Читать книгу Pee-wee Harris in Camp - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 3

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“I’m going to brand a horse with a hot iron! I’m going to brand a double cross on him! I’m going to brand it on his hip! I’m going to get ten dollars!”

These were strange words to issue from the lips of a boy scout. Yet they were uttered by no less a scout than Pee-Wee Harris, the scout of scouts, the scout who made scouting famous, the only original scout, the scout who put the rave in Raven Patrol. They were uttered by Scout Harris who was so humane that he loved butterflies because they reminded him of butter and who would not harm a piece of pudding-stone because it aroused his tender recollections of pudding.

“I’m going to brand him to-morrow night!” he repeated cruelly. “Is there any pie left in the pantry?”

What act of inhuman cruelty he meditated against the poor, defenseless pie only his own guilty conscience knew. Before his mother was able to answer him from upstairs he had branded a piece of pie with his teeth.

Pee-wee’s mother did not come down, but she put her foot down.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she called, “but you’re not going to do it. There is one piece of pie in the pantry unless you have eaten it already.”

Pee-wee ascended the stairs armed with a dripping slice of rhubarb pie which left a scout trail up the wild, carpeted steps and through the dim, unfathomed fastnesses of the upper hall.

“I’m brandhorse,” he repeated, wrestling with a large mouthful of pie, “I’mgngtendlrs.”

The bite of pie conquered, Pee-wee proceeded to enlighten his mother as to his latest enterprise.

“You know the—”

“Don’t eat while you’re talking,” said Mrs. Harris.

“You know the Punkhall Stock Company?” Pee-wee continued excitedly. “They’re coming to the Lyric Theatre next week. They’re going to play New York successes. They advertised for a boy to brand a horse and I went to see the man and his name is Rantrnetolme—”

“Stop! Wait a minute; now go on. And don’t take another bite till you finish.”

“Mr. Ranter he’s manager and he said I’d do and I only have to be in that one play and I only have to be on the stage one minute and I’ll get ten dollars and everybody’ll clap and I bet you’ll be glad and it—anyway, it isn’t a hot iron at all, but it’s painted red so it will look hot and it doesn’t hurt the horse only it looks as if it did, so can I do it?” he concluded breathlessly. “You can’t say that red paint will hurt a horse,” he added anxiously. “Gee whiz, I wouldn’t be cruel, but red paint can’t hurt anybody.”

“What is the name of this play?” Pee-wee’s mother asked.

“The name of it is Double-crossed and I’ll tell you all about it, it’s a dandy play, a man has a double cross for trade-mark, see? And he’s a villain and he gets a kid to crawl through a hole in the fence, it’s out west in Arizona, and that kid has to brand one of the other man’s horses so the man will admit the horse belongs to the other man and the other man can take him, see? That’s what you call a plot. The man beats me if I say I won’t do it, so I do it and I don’t say anything at all and after the play is over I get ten dollars, so will you come and see me?”

“Where is the boy who usually does that?” Mrs. Harris asked, rather ruefully.

“They get a different boy in every town,” Pee-wee said, “because Mr. Ranter, he says it’s cheaper to do that than it is to pay his railroad fare all over the country, so can I do it? The iron isn’t really hot. So can I do it? Roy Blakeley and all the troop are coming to see me and maybe they’re going to get a flashlight and they’re going to clap a lot. So can I do it? I’m going to do good turns with the ten dollars so if you stand up for good turns like you told Mr. Ellsworth, you’d better let me do it or else that shows you don’t believe in good turns. So can I do it?”

In the interval of suspense which followed, Pee-wee strengthened his spirit with a bite of pie and stood ready to take still another upon the first hint of an adverse decision.

“I don’t like the idea of you going on the stage with actors, especially with the Punkhall Stock Company,” said Mrs. Harris doubtfully. “What would your Aunt Sophia say if she should hear of it?”

“How can she hear of it when she’s deaf?” said Pee-wee. “Anyway, they never hear of things in North Deadham. I only have to be on the stage about one minute and I don’t have to talk and I’d rather do it than—than—have a bicycle on Christmas. So can I do it?”

“I hope you don’t impersonate a scout,” said Mrs. Harris, weakening gradually.

“I’m the son of a cowboy that owns a ranch,” Pee-wee vociferated, “and his name is Deadshot Dan, and he gave me some peanuts when Mr. Ranter was talking to me. Gee whiz, you can tell from that that he’s not really bad, can’t you? Mr. Punkhall was there too, and he said I’d do it fine and they’ll show me how to do it at a rehearsal to-morrow morning and it doesn’t really hurt the horse, so can I do it?”

“You remember how scandalized your Aunt Sophia Primshock was when you kept a refreshment shack by the roadside? We have to think of others, Walter. Aunt Sophia would be—I can’t think what she’d be if she knew you joined the Punkhall Stock Company. And your cousin Prudence who is going to Vassar! I had to listen to their criticisms the whole time while I was visiting them, and your father thought they were right.”

Poor Mrs. Harris lived in mortal terror of the Primshock branch of the family which occupied the big old-fashioned house at North Deadham. No stock companies, no movies even, ever went there. No popular songs or current jokes or wise cracks of the day penetrated to that solemn fastness. All that ever reached there, apparently, were the tidings of Pee-wee’s sensational escapades, his floundering around the country in a ramshackle railroad car, his being carried off in an automobile, and, worst of all, his epoch-making plunge into the retail trade when he had sold and sung the praises of hot frankfurters by the road-side.

“I’m afraid she’d think it—unwise,” Mrs. Harris said in her gentle, half yielding manner.

“Ah now, Mudgy,” Pee-wee pleaded; “I told those men I’d do it and a scout has to keep his word, gee whiz, you have to admit that. And Aunt Sophia doesn’t have to know anything about it and I promise, I promise, not to tell her, and anyway Prudence has joined the Girl Scouts and maybe by this time she’s got to be kind of wild—kind of; and anyway I’ll never tell them so they can’t jump on you and if I say I won’t, I won’t because a scout’s honor is to be trusted. So can I do it? I won’t buy gumdrops with the ten dollars if you’ll let me do it.”

“Good gracious! Ten dollars worth of gumdrops!” said Mrs. Harris.

“Sure, that’s nothing,” said Pee-wee.