I am bothered by a dream.
It is one of those consecutive dreams, or
maybe they call them repetitive dreams; anyway, it’s
one of the kind of dreams that you dream over and
over again, each time a little different. I only
started to worry about it a week or two ago, but I’m
worrying more and more as the days go by. And
it’s such an inconsequential sort of a dream, too.
Nothing frightening about it at all. I see a boy
scout, sitting on a rock and telling me a story.
That’s all there is to it, a boy in a scout’s cap
and neckerchief, sitting on a rock and telling a
story.
When I first dreamed this dream, it didn’t
make much sense, for it seemed that I had come in
late, that the story was already half over when the
dream commenced. And I woke up before the story was
finished. But when I dreamed the dream again, a few
days later, this young fellow was telling a
different part of the same story. And gradually,
over a period of several weeks, I have managed to
piece the whole story together.
That is why I am worrying. You see, there is a
significance to the story that the little fellow who
is telling it doesn’t seem to realize. It’s a
terribly important conclusion that I have drawn from
what he has told me, but he doesn’t seem to
understand it at all—
Johnny Winstead, to give him credit, never
really wanted to play hooky in the first place. He
had already seen a circus once, and if he didn’t
get to see one this year, it wouldn’t be too great a
tragedy. But Harold, big, slow minded, easy going
Harold, his buddy, had never seen a circus. Never in
his *hole life. And Harold was determined that he
would see a circus this year, come what may.
If you knew Harold as Johnny knew him, you’d
realize that Johnny just couldn’t desert a pal at a
time like this. You see, Harold’s slowness would
have gotten him into trouble in no time without
Johnny there to watch over him and use his quick
mind to sort of—well——explain things to anyone who
might question them. So, when Johnny found that
Harold had set his mind on playing hooky and going
to the circus, come what may, Johnny was just
duty-bound to play hooky too, and go along.
Now this circus wasn’t in Bellevue, where
Johnny and Harold lived. It was in Mason, about
sixteen miles away, and you had to take a bus to get
there, There were only three buses a day, one in the
early morning, which took the men to work who lived
in Bellevue and worked in Mason another at noon and
the third about six in the evening. They could have
taken the noon bus, but it would have gotten them to
Mason only half an hour before the circus began; and
was there ever a boy who didn’t want to wander about
the circus grounds for an, hour or two before the
show began?
So Johnny planned it all as carefully as he
could. The night before the circus, just before
bedtime, he told Mrs. Meeker that he and Harold had
been asked by their teacher to gather some
wildflowers for painting class, that they had forgot
tan to do it aid that they would get up early in the
morning and gather some before they went to school.
Mrs. Meeker (who was their foster mother, and
who ran “Mrs. Meeker ‘s Boarding Home for Orphan
Boys’”) promised to have some breakfast on the
table for them, They retired secure in the belief
that there’d he no trouble at least until they got
back from the circus the next evening. And that
time, to their minds, was so far in the future that
it wasn‘t worth bothering about at all.
They got up ever so early. Johnny didn’t
remember ever getting up so early before. He woke
up Harold-— and had a time of doing it, too. They
ate their breakfast and crept out of the door as
quietly as they could. They caught the bus and
settled down in a seat and prepared to enjoy the
ride. The bus hadn’t gotten a mile out of town
before they were sound asleep and catching up on the
rest they’d lost by getting up so early.
They were awakened by a terrific bump. Johnny
saw about a million stars and sat bolt upright and
looked about him. Harold sat up, too, his eves big
with wonder and fright. They noticed that a couple
of men were barking at the driver to be careful,
three or four were craning their necks to see behind
to find out what had caused the bump, and One woman
squeaked under the impression that she was screaming
dramatically. But the driver stoically continued on
his way, his eves peering out into the darkness
ahead.
The darkness! That was surprising. When the
boys had fallen asleep, it had already been dawn,
the sun had just about been ready to rise.
Evidently some thick clouds had come up while they
slept, for it was pretty dark now. Maybe it was
foggy, too, for the bus’ headlights didn’t seem to
penetrate very far.
One of the men wanted to get out. He rang the
bell and then peered out into the dark uncertainly.
He shouted to the driver: “Next stop’s Burton Road,
isn’t it?’’ The driver made no answer and the bus
kept on going. Presently the man cried out,
indignantly: “Hey! I want to get out at Burton
Road!”
The driver turned around slowly, one hand
still on the wheel, “This is an express, Mister!” he
said, coldly. “Nobody gets off till the end of the
line.”
Immediately a half dozen people arose to
protest. “We get off at Borden’s Plant,” one of
them said, angrily. “What do you want to do, make us
late for work?” Another insisted that he had to get
off at Seton Road. The driver brushed aside their
objections.
“This is an express,” he repeated, and then
somberly: “This is the Last Express! It goes to the
end of the line.”
The objections of the people ended suddenly.
With pale drawn faces, they went back and sat down
in their seats. The bus sped on through the dark.
Harold and Johnny had watched this intercourse
between the driver and the passengers without paying
a particular amount of attention to it. They hadn’t
intended to get oh until the end of the line,
anyhow. The circus grounds were less than a quarter
of a mile from the bus garage (which was in Mason),
so it wouldn’t be a bad idea, if the driver would
let them, to stay on after the bits left the end of
the line and turned into the garage. There they
could get off and run over to the circus in less
than a minute. So, secure in the knowledge that
they, at least, couldn’t be carried past their stop,
they sat back in their seats and dozed, and
presently they were asleep again.
When they awoke, the bus was empty. The people
were gone, and the driver was gone and it still
wasn’t daylight. They peered out of the bus window.
It dawned on them that they must be in the garage,
for they could see a number of other busses and cars
parked in a long row.
But after a moment, Johnny was aware that they
were mistaken.
“This ain’t the garage, Harold,” he muttered.
“We’re out in the open! This looks like an old auto
dump. Look at all the busted-up busses. Gosh, where
are we, anyhow?”
Harold peered out of the car window and
stifled a whimper.
“We ain’t lost, are we?” he queried. “We can
find the circus, can’t we? Gosh, maybe this is what
the driver meant when he said this was the last
express. He must’ve meant it was the last trip the
bus was ever going to make.”
“Well,” said Johnny. “We can’t sit here
wondering about that. Let’s start looking for the
circus grounds.”
They left the bus and started off through the
curious twilight. It should have been broad daylight
by now, but strangely, it wasn’t. Off in one part of
the sky, which Johnny immediately decided was the
east, the sky was very bright, but the sun hadn’t
risen yet, apparently. When they left the auto dump,
they came to a road that ran east and west, and
Johnny decided that they had better go west. He knew
there was no auto dump on the road between Bellevue
and Mason, so he figured that they had been carried
past Mason, and now they would have to back track
until they came to that town.
So they started down the road, a little
uncertain, but unable to decide on anything better
to do. They walked and they walked down the road,
with nothing to either side of them but ramshackle
fences and moss-covered stone walls and untended
fields and scraggly, dismal thickets.
The longer they walked, the darker it got,
until at last they could barely see their way. They
got more and more scared, they walked faster and
faster in the hope of reaching Mason before the
increasing darkness became complete. They ran and
ran through the gloom. At last they were crying and
stumbling along, all out of breath, and it was pitch
dark.
After long moments of blind panic, they threw
themselves down on the side of the road and tried to
rest a few minutes. Their sobs quieted, their
breathing slowed, and with the quick recuperation of
youngsters, they were back to normal. After a little
while a curious lethargy stole over them and they
fell sound asleep.
Now, this is the amazing part— when they
awoke, they were lying on the side of the road on
the outskirts of Bellevue, not more than ten blocks
from their home! The sun was shining brightly, high
in the west, and the clock on the Presbyterian
Church tower said 4:20.
So they got up and went back into town.
They had missed the circus somehow, they had
missed the whole town of Mason, and here they were,
back home, and it was almost supper time. There was
a lump in Johnny’s throat and Harold began to
whimper in disappointment, but after that horrible
trip back, it was a big relief to walk along the
streets in the sun again.
They came to Mrs. Meeker’s and stole in
quietly. The other boys were just sitting down to
supper, and Harold’s and Johnny’s seats were the
only ones that were empty. They slipped into them
and lowered their eyes while Mrs. Meeker said a
quick grace. Then, before the boys could start the
usual rush for the food, Mrs. Meeker rapped on the
table with a spoon.
“Boys,” she said, “I think, before we start
eating, that I ought to say a little something about
your former companions, Harold and Johnny…”
She glanced at them as she said this, but her
look was funny, as if she were looking right through
them, and the other kids didn’t even glance their
way. Harold began to squirm, and Johnny felt a funny
chill coming over him, for it began to be pretty
plain that they were in for some novel kind of
punishment for what they had done. What did she mean
by calling them “former companions,” for instance?
“I have set places for Johnny and Harold
tonight,” Mrs. Meeker went on. “For I wanted to talk
to you about them, and tell you not to judge them
too harshly, nor to look upon what happened to them
as a punishment to your playmates. After tonight,
you know, their places will not be set, and you will
never see Johnny or Harold any more. Yet I think you
will remember them always, because—” Mother Meeker
choked and then she stopped talking and blew her
nose and began to sob into her handkerchief.
Johnny and Harold felt awful. They got up and
went over to Mrs. Meeker and tried to console her,
but she never noticed them! It wasn’t until a
couple of the other kids came over and put their
arms around her that she stopped crying. And never
once did she even look at Johnny or Harold. Neither
did any of the fellows. Then it was that it dawned
on Johnny what their punishment was going to be.
Nobody was going to pay any attention to them until
they had some— how or other expiated their crime of
playing hooky and going to the circus!
They didn’t stay to eat any supper. They went
up to their room and tried to talk it over. There
wasn’t much to say. Harold said: “I can’t stand it,
Johnny,” and cried a little, and John-fly said:
“You’ll have to, Harold. We did a wrong thing and we
got caught, and now we gotta take what’s coming to
us.” They sat moodily on the bed for awhile, and
Harold sniffled. Pretty soon he said: “Let’s go over
to the scout meeting, anyhow. There’ll be some
fellows over there that don’t know about this. Maybe
they’ll talk to us.”
Johnny had forgotten about the scout meeting,
but he accepted the suggestion with alacrity. It
would be something to do to make their punishment
easier. They put on their neckerchiefs and caps
(they couldn’t afford entire uniforms), and started
off for the church, in the basement of which the
scout meetings were held. Nobody said goodbye to
them, and Mrs. Meeker didn’t even warn them to be
home early, like she had always done before. Harold
was sniffling again by the time they started up the
street.
They entered the church basement, and most of
the scouts were already there. They shouted “Hi,
fellows,” a little more boisterously than usual, and
flung their caps on the pile with the others,
ostentatiously. And— nobody noticed them! Johnny was
a little pale as he stepped forward and slipped into
one of the seats in the first row.
Mr. Shafer, the scoutmaster began to talk.
“Boys,” he said, “this is one of the saddest
meetings that we have ever had. Some people might
try to point out the lessons that we can learn from
this sad event, but I am in no mood for pointing out
moral lessons. I know that our two former members,
Johnny and Harold, were disobedient, but every
healthy boy is, now and then. I would not have you
feel that the terrible thing that has happened was a
punishment for what they did, but I do want to show
you that the scout’s code is not a bunch of rules
made up by adults to make things hard for you boys,
but some things that are necessary to adhere to in
order to get along in this world of ours in the
proper way. Boys, this is a sad meeting, for we know
that we’ll never see Johnny and Harold any more, all
because of that one little act of disobedience—”
His voice sort of trailed off, and he stopped
talking. For almost a minute, the whole group was
silent. There the other boys began to talk in low tones
among themselves and Johnny and Harold sat meekly and
gulped back their tears. It was the same thing here that
it had been at the boarding home!
They went up to Mr. Shafer and tried to talk to
him, but be wouldn’t pay the slightest bit of attention
to them. They tried to talk to some of the kids, but
they were ignored most completely. Harold broke down and
cried loudly, but nobody made any effort to comfort him.
So at last they took up their caps and left the
meeting.
They walked around to the back of the church and
sat down on the bench under the old elm tree. Harold was
still crying.
“They never done nothing like this before,” he
sobbed. “They never treated any of the other kids as
mean as this.”
“We gotta figure out some way to stop them from
acting like this,” Johnny decided. “We gotta figure out
how to make them like us again.” He buried his chin in
his hands and sat for awhile, looking at the lights in
the basement windows.
“We ran away to the circus,” be said thoughtfully.
“A scout is obedient. We got all dirty on that trip back
home. A scout is neat. We fell asleep two or three
times, and we were late for the meeting. A scout is
alert, and prompt. It’ll take a lot of work to
straighten things out, Harold.”
He sat back and thought some more, and Harold’s
sobbing turned back to sniffling and gradually ceased.
At last Johnny spoke again.
“We ain’t scouts no more, Harold,” he explained.
“You heard him call us ‘former members.’ But if we act
like good scouts, maybe some day they’ll take us back
in. And maybe Mrs. Meeker’ll take us back in, too. So
that’s what we’ll do, Harold. We’ll just have to act
like good scouts until they, uh—forgive us, like.”
He thought some more.
“We can live in the kids’ shack up on Prospect
bill. And we’ll come down town every day and do good
turns. And we’ll attend every one of the scouts’
meetings, only we’ll just sit in the back and say
nothing. And then, some day they’ll let us join up
again. You just wait and see, Harold. They’ll let us
join up again.”
So they decided that that was what they would do,
and they started for Prospect Hill, where their gang had
their shack, for it was getting late and they couldn’t
do much more, this night. They left the street and
started up the path to the top of the bill, and after a
while they noticed several other kids, climbing up the
hill but avoiding the path.
“Who’re those guys?” whispered Harold. “What’re
they climbing up through the weeds for?”
“I don’t know who they are,” confessed Johnny.
“They ain’t none of our gang, though, so I don’t think
they’re up to much good.”
After they had walked a little further, Harold
said, “Look, there’s Tobe Sutley.”
Johnny looked, and sure enough, there was the
leader of that tough gang from down by the creek. That
made him peer closer and he noticed several more boys
whom he could identify as members of the Clark Street
gang.
“Hey, they ain’t got no business up on Prospect
Hill,” whispered Harold, excitedly. “That’s our gang’s
hangout.”
“They’re up to something, that’s a cinch,” said
Johnny. “We better follow them and see what they do.”
So they took out after the stealthy fellows, and
their path led them right to the top of the hill. As the
Clark Street gang got close to the top, they began
pulling up armfuls of dry weeds, and when they got to
the top, they threw the weeds down against the walls of
the shack that Johnny and his friends had gone to such
trouble to build, a month or so before. Suddenly Johnny
saw plainly what they were going to do.
As if to verify his realization, Tobe Sutley
suddenly whispered, hoarsely: “Now, you fellows chase
around and get some more brush, while I see if I can get
a fire started.”
“They’re going to burn down the shack, Harold,”
cried Johnny, forgetful of the need for silence. “Come
on, we got to stop them.” He rushed forward, shouting,
“Get away from that shack, you darned fools. What do you
thing you’re doing?”
He ran right out from under the protection of the
trees, to where you could easily see him in the light of
the dying day—but the Clark Streeters - didn’t even
notice him. Like the boys at Mrs. Meeker’s, like the
members of their troop, the Clark Streeters ignored
them, and kept right on gathering up dry weeds to add to
the pile by the shack.
Johnny was blind with rage. “I’ll bet you’ll
notice this!” he cried, and snatching up a broken branch
of a tree, he began laying it across the backs of the
boys nearest to him.
They noticed that, I’ll tell you. The first fellow
he hit gave a yelp of surprise and whirled around with
an oath. He acted as if he didn’t see Johnny at all, but
he did see the fellow whom Johnny hit next, and who was
just then rearing up from a terrific whack across the
seat. They looked at each other for about as long as it
would take you to take a deep breath, and then they lit
into each other as if each though the other had been the
aggressor. Johnny bounded away from them and began to
whack at others of the gang.
Now Harold decided to take a hand. Harold, you’ll
remember, was bigger and slower than Johnny, and it took
him a little while to get started, but once he started,
his size told. Harold waded in with his fists.
You never saw a gang of reputedly tough kids act
so funny. They kept right on acting as if they didn’t
see Harold or Johnny, either one. Several of them, when
they got hit, acted like they were scared out of a
year’s growth. And the ones that didn’t act scared
seemed to think that one of their own gang had hit them.
And after a few minutes, a snarling, bawling gang of
rowdies turned tail and began plunging down the hill as
if the top of the hill was haunted and a gang of ghosts
were after them. And Johnny and Harold stood on the hill
and laughed for the first time since they had taken the
bus, early that morning.
“I guess that’s our good deed for today,” chuckled
Johnny, at last. “We sure saved the kids’ shack for ‘em.
Maybe they won’t let us be members of the troop any
more, but they sure ought to be glad for what we did for
them.”
They sat back and talked about the fight for
awhile, and then they got tired and so they went into
the shack and lay down and went to sleep.
Whenever a cartoonist draws a picture of a boy
scout doing a good deed, he pictures him helping an old
lady across the street. Whenever somebody is writing
about boy scouts’ good deeds, they always seem to think
that they consist mostly of helping old ladies across
the street. This is silly, of course, but that is
probably the reason that, next day, when Johnny and
Harold started down to the town center to see what good
deeds they could do for the day, there was a sort of
vague idea in the back of their minds that they might be
able to spend the day helping old ladies across the
street.
And, sure enough, right in front of the court
house, was old Mrs. Blakeslee, near sighted as an owl in
the day time, getting ready to fumble her way across
Main Street. They might not have done anything about it,
for Mrs. Blakeslee had managed pretty well by herself
for a good many years, but just as they drew near to her
and she stepped off the curb, there came a great big
truck swinging out of North Street and bearing right
down on her.
They hardly had time to think. Johnny rushed out
and grabbed Mrs. Blakeslee and rushed her on across the
street. Harold, without even thinking, jumped out in
front of the truck and tried to push it back. And he
did! The truck squeaked and protested, but it stopped
dead in its tracks, backed up a yard or so, and stood
there with its rear wheels spinning and grinding into
the dirt, until Harold let it go. Then it was on its
way, with its white-faced, swearing driver staring back
through the rear-view mirror as if he couldn’t believe
his eyes.
And little Mrs. Blakeslee squealed once and then
leaned against a fire hydrant as if she were very much
out of breath.
“How did I do that?” queried Harold as Johnny
rejoined him. “Did you see what I did, Johnny? How did I
do that?”
“Gosh!” muttered Johnny. “Gosh, Harold, I don’t
know. You must be stronger than you think. But if you’re
that strong, it ought to help us when we start doing
good turns for people, oughtn’t it?” Harold, who
was seldom praised for the things he did, puffed up like
a pouter pigeon. “I’ll do other things, too. Just you
wait and see.”
They walked along, enthusiasm high as a result of
their first success, and their eyes were alert t. see if
there was anything else they could do to help people.
And that was how they managed to spy old Mr. Harris,
digging in his orchard.
Mr. Harris was an old bachelor. He had inherited
an awful lot of land, back in the early part of the
century, but the depression and ill health and other
things too numerous to mention had caused his fortune to
dwindle until now all that he had was this house with
about an acre of ground in the back, and rheumatism. He
kept himself alive by raising garden truck, and he lived
on what he raised, and what meat the neighbors brought
him. He was over seventy; and there he was, rheumatism
and all, trying to dig up the ground for his garden.
Johnny looked at Harold, and they grinned and went back
to where he was digging.
There were a couple of extra spades in the little
shed against the house and Johnny and Harold took them
up and began to dig, behind Mr. Harris. He dug along in
a straight line, as if he had a plow, and they dug
along, too, each digging a line behind and to the right
of him. When he had dug all the way down to the fence
and looked back to see how much he had accomplished, his
eyes were a sight to behold. lie pushed back his old hat
and scratched his head, and his eyes almost popped out.
Then, after a moment or two, he shrugged and started to
dig again.
If you had been on a bench outside of the post
office that evening, where Mr. Harris often sat and
talked with other old-timers, you’d have noticed a most
wonderful change in him. He had a look on his face that
was almost youthful.
“Spaded up me garden this mornin’, I did,” he
announced, impressively. “Did a darn good job of it,
too. Guess I musta just felt like workin’, ‘cause I
never did see a job go off as smooth as that’n. Had the
whole thing spaded up by ‘leven o’clock. Ain’t done so
much nor felt so chipper for fifteen year. Guess there’s
life in the old dog yet, fellers.”
Johnny and Harold would have liked to have heard
him, I’m sure, but they were hallway across town, just
then, doing another good deed.
There was a fellow down at the YMCA named Charley
Windhorst. Charley was a bully, not from any inherent
streak of meanness, but simply because he had never been
beaten. He was just about the toughest fighter in town,
and nobody would ever have tried to box him at the V if
it hadn’t been for his habit of challenging somebody
and then making his life a misery for him until he
accepted the challenge. Last week he had challenged
Burt Slater and Burt had accepted, realizing that the
only way to get Charley to leave him alone was to take
his drubbing and get it over with.
So here were Johnny and Harold, at the Y, secure
in the knowledge that nobody would pay them the
slightest bit of attention if Harold stepped into the
ring and helped Burt with a poke or two now and then.
That was just what they did, and after two rounds,
Charley went down with an extra hard clip to the jaw
which Harold gave him. When the two left the Y, Charley
was clasping the hand of Burt Slater, and swearing
eternal friendship, and the fellows around the ring were
cheering Charley and saying that he was the best loser
they ever watched. Johnny and Harold were chalking up
one more good deed for tile day.
Now that, in brief, tells the story that the boy
scout in my dream has been telling to me. I’ve pieced it
together from five or six dreams, but I’m pretty sure
the sequence is about right. The first five or six
dreams I had didn’t mean very much to me; but then, one
day, I was down at Schneider s grocery and I heard Mrs.
Blakeslee reciting, probably for tile fortieth time, her
miraculous escape from being run down by a truck. The
neighbor she was telling it to laughed wisely. “I guess
Johnny Goodturn had you in tow,” she said. “That musta
been his good turn for the day.”
That name startled me, and I stepped up and began
to question the woman. Well, it turned out that there’s
a sort of legend springing up in }3ellevue, a legend of
a ghostly boy scout who goes about town doing good deeds
of the sort that you’d expect a boy scout to do. I made
a quiet investigation, and the more I found out, the
more disturbed I got. I’ve got a list of a couple of
dozen deeds that have occurred in town recently that are
awfully hard to explain Fore instance, old Mr. Harris
has done more work in his garden this year than any two
healthy men could be expected to do. And there’s the
miracle of Mrs. Kemp’s house-cleaning, which did itself
in a single night. And then there were the shoes which
rich Clara Salter threw away in spite of the fact that
they were almost new, and which miraculously appeared on
the feet of little Nancy Andrews, halfway across town,
who hadn’t had a new pair of shoes for a year.
Just the other day I was caught down town with
only a dime in my pocket, and the bus fare back home is
fifteen cents. Now I am willing to swear that I had
spent every cent except that dime, but when I felt in
my pocket, there was a nickel with it, and I was spared
a long and tiring walk.
It wasn’t until I checked up on these things that
I began to worry. You see, I guessed right away what had
happened. I saw that Johnny didn’t understand things at
all. That is the reason I said I was worried when I
started this story, and that is the reason I’m writing
this.
I’ve learned all I could about Johnny Goodturn—and
about Johnny Winstead, too. I know how he used to go
down to Grady’s drug store and read certain magazines,
and I’m hoping he still does. If he reads this story,
as I’m pretty sure he will, I’ve got this to say to
him:
Johnny, there was a bus accident on the road from
Bellevue to Mason last month. It was a terrible
accident, and seventeen grown-ups and two boys were
killed instantly. Now I know this will be a terrible
shock to you but—you and Harold were the boys. If only
you hadn’t been asleep when the bus got to the end of
the line, I expect you’d have found out about it then.
But somehow you were overlooked and so you found your
way back to Bellevue.
Bellevue needs you and your good turns, Johnny,
but it isn’t fair to keep you. Nobody wants to punish
you, and nobody wants to keep you from your beloved
scouts. But you’ve been transferred to another troop,
and you must take your place in that heavenly scout
troop, where your membership is in good standing and
only awaiting your arrival.
Somehow I feel that, once you’ve learned this,
you’ll leave Bellevue and find your way to your new
home. And—I hope that some day I’ll be seeing you, and
Harold, too.
So long, fellows.
THE END