Читать книгу Pee-wee Harris: As Good As His Word - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 4

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Googy had the Harris paper already folded and was about to dispatch it across the lawn and into a wicker chair on the porch when his arm was arrested in air by the thunderous voice of our young hero.

Pee-wee and his voice suggested a Ford with a locomotive whistle. He never talked, he shouted. Consequently when he intended to shout the effect was like unto nothing but an earthquake. On this occasion the vibration created by his voice caused him almost to roll down off the garage.

“I bet you can’t hit me with it,” he shouted.

Googy looked up and beheld our hero straddling the roof of the garage, his round face streaked with the gooey memorial of a departed jaw-breaker, and with one hand held behind his back. His head was as round as the earth and contained a greater variety of things than the earth. His ideas alone would have been sufficient to fill Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

His eyes were brown, his hair curly, and he had five freckles disposed, like the stars of the Big Dipper, on the firmament of his small nose. Some of his scout rivals in the Silver Fox Patrol said that these were intended to represent not the Big Dipper at all, but a frying pan, and that Providence had placed this symbol on Pee-wee’s nose as a sort of merit badge for his colossal stunts in eating.

Likewise, his stockings were symbolic of his many ups and downs, for one of them was always down and the other one always up. The front of his khaki scout shirt, like his mouth, was always open, and his scout scarf was symbolic of his talk in general, for it was always tied in a complicated series of knots.

“I’ll give you a shot if you’ll give me one,” he called down.

Googy advanced across the lawn to the garage and shrewdly observing that Pee-wee held one hand behind him wisely demanded to know the nature of the weapons with which this proposed duel was to be fought.

“Lee me see wotcher got,” said Googy.

“You’ll know when you get it,” said Pee-wee. “We’ll both fire at the same time, hey? When I say three.”

“Lee me see wotcher got,” said Googy.

“I’ll tell you the color of it,” compromised Pee-wee; “it’s yellow—and it’s soft. There!”

“Leave us look.”

“I will not.”

“Is it holler?”

“Sure, it hasn’t got any more in it than the Bugle has,” said Pee-wee. “The Bugle never has anything in it.”

“Is it black?” asked Googy, observing the sticky embellishment in the vicinity of Pee-wee’s mouth.

“I told you it was yellow—and soft.”

Googy hesitated. “Wot’s de shape of it?” he asked.

“It’s yellow—and long—and kind of—kind of all crunched up and like velvet—kind of. Come on, one, two,—four. Yaaaaah, you thought I was going to say three, didn’t you? Come on, I dare you to do it. Everybody says you’re such a good shot, so are you going to take a dare?”

“Yer dassn’t throw till you say three,” warned Googy.

“That shows how much you know about scouts,” Pee-wee shouted. “Because scouts are always fair,—don’t you know that? They have rules and they never break the rules; no matter what it says in the book, they have to do it.”

Googy edged around toward the side of the garage for a sly glimpse at the invisible missile, but Pee-wee edged around on the peak of the roof simultaneously.

“’Tain’t fair, ’cause I dunno wotcher got in yer hand,” said Googy.

“I don’t know what’s in the Bugle, either,” shouted Pee-wee; “let’s hear you answer that argument. Do I know what’s in the Bugle?”

This masterful argument seemed a poser to poor Googy.

“Maybe it’s in it about—about the president of the United States being killed; how do I know?” said Pee-wee. “It’s just as fair one way as the other. I don’t know what’s in the newspaper and you don’t know what’s in my hand. Come on, one—two——”

Surely the little oracle on the roof must be right; Googy did not question that. He was not only a good little marksman, but a good little sport.

“Do you say all right?” demanded Pee-wee.

“Say three good and loud,” said Googy, holding himself in an attitude for accurate throwing.

The words came out of Pee-wee’s mouth slowly, ominously,—“one—two—two—two——”