Читать книгу Roy Blakeley - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 4

Table of Contents

Now I’m going to tell you about how we collected books for soldiers and especially about Pee-wee’s big stunt.

The next morning we started out and by night we had over five hundred books. Mr. Ellsworth said they were mostly light literature, but if he had only had to carry fifty of them on his shoulder like I did, he’d have thought they were pretty heavy literature, believe me.

This is the way we fixed it. The Raving Patrol (that’s Pee-wee’s patrol, you know) used Doctor Harris’s five-passenger Fraud car. It didn’t go very good and Pumpkin Odell (Raven) said he guessed it was because the wheels were tired—that’s a joke. They held up all the houses in Little Valley. That’s about sumpty-seven miles or so from Bridgeboro. They’ve got two stores there and a sign that says “Welcome to Automobilists” and how they’ll be arrested if they don’t obey the speed laws. Welcome to jail—good night!

The Elk Patrol (that’s our new patrol, you know) went over to East Bridgeboro with Pinky Dawson’s express wagon (one horsepower) and some horse—I wish you could see him. The Elks were a pretty lively bunch, I’ll say that, and they cleaned out all the private libraries in East Bridgeboro. They even got cook-books and arithmetics and books about geometry—pity the poor soldiers.

The Silver Fox Patrol took care of Bridgeboro. That’s the best patrol of the whole three. I’m leader of the Silver Foxes. The Ravens call us the Silver-plated Foxes, but that’s because we call them the Raving Patrol and the reason we call them the Raving Patrol is on account of Pee-wee.

Let’s see, where was I? Oh yes, the Silver Foxes took care of Bridgeboro. Brick Warner (he’s red-headed) has a Complex car or a Simplex, or whatever you call it—I should worry. I mean his father has it. He’s got a dandy father; he gave Brick five dollars so that we could have a blow-out at lunch time. Oh, boy, we had two blowouts and a puncture.

We got over two hundred books that day—light literature, dark literature, all colors. I could tell you a lot of things that happened that day, because we did a lot of good turns, and one bad turn, when we grazed a telegraph pole. What cared we? But you’ll care more about hearing of Pee-wee and the raving Ravens and how they made out.

Anyway, I guess I might as well tell you now about the scouts in my patrol. Don’t ever borrow trouble, but get to be a patrol leader, and you’ll have troubles of your own. Then you can pick out the one you want and I’ll drown the rest. After that I’ll tell you about the grand drive in Little Valley.

First in the Silver Fox Patrol comes Roy Blakeley—that’s me. I’m patrol leader and I’ve got eleven merit badges. I’ve got two sisters too. One of them is crazy about the movies.

I’ve got seven scouts to look after and Captain Kidd, the parrot—he’s our mascot. Our patrol color is green and he’s green with a yellow neck. He’s got one merit badge—for music. Good night! Then comes Westy Martin, and Dorry Benton and Huntley Manners and Sleuth Seabury, because he’s a good detective, and Will Dawson and Brick Warner and Slick Warner and that’s all.

Now I’ll tell you about the raving Ravens. Of course, I can’t tell you all that happened in Little Valley that day, because I wasn’t there. Doc Carson said they had trouble with the motor and Pee-wee. He said that Pee-wee kept running wild all day. But anyway they brought back a lot of books with them, I’ll say that much.

Well, when the day’s drive was over, we all took our books to the troop room and piled them up on the table, and waited for Mr. Ellsworth to come. He usually comes home from the city on the Woolworth Special. We call it the Woolworth Special because it gets to Bridgeboro at five ten. Along about six o’clock he showed up, and we began sorting out the books. The biggest pile was brought in by the Ravens, and when he noticed a pile of about twenty or thirty books tied with a brown cord, he asked where those came from. Then up jumped Pee-wee, very excited, and said:

“I’ll tell you about those.”

“Do tell,” said Elmer Sawyer, winking at me.

“Good night! Pee-wee’s got the floor,” shouted Westy.

“Floor!” shouted Dorry Benton. “He’s got the walls and the ceiling and the mantelpiece and everything.”

“Will you pay a little attention?” Pee-wee screamed.

“We’re paying as little as possible,” I told him.

“You’re the worst of the lot,” he yelled; “that pile of books, the ones with the brown cord, were given to us by a kindly old gentleman; he——”

“A which?” Doc Carson said.

“Don’t you know a kindly old gentleman when you see one?” Pee-wee fairly screamed.

“Let’s see one,” Artie shouted.

And that’s the way it went on till Mr. Ellsworth came to Pee-wee’s rescue like he always does. He said we should let Pee-wee have the chair.

“Here’s a couple of chairs for him,” we shouted.

“He can have the table too, if he wants it,” I said; anything to keep him quiet.

“I don’t want to be quiet,” Pee-wee screamed.

Good night, that was some meeting. Well, pretty soon Mr. Ellsworth got us all throttled down and Pee-wee started to tell us about his visit to the kindly old gentleman. It seemed that was one of the houses that Pee-wee called at alone and the kindly old gentleman fell for him like grown up people mostly do. I don’t know what it is but everybody seems to like Pee-wee. You know just because you jolly a fellow, it’s not a sign you don’t like him. Pee-wee is one bully little scout, I’ll say that much.

“Do you want to hear about it?” he said.

“Proceed with your narrative,” I told him; “begin at the beginning, go on till you come to the end, then stop.”

“Be sure to stop,” Westy said.

Well, then Pee-wee went on to tell us about the kindly old gentleman. He lived in a big white house, he said, with grounds around it and a big flag pole on the lawn, with a flag flying from it. He said that the old gentleman didn’t talk very good English and he thought maybe he was a German or French or something or other. He guessed maybe he was a professor or something like that. Anyway, he took Pee-wee through his library, picking out the books he didn’t want, till he had given him about twenty or thirty. Then they tied them up in a brown cord and Pee-wee took them out to the Fraud car.

Well that’s about all there was to it, and I guess nothing more would have happened, if I hadn’t untied the cord and picked up the book that lay on top. It was a book about German history, princes and all that stuff, and I guess it wouldn’t interest soldiers much. Just as I was running through it, I happened to notice a piece of paper between the leaves, which I guess the old gentleman put there for a book-mark. As soon as I picked it up and read it, I said, “Good night! Look at this,” and I handed it to Mr. Ellsworth. It said something about getting information to Hindenburg, and about how a certain German spy was in one of the American camps in France.

Mr. Ellsworth read it through two or three times, and then said, “Boys, this looks like a very serious matter. You said the old gentleman spoke broken English, Walter?”

That’s the name he always called Pee-wee.

“Cracky,” I said, “Pee-wee’s kindly old gentleman is a German spy.”

“Sure he is,” said Westy Martin, “and he’s only flying the American flag for a bluff, he’s a deep dyed villain.”

“He can’t be dyed very deep,” said Doc Carson, in that sober way of his; “because we haven’t any German dyes to dye him with.”

I was just going to say something to kid Pee-wee along, when I noticed that Mr. Ellsworth was very serious, and Pee-wee was staring like a ghost.

“Boys,” Mr. Ellsworth said, “I have no idea of the full meaning of this paper.” Then he said how maybe in collecting books we had caught a spy in our net. He said that he was going to take the paper anyway and show it to the Federal Commissioner, down in the Post Office Building.

“If he’s a spy, we’ll swat him all right,” I said.

“We’ll more than swat him,” Mr. Ellsworth said, and I could see by the look in his eye that he meant business.