Читать книгу Pee-wee Harris, Mayor for a Day - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 7

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Pee-wee held the floor more securely than ever Signor Liventi and his good lady held an audience. “Do you know where Little Valley is?” said he.

“It’s about three stations up on the railroad,” Tasca said. He was proud that he knew something; he wondered if that knowledge were in the nature of scout knowledge.

“Yes, but scouts don’t go by railroads,” Pee-wee said scornfully. “Do you think Daniel Boone and Kit Carson went by railroads? Scouts hike, that’s the way they go. If it’s dark they go by the stars and things like that. They can tell if they’re going north or south by looking at the moss on the trees. Maybe even they look for squirrels’ nests in trees—do you know why?”

The brothers gaped in wonderment; their father gazed reverently.

“Because on account of squirrels having their nests on the south side of trees. Gee whiz, scouts don’t get lost, they don’t make mistakes.”

Bruno and Tasca seemed to think this was nothing short of miraculous. They were a little ashamed of their commonplace performance on the marimba.

“No compass—toy!” Signor exploded. “Shu, you tella da way—look—eyes—huh? Smarta boy!”

“Now I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” said Pee-wee. “Up in Little Valley the church is going to have a festival on account of being there twenty years; it’s an anniversary festival. That’s a kind of a show, a festival is. Part of it is a show. And the minister asked a lady to ask my mother if I’d go up there with my new patrol and give a scout demonstration. Do you know what that is? It’s all the different things that scouts can do, see? So now I decided I’m going to have Bruno and Tasca play some music too—if you’ll let them take that thing up there; so will you?”

Signor could only bow in a way of glad compliance. Pee-wee could have anything if only Tasca and Bruno were admitted into the mysteries of scouting. Here was Terrace Avenue conquered in one masterly move! Tasca and Bruno Liventi would be not only scouts (under the particular guidance of the greatest of scouts), but they would no longer gaze wistfully at the boys who lived in those fine, big houses along Terrace Avenue and thereabouts and wish that they could be a part of that fraternal, noisy life. And this thought brought joy to the simple heart of Signor Liventi.

“It’s going to be next Thursday and Friday and Saturday,” Pee-wee said, “and I’m the boss of the scout part of it and already I’ve got two scouts that were in a troop that started and broke up and they’re going to give a demonstration right on the stage how they can put up a tent in twenty seconds and then they’re going to do scout stunts. And I’m going to give a demonstration of signaling, wig-wag and like that and then a feller that’s disguised as not a scout is going to almost eat a toadstool and all of a sudden I come rushing on the stage madly, kind of, and stop him just in time and then I give a kind of a lecture on how to tell the difference between mushrooms and toadstools and about poison-ivy and everything and then I’m going to have a scout—maybe it’ll be Tasca or Bruno—I’m going to have him stand with his back to me and I’m going to sneak up on him and then he’s going to cross his heart to the audience that he never heard me, because anyway a scout’s honor is to be trusted and that shows how stealthy and quiet a scout can be—see?”

The admiring audience could only stare. Perhaps the diffident, unassuming brothers wondered if Pee-wee could ever convince anybody that he was quiet. But if so they were too spellbound and admiring to say so.