We started out to wander,We didn't mean to roam.We're here because we're here,And when we're home we're home.We hope they'll come and get us,But we're not in a hurry.We've got forty-two cents and a movie outfit,We should worry.
We started out to wander,We didn't mean to roam.We're here because we're here,And when we're home we're home.
We hope they'll come and get us,But we're not in a hurry.We've got forty-two cents and a movie outfit,We should worry.
That isn't much good, is it? Anyway, we decided that the next thing to do was to find out if there was a town anywhere around. There wasn't any railroad station, that was sure. Now all the time that we were having that rumpus in the car, those men stood over there on the platform in front of that store, staring and staring and staring.
Pretty soon they all came over and the man with one suspender said, "Thar be'nt no growed-up man along o' you youngsters, be there?"
Westy told him no.
Then he looked us all over, very easy like, and he said, "Yer chorin' on the railroad?"
I said, "We're boy sprouts and this is Brewster's Centre."
He said, "Brewster's Centre? Whar?"
I said, "Right here in this car."
He just looked all around and then he said, "They haint cal'latin' on changin' the name of this here taown ter Brewster's Centre, be they?"
"'Cause that won't go here," another one of the men said. "We wuz promised a station, but we haint goin' ter have no changin' of names. The railroad folks tried that down ter Skunk Hollow, settin' up a jim-crack station, all red shingles and fancy roof, and callin' it Ozone Valley. But they can't come any of that business up here."
"After Eb Brewster, too," the other man said; "and him crazier'n a loon."
"Hadn't ought ter be thirty mile nuther," the man with one suspender said; "that three oughter be an eight. Noow York is eighty mile on the rail."
They all stood there squinting up at theBrewster's Centresign, and all of a sudden I had a thought and I whispered to the fellows, "Don't spoil the plot, it's growing thicker. Let me do the talking."
One of the men said to the others, "I alluz allowed Eb was jest talkin' crazy when he said haow he had friends amongst them big railroad maganates. But the taown haint never goin' to stand fer this, it haint."
Then I spoke up and said very sober-like, "Whatusedto be the name of this town?"
The man said, "'Taint youster;'tis. This here taown is Ridgeboro, Noow York, and so it'll stay, by thunder!"
"Good night!" I said, and all the fellows started to laugh.
Because then I knew how it was. We must have been picked up by the wrong train—a train going the other way. And the conductor must have hadRidgeboroinstead ofBridgeboroon his paper. Oh, boy, that was some bull. And just as luck would have it, the people of that place were expecting the railroad to give them a new station. I didn't know where the old station was; I guessed there wasn't any.
Connie whispered to me, "Who do you suppose Eb Brewster is?"
"Searchme," I told him; "but I bet he'll be tickled to death to find that the town is named after him."
I didn't want him to ask us any more questions, so I said I guessed we'd go and look for the town if he would tell us where we could find it. He got kind of mad at that, because that was the town right there, and all the while we didn't know it. Gee whiz, how couldwetell? He said some day that town would be as big as Skiddyunk and that once upon a time New York had only one store, too.
"It has one store three or four now," I said.
Then he told us that Skiddyunk was about one mile along the track and that we'd see it as soon as we got around the bend. I guess Ridgeboro was just kind of on the edge of Skiddyunk. Gee whiz, if the railroad was going to give it a station, that station ought not to be a car. A wheelbarrow would be good enough.
"I wish we had some money, I know that," Connie said, as we were walking along the ties. "That's the only thing that's worryingme."
"Same here," I told him, "but we're going to have a lot of fun here, believe me; I can see it coming."
"Keep your eyes peeled and see if you see a train coming," Westy said. Can you beat that fellow? Oh, but he's a reckless boy—not.
"Careful Carl," I said.
"What do you do with all the money you spend?" Connie wanted to know.
"Oh, I save it," I told him; "ask me another one."
"Who do you think Eb Brewster is?" Pee-wee piped up.
"He's the man the town is named after," I said; "good night, there's going to be some fun around this way. I'm glad I'm not the railroad."
"I bet those men will take that sign down," Wig said.
"I bet they'll put it up again, then," I told him.
"Are you going to tell them the station is for them?" Pee-wee asked me.
"A scout is truthful," I said; "why should I tell them that? I'm just going to keep still andsee what happens. I may decide to name the car after Eb Brewster. I should worry. We can name it after anybody we want to name it after, can't we? Jiminetty, I'm glad we're here; we dropped in at the right place."
"One thing, I'm glad Monday's Columbus Day," Pee-wee said.
"Believeme" I told him, "Columbus never discovered anything like this. I could kind of read in that man's face, the one with the suspender——"
"He didn't have the suspender on his face," Pee-wee shouted.
"Take a demerit for that, and stay after school," I told him. "I could kind of read in that man's face, that there is going to be some fun in Ridgeboro."
"A tempest in a teapot, hey?" Westy said.
"You ought to apologize to the next teapot you meet," I shot back at him. "Teapots aren't so small."
Pretty soon we got around the bend and then we could see the Skiddyunk Station. It was a regular station with a platform and everything, all fancy kind of.
"It makes the poor little Brewster's Centre Station look like a dollar and a quarter," Connie said.
I said, "I haven't seen a dollar and a quarter for so long that I can't tell, but the Brewster's Centre Station has traveled; that's what counts."
Before we got to the station we saw where tracks branched off from the tracks we were following, so we knew that all the trains that passed Skiddyunk didn't pass Ridgeboro. I guess they didn't bother with that place much. At the Skiddyunk Station we got a time table and found that only one train a day passed Ridgeboro. It didn't go much further than Ridgeboro. I guess it got sick, hey? It only went as far as Slopson. Then we asked the express agent about freight trains and he said that a freight train went along that branch line every three days. He said there wouldn't be another one going east till Tuesday morning.
Oh, boy, weren't we glad!
"I'll miss French and civil government," Westy said.
Connie said he'd only miss history.
"I'll lose English and geography," I said; "but I won't miss them. Come on up the main street and let's see if we can find an ice-cream store."
Skiddyunk was a nice town only, one thing, there were industrial disturbances there. Maybe you know what those are, hey? The boy that delivered the newspapers was on a strike. He was on a sympathy strike, that's what the man in the candy store told us. He was on a sympathy strike on account of the steel strikers. He read in a book that car wheels are made out of compressed paper sometimes, and as long as some of them were made out of steel, too, he decided he wouldn't deliver the papers that Saturday, on account of the newspaper being printed on paper. Gee whiz, I don't see how a paper could be printed on anything else except paper. That paper only came out twice a week, because there wasn't much news in Skiddyunk.
As long as we only had forty-two cents we decided it was best to buy five ice-cream cones, because then we'd have only seventeen cents left andwe couldn't send a telegram. Pee-wee said it was best not to have any temptation to send a telegram.
We asked the man in the candy store if he thought the people who lived in Skiddyunk would come to a movie show in Ridgeboro that night. He said they would if they knew about it, only he didn't see where we could have it there. So then we told him about our car.
He said, "Is it a movie theatre?"
"You said it," I told him; "it moves all over. Even the Strand Theatre in New York doesn't move so much. And anyway," I said, "are there any fish in that lake?"
He said if there were only as many people up there in Ridgeboro as there were fish in the lake that Ridgeboro would be as big as New York.
"Good night!" I said.
He said they just stood in a row up there waiting to be caught. He said nobody had to starve around that way, if he had a fish-hook.
I said, "I wouldn't eat a fish-hook no matter how hungry I was."
He was a nice man, that fellow in the candy store. He started to laugh and he said heguessed we wouldn't starve, because he could see we were a wide-awake lot.
"You ought to have seen us last night," Wig said; "we reminded ourselves of Rip Van Winkle."
So then he told us it would be good for us to see Mr. Tarkin who printed the SkiddyunkNews. First we got some fish-hooks and a ball of cord and then we had five cents left—a cent each. Never laugh at poverty. Then we went to the place where the SkiddyunkNewswas printed and asked for Mr. Tarkin. He was in a little bit of an office with papers all over the floor.
I said, "We're boy scouts and our railroad car that we're going to use for a troop room is on a side track up at Ridgeboro, because it was brought there by mistake and we want to have a movie show in it to-night." I told him all about the whole thing, just how it happened, and I asked him if he thought the people would come.
Pee-wee piped up and said, "We have pictures of Temple Camp where we go in the summer, and they show scouts doing all kinds of things—rowing and cooking and hiking and climbing trees and eating."
Mr. Tarkin said, "And eating, eh?"
"Sure, and snoring," Pee-wee said. Cracky, I could hardly keep a straight face.
"There's a picture showing me peeling potatoes and another one where I'm stirring soup," the kid told him, "and a lot of other peachy adventures."
Mr. Tarkin said, "I should call the soup picture astirringadventure. I'm afraid that potato peeling scene would be too thrilling for our simple people."
"Anyway," I said, "if we could help you on account of the strike maybe you'd be willing to help us let the people know—maybe."
"If they don't know they can't come, can they?" Pee-wee said.
Mr. Tarkin just sat back and laughed and laughed and laughed. Jiminies, you wouldn't think he had labor troubles, the way he laughed. Then he began asking us a lot of questions about the scouts and he asked us if most of them were like Pee-wee. He said they didn't have any scouts in Skiddyunk.
After a while he kind of sobered up and he said, "I wonder if the boy scouts would make good strike-breakers?"
"Sure we would," Pee-wee shouted; "breaking things is our middle name."
"He even breaks the rules," I said.
"When there isn't anything to break, hemakesbreaks," Westy said.
Then Mr. Tarkin told us how the boy that delivered the papers was on a strike. He said it wasn't much of a sympathy strike, because nobody had any sympathy for him. He said that boy wanted a one-hour day and an hour and a half for lunch. I couldn't tell whether that man was jollying us or not. Anyway, the papers weren't delivered, that was one sure thing, and he told us that if we would deliver them for him, he'd boom our movie show, so that people would be standing up in that car.
"Believeme," I told him; "theyusuallystand up in the cars down our way."
Then he told us that the boy that was on a strike could deliver all the papers himself because he had a flivver, but that he'd let all five of us do it because we had to walk and because we didn't know the streets in that town.
I said, "You leave it to us."
So then he gave us a list of all the people that had papers delivered at their houses and we madefive routes. I took all the papers for Main Street and Westy took all the papers for three other streets and Connie and Wig took the rest, all except a few scattered around in different parts of town, and Pee-wee took those, because he makes a specialty of scout pace. I thought that maybe we'd have trouble about finding some places, but what didwecare? It was early.
While we were planning all about how we'd do, Mr. Tarkin called me into the room where they did the printing and showed me a handbill he had made up. He said, "As long as you're a scout I guess you'd better write the copy for this yourself, and I'll have it set up and run off while you're getting ready to start out. Then you can slip one into every paper you deliver. How does that strike you?"
"Oh, it'll be great!" I said.
Then he said I mustn't write too much, because there wasn't much time to set it up. This is what I made up and I could have made a better one only I was in such a hurry. First I was going to take it out into the office and ask the fellows about it, but I decided I wouldn't because they were busy mapping out their routes. Anyway, I didn't want Pee-wee to know what I said about him.
ATTENTION!Big Movie Show in Boy Scout TravelingTheatre Opposite Store in Ridgeboro.TO-NIGHT.ADMISSION TEN CENTS.See the Boy Scouts in Their Native Haunts.Swimming, Tracking, Racing, Eating,Diving, Stalking, Snoring!See Scout Harris in His Stirring Soup-Stirring Feat!ONLY TEN CENTS!TO-NIGHT.
ATTENTION!
Big Movie Show in Boy Scout Traveling
Theatre Opposite Store in Ridgeboro.
TO-NIGHT.
ADMISSION TEN CENTS.
See the Boy Scouts in Their Native Haunts.
Swimming, Tracking, Racing, Eating,
Diving, Stalking, Snoring!
See Scout Harris in His Stirring Soup-Stirring Feat!
ONLY TEN CENTS!
TO-NIGHT.
When we got back from delivering the papers, Mr. Tarkin said he had a good idea but that he was afraid that maybe we wouldn't like it. He said, "Do boy scouts believe in advertising? What is your opinion of sandwiches?"
I said, "We eat 'em alive. Do you want us to advertise some new kind of ham?"
"No, sir," he said; "I'm going to suggest a plan for advertising your movie show. Somethingstriking."
Then he began laughing and he brought out a couple of big placards about as big as window-panes. They had fresh printing on them, all in great, big letters, and this is what they said:
TO-NIGHT!Boy Scout Movie Show in RailroadTraveling Movie Palace. One Night Only.RIDGEBORO RIDGEBOROTEN CENTS.DON'T MISS IT!
TO-NIGHT!
Boy Scout Movie Show in Railroad
Traveling Movie Palace. One Night Only.
RIDGEBORO RIDGEBORO
TEN CENTS.
DON'T MISS IT!
He said, "Now this is a sandwich."
Pee-wee just stood there gaping at it and I said to him, "What's the matter? Do you want to eat it?"
The two big placards were tied together at the top with a rope and Mr. Tarkin slipped them over Pee-wee so that one covered the front of him and the other covered his back. You couldn't see anything but his head and his feet. Mr. Tarkin began laughing and the fellows all screamed.
"Now you're a sandwich man," Mr. Tarkin said; "you're the inside part."
"You're a hunk of cheese," I said.
"You're a sardine," Connie shouted.
Oh, boy, you should have seen Pee-wee! He just stood there looking all around him, his head sticking up from between those two big placards, while the rest of us danced around him, just hooting. Crinkums! It was the funniest thing I ever saw. Even Mr. Tarkin was laughing so hard he could hardly speak.
"Walk over to the window and back again," he said.
Honest, I can't tell you about it. I just sat on the counter and screamed. Westy had his arms folded and he was just doubled up, laughing.Pee-wee strutted around and you couldn't see any part of him, except just his head. It was as good as a circus.
"Smile and look pretty," I said.
"Our young hero," Connie giggled.
"Let's see you go scout pace," Wig said.
"Advancing stealthily," I said; "our young hero charged upon the hooting multitude and——"
"Look at him turn around," Wig laughed; "look at him try to read it. Oh, save me!"
Pee-wee was swinging around like a sailing ship in the wind and craning his neck and trying to read the printing. All of a sudden he lifted the whole thing off.
"Do you think I'd wear that thing?" he yelled. "What do you think I am?"
"If you'd just stroll up and down Main Street with that," Mr. Tarkin said; "it would attract attention——"
"G—o—o—dnight! Yousaidit!" I just blurted out.
"I wouldn't do it!" Pee-wee shouted "Do you think I'm a dunce? Do you think I'm going to march up and down Main Street with that thing on, like a—like a scarecrow—with all you fellows laughing at me?"
"You look too sweet for anything," Westy told him.
"You think you're so smart," Pee-wee shot back; "why don'tyoudo it?"
"I'm too big," Westy said; "Connie's the best looking; lethimdo it."
Connie said, "After you; sandwiches always disagreed withme."
"You make me tired," Pee-wee yelled; "I've seen you eat a dozen!"
"Let Roy do it," Connie said.
"I'd be tickled to death," I told him, "only I'm patrol leader and I have to be dignified."
"Well, you won't catchmedoing it," Pee-wee shouted.
"Same here," Connie said.
"You all make me tired," I told them; "afraid of being laughed at!"
Just then Mr. Tarkin asked me to carry a bundle of paper into the printing shop in the back of the office, and as soon as I got in there I saw about a dozen or so of those placards in a big waste paper box. I asked the printing man why he had printed so many, and he said they were only proofs or kind of samples that he made while he was trying to print a good one.
"Oh, boy," I said to myself; "I'll fix that bunch."
So I went out into the office and I said, "I suppose all you crazy Indians claim to be good sports. Maybe some of you know how to be good losers. Suppose we draw lots and see who goes up and down Main Street as a sandwich man. I'll make five slips of paper and the one who draws the one with number three on it will have to go out. What do you say?"
First nobody was willing, because each fellow said that if he went out, all the other fellows would laugh at him.
"You should worry," I said; "I'll fix it so nobody laughs at anybody else—positively guaranteed."
"How can you be sure?" Pee-wee wanted to know.
"You leave it to me," I told him; "nobody will have anything on anybody else. Absolutely, positively guaranteed. If not satisfied bring your sandwich in and get it exchanged for a hunk of pie."
So then I tore five slips of paper and I put athreeon every one of them. I knew how to handle that bunch.
"I'll draw first," Pee-wee shouted.
Good night, you should have seen that kid when he drew number three! All the fellows began kidding him and saying he was unlucky. Then came Connie, andhedrew three, and then Wig and, oh, boy, I just can't tell you about it. Each fellow stood there staring at his little slip and I drew the last one.
"There you are," I said; "we're all stung and everybody's got the laugh on everybody else. So what's the use of laughing at all? That's logic."
"Sure it is," Pee-wee yelled; "how can anybody laugh at anybody when everybody is laughing at everybody else?"
"It can't be did," Connie said. "We're all stung, Roy too."
"You can't laugh at anybody," Pee-wee piped up, all the while hoisting those big placards up over his head, "unless the person you laugh at has got something about him that you can laugh at that nobody else has about him that anybody else can laugh at——"
"You're talking in chunks," Westy said.
"If everybody gets a prize then it isn't a prize, is it?" Pee-wee screamed.
"Sure, you can do that by long division," I told him. "Come on and let's start the parade."
That was some parade! The whole five of us marched up and down Main Street looking as sober as we could, Pee-wee strutting along at the head of the line and every now and then getting his feet tangled up with the edge of the big frames, and stumbling all over himself.
"Don't laugh," I said; "every one of us is as bad as another, if not worse; keep a straight face and march in step; the public is with us."
Oh, boy, you ought to have seen the people laugh. I guess mostly they laughed because we kept such straight faces, except when Pee-wee stumbled all over himself; then we had to howl. Everybody stopped and stared at us and read the signs and laughed.
Pretty soon we passed an automobile full of girls that was standing in front of a store. They were camp-fire girls, because they had on khaki middies or whatever you call them with kind of,you know, braid things like snakes around their necks. One of them had a banner that saidCamp Smile Awhile.
Pee-wee turned around and whispered, "Did you see that girl smile when she looked at me?"
"Smile!" I said, "that's nothing; the first time I ever saw you I laughed out loud. Keep your eyes straight ahead and look pretty—as if you were posing for animal crackers."
When we got to the corner, Pee-wee turned around and marched back, just because he wanted to pass those girls again. He made himself as tall as he could, so as he wouldn't trip over the placards. Honest, he looked just like a turtle standing up on its hind legs and waddling along and poking its head around this way and that.
"Don't laugh," he said, just as we passed the girls.
"Oh,isn'the just toocuteforanything!" one of them said.
"Isn't he just a little dear!" another one said.
"Oh, me, oh, my," I whispered to Westy who was just in front of me. "Pee-wee's got them started. Isn't he the little heart-breaker?"
He marched back again when we got to the other corner, standing up as high as he could, soas to lift the placards and looking straight ahead of him with a sober face.
"Oh, I think he's just ascuteas he canbe," one of the girls in the auto said.
Just then a little dog came running out of one of the stores and scooted between Pee-wee's legs andgood night, down he went, sprawling on the ground with one leg kicking through one of the big placards and his arms all mixed up in the rope.
"Watch your step," I said. I just couldn't help it.
"Where's that dog?" Pee-wee yelled, all the while trying to straighten things out and get up. "I'll—I'll——"
"A scout is always kind to animals," Wig said; "the poor little dog was in a hurry, that was all."
"That dog was going scout pace," I said; "you should worry."
By now, Pee-wee was all tangled up with the two big placards and the rope that had held them together, and the whole business, Pee-wee, placards, rope and all, looked like a double sailor's knot having an epileptic fit. Laugh! We simply screamed.
"Get up, you're blocking the traffic," I said.
"It's got around my leg," he shouted.
"That's what you get for trying to show off," Westy told him. "Talk about your soup-stirring scene! It can't be mentioned alongside of this."
By now, Pee-wee had managed to scramble to his feet, and he stood there staring around as if he didn't know what had struck him. One of the placards was all torn and muddy and hanging by one rope and the other piece of rope was wound around his leg. Honest, I never knew that one little dog could make such a wreck.
"You look as if you'd been torpedoed," Wig said; "stand still till we brush you off. Turn around and smile and look pretty."
By that time all the girls had gotten out of the auto and were crowding around Pee-wee, brushing him off and asking him if he was hurt.
"Oh, it'sjusttoobad," one of them said; "his nice khaki jacket is torn. I'm going to fix it. We've got needles and thread and everything right in the machine, because we're on our way to camp."
"I don't need to have it fixed," Pee-wee said; "I can fix it myself. Scouts can do everything like that."
"Yes, but they can't sew," the girl said.
"Sure, they can do everything," Pee-wee told her. "Maybe you think," he said, all the while pounding the dust out of his clothes, "maybe you think that just because I fell down—gee, that could happen to the smartest man—even—even—Edison——"
"Sure," I said, "lots of times Edison fell down."
"Scouts can do anything," Pee-wee said. I guess after what had happened he wanted to let those girls know that just because a scout fell down, it didn't prove he wasn't smart.
"Hurrah for P. Harris," I said.
"Oh, isheP. Harris?" one of the girls said; "Oh, isn't thatglorious! Is he the one that stirs soup?"
By that I knew they must have seen one of the handbills.
"Oh, we'reallcoming to-night to see him stir it," she said; "our camp is just across the lake from Ridgeboro. Don't you think Ridgeboro is apokyold place? We'll canoe over. We're camping over the holiday and we call our camp,Camp Smile Awhile. Isn't that just apeachyname?"
Connie said, "I should think a girls' camp ought to be namedCamp Giggle a Lot."
"Oh, aren't youperfectly terrible!" one of them said; "theidea!Is it ten cents to get in? Have you really got a railroad car of yourvery own? Oh, I think that's just simplyscrumptious. I wish I were a boy."
"That's nothing," Pee-wee said; "we hike hundreds of miles. Once we got lost on a mountain—we didn't care. We were lost two days. We could have been lost three if we'd wanted to."
"Only what's the use of being extravagant?" I said.
"Once I fell down a cliff forty feet high," Pee-Wee said; "that's nothing."
"Oh, and didn't youkillyourself?" one of the girls wanted to know.
"Sure he did," Westy said; "but he's all right now."
"It's fine being a boy," Pee-wee said; "gee, I feel sorry for girls."
"Oh, and you can sew, too?" one of them asked him. "And cook?"
"Cook!" I said. "He used to be the chef in the Waldorf Castoria."
"Scouts have to know how to do everything," Pee-wee told her; "because suppose a scout is alone in the woods; he has to cook his dinner, doesn'the? He has to know how to do everything for himself, see? That's why I'll sew this jacket myself. That's what you call resourcefulness. A scout has to be full of that, see?"
"Oh, I think it's justwonderful!" the girl said.
"That's nothing," Pee-wee told her; "you can even cook moss and eat it if you're lost and hungry. Once I went two days without food."
"You mean two hours," Connie said.
"Anyway, it wastwosomething or other," Pee-wee shouted.
"Most likely it was two minutes," I told the girl.
"And you came all the way out herealone? Oh, isn't that perfectlyadorable! And you're going to give a show to earn money——"
"So we won't perish," Pee-wee said.
"Which?" Westy asked him.
"Perish," he said; "don't you know what perish means?"
"And will the pictures show you doing all those things?" one of the girls wanted to know.
"Sure," Pee-wee said; "maybe you'll get some good ideas from them, only you mustn't scream when you see one of the fellows fall out of a treeinto the water, because that's nothing. That's one thing scouts don't do—scream."
But believe me, that was one thing scouts did do the very next day. I did, anyway; I screamed till I had a headache.
They said they would surely canoe across that night and take in the show and so we told them we'd see them later. Westy gave Pee-wee one of his sign placards and we marched up and down Main Street for about an hour, till we got hungry. Then we decided that as long as everybody in Skiddyunk knew about our show, we'd go back to Ridgeboro and catch some fish. Mr. Tarkin told us that as long as everybody had laughed so much and had seemed to take so much interest, he guessed our show was a safe investment and that if we needed a couple of dollars or so to carry us through, he'd let us have it. But we didn't take it, because scouts like to rely on themselves, and we knew there were lots of fish in that lake.
When we got back to Ridgeboro, the man that owned the store came and gave us a telegram. He said a boy on horseback had brought it from theoffice in Skiddyunk. This is what it said:
"Just learned of unfortunate error of freight conductor. Don't be afraid or worried. Have wired money to Skiddyunk. You can get eastern train there at three. Parents informed. Keep cool."John Temple."
"Just learned of unfortunate error of freight conductor. Don't be afraid or worried. Have wired money to Skiddyunk. You can get eastern train there at three. Parents informed. Keep cool.
"John Temple."
"Just our luck," Westy said; "we've got to go home."
"What!" Pee-wee shouted.
"Keep cool," I said; "that meansyou."
"Are you going to answer it?" he wanted to know.
"Absolutely, positively," I told him; "and I'm going to send it collect."
"If you think I'm going home," Pee-wee yelled, "you've got another think. A scout is not a quitter. We've got things coming our way now—do you think I'm going to admit——"
"Come on in the car and we'll make up an answer," I said, "and I'll sign it, because I'm patrol leader."
So this was the answer we made up and Westy and Connie went back to Skiddyunk with it, while the rest of us were fishing.
"Cannot make afternoon train. Are giving big movie show in car to-night. Great excitement. Expect to clear thirty dollars. Will not desert car. Expect us when you see us. Good fishing. Love to all. We should worry."Roy(S. F.)"
"Cannot make afternoon train. Are giving big movie show in car to-night. Great excitement. Expect to clear thirty dollars. Will not desert car. Expect us when you see us. Good fishing. Love to all. We should worry.
"Roy(S. F.)"
When Westy and Connie got back, they had fifty dollars that Mr. Temple had sent, but we decided we wouldn't use a single cent of it, just so as to show him that we could look after ourselves. Anyway, we should bother about fifty dollars, because we had a big string of perch and some catfish.
It was about the middle of the afternoon when we got the fish cooked and, believe me, we were good and hungry. After the meal was over, we were sprawling around in the car before starting to get ready for the show, when all of a sudden we heard somebody speaking outside, and then in came a little man with an awful funny face and a funny little cap on. He wore spectacles way down near the end of his nose and he was smiling and seemed awful happy, but there was something funny about his eyes. I guess he wasn't more thanabout thirty years old, but he looked awful funny and his eyes were bright and queer like.
He said, "Howdoyou do." And then he started to shake hands with all of us. He said, "I called twice this morning, but you weren't here. And now I have found you and I'm delighted, and I suppose you wonder who I am, eh?" Then he looked all around and put his finger to his lips and said, very secret like, "My name is Ebenezer Brewster and I'm a poet. I have written a little poem to thank you boys for the great honor you have done me, in naming the village after me. Shh! There is opposition. The public is scandalized. There is likely to be a riot. I am not appreciated—shh."
"Six or seven people wouldn't make much of a riot," I told him. "If they start any riot here, we'll put the village in the car and take it away with us."
"That's a very good idea," he said, "averygood idea. Did you graduate from a public school?"
I said, "No, I have my ideas made to order; they last longer."
He said, "Muchlonger, that's my idea exactly. And they fit better. Would you like to hear the poem?"
"Go ahead, shoot," Westy said.
So then he took a paper out of his pocket and read what was on it, and this was it:
"There are eleven people here,Nine chickens and a rooster;The village it is named for me,I'm Ebenezer Brewster."
"There are eleven people here,Nine chickens and a rooster;The village it is named for me,I'm Ebenezer Brewster."
Connie came over and whispered to me, "Where are we, anyway? I feel like Alice in Wonderland. He's a cheerful idiot. He thinks we named this town after him. This issomecomedy."
That fellow didn't stay long and he went away very sudden like, just the same as the way he came. We told him to come to the movie show and he said he would. We decided that he was kind of crazy, but anyway, he was awful nice about it, and gee whiz, if you're happy, what's the difference whether you're crazy or not? He was happy all right, and he seemed to be mighty proud, because he thought the town was named after him. So we let him think so.
By six o'clock we had everything ready for the big show. We fixed the apparatus so that the lens cylinder stuck through the ticket window, and that way the operator (that was Pee-wee, because the machine belonged to him) could be all by himself in the ticket agent's room. We hung the screen at the other end of the car, and turned all the seats facing that way.
The man over in the store came and watched usand got friendly. I guess he knew how it was by that time, and he wasn't afraid that the name of the village was really changed. He gave us some cakes and we had cakes and fried perch for supper. They were dandy cakes, with jam in them. There were seven of them and only five fellows, but anyway, Pee-wee hadn't done any good turn that day, so he ate three. That was so none of the rest of us would get a stomachache. That's the way with Pee-wee, he's always thinking about some one else.
All the while we were eating supper, we could see smoke curling up out of the woods across the lake, and we guessed that was where the girls had their camp.
"I bet they're getting supper now," Connie said.
Pee-wee said, "Maybe some of us ought to borrow that store man's boat and row over after them, because girls can't row or paddle very well. It would be a good turn."
"Good night," I said; "didn't you just eat three peach cakes and call that a good turn? You should worry about the girls. Probably they know how to row and paddle better than you do."
"You make me tired," he yelled; "scouts aresupposed to do things for them, and show them how to do things."
"Well, they'll see you doing enough things on the screen," I told him; "girls aren't as helpless as you think they are. Come on, help get ready."
At about half-past seven, people began coming and I could see that we were going to have a big house, I mean a big car. First an automobile full of people arrived and then a lot more who had walked from Skiddyunk. Then a couple more automobiles came and pretty soon there were a half a dozen of them parked around the car, and the seats inside the car were full. Westy stood on the platform collecting ten cents from each one and letting them through, past the screen. Oh, boy, there was some crowd.
Pretty soon the store man came over and said that as long as the weather was so warm, it would be a good idea to open the car windows and have standing room outside. So he gave us some boxes and barrels and things to put outside the windows for people to stand on. All the people out there paid their ten cents just the same and they laughed and said it was a lot of fun. Some of them were summer people, I guess; holdovers. The girlsfromCamp Smile Awhilecame over in two canoes and a rowboat.
When there wasn't space for another head to stick through a window, I got up in front of the screen and made a speech. This is what I said:
"Ladies and gentlemen, we thank you for coming to see our show, and we hope you'll like it. I guess maybe I ought to tell you about Temple Camp, then you'll understand the pictures better."Temple Camp is where lots of scouts go in the summer. It's near the Hudson. Maybe you've heard about all the different things that scouts learn how to do. So these pictures will show you some of those things."Some of the things are hard, but some of them are easy, like eating and things like that. Especially desserts. So now the show will begin."
"Ladies and gentlemen, we thank you for coming to see our show, and we hope you'll like it. I guess maybe I ought to tell you about Temple Camp, then you'll understand the pictures better.
"Temple Camp is where lots of scouts go in the summer. It's near the Hudson. Maybe you've heard about all the different things that scouts learn how to do. So these pictures will show you some of those things.
"Some of the things are hard, but some of them are easy, like eating and things like that. Especially desserts. So now the show will begin."
First we flashed the sentence that is in the handbook:
A SCOUT IS HANDY AND USEFUL
and then came the picture of Pee-wee with a bigwhite apron on, standing in front of the stove in the cooking shack, stirring a big boiler full of soup. I heard one of the girls say, "Oh,isn'the simply too cute foranything!" Then we flashed another sentence that said:
A SCOUT IS SKILFUL
and then came the picture of Pee-wee standing at the kitchen table, rolling dough. Everybody applauded and the girls said it was wonderful, but that anyway, the Boy Scouts was started before the Camp-Fire Girls was, and so they had had more time to learn things. I heard one lady say it wassplendidhow scouts got to be self-reliant, on account of learning the domestic arts.
Oh, bibbie, I just had to laugh, because that was the one thing that Pee-wee didn't know anything about at all—cooking. The only thing that kid knew about domestic arts, was eating. He was a good ice-box inspector and pantry-shelf sleuth. He could track a jar of jam to its dim retreat, but when it came to cooking—good night! The only reason we had him in those pictures was because he was so small and looked so funny.
The next sentence we flashed said:
A SCOUT IS QUICK
and the picture showed Pee-wee flopping a wheat cake and catching it in the frying pan again. Honest, when we were trying to get that picture up at Temple Camp, the whole floor was covered with wheat cakes and there was one on Pee-wee's head like a Happy Hooligan cap. But the audience didn't know that. There are lots of things you don't see in the movies. It takes about twenty wheat cakes to get a good picture of Scout Harris flopping one.
The regular cook wasn't there the day we got that picture.
That was the comedy sketch and Pee-wee was so puffed up over his screen success that he could hardly work the machine. I guess he felt as if he were a regular Douglas Fairbanks.
"Did you hear what those girls were saying?" he whispered to me behind the screen. "Did you hear what the one with the red sweater was saying? About a scout being so resourceful? Did you hear her?"
"Oh, you've got the town eating out of your hand," I told him; "you're a regular Mary Picklefoot. You're such a swell cook you ought to cook for Cook's Tours."
"Did you hear what one of them said about how I rolled the rolling pin?" he whispered.
"She said you were the finest roller she ever saw," I said, in an undertone; "shh, you've got them going. There's no use trying to stand up against the Boy Scouts of America."
"Didn't I tell them scouts have to be resourceful?" he whispered "Did they notice how I flopped it?"
"They said you were the floppiest flopper they ever saw," I told him. "Go ahead and give them some deep stuff."
So then we reeled off some pictures of good stunts at Temple Camp. One showed scouts doing fancy diving from the springboard, and there were a couple showing the races on the lake. The people seemed to like them a lot. Some of the pictures had Pee-wee in them and then there was a lot of applause. There was one showing the forest fire near camp; it was the best of all and everybody said so.
After the show, when the people were going, they all said it was fine and asked us a lot of questions about Temple Camp and scouting. Pee-wee got down off the car and stood around with his sleeves still rolled up and his jacket off, and everybody talked to him. Believe me, he was a walking advertisement for the scouts. I heard him telling one man that scouts had to have plenty of initials.
The man said, "What?"
"Initials," Pee-wee told him; "it meansstarting to do things of your own accord, see?"
The man laughed and he said, "Oh, you meaninitiative." He said Pee-wee was worth ten cents not counting the movie show.
After most everyone else had gone, the girls all crowded around Pee-wee before they went back to their canoes. Oh, you should have seen that kid! The girl in the red sweater said, "My name is Grace Bentley and my friends want me to tell you what a perfectlylovelytime we've had. And we think it's justwonderfulhow boy scouts are so, you know, what you may call it——"
"Sure," Pee-wee said; "resourceful, that's what you mean."
She said, "But you must remember that the Camp-fire Girls are new and we'll catch up to you yet."
"Oh, sure," Pee-wee said; "you'll catch up with us. All you have to do is try. First I couldn't learn scout pace. Gee, don't get discouraged. If you want to do a thing just make up your mind that you'll do it. And if you can't do it, do it anyway."
Gee, the rest of us just stood there trying to keep from screaming, while Pee-wee stood in the center of that crowd of girls, looking about asbig as a toadstool, and giving them a scout lecture.
"All you have to do is try," he said; "did you notice where I was diving from the springboard?"
"Oh, I thought it was justdandy," a girl said.
"That was nothing," Pee-wee told her; "it looks hard, but that's nothing. There's no such word as fail; that's a what d'ye call it, a maxwell."
"You mean a Ford," Connie said.
"He means a Pierce-Arrow," Westy shouted.
"He means a maxim, don't you?" the girl named Grace said. "And I think it's a perfectlysplendidmaxim."
"That's nothing," Pee-wee piped up; "I know a lot of maxims. I've got a collection of them."
"He catches them in the woods," I said.
"Don't you get discouraged," Pee-wee shouted.
"No, we won't," Grace said; "and don't you mind them, either. They're just teasing you. And we want to ask you if you'll do us a favor—a good turn. Will you?"
"SureI will," he said, very manly; "what is it?"
"We want you topromiseto come over toCamp Smile Awhileto-morrow and cook dinner for us. And we want to ask all the rest of you boys to come, too. We're just a lot ofgreenhornsaboutcooking; isn't itshamefulto have to admit it? But we've got everything over there, food and utensils, and you can make us up afeastand we'll spend the afternoon visiting. Say you will. Will you?"
G—o—o—d night!I laughed so hard I nearly fell off my feet.Oh, boy, you should have seen Pee-wee's face. You just ought to have seen it.
"Absolutely, positively," I said; "he'll be there at ten-thirty. Do you want him to bring references?"
"We should saynot," Grace Bentley said; "theidea! What we saw in the pictures was reference enough."
Good night, you should have seen Pee-wee's face. He just stood there, gazing about as if he were in a trance.
One of the girls said, "Won't it beadorable! We're going to have chicken."
"Cooking chicken is his favorite indoor sport," Westy said. "How do you like your roast chicken; fried or stewed? It's all the same to him."
I took out my scout note-book and made believe to write things down. "We'll just make up the menu," I said.
All of a sudden Pee-wee came out of his trance and shouted, "You mean me?"
"Menu," I said; "yes, they mean you." Then I said, "Would you like to have the fried potatoes stewed, or would you prefer to have them mashed with the skins on?"
One of the girls said to Pee-wee, "Don't you mind him, he's justtoosilly."
"Do you prefer your fried eggs in the shells, or would you like them roasted in ice-water? It doesn't make any difference to him," Connie said.
"Don't you pay any attention to them," Grace Bentley said to Pee-wee; "some of us will come over in the boat for you to-morrow morning, and when the dinner is ready, we want all of you to come, won't you?"
"Sure, we'll hike around the shore," I said, "and get up good appetites. We'll be there at about twelve-sixty. We'll come around the longest way, so we'll get good and hungry."
"Oh, that will be justlovely," they said, "and we'll have a perfectly scrumptious time. Do you like pie? We've got a whole big jar full of mince meat."
"You have to be careful about mince pie," Pee-wee said; "it's better, maybe, not to eat mince pie."
"Who's a coward?" Westy piped up. "Do you think a scout is afraid of a piece of mince pie?"
"Oh, it will be justdear," another one of the girls said, and then they all crowded around Pee-wee and began saying, "You'llsurelybe ready, won't you? We'll come over for you at ten o'clock. And we'll have everything ready for you. We've got lots of flour and seasoning——"
I said, "What kind of seasoning; summer or winter?"
They told Pee-wee not to mind us, and that we probably wouldn't stop talking till our mouths were busy doing something else.
"What—what—time did you say you'd come?" he began stammering.
"At ten o'clock, and you'll be ready, won't you?"
"I—ye—yes," he stammered out.
"Positively?" Grace Bentley said.
"You—you can—you know, you never—kind of—maybe—you never can be sure of anything," he blurted out.
"But say you'llsurelycome," she hammered at him. "Will you?"
He said, "I guess—sure—yop." And he looked all around as if he was going to start to run.
"Absolutely, positively guaranteed," I told them; "a scout can betrusted."
So then we helped them off with their boat and their canoes, and they started across the lake in the dark. We said we'd paddle them over and then hike back through the woods, but they wouldn't let us, because there wasn't room enough and anyway, they said they wanted to show us that there were some things girls could do. They rowed and paddled pretty good, too; I have to admit it.
Pee-wee didn't go down to the shore with the rest of us, but just stood where he was, like a statue. He was in a kind of a trance, I guess.
As we came near him, Westy said, "Of course, they don't row very well, or paddle either, but they'retrying. All they have to do is totry."
"Oh, sure," I said; "if you can't do a thing, just go ahead and do it anyway. You have to be resourceful. You have to have plenty ofinitials."
"Now you take making dressing for roast chicken, for instance," Connie said; "all you have to do is to know how. It's a cinch."
"And if you don't know how," I said; "do it anyway. It's as easy as pie."
"Oh, pie's a cinch," Wig said.
"Those girls will learn," I said; "they shouldn't get discouraged."
"They should be pitied, not blamed," Westy said.
All of a sudden Pee-wee exploded. He sounded like a munition factory going up. "You think you're smart, all of you, don't you!" he hollered.
"A scout is smart," Westy said.
"A scout can do anything," I said.
"He is resourceful—it's in the handbook," Wig said, very sober like.
"It's in the handbook—it's in the handbook—it's in the handbook," Pee-wee fairly yelled, "that a scout has to be——"
"Helpful," I said; "he has to be helpful to women."
"You make me sick!" he fairly shrieked.
"You'll be the one to makeussick," Westy put in.
"Do you think I'm going to do that?" he fairly screamed; "do you think—do you think—do you think——"
"Three strikes out," Connie shouted.
"Do you think I'm afool?" Pee-wee finished.
"A scout's honor is to be trusted," I said; (that's scout law number one) "if he were to violate his honor——"
"You make me tired," Pee-wee yelled; "a scout has got to becautious—it says so—he's got to leap—I mean look—he's, he's got to consider others—just because somebody that ought to know how to do a thing that he doesn't know how to do asks somebody to do something that the other person won't learn to do if the other person does it for him, because that isn't being resourceful, if somebody else does that thing for you, and so the other person doesn't learn how to do it himself—do you mean—do you mean to tell me—that that's being a good scout?"
"Sure it is," I told him; "it's just the same as if a person that wants to do something, doesn't do it because if he does, he won't. Why then, how could the other person do something that somebody else wanted another person not to do——"
"You'd have to have a crowbar," Westy said.
"Pee-wee's right and we're wrong, as he usually is," Connie shouted.
We made the plush seats up into beds that night and, oh, didn't we sleep, with the breeze blowing in through the windows! It was dandy.
In the morning none of us said anything about dinner. That was funny, because most always that's the principal thing we talk about on Sunday mornings, especially at Temple Camp. Once Wig said that he guessed the hike around the lake through the woods would make us good and hungry, and I noticed Pee-wee didn't say anything. He was so still you could hear the silence.
Along about ten o'clock we saw the boat coming over. Two of the girls were in it, and each of them was rowing with one oar. The boat went swirling around in circles.
"That's what they call the waltz stroke, I guess," Connie said; "they'd get along better if they had some dreamy music."
Westy gave me a sly wink and said, "If you can't do a thing, do it anyway."
Pee-wee stood on the shore with a scowl on his face watching them. The girls were Grace Bentley and another one they called Pug Peters. They have awful funny nicknames for each other, girls do. They flopped against shore about fifty feet from where they intended to land, and they giggled as if they thought it was a lot of fun.
"This boat reminds me of a balky horse," Pug Peters said.
"It reminds me of a pin wheel," I told her.
"Oh, you needn't talk," she said; "you started to go about five miles south and you landed eighty miles west—in your old car."
"Scouts aren't afraid of long distances," I told her; "they don't bother with little five-mile runs."
"Is he ready?" Grace Bentley asked.
"A scout is always ready," Westy told her; "that's his middle name."
"And we're not going to let him row, either," Pug Peters said.
"Aren't you afraid he'll get dizzy?" I said. "Remember his little head is full of recipes; two heaping teaspoonfuls to a half cup of milk——"
"Never you mind, Walter," she called to Pee-wee (because that's his real name), "you just get right in."
Oh, boy! Laugh! I just sat down on the bank and began to roar. Pee-wee didn't care anything about rowing. He didn't care about anything, I guess. He was in a state of cromo, or whatever you call it. He just got in and sat down in the stern seat as if he was going to be executed.
"Aren't you going to show them how to row?" Connie called out, as the girls stood up in the boat, each with an oar, trying to push off.
But Pee-wee wasn't going to show them anything.
"We'll showhimwe can do something," they said.
Pretty soon they got off and the last we saw of Pee-wee he was sitting like a nice little boy scout in the stern of the boat. Every time the boat swerved around in a circle, we could see his face, all sober and scowling. The boat went every which way, one girl giving a long pull and the other breaking her stroke and almost losing her oar. But what cared they, yo, ho? Sometimes the boat seemed to be coming back to us, and then we could see Scout Harris sitting there with hisknees together, looking fierce and terrible, like Billikins with a grouch. The rowing wasn't much of a joke to him.
We allowed about an hour and a half for hiking around through the woods. We didn't think it would take that long, but we knew the land was low and we guessed that the lake might run into marshes. Safety first. But we found a trail in the woods and it was easy going. So the way it happened, we got toCamp Smile Awhilea little before twelve instead of at one. It was lucky forCamp Smile Awhilethat reinforcements reached the bloody scene in time to save the day—I mean the dinner.
The first thing we saw was a good-sized tent and the next—oh,Christopher Columbus, what a sight! Talk about the West Front!
There were girls sitting all around on the ground, simply screaming. Close to the fireplace, that was made out of stones, stood Pee-wee with a great big white apron on that went right down to his feet.
"It—it—would have been all right if I hadn't tripped," we heard him say; "that could happen——"
"Look at him," I said to the fellows; "only look at him. He looks like the end of a perfect day."
All over his hair was yellow stuff, and there was flour on his face and all over his stockings and shoes. There were big black smootches on his face, too. He had a can in one hand and a girls' curling iron in the other and a big greasy frying pan under one arm.
We were about a hundred feet off, among the trees, and we just stood there staring and trying not to scream.
"This is terrible," Westy said; "what do you suppose happened?"
"What's he doing with the curling iron?" Wig whispered.
I just leaned against a tree and shook and shook till my head ached.
I said, "I don't know what he's doing with the curling iron, but I think—wait a minute till I can speak—oh, oh, oh—Ithinkhe tripped over the apron while he was trying to flop an omelet and the omelet came down on his head. Don't speak to me!"
"He's suffering from shell shock or something," Connie said.
"Not shell shock,omeletshock," I told him; "this is—gh—gh—astly. I wonder what became of the ch—ch—ch—icken!"