Читать книгу Tom Slade at Temple Camp - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 5

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Throughout the previous summer Tom had been in Roy’s patrol, the Silver Foxes, but when the new Elk Patrol was formed with Connie Bennett, the Bronson boys and others, he had been chosen its leader.

“I think it’s just glorious,” said Mary Temple, when Tom told her of his plan and of Roy’s noble sacrifice, “and I wish I was a boy.”

“Oh, it’s great to be a boy,” enthused Pee-wee. “Gee, that’s one thing I’m glad of anyway—that I’m a boy!”

“Half a boy is better than all girl,” taunted Roy.

“You’re a model boy,” added Westy.

“And mother and father and I are coming up in the touring car in August to visit the camp,” said Mary. “Oh, I think it’s perfectly lovely you and Tom are going on ahead and that you’re going to walk, and you’ll have everything ready when the others get there. Good-bye.”

Tom and Roy were on their way up to the Blakeley place to set about preparing for the hike, for they meant to start as soon as they could get ready. Pee-wee lingered upon the veranda at Temple Court swinging his legs from the rubble-stone coping—those same legs that had made the scout pace famous.

“Oh, crinkums,” he said, “they’ll have some time! Cracky, but I’d like to go. You don’t believe all this about Roy’s making a noble sacrifice, do you?” he added, scornfully.

Mary laughed and said she didn’t.

“Because that isn’t a good turn,” Pee-wee argued, anxious that Mary should not get a mistaken notion of this important phase of scouting. “A good turn is when you do something that helps somebody else. If you do it because you get a lot of fun out of it yourself, then it isn’t a good turn at all. Of course, Roy knows that; he’s only jollying when he calls it a good turn. You have to be careful with Roy, he’s a terrible jollier—and Mr. Ellsworth’s pretty near as bad. Oh, cracky, but I’d like to go with them—that’s one sure thing. You think it’s no fun being a girl and I’ll admit I wouldn’t want to be one—I got to admit that; but it’s pretty near as bad to be small. If you’re small they jolly you. And if I asked them to let me go they’d only laugh. Gee, I don’t mind being jollied, but I would like to go. That’s one thing you ought to be thankful for—you’re not small. Of course, maybe girls can’t do so many things as boys—I mean scouting-like—but—oh, crinkums,” he broke off in an ecstasy of joyous reflection. “Oh, crinkums, that’ll be some trip, believe me.”

Mary Temple looked at the diminutive figure in khaki trousers which sat before her on the coping. It was one of the good things about Pee-wee Harris that he never dreamed how much people liked him.

“I don’t know about that,” said Mary. “I mean about a girl not being able to do things—scouting things. Mightn’t a girl do a good turn?”

“Oh, sure,” Pee-wee conceded.

“But I suppose if it gave her very much pleasure it wouldn’t be a good turn.”

“Oh, yes, it might,” admitted Pee-wee, anxious to explain the science of good turns. “This is the way it is. If you do a good turn it’s sure to make you feel good—that you did it—see? But if you do it just for your own pleasure, then it’s not a good turn. But Roy puts over a lot of nonsense about good turns. He does it just to make me mad—because I’ve made a sort of study of them—like.”

Mary laughed in spite of herself.

“He says it was a good thing when Tom threw a barrel stave in the Chinese laundry because it led to his being a scout. But that isn’t logic. Do you know what logic is?”

Mary thought she had a notion of what it was.

“A thing that’s bad can’t be good, can it?” Pee-wee persisted. “Suppose you should hit me with a brick——”

“I wouldn’t think of doing such a thing!”

“But suppose you did. And suppose the scouts came along and gave me first aid and after that I became a scout. Could you say you did me a good turn by hitting me with a brick because that way I got to be a scout? Roy—you got to be careful with him—you can’t always tell when he’s jollying.”

Mary looked at him intently for a few seconds. “Well, then,” said she, “since you’ve made a study of good turns tell me this. If Roy and Tom were to ask you to go with them on their long hike, would that be a good turn?”

“Sure it would, because it would have a sacrifice in it, don’t you see?”

“How?”

“Because they’d do it just to please me—they wouldn’t really want me.”

“Well,” she laughed, “Roy’s good at making sacrifices.”

“Je-ru-salem!” said Pee-wee, shaking his head almost incredulously at the idea of such good fortune; “that’ll be some trip. But you know what they say, and it’s true—I got to admit it’s true—that two’s a company, three’s a crowd.”

“It wouldn’t be three,” laughed Mary; “it would only be two and a half.”

She watched the sturdy figure as Pee-wee trudged along the gravel walk and down the street. He seemed even smaller than he had seemed on the veranda. And it was borne in upon her how much jollying he stood for and how many good things he missed just because he was little, and how cheerful and generous-hearted he was withal.

The next morning Roy received a letter which read:

“Dear Roy—I want you and Tom to ask Walter Harris to go with you. Please don’t tell him that I asked you. You said you were going to name one of the cabins or one of the boats for me because I took so much interest. I’d rather have you do this. You can call it a good turn if you want to—a real one.

Mary Temple.”

Pee-wee Harris also received an envelope with an enclosure similar to many which he had received of late. He suspected their source. This one read as follows:

If you want to be a scout,

You must watch what you’re about,

And never let a chance for mischief pass.

You may win the golden cross

If your ball you gayly toss

Through the middle of a neighbor’s pane of glass.