SATURDAY MORNING
Though Pee-wee was without a patrol he was by no means without a troop.
He still held his position of troop mascot and official target for the
mirthful Silver Foxes. He was a whole patrol in himself and held his
own against raillery and banter, his stock of retaliatory ammunition
seeming never to be exhausted.
"I can handle them with both hands tied behind my back," he boasted,
which is readily enough believed since it was mainly his tongue that he
used.
But recruits did not flock to Pee-wee's standard. Perhaps this was
partly because of the fall and winter season when the lure of camping
and roughing it was in abeyance. Perhaps it was because he was so
small that boys were fain to think that scouting was a thing for
children and beneath their dignity.
Once or twice during the winter, Pee-wee piloted some half-convinced
and bashful subject to the troop-room, which was an old railroad car
(of fond memory) down by the river. Here, in the cosy warmth of the
old cylinder stove, the troop played checkers and read and jollied
Pee-wee, which was about all there was to do on winter nights. The
visitors, unimpressed with these makeshift diversions of the off
season, did not return, and so the good old springtime found Pee-wee
still a scout indeed (with something left over) but a scout without a
patrol.
And now the sturdy little missionary began to feel this keenly. Patrol
spirit is usually not much in evidence during the winter; the several
divisions of a troop intermingle and form a sort of club in which an
odd member is quite at home. But with the coming of spring the patrol
spirit becomes aroused. It is a case of "united we stand, divided we
sprawl," as Roy Blakeley was fond of saying. Each patrol goes
separately about its preparations for camping and hiking, does its
shopping, repairs its tents, denounces and ridicules its associate
patrols, and troop unity gives way somewhat to patrol unity. This is
well and as it should be.
It was very much so with the well organized Bridgeboro troop. With the
first breath of spring the Ravens became Ravens, the Elks foregathered
and were Elks and nothing else, and the Silver Foxes began a series of
exclusive meetings at Camp Solitaire under a big shady elm on Roy's
lawn.
The Silver Foxes, imbibing the mirthful spirit of their leader, were
all pretty much alike, and the Ravens were thankful that they were not
like them, and the Elks congratulated themselves that they had more pep
than the Ravens. "The Elks say the Ravens are no good and the Ravens
say the Elks are no good and they're both right; we should worry," said
Roy. "There's one good thing about the Elks and that is that they're
not Ravens, and there's one good thing about the Ravens and that is
that they're not Elks. They both have everything to be thankful for if
not more so. They're in luck."
"Do you call that logic?" Pee-wee demanded in the tones of an
earthquake. "If one thing is better than another thing how can that
other thing be better than the other thing? You're crazy!"
"Goodness gracious, look who's here?" said Hunt Manners, who was
sorting out some fishhooks. "The whole Canned Salmon Patrol."
Pee-wee stood outside the tent, breathing hard after his long tramp up
the hill to the Blakeley place.
"Don't you know this is private land?" Warde Hollister said, rather
heedless of the possible effect of his remark.
"I didn't come in the tent, did I?" Pee-wee retorted wistfully.
"Come ahead in, Kid," said Roy. "Are you hungry? Here's some
fish-hooks."
"No, I'm not hungry," Pee-wee said. He had been so touched by Warde's
thoughtless remark that he held himself aloof from Roy's hospitality.
"I only came up to tell you that the thunderstorm up the river did a
lot of damage; a house was struck by lightning in North Bridgeboro and
a lot of trees were blown down." This was not what he had come up for,
though indeed the news was true, but his pride was touched by that
remark of Warde's and he would not now admit that he had tramped up
there just to visit them.
"Gee whiz, do you think I don't know that eight's a company, nine's a
crowd with patrols?" he said. "Do you think I don't know that?
Anyway, if I wanted to go and hang out with any patrol I'd go with the
Ravens, wouldn't I? I only came up to tell you that, because I thought
you'd like to know. Do you think I'm trying to find out your secrets?
Gee whiz!"
"Come ahead in, Kid," said Roy; "Warde didn't mean that."
"I will not."
"What's the matter with you anyway?" Will Dawson asked.
"I'm not in your patrol," Pee-wee said.
"What's the big idea?" Westy Martin asked. "You weren't in it when you
went on the bee-line hike with us either, were you?"
"That's different," Pee-wee said. "Anyway I was a scout then, because
I was in the Ravens and anyway I've got to go to the store."
Before they realized it he was gone.
"What the dickens did you want to say that for?" Roy asked Warde.
"Oh, it just jumped out of my mouth," Warde said; "I didn't think he'd
be so touchy. Wait, I'll call him back."
But the sturdy little figure trudging down the hill paid no attention
to Warde's call. And the Silver Foxes, friendly and sympathetic as
they were, were too preoccupied to think much about this trifling
affair. Perhaps they had just a little disinclination to having
visitors, even the little mascot, participating in their private
councils just then.
The point of the whole matter was that Pee-wee had been unintentionally
eliminated; it was a sort of automatic process attributable to the
springtime. And he found himself alone. He was not out of the troop,
but he was not in any of the patrols, and in spite of all his
spectacular missionary work he had not been able to form a patrol.
Pee-wee's pride was as great as his voice and his appetite, and he
would not sponge on the patrols which had a full membership and were
busy with their own concerns. The rock on which he had stood all
winter had split in three and there was no place for him on any of the
pieces.
On Saturday morning the Silver Foxes went into the city to buy some
camping things and to see a movie show in the afternoon. The Ravens
went off for a hike. A Saturday spent alone was more than the soul of
Pee-wee could endure, so he conquered his foolish pride and went up to
Connie Bennett's house to find out what the Elks were going to do. He
would not join in with the Elks, he told himself, but he would pal with
any single Elk, or even with two or three. That would be all right as
long as he did not foist himself upon a whole patrol. "Eight's a
company, nine's a crowd, gee whiz, I have to admit that," he said to
himself. "It's all right for me to go with one feller even if he's a
scout but a patrol's different."
It was a wistful and rather pathetic little figure that Mrs. Bennett
discovered upon the porch.
"Connie? Oh gracious, he's been gone an hour, dear," she said. "They
all went away with Mr. Collins in his auto. I told him he _must_ be back
for supper. How is it you're not with them, Walter?"
"I--I ain't in that patrol," said Pee-wee; "it goes by patrols. Anyway
I'm sorry I troubled you."
He turned and went down the steps and picking up a stick drew it across
the slats of a fence as he went up the street. The outlandish noise
seemed to act as a balm to his disappointment and to keep him company.