CHAPTER IV
SCHOOL ELECTIONS
"Just a minute, fellows!" called Bunny, as the other Scouts straggled toward the door of the clubhouse, after Horace Hibbs had gone. "I want to tell you something. This morning I spoke to Professor Leland about having a meeting of the whole school, to get ourselves organized and to elect officers. The school, you see, is a good deal like a troop of Boy Scouts; there must be a leader over everybody, and each branch, like each patrol, must have its leader, too. I mean that a student president is to be elected, and a football manager, and somebody to head the athletic association, and—and I don't know what else."
"When will the meeting be?" asked Nap.
"Professor Leland says it will be held late this afternoon, just before our first football practice. Now, the school may feel like electing some of us to offices—"
"Of course," agreed Specs complacently. "Will there be enough offices for all of us, Bunny?"
"That's just what I wanted to talk about," the patrol leader answered soberly. "We're organized, of course, and we're known by most of the students, and I think we're pretty well liked. If two or three of us are elected, that will be fine. But we mustn't use our—our power to run things. We mustn't try for all the offices. There are lots of other bully fellows in school, and we want the best man elected to each office, whether he's a Black Eagle or not."
"H'm!" said Specs gloomily. "That won't be the way Buck Claxton and his gang will look at it. They'll be out to gobble everything they can get. I'll bet they have it all figured out already."
But at a quarter of four that afternoon, when Professor Leland announced to the school that the remaining fifteen minutes of the period would be devoted to a mass meeting of all the pupils, it was evident that "Buck and his gang" had heard nothing of the plan. As a matter of fact, Buck looked uneasily at Peter Barrett, the farmer boy, and at Royal Sheffield, who came to school in an eight-cylinder motor car, as if he were wondering whether they were at the bottom of this move. Marion Genevieve Chester and Clarence Prissier also appeared at a loss. Rodman Cree, who seemed to have forgotten how to smile, showed neither surprise nor any other emotion.
"This afternoon," Professor Leland began, "we have our first football practice. It is customary, of course, for the squad to elect its own captain, but the school should vote on the team's manager. Moreover, we shall need somebody to act permanently as president of the athletic association, whose duty it will be to look after all athletic activities. One boy has spoken to me about a literary and debating society. Now would be an excellent time for its organization. And, lastly, although it will be better to have a temporary chairman of this meeting, we need a president of the student body to handle future elections. Nominations are now in order for temporary chairman."