Читать книгу Pee-wee Harris: As Good As His Word - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 3

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You are not for a minute to suppose that Pee-wee Harris’ object in affiliating himself with the grand Clean-up Drive was to beautify back yards and fire escapes and to tidy up the streets of his native town of Bridgeboro.

It is true that he spoke with enthusiasm of the task of cleaning up, but in this he probably referred to the great banquet which was to be given to the clean-up workers. It was the banquet which Pee-wee was most anxious to clean up, not the streets.

“I’m going to join in! I’m going to join in!” he shouted on reading of this enticing feature of the campaign. “I know all about cleaning up; I did lots of it!”

Authorities differ as to just what he meant, for he was on the roof of his father’s garage at the time and trying to shout and consume a jaw-breaker simultaneously. But the consensus of opinion is that he referred to the banquet.

The question of how the great Clean-up Drive struck quiet Bridgeboro is also a subject on which historical authorities differ.

Mayor Rufstuff received a batch of printed material from some civic organization in Chicago, outlining the way in which boy scouts could be used in capacity of municipal housemaids, tidying up the thoroughfares of towns, making raids against accumulated rubbish in vacant lots, proceeding against neglected ash cans and uncovered refuse utensils, and instituting diplomatic negotiations with the careless occupants of tenements. “Make your town a Spotless Town,” urged the circulars. “Make every scout a city official. Let them teach your townspeople that it is unlawful to throw papers and fruit and cakes and candy in the streets.”

The idea of throwing cakes and candy in the streets seemed to Pee-wee preposterous, for he had never in all his life thrown away such treasures. He saw himself in a uniform with brass buttons, wearing a dazzling badge and wielding an appalling club.

The actual story of his adventures in this new field of action begins with our young hero straddling the peaked roof of the garage on the lawn of his home, deeply concerned with a puzzling question which his friend, Roy Blakeley, had asked him. “Which is the other end of a banana?” He was so interested in this scientific poser that he had even gone to the trouble of procuring a banana from the fruit basket on the dining-room table and, being unable to determine which was the other end of it, he had settled the matter in the most satisfactory way by disposing of both ends of it, thus proving that the most perplexing problem may be solved by eating it.

It was just in that triumphant moment that Googy, the newspaper boy, happened along with his burden of local newspapers.

Googy daily bore upon his little back all the sins and joys of Bridgeboro in the form of the Bridgeboro Evening Bugle, or the Bungle, as some people called it. Cheerily he trudged about upon his rounds each afternoon dextrously rolling up each copy into a sort of tube and bending it so that it formed a suitable missile for hurling onto porches.

Such a dextrous little sharpshooter was Googy that he could throw the Evening Bugle over a hedge fence, over a porch rail, and straight into the lap of a waiting citizen. He had even been known to send one of these news-laden projectiles around a corner and straight into a hammock for the accommodation of some lolling maiden.

Along the quiet, shaded streets he would go, his bare feet pattering ever and again across from house to house as he hastened on his zigzag course, throwing his papers straight at the chosen marks and seldom having to venture to the thresholds of the people who lived in those wonderful, lawn-surrounded homes.

When an unlucky shot caused him to follow up his folded paper and trespass upon the hallowed premises of some customer along his route, he did so with fear and trepidation as if he were entering a new world. Once his shot had gone wild and landed plunk in the pudgy countenance of Doctor Atom, who was sitting on his porch. That was a good shot, even if accidental. It was not often that the Bridgeboro Evening Bugle gave such a vigorous and appropriate rap....