Читать книгу Pee-wee Harris in Camp - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 6

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Pee-wee started for North Deadham in full scout regalia, carrying a duffel bag instead of a suitcase, wishing to detach himself as much as possible from the manners and customs of civilization. A new feature of his motley array was a can-opener dangling from his belt, intended to suggest the rugged scout’s dependence on his own culinary art in the dense wilderness. It was rather suggestive of Heinz 57 varieties.

On the train he made some memorandums in his scout report book looking to the future government of his new patrol. The following is a sample.

If any hop-toad can’t learn the pace he has to have his legs tied together for an hour.

Every feller that gets a new hop-toad gets a piece of chocolate but he has to give it to his patrol leader for the treasury.

If a hop-toad can’t croak like a frog he has to be turned over on his back and somebody sit on him till he croaks.

A hop-toad has to be given to the tom-cats if he can’t learn because the tom-cats want more because they only have six.

On account of going fast hop-toads have to have sticks in their mouths.

I’m going to try to get tents near where the Robins were before the other fellows chased them away.

When the train stopped at North Deadham, the girls of the Humane Committee saw descending from it a diminutive figure clad in khaki, and Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like him. His scout report book bulged out of his pocket, his jack-knife and his compass and his can-opener jangled in a kind of martial tune, his step was the step of a conqueror. Beneath his flapping scout hat his curly hair showed and upon his face was a frown, a terrible frown, the frown of a hero.

The only discordant note in the martial figure that he presented was the stick of lemon candy which he was sucking. During his ride various articles, chiefly edible, had been left upon his lap for inspection, and he bought them all, and they now bulged and protruded here and there upon his scout attire.

Removing the stick of lemon candy from his mouth, he contemplated the girls who had come to meet him, uttered the single word “Hello” and replaced the candy in his mouth.

“Did you ever in your life?” gasped Sympathea.

“He is certainly not an elephant,” said Dorothy.

“Or a Daniel Boone or a Buffalo Bill,” chimed in Miss Kindheart.

“I’d rather be myself than them,” said Pee-wee.

“Yes, why?” asked one of the reception committee anxiously.

“Because they’re dead.”

“Oh, we’re so glad to see you, Walter,” said Cousin Prudence, embracing him till he rattled like a Ford car; “I thought you’d never, never, come to see us. And you’ve won the animal first aid badge! Oh, isn’t that perfectly wonderful!”

“I won a lot of others too,” Pee-wee said. “I’ve got nine badges. See them on my sleeve? When the tenth one is put there I’ll be a star scout. I’m going to be a patrol leader, too. I lost a marshmallow on that train. Are you going to have that meeting to-night?”

“We certainly are and you’re going to be the main attraction. You’re going to sit on the stage! Isn’t that just perfectly fine? I don’t believe you’ve ever been on a stage, now have you? Do you think you’ll be afraid?”

It was very hard for Pee-wee to admit that there was anything in the world he hadn’t done; and to have it intimated that he, the actor in Double-crossed, had never been on the stage, was as much as he could bear. But he remembered his voluntary promise to his mother and modified his answer.

“Sure, I’ve been on platforms and they’re the same as stages,” he said; “only they’re kind of different. When we get our awards we have to go on platforms. Do you think I’m scared of audiences? Gee whiz, they won’t hurt you. I’m not even scared of bears and they’re not as bad as audiences, that’s one thing sure.”

“But I mean a regular stage,” chirped Sympathea, “with woods painted in back and everything.”

“I’ve even been lost in the woods,” Pee-wee announced proudly. “Do you think I’m scared of painted woods? You can’t get lost in those. I’ve been—I’ve been—famished in the woods, when I was lost.”

“I thought scouts never got lost,” Miss Dorothy Docile carolled forth.

“That shows you don’t know anything about them,” Pee-wee said disdainfully; “they know all about getting lost; they get lost better than anybody else. Then they find their way out by resourcefulness. Do you know what that means?”

“Isn’t that perfectly wonderful?” said Miss Katherine Kindheart.

“That’s nothing,” Pee-wee said; “you go around in a circle when you get lost; do you know why?”

“No, do tell us.”

“Because your heart is on your left side. You have to know all about astronomy if you’re a scout.”

“That isn’t astronomy, that’s anatomy,” said Cousin Prudence.

“Woods is my middle name,” said Pee-wee.

“Isn’t that a perfectly lovely name?” said Sympathea. “Walter Woods Harris.”

“I don’t mean it’s really my middle name,” Pee-wee said. “Suppose I was crazy about mince pie. I’d say my middle name was mince pie, but it wouldn’t be Pee-wee, I mean Walter Mincepie Harris, would it?”

“And do you really go round in a circle when you get lost?” Cousin Prudence asked him.

“S-u-re,” said Pee-wee conclusively, “your left side goes ahead of your right side—”

“And what becomes of your right side?” Katherine asked.

“It comes along after your left side,” Pee-wee explained.

“And doesn’t it ever, ever catch it?”

“No, so that’s why you go round in a circle; see? Now I’ll close my eyes and try to go straight. I’ll show you.”

The demonstration of this item of scout lore was highly satisfactory and very scoutish; for scouts are supposed to smile and Pee-wee’s escort of honor did more than that, they screamed. Closing his eyes, Pee-wee strode forward verging more and more toward the curb until he stumbled and went head over heels into the gutter, where his feminine admirers gathered about him, clamoring to aid the hero.

Pee-wee was equal to the occasion. “A scout is supposed to spread mirth,” he said, rising and brushing the mud from his regalia. He had certainly spread mirth as thoroughly as the mud was spread upon his scout uniform. “I’ll tell you something else about anatomy too,” he said. “Just then when I fell down in the mud it reminded me of it. Do you know how many muscles it takes to make a smile?”

“No, do tell us,” said Cousin Prudence as she brushed him off, laughing uncontrollably.

“Thirteen,” said Pee-wee.

“No wonder you were unlucky,” said Sympathea, shaking with laughter.

“It takes sixty-four muscles to make a frown,” Pee-wee continued. “So you’re doing a lot of extra work if you frown,” he added, pulling up his torn stocking.

The girls’ Humane Committee must have been of an economical turn, for they did not use sixty-four muscles, or anything like that number. They roared and screamed, and held their sides and brushed him off and readjusted his official junk upon his diminutive person, and just kept on laughing and laughing and laughing.