Читать книгу Pee-wee Harris, Mayor for a Day - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 5

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Tasca and Bruno Liventi had never joined the scouts because they had never lived long enough in one place to make that worth while. They had traveled with their gorgeous parents until some organized busy-bodies had intervened and required them to go to school.

Youngsters though they were, these temperamental little Italians were familiar with all the great operas and had a natural love and aptitude for good music. It seemed a pity that they had to go to school and sing, Oh, joy, oh, joy, the spring is here. First and last they had more real culture than ever they would acquire in public school.

But the powers ordained that these dark-eyed strangers must study reading, writing and arithmetic. So Signor and his wife had taken the little house on Terrace Avenue in Bridgeboro and placed the two boys in the care of their picturesque old grandmother. The house was one of three in a row and these looked strange enough on the block of handsome residences where Pee-wee lived. They seemed huddling together in very shame like a group of shabby little triplets awestruck by the pretentious company in which they found themselves. The tenants in these little houses were not on cordial terms with Terrace Avenue. They did not go back and forth on the trains and discuss golf.

As for Signor and his tinseled lady, they did not intrude in Bridgeboro society. Few people ever saw them. If Pee-wee could have seen them coming down on the last train on Saturday nights (as they sometimes did) they would not have inspired him with awe. A dumpy, shabby little Italian man with two huge traveling cases and a weary-looking woman also laboring with baggage, they did not look much like the magnificent pair who smiled and bowed graciously on the Keith circuit.

Weird sounds of practicing emanated from the little house on Sundays when Signor and his wife were there. But their engagements often kept them away on Sundays too, and sometimes they would not visit Bridgeboro for weeks. They went early and came late and no one had a chance to snub them. Not that any one wished to, but the tenants who lived in the three little misplaced houses were not taken too seriously on Terrace Avenue.

Bruno and Tasca wanted to join the scouts and soon they availed themselves of the only means they knew of to achieve this end. They stood in their dooryard one Saturday morning gazing wistfully at Pee-wee as he strode by on his way to scout headquarters ready for the usual Saturday hike. To say that he was in his full scout regalia would be doing him an injustice. His scout regalia was more than full, it was flowing over. As a scout it was his policy to show his colors, also his belt ax, his scout-knife, his aluminum frying-pan, his compass and his watertight match container. For though he was a faithful devotee of the much-flaunted art of making a fire without a match, he never failed to wear this watertight container on a shoe-string around his neck.

The Liventi boys gazed at this passing spectacle with admiring consternation. That such a heroic creature could actually make a stipulation to see their poor mother and father, that he could make this the condition of a bargain, seemed preposterous. They did not believe that they could be accepted into the wonderful circle of scouting on any such easy terms. It was too good to be true. For, alas, poor Bruno and Tasca knew that what they had to show was very trifling and commonplace. They dwelt behind the scenes, these boys. It was Tasca, who ventured upon a reference to the bargain.

“Hey, if you want to—did you mean what you said?” he inquired bashfully.

The hero paused.

“If you want to see our mother and father you can come in to-morrow because they’re coming home late to-night,” Tasca said. He did not have quite the courage to refer specifically to the bargain, but he hoped that Pee-wee would recall it.

Our hero was, indeed, too much of a promoter to have forgotten it. He had started many patrols, in fact that was his specialty, but the new Chipmunk aggregation was going to be something very unusual. Since learning the dark truth about the Liventis he had decided to make it a sort of musical and theatrical patrol, and to have a circuit, though he was not quite clear as to what was meant by that word. As for the Liventis he intended to kill two birds with one stone; he was going to gaze upon that gorgeous twain who “acted in real shows” and he was going to scoop in two new members. He did not (as the brothers thought) regard his act as one of gracious condescension, a magnificent and epoch making good turn.

“Did you—did you honest and true mean what you said—about letting us come in?” Tasca ventured. “Because they’ll be here all day to-morrow.”

“Will they be mad if I come and look at them?” Pee-wee asked. Now that the great moment seemed almost at hand he was seized with fear and misgiving.

“Why would they get mad?” Bruno asked.

“I tell you what I’ll do,” Pee-wee said. “I’ll call three times outside first, hey? I’ll give three squeaks like a chipmunk when he gets caught, hey? Because anyway you have to know the chipmunk squeak; it’s like this.” He gave an exceedingly shrill imitation of the voice of a chipmunk, “when he is caught,” which seemed to impress the brothers. Pee-wee might have taken a lesson from the humble little creature whom he had chosen as the godfather of his new patrol. For it is a quiet little animal having not much to say except (as Pee-wee had observed) when it is caught.

“See if you can do it,” Pee-wee said.

Thus the Liventi boys took their first lesson in scouting from the great master.

“When I squeak like that three times to-morrow, you come to the door,” Pee-wee said.