the station master, waved him a welcome. Since the Black Eagles had parked the former barren spot on the other side of the tracks with green sod and a border of gay flowers, spelling out the name of the town with whitewashed stones, Peter had been their sturdy champion.

"Well! Well!" he said. "Here's another Boy Scout. The town's full of them now."

There it was again. Bunny stepped forward eagerly to ask questions; but the station master was too busy with the incoming baggage to stop for a talk. Moreover, the sight of a familiar blue hat and blue-and-white dress down the platform drew Bunny like a magnet. It was spring, and he was growing up.

"Hello, Mary Chester," he said, extending his hand.

The girl shook hands shyly. It was the first time the two had met since the memorable rescue on the lake.

"Father and I came down to mail a letter on the train," she explained. A smile lighted her face so glowingly that Bunny wondered why he had never before realized what a pretty girl Mary Jennie Chester really was. "Oh, Bunny, I'm so glad!"

"About our winning that baseball game?"

"No-o. Oh, yes, I am glad about that, too. But I meant about what's happened to you Boy Scouts. I think—"

"Mary!" called Mr. Chester from the light runabout drawn up by the platform.

With an embarrassed, "Good-by, Bunny," the girl hurried away to join her father, leaving him standing there with open mouth, looking, if the truth must be confessed, very confused and very foolish. What on earth had Mary Chester meant? What was the mystery about the Boy Scouts?

Across the road from the station, on the sidewalk, Bunny met Molly Sefton.

"Look here," he demanded shortly, "what's all this talk about something happening to the Boy Scouts?"

Molly eyed him a little coldly. She must have witnessed his meeting with Mary Chester. He wondered uncertainly if that could account for her lack of cordial greeting; and all at once, without exactly understanding why, he blushed like a silly schoolgirl. He was sixteen years old now; almost a man.

"Oh, how are you, Bunny?" said Molly, in a listless, aloof tone that sounded like the snobbish Marion Genevieve Chester in her snobbishest days. "The Boy Scouts? Oh, they're doing wonderfully well, I hear."

The tiniest wedge of a misunderstanding drove home. Bewildered, offended, unwilling to allow the doubt to remain unchallenged, yet helpless before its baffling vagueness, Bunny made some perfunctory remark. They discussed the weather; they wondered if the trains were always going to be late; they hoped the fire in Grady's barn had taught Royal Sheffield not to throw lighted matches on the floor, after he had examined cuts in the tires of his car; they spoke of the spring election that had transferred the county seat from Dunkirk to Lakeville. And then, both of them very miserable, they parted.

Opposite the Magoon residence, Felix came galloping out, tail wagging, and intimated that he was ready to run after a thrown stick. But Bunny was in no mood for the game. Twisting faithful Felix's ear in apologetic recognition, the boy plodded on toward home, where his Aunt Emma was probably keeping supper hot for him. He wondered how he was going to eat anything—now.

"All I know about the Boy Scouts," said Aunt Emma, bringing him steaming dishes from the oven, "is that there have been some new patrols formed here in Lakeville. They were organized early this week, and presidents elected—"

"Patrol leaders?"

"Yes, that's it. Let me see if I can recall who the presidents—patrol leaders, I mean—are." She checked them off on her fingers. "Royal Sheffield; that's one. And Arthur Claxton; that's two. And—and Rodman Cree; that's three."

Halfway to his mouth, Bunny halted the fork that had speared a juicy bite of roast beef. Striving hard to keep his hand from trembling, he put it back on his plate. When he spoke, it was with forced carelessness.

"How many new patrols are there?" he asked.

"Two, I think. Gracious me, Bunny Payton, how can you expect me to keep posted on the Boy Scouts, with you away? But I understand there were two new patrols, in addition to the Black Eagles. That's three altogether. I counted three pres—leaders, didn't I?"

"Yes."

"Well, that's right. Oh, I nearly forgot to tell you. There is to be a big meeting in the clubhouse to-night at seven o'clock. It's after seven now, but—Why, Bunny! You aren't going to run off without finishing your supper, are you? You haven't eaten enough to keep a sparrow alive. I do hope you aren't coming down with anything. Did Uncle George look after—"

But Bunny was gone. Snatching his cap from the hall rack, he dashed out the door while she was still speaking. Aunt Emma sighed. She wondered if she would ever understand boys.

The clubhouse of the Black Eagles was ablaze with light. At the door, Bunny hesitated, uncertain of his welcome. While he was summoning courage to enter, he placed an affectionate hand on one of the rough logs that formed the wall, and stared with winking eyes at the jutting roof overhead. It was not a showy house, but it was staunch and honest from peak to foundation. He remembered the sacrifices he had made to help build it for the old patrol.

The doorway was in the shadow of one of the middle pillars. Under cover of this half-light, Bunny edged cautiously into the big room. All the boys in town seemed to be there, from Buck Claxton, sitting on the front bench, to Prissy Prissler, conspicuous in a new Scout uniform. Bunny counted them with nervous haste. Twenty-four. He counted again, hoping against hope that he had miscalculated. But the result was the same. Twenty-four boys; twenty-four Scouts. A patrol was eight; three times eight was twenty-four. The twenty-fifth—well, there was no use dodging the plain facts. There were three full patrols, with one boy over. He sucked in his breath with a curious whistling sound.

On the platform at the far end of the room, Horace Hibbs rose to his feet. He had a paper in his hand.

"First of all, boys," he began, beaming upon them with his fatherly smile, "I shall read you the roster of the Scouts of the Lakeville Troop. It is composed, as you all know, of three patrols—the Kangaroos, the Buffaloes, and the Black Eagles. The membership of the Kangaroo Patrol is as follows: Leader, Sheffield; Assistant Leader, Kiproy; No. 3, Collins—"

Bunny did not hear the other names. He was waiting with fast-beating heart for the roll call of the Black Eagles. But when Scout Master Hibbs finished with the Kangaroos, he began reading the names of those who had formed the Buffalo Patrol:

"Leader, Claxton; Assistant Leader, Barrett; No. 3, Turner—"

It seemed to Bunny he would never come to the end of the list. When he did finally, the boy at the door shrank deeper into the enshrouding gloom.

"The present organization of the Black Eagles," droned Horace Hibbs, "is as follows: Leader, Cree; Assistant Leader, Jones; No. 3, Meeker; No. 4, McGrew; No. 5, Zane; No. 6, Magoon; No. 7, Henderson; No. 8, Prissler."

Well, it was over at last. Bunny knew now who that twenty-fifth boy was—himself. What had happened? Why had he been dropped? He groped his way toward the door of the clubhouse,—the house that he had planned and helped to build. It was wrong! It couldn't be true! Surely, his ears had played him some hideous trick.

"It has been voted," Horace Hibbs went on, "that I act as Scout Master for the Lakeville Troop. In accepting the office—" The voice halted weakly. Before Bunny looked up, he knew what he would see: the gray-haired man wiping his glasses and smiling, half proudly, because to him the position was a very real honor, and half wistfully, because the snow on his head marked the years since he had been a boy himself in more than heart. In spite of his own hurt, Bunny understood and sympathized.

"I shall try," Horace Hibbs promised, after a pause, "to live up to your trust in me, boys. If you will just try to like me as well as I like all of you now, I think we shall get along together."

There came another moment of silence. Bunny stiffened apprehensively. Almost any time now, the meeting might be adjourned. If they found him there—

"And finally," continued Horace Hibbs, striving to cover his emotion by resuming his businesslike tone, "I wish to thank you, in behalf of our absent member, for the trust and confidence you have placed in him by electing him troop leader. If Bunny Payton were here, I might properly hesitate to praise him to his face; but now I feel that I may speak freely of his—"

The old adage has it that eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves. On this particular occasion, it bade fair to be shattered and laid on the shelf. It would have been, too, but for one saving incident.

Before Horace Hibbs could launch into his eulogy, Bunny slipped quietly out the door into the gathering darkness. For a long moment, he stood just beyond the threshold, breathing hard and trying to still the mad thumping of his heart. Then, without rhyme or reason, he threw up his heels and began to run at the top of his speed. The rising moon winked at him. Felix joined noisily in the wild chase. The swaying tree tops bent and laughed in the breeze. After all, it was June, and he was only sixteen, and the world was young.

Aunt Emma looked up with startled eyes as he burst into the house.

"Please!" he panted incoherently. "Will you—If it isn't too late—I'm troop leader—A little something to eat—hungry."

The puckered lines on Aunt Emma's forehead smoothed magically. The boy could not be sick or troubled if he wanted food. A hungry boy was altogether normal. She bustled happily into the kitchen.

Bunny went straight to the telephone. When the connection had been made, he said:

"Hello! Is Molly there?—Oh, is this you, Molly? There's something I wanted to tell you. I couldn't wait. I've been elected troop leader of all the Lakeville Scouts—three whole patrols of them."

He waited a breathless second for her reply. But when it came, he laughed aloud from sheer joy of living. The Molly he had always known was talking to him now. In one ecstatic sentence, she said she was glad, and proud of him, and sure he would be the most wonderful troop leader in the whole United States, or anywhere else, for that matter; and wouldn't he go riding in the car in the morning?

His last trouble vanished into thin air, Bunny hung up the receiver and faced Aunt Emma, who was heaping the table with the most appetizing food he had ever seen.

"I guess," he grinned, "I'm about the luckiest boy in all the world."

"Why shouldn't you be?" asked practical Aunt Emma.

THE END