Читать книгу Pee-wee Harris in Camp - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 7

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Having risen from the gutter like so many world heroes who began as poor boys, Pee-wee proceeded to expatiate on the honorable company which had come out of that lowly and muddy abode into the dazzling halls of fame.

“That’s where Mr. Temple began who started Temple Camp,” he said. “Wait till I see if I’ve got my money all right; I’ve got seven dollars and fifty-two cents not counting my ticket because my father paid for that. I’ll treat you all to sodas.”

“Oh I just couldn’t eat a thing while I’m laughing so,” Miss Dorothy Docile explained; “thank you just as much.”

“Can’t you eat when you’re laughing?” Pee-wee asked incredulously.

“No, can scouts eat while they laugh?”

“S-u-re, they can eat while they’re sleeping even. If you dream about eats they taste just as good don’t they?”

“Can they eat while they’re going around in a circle?” Sympathea asked mischievously. “You know we’re girl scouts, but we really don’t know much about girl scouting, because we’ve only just started. Don’t you think our Black Beauty award is a splendid idea?”

“Sure, I have lots of dandy ideas,” Pee-wee said; “but anyway you’ve got a right to kill snakes—snakes and mosquitoes. But I haven’t got any right to kill a lion.”

“Oh, I hope you never did that,” said Cousin Prudence.

“Sure I didn’t,” Pee-wee assured her.

If any proof of his courage was required, he gave it in his martial advance up the wide, old-fashioned, thickly carpeted stairway which led to the inner fortress where Aunt Sophia Primshock sat bundled up in a big wheel chair. No weapon had she but her spectacles, but she used those in such a way as to make her terrible to behold. Her eyes made sudden flank movements around the side of them; they went “over the top” as well; and peered straight through them in a way of terrible scrutiny.

Aunt Sophia Primshock had all kinds of money and several different kinds of rheumatism. As fast as there was a new kind, she secured it. She was very deaf, but not too deaf to hear Pee-wee. It was not quite as bad as that. Next to her collection of rheumatics was her collection of cats. In the august presence Pee-wee now appeared in all his scout glory—marred only by a hole in his stocking—followed by Cousin Prudence.

“I am very glad to see my nephew,” said Aunt Sophia, as Pee-wee advanced to receive her kiss, “and I am not only glad but proud to call him my nephew,” she added. “I don’t know much about this scouting, I’m afraid it makes boys a little wild. But when a boy registers his friendship for dumb creatures I am proud, more than proud, to call him my nephew. You have seen the girl’s committee? They are dear, sweet girls, all of them.”

“Oh yes, he fell for us, Mother,” said Prudence.

“Fell for you?”

“Yes, he fell all over himself, but he isn’t hurt.”

“And what is better still, he would not inflict any hurt,” said Aunt Sophia. “And what a fine boy he is, eh Prudence? A splendid, kind, humane boy, with a heart—”

“On his left side, Mother,” said Prudence; “he proved it to us and we know he has a heart.”

Aunt Sophia smiled indulgently. Like most persons who are under the spell of one idea she was not even curious about matters in general. It was perfectly evident that she had captured the helpless, struggling, little Girl Scout troop and turned it into a humane society. There was no doubt that the “committee” had originated in that solemn apartment.

“You can kill snakes because they kill birds,” Pee-wee said; “and cats kill birds too.”

There was no answer to this so Aunt Sophia said, “I was so happy when I heard—saw it printed in a newspaper—that my nephew had won the badge for first aid to dumb creatures.” (Aunt Sophia always called animals dumb creatures.) “That is better than running after circuses and going to—to shows. Isn’t it? I had a brother, a very dear and promising brother, many, many years ago, and he joined a troupe of play actors, which made his poor mother very, very sad.” Pee-wee wriggled nervously but listened with respect. “The scout boys, they don’t—they don’t fill their brains with—with wild west shows? What is that you have there?”

“That’s my handbook, and this is my scout report book,” Pee-wee exclaimed, glad enough to expound the ins and outs of scouting.

“Ah yes, and if you do a kind act you jot it down?”

“Sure.”

“Let me see them,” said Aunt Sophia holding out her hand; “my arm is very stiff. Did you bring me my tea, Prudence dear?—I eat very little and go about almost none at all. I am very, very stiff.”

“That’s because you don’t sleep outdoors,” Pee-wee said. “I bet if you went scout pace you wouldn’t be stiff. Do you want me to show you how?”

“Goodness gracious no, my dear! Let me see what is in the books—”

“Rolling down hills is good too,” said Pee-wee; “I bet if you try that you won’t be stiff. Lots of scouts roll down in barrels, because that shakes them up. I’ll get a barrel for you if you want to try it.”

Aunt Sophia did not want to try it, but she was presently to be shaken up in quite another way. Gazing with increasing severity through her spectacles she saw sprawled upon the page the dreadful words.

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—

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.

Aunt Sophia looked up, dumbfounded, speechless. She readjusted her spectacles, as if even they might be deceiving her, and read:

A hop-toad has to be given to the tom-cats—

She read no more. Rather she saw the page in a kind of trance. Her astonished eyes jumped from one blood-curdling memorandum to another, picking out the more heartless words and phrases. Given to the tom-cats ... chased the Robins away ... turned on his back till he croaks ... hop-toads ... sticks in their mouths....

Horrors, oh horrors! Here before her very eyes was a series of recipes for cruelty! Directions, suggestions, memorandums written in cold blood for the torture of hop-toads!

Pee-wee sensed the situation, but it was too late. The hop-toads were already on their backs, the sticks were in their mouths, they were croaking, or being fed alive to tom-cats, the robins had been chased from their nests and their little ones, the boys were standing around eating chocolate while the toads suffered, the massacre was on.

“I’ll tell you all about it,” Pee-wee said, facing the awful face of his outraged aunt. “You see hop-toads, they’re really not hop-toads; do you see?”

“I do not see,” said Aunt Sophia.

“I’ll tell you all about it. Scout patrols are named after animals; there’s a patrol at Temple Camp named the Robins, see? My new patrol is going to be named the Hop-toads, because they’re all going to be good at scout pace, see? Gee whiz, you don’t care if we make fellers hold sticks in their mouths, do you? Because they can run better that way. A hop-toad means a—a scout. I’m a hop-toad. Maybe I don’t look like one but I am.”

Aunt Sophia was just about convinced—by a very, very narrow margin. She was convinced, but she remembered the awful things upon that fly-leaf. She was still a little, just a very little, suspicious. But she accepted Pee-wee’s explanation....