Читать книгу Pee-Wee Harris Turns Detective - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 8

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It was a different sort of boy that went to bed in his little room that night, than Pee-Wee and the rest of them had known. And when he was almost ready to put out the light he was still sobbing pitifully, and did not cease until his aunt came in and comforted him, telling him to forget what his uncle had said. “It’s all in the past,” she said soothingly, as she sat on the bedside. “Go to sleep now, and don’t think of it.”

But he did think of it, whatever it was. It must have been a cruel thrust of his uncle’s. And when he ceased to think of it—to forget the past as his aunt had said—he began thinking of other things. Here was the old meddlesome, womanish habit of that petty man obtruding again. Lefty had none of the pride a boy might feel in a father’s visit to his son’s theater of activity. The man had gone snooping to the public school to make sure the boy had not played “hooky.” It was in no sense a school visit.

And now he was going snooping to scout meeting, probably only to cause embarrassment. Lefty did not want Mr. Ellsworth to meet him, nor the gentlemen of the Local Council either. There would be nothing, utterly nothing, of the genial parent’s visit about it. Just the prying expedition of a busybody with the instinct of a sleuth. He hoped that the bantering Doctor Harris would not be there; Doctor Harris who kidded all the scouts and shamelessly encouraged their mirthful taunts of Pee-Wee. How he dreaded the next night! This boy who nonchalantly met difficulties and knew no fears, was beset with fear now; fear that this carping uncle would demand some sort of accounting from these scout officials. The poor boy even feared a scene. Well, at all events he was going to receive his first-class badge. He was not nervous about that; he was never nervous about matters except those in which his uncle was concerned.

He went to sleep never knowing that he was under a cloud—not a very dark cloud, but still a cloud—in the view of some of these scout comrades. Not with Pee-Wee, for that terrible scout stood in loyalty as firm as the Rock of Gibraltar. But the little matter of the shop window had not been forgotten.

And there was something else. That very day he had “backed out” of stalking with three of his patrol, saying that he had to work all day at home. Later in the day El Sawyer told Doc Carson that he had seen Lefty alighting from an incoming bus down near the station. “That’s funny,” Doc had said.

So it happened that on this eve of Lefty’s elevation to the first class rank, while the harassed boy was listening to his uncle’s tirade, several scouts of the troop were discussing him on their way home from the movies. And the different “squints” they had in regard to him were rather interesting.

“Gee, I can’t make that guy out,” said Bert McAlpin, one of the Elks. “He sure looks like a winner. But he’s kind of funny; I mean never going around with us.”

“He’s got something better to do with himself than go round with the Elks,” said Roy Blakeley. “The pleasure is his.”

“No sooner said than stung,” caroled Stubby Piper, another of the hilarious Silver Foxes.

“I guess he has to work around home a lot,” said Artie Van Arlen, his patrol leader.

“Yes, but what’s the use telling us he has to work when he goes somewhere?” one queried.

“Maybe he’s afraid Pee-Wee would go with him,” chimed Roy, in his usual gay manner.

The hero of the Ravens was not there to defend either himself or his neighbor.

It was Doc Carson, always fair and thoughtful, who said, “It makes you feel kind of shaky about everything he tells us. He sure can do things—he does ’em too easy.”

“What do you mean?” Grove Bronson asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Doc answered with a note of reluctance. “I—oh, I guess I don’t know what I do mean.”

But it was clear what he had in mind. Lefty seemed to do things without any effort, and he reported these things with a kind of whimsical half interest. It was natural that boys who had found difficulty in doing these same things should be puzzled. Perhaps it was pardonable that one or another of them should at times have faint misgivings about stunts they had to take on faith. That was about what Doc Carson meant.

And Artie knew what he meant. “We saw him swim back across the river, didn’t we?” he said, with a loyal note of challenge in his voice.

“Yes, but we didn’t see him swim over,” said El Sawyer.

“How did he get over?” asked Warde Hollister of the Silver Foxes.

“Keep out of it, keep out of it,” said Roy gayly. “We have troubles of our own. Maybe he went over in a submarine. If you don’t want him we’ll drown Westy and take him in our patrol. You’re jealous, you’re jealous, you’re jealous,” he sang tantalizingly.

“Do you suppose he’d hike way up to the bridge and over just to flim-flam us, when all he had to do was fifty yards, anyway?” Artie asked. “He did what the rule says, didn’t he?”

“We’re not talking about that,” said Wig Weigand. “We’re talking about whether he tells us straight or not.”

“Well, don’t do so much talking,” said Roy in his usual irresponsible manner. “If Scout Harris of the Raving Ravens was here you wouldn’t dare——”

“Believe me, a feller can get away with a lot if he wants to,” said Bob Hilman of the Elks. “Scoutmasters, Local Councils, I don’t care what. When it comes to the gold medal, maybe it’s different. But on class tests you can get away with murder if you try—and merit badges, too. It doesn’t pay and there’s no stunt in it, but you can do it. I’m not saying Lefty’s doing it. If he came in all excited and out of breath, everybody’d sit up and take notice. I wish I could climb up to first class as easy as he did.”

“Yes, but how about the stuff in the store window,” Wig said. This little matter had somehow got out into the open, and they took account of it.

“I’ve seen them change that stuff a dozen times,” said Doc Carson.

“And that’s that,” said Roy in gay half interest.

“Well I wish I hadn’t seen him getting out of the bus,” said El Sawyer; “after what he said about working around home all day.”

“Forget it, he was sweeping off the sidewalk when I went through Terrace Avenue this afternoon,” said Ben Maxwell of the Elks, as he left them at the corner. “So long, see you to-morrow night.”

“All right, but there’s something funny about him,” Grove Bronson said, as they walked along. “I don’t know what it is.”

“There’s something funny about us, too,” said Roy.

“I don’t mean it that way,” said Grove.

“So long—to-morrow night,” sang Roy, as he and Will Dawson cut out to go up Blakeley’s Hill. The matter was certainly not affecting his buoyant spirits.

“Do you notice how Lefty never talks about where he used to live?” Stubby Piper asked. “Maybe he was in some kind of a——”

“Oh rats!” said Ben Maxwell. “Look at Charlie Ganlon, he licked every feller in the town he came from. Bunk! Golly I’m glad there’s one doesn’t talk that way. Mostly you hear big things what a feller did in another town.”

“That’s true too,” said Artie.

“But I admit there’s something funny about him,” Ben said, “I’m blamed if I know what it is. Anyway he can swim—gosh, he can swim! And paddle.”

“But I wish he’d come right out and be on the square with us,” said Artie earnestly. “What’s the reason he wouldn’t go stalking?”

“Search me,” said Doc. “I hope to goodness he doesn’t forget to come to-morrow night.”

“Leave that to Pee-Wee,” said Artie.

And there you are. You can form an estimate of how they felt about him better than I can tell you. It must be confessed that he had shown no great enthusiasm about scouting. Yet, on the other hand, he had shown a kind of leisurely power of achievement which had astonished them. Perhaps enthusiasm is not natural to one who achieves without effort. It was this lack of strenuous effort together with these one or two little dubious instances of apparent untruthfulness, that caused them to think about him, and talk about him.

Moreover, he had not sought them out at off times; had not drifted among them. But he had not missed a meeting. And when he was among them, they found him captivating. On the whole it may be said that their faith in him had not been shaken. Mr. Ellsworth did not appear to be worrying about him. The Ravens still counted on the honors they believed he would bring to the patrol up at camp. They raved about his paddling. They were just the least trifle uncomfortable in his presence. It was strange, but they had an odd feeling that his easy way of riding over waves—tests and such—was almost a slur on scouting. These things were made to be mastered, not to be nonchalantly belittled.

Perhaps, after all, that was why some of them had a faint misgiving that he had not in fact done all he had been credited with doing. Still they certainly intended to feature him, if he would let them. They were about to give him his first class badge and they were satisfied he had earned it. If he were lacking in any particular it had not been in a way to make him ineligible. He was still a winner. The unpleasant things, they tried not to think about.

And then came the shocking climax.