Читать книгу Pee-wee Harris: As Good As His Word - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 8

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Pee-wee was given a territory worthy of his spirit of enterprise—Barrel Alley. Like Pee-wee himself Barrel Alley was small, but—oh, my! It was as small for a street as Pee-wee was for a boy and it made quite as much noise as he did. Likewise it had as much (or almost as much) superfluous paraphernalia as was usually to be seen upon the sturdy form of our young hero.

Barrel Alley was the little slum of Bridgeboro. It was the habitat of Slats Corbett and his gang, the refuge of Nicola Sigliottalani the junkman, and the Mecca of stray dogs and cats for miles around. Hundreds of canine pilgrims journeyed thither to partake of its hospitable bounty which overflowed from ash cans and other refuse containers that decorated its narrow, muddy length.

At the big meeting at which the campaign was launched, Pee-wee had received, in addition to chicken salad and cake and ice cream, full information about his duties as a neighborhood leader.

He had learned, to his chagrin, that his autocratic authority was somewhat curbed, and that if he intimidated the citizens of Barrel Alley at all, it must be with the aid of the large pasteboard badge which he wore and not with the cudgel that he had hoped to wield. This badge bore a pleasing resemblance to a gingerbread cooky, being of the size and color of that pocket edible, and our hero was almost completely concealed behind it.

His duties as an “official” were rather of a diplomatic than a warlike nature. He was to visit his territory twice a day, morning and evening. He was to pick up papers and other litter and was to confer “with careful politeness and tact” with those responsible for cluttered fire escapes, and particularly he was to see that all refuse containers “on the public streets” were properly covered and were not set out except at the proper times nor left out after they had been emptied.

The part of Pee-wee’s duties which gladdened his heart was his privilege of calling up or calling at the local police headquarters and reporting any instances of persistent violation of the town ordinances, and in this respect he was to be “particularly observant and prompt in reporting any condition which increased the danger of fire.” He was to patrol his territory, not as an invading host, but as an “ambassador of order and cleanliness,” and he was to make friends with the citizens and “carefully guard against being regarded as a busy-body.”

So enthusiastic was Pee-wee to enter this new field of glory that on the momentous first day of his incumbency he trudged straight to Barrel Alley without pausing at Bennett’s Fresh Confectionery for his usual eye opener, a chocolate ice cream soda. “I don’t see how on earth he can drink such stuff early in the morning,” his mother had often said; “the very thought of it nauseates me.”

The summer sun shone brightly down on that fair day and flickered the ash cans in Barrel Alley with a silvern light, as Pee-wee strolled into that unconventional thoroughfare, his bosom swelling with pride, his left cheek swelling with a licorice jaw-breaker. Now and again he adjusted his pasteboard badge as here and there he picked up a discarded newspaper or a rusty tin can. Few noticed him; certainly none were offended at this first unobtrusive essay in the cause of cleanliness.

Since it had always been Pee-wee’s habit to pick things up, his new duties came natural to him and before he had reached the spot where a new building was under construction he had made contraband of two muskmelons long past their stage of usefulness, several tin cans, a miscellaneous collection of papers which had been sporting in the breeze, and his greatest find of all, a dead rat.

His intention was to deposit these trophies of his tour in a large receptacle for waste matter which stood in front of the unfinished building; all but the departed rat which he intended to give Christian burial in Temple’s field just beyond. As he approached the large box which was half full of shavings and bits of plaster he became suddenly aware of a man wearing a black derby hat standing by the little shack in which the workmen kept their implements and overalls. He seemed to be waiting, and somehow or other the impression was conveyed to Pee-wee that something was wrong here, that something had happened or was going to happen.