Page:The spirit of the leader (IA spiritofleader00heyl).pdf/249

 Perry nodded.

"How many?"

"Five. None of them has come back yet."

"Anybody—anybody here?"

Perry shook his head. Praska told himself that it was too early—told it over and over again as though forcing himself to believe in the impossible.

At twenty minutes of eight one car rolled up to the curb with three people, and promptly went off for more. Praska saw them comfortably seated in the auditorium. The place was half-filled with students. The three adults seemed pitifully out of place—only three!

Five minutes later a trickle of parents began to come through the entrance doors. Boys and girls, wearing the arm bands of the Safety Committee, took charge of them as soon as they entered the building. Praska remained out on the sidewalk, watching with fearful eyes the approaches to the school.

"If they'll only come," he said in a whisper; "if they'll only come."

And then the tide set in. From the four corners of the town they came, men and women whose interest had been aroused, whose attention had been caught, by an unexpected, insistent, compelling campaign. Some were there out of curi-