Читать книгу Pee-wee Harris and the Sunken Treasure - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 10

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He was none the less a scout for being excruciating. Had he not wrenched its secret from the bashful trail?

“Here’s where we turn in,” he said.

Sure enough, there was the faintest suggestion of a path across the fields toward the river. Once upon this they could follow it, but they never would have discovered it save from a vantage point above.

“I think it’s just wonderful how you did it,” said Minerva.

“I can do even better things than that,” said Pee-wee. “So now you see what scouting is. Do you know how I can tell no one has been on this path for maybe two or three days? On account of there being cobwebs here.”

“Ugh! I hate spiders,” said Dora.

“They know a lot about music,” Pee-wee said.

“They’re the only insects that like to listen to music. I played a harmonica near one once but, gee whiz, he didn’t seem to like it. Spiders have lots of brains, but they haven’t got very good dispositions, that’s one thing. Do you know the best kind of insects?”

“Do tell us.”

“Crickets, you can train them. Even you can make one follow you.”

He trudged along the narrow path leading the way, and regaling them with tidbits about scouting and woodlore.

“I wonder how the doctor came?” Minerva, asked. “There must be another way to the house.”

“If you’re up in an airplane,” Pee-wee said, “you can see lots of paths all crisscross on the grass and different places, that you can’t see when you’re down on the ground. Birds see lots of things that we don’t see; crows know a lot of things.”

“I guess we have a lot to learn,” said Minerva.

“Don’t you care,” said Pee-wee.

“Who’s going to do the talking?” Minerva, asked.

“I’ll do it,” Pee-wee said, “because I’ll be talking anyway.”

“I hope you’ll let us talk with Eleanor,” she ventured. “If she wants one of us to stay, I want to be the one to do it. I can call up my house. I suppose old Squire Gardiner has a ’phone. Then the rest of you can go and get Dora’s or Winnie’s canoe and paddle up the river to that terrible place and see if there’s any sign of anybody there. Only you mustn’t go inside.”

“Gee whiz, we won’t need to,” Pee-wee said. “If anybody went in there with a boat I’ll be able to tell, you leave it to me. Because I know just how the bushes are at that place. We’ll just paddle along near the shore, very quiet; I’ll show you how to paddle without making a noise, and you’ll all have to not say a word, even in whispers.”

“I think we can do that if you can,” Dora ventured to declare.

“I can not make a noise for six hours if I have to, when I’m stalking birds,” Pee-wee said.

“All right then,” said Minerva, “it’s going to be just simply wonderful, and oh, aren’t we glad we met you!”

“I’ll say we are,” said Winnie. “But oh goodness, isn’t it a spooky old place!”

They were approaching the house and could see beyond it the glinting river. The place seemed very lonely and desolate. From the river the old house had a certain fine dignity by reason of the great shade trees and the fair, passing stream. But without these romantic surroundings, it seemed just a sordid ruin.

“Think of a young girl like us living in such a place,” said Minerva. “I bet she doesn’t even go to school. With an old grandfather that kept his money in a box! I just bet he’s an old miser and doesn’t even get her the things she needs. It served him right to be robbed like that.”

“We’ll make him promise to get her a radio, hey?” Pee-wee said. “We’ll tell him if we get his money back for him, he’s got to get her a radio and I’ll put it up for her because I make a specialty of putting up aerials and I won’t charge anything, so it will be a good turn. And then when she sees all about scouting, what it is, she’ll join your troop, hey, so that shows what scouts get for being observant, because if I hadn’t seen that newspaper——”

“Oh, it’s going to be just wonderful and you’re a dear!” Minerva said. “I want you all to promise to let me talk to Eleanor—about scouting, I mean. And I’m going to see if she can’t come and visit me. Maybe I’ll stay right here with her while you three go up the river. And then if that boat is in that place you can tell the police about it. Oh, it’s going to be just marvelous!”

“And maybe we’ll get our pictures in the Pathé News, hey?” Pee-wee said. “And, oh boy, it will be a good joke on my troop going off on a hike without waiting for me—a lot I care, because now see what we’re doing. And it shows how much detectives don’t know too, they’re so smart they don’t know anything.”

“This is just the biggest day in our lives,” said Minerva, “and you needn’t think we’ll flinch.”

“I bet you’re glad you trespassed across my lawn, hey?” Pee-wee said. “Anyway, I wouldn’t get mad. And now you see I bet you’re glad you met me, hey. Will your mothers mind if your pictures are in the papers?”

“Indeed they won’t.”

“Oh goodness me,” said Winnie. “I suppose I’ll have to give them that perfectly horrid picture of me before I had my hair cut.”

“Don’t you do it,” said Pee-wee. “I’ll take your pictures with my camera and I’ll have you kind of wild looking, as if you had been in a scrap and just got back from catching burglars. Even your dresses will be torn, hey? You got to be not scared to get your pictures in the papers, that’s one sure thing. You leave it to me.”