Pee-wee retraced his steps back across the field feeling righteous and triumphant. To him the interests of the Boy Scouts of America superseded every other interest and like the true missionary he did not scruple overmuch as to means employed.
As he emerged into the alley, Keekie Joe, looking frightened and apprehensive, appeared out of the surrounding squalor. It was a characteristic of Keekie Joe that he always appeared without warning. A long habit of sneaking had given him this uncanny quality. Suddenly Pee-wee, in the full blush of his heroic triumph, was aware of the poor wretch shuffling along beside him.
"Wot'd they say ter yer? Wot'd yer tell 'em?" he asked fearfully.
"I didn't tell them anything," Pee-wee said. "As long as the fellers got away they won't blame you. Anyway, if you'd have been there they'd have been caught, because you didn't know those detectives because they're strangers around here."
"How'dyouknow them?" Keekie Joe inquired.
"Gee, scouts are supposed to know everything," Pee-wee informed him.
Keekie Joe gave a side glance at Pee-wee as he shuffled along at his side. He was rather interested in a class of boys who knew all officials on sight; here indeed was something worth knowing. "Yer spotted 'em?" he asked incredulously.
"SureI did," said Pee-wee with great alacrity; "because scouts are supposed to be observant, see? I saw them in Northvale once. But, believe me, I didn't holla.Oh, no! I ran over and told the fellers and they all got away, so as long as you didn't leave them in the lurch it was all right. So now will you join the scouts? They always carry licorice jaw-breakers in their pockets," he added as a supplementary inducement; "anywayIdo—lemon ones too, and strawberry ones."
"How many is in your gang?" Joe asked.
"Nobody yet," said Pee-wee, "because I haven't got it started. But if you'll join in with me we'll start one. You're supposed to hike and run a lot but if you want to run after fire engines and ambulances it's all right." He said this because of the favorite outdoor sport of Barrel Alley of trailing fire engines and ambulances. "So will you join?" he added.
They paused on the frontier of Joe's domain in the rear of the big bank building which fronted on Main Street. Here was the makeshift sidewalk of barrel staves whence the alley derived its name. "You have to be, kind of, you have to be a sort of a—kind of wild and reckless to join the scouts," Pee-wee pleaded. "Maybe you're kind of scared on account of thinking that you have to be civilized, but you don't; you don't even eat off plates," he added with sudden inspiration. "We cook potatoes just like tramps do, right out in the woods; we hold them on sticks over the fire. So now will you join? If you will you'll be elected patrol leader because there's only one to vote for you and I'm the one and I'm a majority. See? So if you come in right now you'll be sure to have a majority and I'll buy some Eskimo pies, too."
"Der yez swipe de pertaters?" Joe asked.
"We don't exactly kind of what you would call swipe them," Pee-wee was forced to confess. "But we get them in ways that are just as good. They taste just as good as if they were swiped, honest they do," he hastened to add. "So will you come down by the river with me? That old railroad car down there is our meeting place and it's got a stove in it and everything and there won't be any one there to-day except just you and me and we'll have an election and I'll vote for you and you can vote for yourself and so you'll besureto be elected patrol leader. And after that I'll show you what you have to do and most of it is eating and things like that. So will you say yes?"
Keekie Joe was not to be lured by promises of "eats," though he was curious about the old railroad car. His answer to Pee-wee was characteristic of him. "I woudn' join 'em, because they're a lot of sissies," he said, "but yer needn' be ascared ter come down here because I woudn' leave no guy hurt yer; I woudn' leave 'em guy yer because yer a Boy Scout. If any of 'em starts guyen yer he'll get an upper cut, see?"
Pee-wee went on his way thoroughly disappointed and disheartened. His thought was not that he had made a friend, but that he had lost a possible recruit. He had cherished no thought of reforming the wicked and uplifting the lowly in his effort to enlist this outlandish denizen of the slums. He was not the goody-goody little scout propagandist that we sometimes read about. He had simply been desperate and had lost all sense of discrimination. Anything would do if he could only start a patrol. What this sturdy little scout failed to understand was that in this particular enterprise the Boy Scouts had lost out but that Pee-wee Harris had won.
Pee-wee stopped in Bennett's Fresh Confectionery and regaled his drooping spirit with a chocolate soda. Then he continued his stroll up Main Street. He had always advertised his conviction that things invariably came his way but nothing came his way on this lonely Saturday morning.
He paused here and there gazing idly into shop windows, he stood gaping at a man who was having trouble with his auto, and at last he wandered into the public library. The place seemed like a tomb on that Saturday morning in the springtime. Not a boy was there to be seen. "Gee whiz, they've got something better to do than read books," he thought to himself.
There at the desk sat the librarian, silent, preoccupied. In the reading room were a few scattered readers intent on newspapers and magazines. The place, familiar and pleasant enough to Pee-wee at other times, seemed alien and uninviting at a time of day when he was usually too busy to call upon its quiet resources of treasure.
On this balmy holiday it seemed almost like school; it had a booky, studious atmosphere which turned him against it. And to complete this impression and make the place abhorrent to him there sat Miss Bunting, the history teacher, in a corner of the reference room with several books spread about her. To Pee-wee on Saturday morning this seemed nothing less than an insult.
He approached a shelf near the librarian's desk above which was a sign that read BOOKS ESPECIALLY RECOMMENDED. Here were always a few old time favorites, worth while books made readily available. From these Pee-wee half-heartedly drew out a copy of Treasure Island and took it to a table. He knew his Treasure Island. In a disgruntled mood he sank far down in his chair and opened the book at random. He was too familiar with the enthralling pages of the famous story to seek solace in it now, but there was nothing else to do and he was too out of sorts to search further. Presently he was idly skimming over the page before him.
The appearance of the island when I came on deck next morning was altogether changed. Although the breeze had now utterly failed, we had made a great deal of way during the night, and were now lying becalmed about half a mile to the southeast of the low eastern coast. Gray-colored woods covered a large part of the surface. This even tint was indeed broken up by streaks of yellow sandbreak in the lower lands, and by many tall trees of the pine family, out-topping the others—some singly, some in clumps; but the general coloring was uniform and sad. The hills ran up …
Pee-wee blinked his eyes, yawned, then suddenly drew himself up into an erect sitting posture and pushed the book from him. "Gee whiz," he mused, "that's what I'd like, to go off to a desert island. They don't have any desert islands now; that's one thing I don't like about this century. Hikes and camping and all that make me tired; I'd like to be on a desert island, that's whatI'dlike to do. I'd like to be marooned. Gee whiz, we only kid ourselves trying to make ourselves think we're doing things that are wild. I guess all the desert islands are discovered by now; oh boy, there were lots and lots of them in the seventeenth century; that's my favorite century, the seventeenth, on account of buried treasure and desert islands."
Indulging these disconsolate spring musings, Pee-wee sank down in his chair again, a frowning, dreamy figure, and floated out of the library and away from all the sordid environments of Bridgeboro toward a desert island situated in the south-eastern part of the seventeenth century. It was a long, long way off and he had to cross the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to get to it. He was no longer a pioneer scout now, nor a scout at all, but a doughty explorer about to set foot for the first time on soil that white man had never trod before.
He sank farther down in his chair as he voyaged afar. He was soon out of sight of land and almost out of sight of the few readers in that drowsy old library. He continued to sink lower and lower in his chair as if he had sprung a leak. Only his round, curly head was above the table. The island which he reached was a delectable spot, an earthly Paradise, with trees laden with fruit which came down like summer showers when he shook the trees. He wandered about on the enchanted shores, and ate so much fruit that oddly he felt that he was himself a tree and that some one was trying to shake fruit out of him.… He sat up with a start and found himself confronting the smiling countenance of Miss Warden, the librarian, who had been shaking him not unkindly.
"Where have you been?" she asked, laughing.
"To a desert island," said Pee-wee.
He roused himself and wandered out into the balmy air and down toward the river, a lonesome little figure. A broad field bordered the stream and crossing this he approached the old car which was the troops' headquarters. But before he reached it he was aware of something which caused him to rub his eyes and stare. As sure as he lived, there in front of him was the seventeenth century, F. O. B. Bridgeboro, with all appurtenances and accessories. He stood gaping at a little island out in the middle of the stream, which had no more business there than Pee-wee had had to be dozing in the library.
Pee-wee stood stark still in the middle of the field and rubbed his eyes to make sure that he was awake. There was not the slightest doubt that what he saw was very real. The river at that point was quite wide and its opposite shore was bordered with sparse woodland.
Pee-wee had bathed and fished and canoed in this neighborhood almost as long as he could remember and he was perfectly certain that there had never been an island there. He knew an island when he saw one and nothing was more certain than that this one was a stranger in the neighborhood.
Yet it seemed to be perfectly at home out there in the middle of the stream, just as if it had been born there and had grown up there. There was nothing fugitive looking about it at all. In the true spirit of the twentieth century, which is all for time saving and convenience, it had voyaged to Pee-wee, thereby saving him the time and perils of an extended cruise. It had, as one might say, been delivered at his door.
This was certainly an improvement over the old, out-of-date method of desert island exploration. Such patent, adjustable islands would bring the joys of adventurous pioneering "within the reach of all" as advertisement writers are so fond of declaring, just as the phonograph has brought music into every home.
"That's funny," said Pee-wee, pausing in amazement. "That wasn't here yesterday, because I was down here yesterday. Anyway as long as no one's here I'm going to be the one to go and discover it. Findings is keepings; it's just the same with islands as it is with everything else."
To increase his astonishment and cause his brimming cup of joy to overflow a tree stood upon the little speck of green land laden with white blossoms, which wafted a faint but fragrant promise to the enchanted scout upon the distant shore.
"That's an apple tree," said Pee-wee, his mouth watering. "I'm going over there to discover it and then it's mine, the whole island's mine because findings is keepings, that's international law."
No doubt he felt that the League of Nations would stand in back of him in the matter of this epoch-making discovery.
There was no doubt at all of the reality of this extraordinary apparition. Pee-wee, who was always sure of everything, was doubly sure of this. Squint and rub his eyes as he would, there was the desert island in the middle of the river with the tree surmounting it. By all the precedents in history this island was his. He had as much right to it as the king of Spain had to San Salvador, more in fact, for the king of Spain had never seen the island of San Salvador.
If there was any good in history at all (and Pee-wee had his doubts about that) why then this mysterious island belonged to him. Miss Bunting, if she had any sense of fairness at all, would concede this. If the good old rule of findings is keepings applied to monarchs it certainly applied to Boy Scouts. So Pee-wee prepared to set sail and formally take possession of his discovery. He would sail around it as Columbus had sailed around the coast of Cuba.…
Entering the troops' deserted old car he got the oars of the old flat bottom boat belonging to the troop. He also procured a black marking stick used for marking scout signs on rocks, and a pasteboard target on the back of which he printed in ostentatious lettering.
THIS DESERT ISLAND IS DISCOVEREDBY WALTER HARRIS AND ALL PRETAININGTO IT INCLUDING APPLES ANDEVERYTHING AND OTHER KINDS OFFOOD AND WILD ANIMALS IF THEREARE ANY ALSO PRESIOUS METTLES ANDALL NATIVES MUST SWEAR TO WALTERHARRIS I MEAN THEY MUST SWEARALLEAGANCE AND SAID WALTERHARRIS SHALL HAVE THE RIGHT OFSETTLEMENT.P. S. ESPECIALLY APPLES.
Having thus established his rights according to the most historical rule for the acquisition of new territory, Pee-wee set sail in his gallant bark and after an uneventful voyage of seven minutes drew his boat half-way up the rugged shore.
Though his back was toward the island during the entire cruise, he knew that land was near fully a minute and a half before reaching it by the presence of several grasshoppers kicking vainly in the surf. But what particularly attracted his attention as indicating the presence of human life upon the island was part of a cruller bobbing near the shore. This startled and impressed him as the footprint in the sand startled and impressed Robinson Crusoe.
Pee-wee could hardly believe that on the very day which had begun so inauspiciously he had actually set foot upon a strange island, but there it was under his very feet and it could not get away for he was standing on it.
Having fastened his sign to the tree trunk he proceeded to explore the island. This was done mainly with his eyes since the island was too small for the usual form of exploration.
It consisted of a little spot of land about fifteen feet in diameter, held together by the roots of the tree. It was hubbly and grass-covered and one side of it had a kind of ragged edge. It seemed to be subject to earthquakes for as Pee-wee stood upon it he felt a slight jarring beneath him. Undoubtedly the island depended on the tree more than the tree depended on the island; one might have fancied that the island carried too much soil.
But Pee-wee's surprise at the instability of his conquest was nothing to his astonishment at the voice which he presently heard above him.
"Hello, what are you doing down there?"
Pee-wee looked up and beheld a boy seated comfortably in the branches of the tree. He was looking down through the profusion of blossoms with an exceedingly merry face, and had apparently been witnessing the arrival of the discoverer with silent amusement.
"Some desert island, hey?" he laughed.
"Are you a native?" Pee-wee shouted.
"Sure, I'm part of the wild life of the island, I'm a scout," the boy called down. "Come on up, there's room for two on this branch. If the island should lurch you might get your feet wet."
"What is this island anyway?" Pee-wee asked, somewhat taken aback by the discovery that he was not the discoverer. "Where does it belong? Anyway I'm the boss of it because I discovered it. I just put my sign up and you can come down and see it if you want to and swear allegiance."
"What are you talking about?" the boy called down. "I was on it before it was born."
"Do you mean to tell me I didn't discover you?" Pee-wee shouted up.
"No,Idiscoveredyou," said the other boy.
"What do you mean,you knew it before it was born?" Pee-wee demanded skeptically. "How could it have been before it was? If a thing isn't, how can you know it? You're crazy. I was the first one to discover it since it was here and you're a part of it. But anyway I'd like to know how it got here, that's one thingI'dlike to know."
"Come on up here and I'll tell you," said the wild native.
Pee-wee climbed up and sat on the limb beside his new friend. He was a boy somewhat older than Pee-wee with a face so round that the face of the man in the moon would have seemed narrow by comparison. And there was a redness in his cheeks which made his head seem almost like an apple grown prematurely ripe upon that blossom laden tree. He wore the negligee scout attire and his happy-go-lucky nature was made the more piquant by the easy, humorous fashion in which he sat upon the limb, swinging his legs.
Pee-wee could not have found it in his heart to quarrel with any boy whose face looked so much like an apple, and, moreover, it was apparent that here was a boy whom it would be utterly impossible to quarrel with on any ground whatever—or in any tree whatever.
"Gee whiz, this is a funny thing," Pee-wee said; "I was kind of making believe that I was an explorer, but anyway I'm glad you're here."
"I'm here because I'm here," said the other boy.
"Gee, I can't deny that," said Pee-wee.
"It doesn't make any difference to me," said the boy; "I'd just as soon be in one place as another."
"As long as it's not school," said Pee-wee.
"Oh, that's understood," said the other boy; "let's talk of something pleasant."
"I bet there'll be a lot of apples here later," said Pee-wee; "when it's vacation, hey?"
"I don't know whether they'll be here," said the other boy, "because you can't trust this blamed island over night, but they'll be on the tree, wherever it is, and the way to find them will be to look for the tree."
"You said it," said Pee-wee. "What's your name?"
"Roland Poland," said the boy; "Roly Poly for short."
"Mine's Walter Harris, but they call me Pee-wee. How did this island get here anyway?"
"It started being an island under my very feet," said Roly Poly. "There are five scouts in my patrol besides myself; we're just getting started——"
"I'm the only one in my patrol," Pee-wee interrupted. "Where do you come from?"
"From North Bridgeboro," said Roly Poly, swinging his legs. "The six of us went to camp for the day just above old Trimmer's land up the river."
"I know him," Pee-wee said; "he's a grouch."
"Very muchly," said Roly; "he's worse than algebra."
"He's worse than algebra and civil government put together," said Pee-wee.
"Did you saycivil?" said Roly Poly; "don't mention civil in the same sentence with him; he's the man that put the crab in crab-apple."
"He's got a dandy orchard, though," said Pee-wee.
"Sure, this is a part of it," said Roly Poly.
"Good night," said Pee-wee; "I don't blame it for going away from him. Can he take it back? It's an island now and it's part of Bridgeboro. He can't take it on account of international law; that's whatIthink. How did it happen?"
"It's a very short story," said his new friend; "it's only about a mile and a half long—from North Bridgeboro down to here. We were camping in Wallace's grove and a little way down the river we saw a kind of a little spot of land with a tree on it. There were lots of apple trees all around there near the shore. We didn't know that orchard belonged to old Trimmer."
"He thinks he owns the whole river," said Pee-wee.
"That little spot of land stuck out sort of like a balcony on account of it being near the bend of the river; the river coming around the bend sort of scooped a place out underneath it; it was all under-mined——"
"I know what happened! I know what happened!" Pee-wee shouted. "I know the place, it was nice and shady underneath it and you could go under it in a canoe; lots of times I did."
"Well, you never will any more," said Roly Poly.
"Go on, tell me! Go on, tell me!" Pee-wee encouraged excitedly.
"There was a pole sticking out of the water right near there," Pee-wee's new friend continued, "and we thought it meant there was good fishing there. So I said I'd go and see if I could catch a couple of eels and sunfish or something. While I was out at the edge of that little knob of land or whatever you want to call it, all of a sudden I could feel something giving way under me and the first thing I knew the whole business was in the water.
"Oh, you should have heard those fellows laugh as I went sailing down the river. That was about ten o'clock this morning and the tide was running down strong. This little old island flopped around and went every which way but it stayed right side up anyway and do you think I'd desert the ship? By the time we flopped downstream this far the tide was so low that our little old roots dragged the bottom and we stopped for keeps. So here we are till the tide comes in anyway. I don't know whether we'll float in deep water or not, or whether we'll capsize in deep water or not and I don't know anything about international law, but a life on the ocean wave forme."
"I know all about international law," Pee-wee shouted. "Real estate is in a certain place, isn't it? If a man owns real estate it's bounded by something, isn't it? Well, then, if it isn't bounded by those things any more how can it belong to that same man? If a man owns land in a certain place and it stops being in that place, whose is it?"
"Search me," said Roly Poly.
"Besides I've got an inspiration; do you know what those are?" Pee-wee vociferated.
"Have you got it with you?"
"SureI've got it with me! Don't I always have them with me?"
Roly Poly seemed amused.
"There are two kinds of scouts, aren't there?" Pee-wee asked vociferously. "Regular scouts and sea scouts. Sea scouts are supposed to live on the water and regular scouts are supposed to live under the trees, like. So we can do both and we'll be combination scouts. We'll be the Combination Scouts of America, hey? Will you?"
"I'll be anything as long as it's Saturday; I'm not particular," said Roly Poly.
"Because my father knows a man that's a lawyer and he'll stick up for us," Pee-wee continued excitedly. "Because old Trimmer hasn't got any deed that says he owns an island, has he? All right, this is an island in Bridgeboro. You can't deny that, can you? Let's hear you deny that. All right, then, if he comes and tries to get this island, he'll be trespassing, won't he? And so we'll start the Combination Scouts of America and we'll call ourselves the—the—the——"
"The Sardine Patrol," suggested Roly.
"We'll call ourselves the Crab-apple Patrol," said Pee-wee, "because apples are on land and crabs are in the water. Will you?"
"I see a sail on the horizon," said Roly.
"If it's old Trimmer let me handle him," said Pee-wee.
"It's the rest of the patrol," said Roly. "Do you see those two canoes coming around the bend? We'll have a meeting of the general staff and decide what to do."
"Whatever we do, we'll do something, hey?" said Pee-wee.
"More than that," said Roly.
"Anyway, we'll start a patrol or something, hey?"
"Oh, we'll start something, leave it to us," said Roly Poly.
The arrival of the five North Bridgeboro scouts was the occasion of much merriment and banter. These boys from the small village up the river had formed themselves into a patrol but they were two members short of the required number and they had no scoutmaster.
Whether they took scouting seriously it would be hard to say; if so it must have been a great comfort to them to have wished upon their budding organization such an instructor and propagandist as the diminutive genius whom they were now about to meet. Whatever material they had among them for progress in the scouting field, they gave every indication of possessing that quality of unholy mirth which distinguished the notorious Silver Foxes. Perhaps their silver was not quite so bright, but they gave promise.
"Hey, where are you going with the apple tree?" one of them called from the nearest canoe. "What are you trying to do? Swipe a chunk of property? That's a part of North Bridgeboro you've got there."
"Why didn't you take the whole village?" another called.
"Hey, Roly, where are you going with the real estate?" another called.
"I knew you were too heavy for that neck of land," shouted another.
"Why didn't you take the whole orchard with you?" a third wanted to know.
"For the love of——," another ejaculated. "Look at the sign, will you! The place is discovered already!"
Pee-wee did not wait for formal introductions. "We're going to start the Combination Scouts of Bridgeboro!" he shouted. "We're going to be sea scouts and land scouts all rolled into one! We took possession and it's all right! Old Trimmer can't say that he owned an island, can he? We're going to have our pictures inBoys' Lifeand everything and we're going to have all the apples when they're ripe and maybe we're going to call ourselves the Crab-apple Patrol! Maybe there's treasure buried here, how do we know? And we're going to get one of those things—a saxophone or whatever you call it—to take our latitude and longitude with! We're going to be better than the Ravens and the Elks and the Silver Foxes and I know how to make apple-sauce! We're going to be a new kind of a patrol!"
"In the name of goodness, what's that, a phonograph?" one of the approaching canoeists called.
"That's the discoverer," Roly called back. "He took possession of the island in the name of the King of Bridgeboro."
"I thought it was an earthquake," laughed a tall boy who was stepping ashore.
"Oh, we have those too," laughed Roly; "all the latest improvements. That's Pee-wee; he's perfectly harmless, step right ashore, you're all welcome."
"You're stepping into the seventeenth century," Pee-wee shouted, descending precipitately out of the tree.
"The seventeenth century must have been very wet," said the tall boy as he lifted one foot out of the water only to plunge the other into the ragged, muddy edge of the island, in his efforts to get on shore. It was very funny to see him wallow in the water, seeking foothold on the submerged tentacles of root, ever slipping, and always with the soberest look on his face. "This must be the back entrance," he said. "Where are we supposed to park?"
This tall boy, who turned out to be a sort of patrol leader and scoutmaster in one, had a kind of whimsical look of inquiry on his face which was his permanent expression, and which was made the more humorous by red hair which he wore decidedly pompadour. There was that in his look which indicated his taking everything as he found it, his attitude being always quietly humorous and never surprised.
His demeanor, in whatever adventure befell, seemed always that of an amiable victim placing himself at the mercy of his enterprising comrades and going through every kind of outlandish escapade and adventure with a ludicrously sober look on his funny face. To him everything that happened seemed part of the game of life and he appeared never in the least astonished at anything.
To see him soberly going through with some adventure which the sprightly genius of his associates had conceived was as good as a circus. Naturally such a fellow was called "old" and they called him Old Rip and Good Old Rip and Doctor Rip and Professor Rip. His name was Townsend Ripley.
Townsend began at the very beginning to take the irrepressible ex-Raven very soberly indeed, and the more preposterous Pee-wee's schemes the more in favor of them Townsend seemed to be. No doubt he got a great deal of amusement out of Pee-wee. But Pee-wee never knew it.
It was quite characteristic of Townsend Ripley that he did not ask Roly Poly anything about his extraordinary adventure. Amid the chorus of exclamations and inquiries he preserved a quiet, whimsical demeanor, glancing about as if rather interested in this desert island. There it was, and that was enough for him.
"If this island is going to keep moving you'll have to put a license plate on it, Roly," he drawled. "First thing you know you'll have the inland waterway inspectors after you. You're blocking up the channel too. Why didn't you drift down as far as Southbridge where the taxes aren't so high?"
"I was—I was thinking about it," Pee-wee suddenly burst forth like a cyclone, "and there are a lot of things we can do—I've got a lot of ideas—there are seven things and we can do any one of them!"
"Why not do them all?" Ripley asked.
"That's just whatIsay," Pee-wee shouted.
"Or we can each do a different thing," Ripley suggested. "There are just seven of us. Anything suits me."
"Do you want to know how I discovered it?" Pee-wee said excitedly.
"No, as long as we know it's discovered, that's enough," said Ripley.
"I discovered it, then he discovered me," said Pee-wee, "but I'm the discoverer because it wasn't an island when he got on it, see. Anyway, that man can't take it, can he? So will you start a patent combination patrol? And I vote for you to be the leader!"
"Let's see if we can't start the island," suggested Ripley.
"We don't want to start a Bridgeboro patrol and then find that we're in Southbridge!" said one of the boys whom the others called Nuts.
"Oh, I don't see why not," drawled Townsend; "trouble is," he added, glancing casually about, "we can't go on any hikes. If we start skirting the coast we'll get dizzy."
"I know what we can do," said Pee-wee, "because, gee whiz, we've got to have exercise, that's one sure thing. If we can make the island go round why then we can keep walking like a—like a—you know—like a horse on a treadmill—hey? And we won't get dizzy at all, because it'll be the island that goes round, see?"
"That's a very good suggestion," said Townsend, "but suppose on one of our long hikes we want to stop and camp. As soon as we stop hiking we'll start going round backward with the island."
"We should worry," said Pee-wee.
"Oh, we're not going to worry," said Townsend.
"You said it," vociferated Pee-wee. "Do you know why I like you? Because you're—you know—you're kind of—sort of——"
"Absolutely," said Townsend. "You read me like a book."
"This is better than books," said Pee-wee, "because this is a kind of a desert island and a ship, isn't it? So will you all stay here till I get back, because I'm going to get my tent and some eats and a lot of stuff for camping and then we'll start our patrol."
"I can't say that we'll stay here," said Townsend, "but we'll stick to the island. I have a hunch that this island is going to put one over on us. If we're not here when you get back you'd better advertise in the 'Lost and Found' column of the Bridgeboro paper, 'Lost, one desert island. Finder will be suitably rewarded upon returning same to the patent adjustable scouts——'"
"Not adjustable—combination," Pee-wee corrected. "Do you like roasted potatoes? I know how to roast them. And I'll get some bacon, too; shall I?"
"Suppose you should be captured by your parents while you're on the mainland," Townsend inquired.
"Then I'll send you a smoke signal," Pee-wee said, "and you can come and talk to my mother, because she'll be sure to listen to you because, anyway, you've got a lot of sense."
"And several of us will canoe up to North Bridgeboro and get some stuff and tell our folks and we'll be back in an hour because the tide's starting to run up," said a boy they called Billy.
"If you have any trouble with the folks just give me a smoke signal and I'll canoe up," drawled Townsend.
"Good old Rip," chorused half a dozen voices.
The boy they called Billy turned to Pee-wee and whispered, "Don't worry about your folks. Old Rip makes a specialty of parents; they all eat out of his hands, fathers especially. As soon as they see him they surrender."
"I make a specialty of cooks," Pee-wee said. "Our cook gives me everything I want. And anyway we couldn't starve because scouts can't starve; they can eat roots and herbs and things; I'll show you. Do you like chocolate marshmallows? Even scouts can eat moss to keep from starving. And they can't get lost either—I'll show you how."
Pee-wee decided to take one of the boys with him to prove to his mother that the island was inhabited, and two other boys started back up the river in the other canoe. This left Townsend with two companions on the island. He sat against the trunk of the tree, knees drawn up, philosophically scanning the shore and occasionally giving an expectant glance up the river for smoke signals. He seemed resigned to a quiet expectancy that he would be summoned to intercede in one quarter or another. He looked very whimsical and funny.
"I wonder if you have to crank this island or whether it has a self-starter," he drawled in his amusing way. "If they don't get back by one or so, we'll have to make some root sandwiches. What do you say, Charlie?"
In about an hour and a half the two boys from up the river returned with provisions.
"Any news from the discoverer?" they asked.
"I think he's being held as a hostage by the cook," said Townsend. "Shall we land and lay waste to his home?"
"Oh, I think we can safely leave everything to him," said Billy. "What do you think of the discoverer, anyway?"
"I'm for the discoverer first, last and always," said Townsend. "He has only to lead and I'll follow. Now that we've met him I feel that life without the discoverer would not be worth living. I'm glad that next week is Easter vacation, because we couldn't think of school and the discoverer at the same time. He's more than a scout, he's an institution.
"Do you know, Charlie, I think we're moving? We were almost opposite that old railroad car a few minutes ago. Either Bridgeboro is going down or we're going up. Do you feel the climate changing? You don't suppose this island is going to go up the river again and join old Trimmer's orchard, do you?"
"Maybe it's homesick," said a boy they called Brownie.
"I hope the discoverer will discover it," said Billy.
"We'd better scatter something in our trail," said Townsend soberly, "so that he can follow. I think that's the regulation thing for scouts to do, isn't it?"
He had been whittling a stick and now with a sober look he began throwing the chips into the water as if to indicate the path of the departing island. "That's what you call blazing a trail," he said; "if he's a scout he can follow."
The little island was now moving slowly upstream by the incoming tide. It caught on the flats, performed a slow pirouette like some drowsy toe-dancer or exhausted merry-go-round, then extricated itself and floated majestically in the channel till the little apple tree became involved with the foliage along shore.
"Do you know this seems like a very funny kind of an island to me?" Townsend Ripley drawled. "I wonder what makes it hold together? It ought to disintegrate."
"Dis what?" asked Billy.
"Disintegrate—that's Latin for falling to pieces."
"Maybe the roots hold it together," said Roland.
"It ought to dissolve," said Townsend. "This land doesn't seem to be soluble in water. The coast all around ought to wash away. There is something mysterious here. This island is as solid as a pancake; I don't understand it. By all the rules of the game there shouldn't be anything left here but the tree by this evening. There doesn't seem to be any process of erosion."
"What will we do if the island washes away from under us?" asked the boy they called Brownie. "The tree'll fall over sideways, won't it? I don't want to camp on an island that keeps getting smaller all the time. It's bad enough to have a tent shrink after a rain, butan island!"
"I think this island is warranted not to shrink," said Townsend.
"Warranted nothing," said Billy; "look how muddy the water is all around it. It'll be about as big as a fifty cent piece by midnight. The river is eating it all away."
"Speaking of eating," said Townsend, "here comes the discoverer."
The discoverer and his companion were indeed approaching and apparently they had sacked the town of Bridgeboro. Their gallant barque labored under a veritable mountain of miscellaneous paraphernalia and out of the pile projected a long bar with a device on the end of it which glinted red and green in the sunshine.
"It looks like a weather-vane," said Billy.
"There's something printed on it," said Roly.
"It saysSTOP," said the boy they called Nuts.
"It saysGO," said the boy they called Brownie.
"I think," said Townsend, scrutinizing the approaching transport in his funny way, "I think, Ithink, it's a traffic sign. You don't see any automobiles in the canoe, do you?"
"There's something sticking out on the left side," said Billy; "I think it's a Ford. I hope the island isn't going to be overrun by motorists."
"It's not a Ford, it's a dishpan," said Brownie.
"They're the same thing," said Townsend. "What is that on the duffel bag—a license plate?"
Suddenly the voice of the discoverer floated across the expanse of sun-flickered water. "We're going to have hunter's stew for supper and I'm going to make it and my mother says I can stay all through Easter vacation and I got a lot of things out of our attic. Do you like bananas? I've got a whole bunch and I've got a lot of new ideas—dandy ones! I know how to fry them! I know how to slice them and fry them!"
"I'd like to try some fried ideas," said Townsend. "I don't think I ever ate them sliced before."
It may be said that Pee-wee's ideas, whether fried or baked or boiled or roasted, were usually underdone and required to be put back into the oven.
Be that as it may, he soon proceeded to unload these, as well as the interesting junk which he had gathered, the most surprising object of which was the dilapidated revolving traffic sign lately discarded by the Bridgeboro police department in favor of a lighthouse or silent cop, so called.
This acquisition was the pride of Pee-wee's life; its heavy metal stand had long since gone the way of all junk and it could not stand unsupported. As Pee-wee plunged it heroically in the earth and stood holding it with one hand he looked not unlike Columbus planting the flaunting emblem of Ferdinand and Isabella on the shore of San Salvador, except that this tableau of the well known historical episode was somewhat marred by the fact of his holding a half eaten banana in his other hand. But his new friends stared with all the amazement shown by the natives upon the landing of that other great discoverer. Only a specific inventory can do justice to the provisions and furniture which Pee-wee brought.
One revolving police traffic signOne large phonograph hornOne dishpan full of crullers (taken in a masterlyassault upon the Harris pantry)One tentOne duffel bag with cooking setPart of a vacuum cleanerOne scout belt axeOne Thanksgiving hornOne automobile siren horn.One lanternTwo long clothesline supportersA towel-rack that opened like a fanA skein of clotheslineA small kitchen-range shovelTwo boxes filled with canned goodsOne box filled with loose ediblesOne ice cream freezer
"Didn't you bring a cow?" Townsend asked. "We can never make ice cream without cream."
"We're in reach of the mainland, aren't we?" Pee-wee retorted thunderously. "It isn't as if we were going out of sight of land; gee whiz, then I'd have brought quite a lot of stuff."
"Oh, I see," said Townsend.
"I just picked up a few odds and ends," Pee-wee explained. "I'm going to make a couple of more trips to-morrow."
"If you happen to think of it bring a lawnmower," said Townsend; "they come in handy. And a few life preservers if you happen to have any, in case the island goes to pieces."
"How can it go to pieces?" Pee-wee demanded. "Islands don't go to pieces, do they? Australia is an island, isn't it? It's just where it always was, isn't it? You're crazy! All we need is one more scout and I know one by the name of Keekie Joe, and I'm going to try to get him and then we'll be a full patrol and I decided to name it the Alligators, because they belong on land and water both and we're sea scouts on the land kind of, so maybe I'll decide to name it the Turtles, maybe."
"Discoverer," said Townsend, "we're with you whatever you do, but there is a mystery about this island which I would like to fathom before we organize——"
"I fathomed lots of mysteries," shouted Pee-wee.
"I don't know whether you know what erosion means——"
"Sure I know what it means," said Pee-wee; "it means getting rusty, kind of."
"It means land being washed away by water. If you put a piece of land in the water, the water will dissolve it and it won't take long either. It isn't like an island that has always been where it is—a kind of hill sticking up out of the water. This is just a piece of land and the roots of this little tree won't hold it together long.
"The question is, should we go hunting for new members under those conditions? Pretty soon we'll have a full patrol and no island under us; we'll be in the water. That's perfectly agreeable to me and all the rest of us. But does Keekie Joe know how to swim? We really have nogroundsfor forming a patrol. See?"
"Do you call that an argument?" Pee-wee thundered. "It shows how much you know about geography because look at an ice cream soda! Does that corrode? Let's hear you answer that? Or erode or whatever you call it. A chunk of ice cream floats in the soda, doesn't it? Maybe after a while it melts, but this land isn't ice cream, is it?
"That shows how much you know about logic. This island has been here ever since early this morning, hasn't it? And it's just as big as it was, isn't it? An island is an island and the water won't melt it unless it's hot—like a lump of sugar in a cup of coffee. You've got to stir it up to melt it. Is North America corroding? Or Coney Island? Is this island any smaller than it was?"
"No, it isn't, and that's the funny part," said Townsend. "We've explored the coast but we haven't explored the depths. Let's have that little shovel a minute, will you?"