CASTLES IN THE AIR
The lonesomeness of Robinson Crusoe on his desert island was nothing
compared to the lonesomeness of Pee-wee on that Saturday morning. He
might have attached himself to any of the three patrols and had a day's
pleasure, but his pride had stood in the way.
He had always been something of a free lance in the troop and been
regarded as a troop institution. But there had always been his
official place among the Ravens waiting for him whenever it suited his
wanton fancy to return like a prodigal to the fold. Now, in the
pleasant springtime with the troop divided for the summer rivalries, he
found himself quite isolated.
No one was to blame for this; a scout must be in one patrol or another,
and if all patrols are full then he must make himself the nucleus of a
new one. That is what Mr. Ellsworth had told Pee-wee.
"Gee whiz, nucleuses aren't so easy to be, that's one thing," Pee-wee
muttered to himself as he bent his aimless way in the direction of
Barrel Alley. "Maybe he thinks it's easy to be a nucleus. Nucleuses
are hard to be, I'll tell the world. Anyway I can be a pioneer scout,
that's one thing. You don't have to be a nucleus or anything to be one
of those. They don't have to bother with patrols, they don't, they're
lucky."
He ambled along kicking a stone before him in a disconsolate,
disgruntled way. He followed it wherever it went, ever and again
kicking it back onto the sidewalk; the simple pastime seemed to afford
him infinite relief. And meanwhile, glowing visions arose in his mind,
such visions as no one but a poet or a lonely boy on a Saturday morning
in the springtime could possibly have.
No one had injured him in the least, he was liked by all, he was simply
the unhappy victim of circumstances. But in a mood of heroic
retaliation against the troop he pictured himself as a pioneer scout
residing aloof in a grim tower, surrounded by wireless apparatus and
covered with merit badges. Scouts from all over the world would make
pilgrimages to his obscure retreat for a timid glimpse of the
mysterious hero.
The glowing vision was somewhat marred by his conception of himself
eating a huge sandwich as he looked down from his parapet upon the
worshipping throng below. Roy Blakeley would be down there among the
others, his jollying propensity subdued by a feeling of awe as he gazed
at the great scout hermit, the famous pioneer scout who sent messages
to lesser scouts the world over. They would whisper, "he looks just
like his pictures in _Boys' Life_," and he would smile down on them
and . . .
_Plunk_! The pioneer scout had collided with a man on the sidewalk and
he returned to Bridgeboro with a suddenness that surprised even himself.
"Excuse me," he said.
"Certainly," said the man.
Pee-wee recovered his rock and began kicking it along the sidewalk
again. "I'll show them," he said moodily.
He was about to ascend his scout throne again and engage in the
gracious pastime of receiving delegations of common, ordinary scouts in
his dim, wooded domain when he found himself at the edge of a region
which was not in the least like the romantic wilderness of his vision.
This was Barrel Alley, the habitat of Jimmy Mattenburg and Sweet
Caporal and the McNulty twins.
Barrel Alley was the slum neighborhood of Bridgeboro and it was not
very large. But it was large enough. Pee-wee explored the crooked,
muddy, sordid street, gazing wistfully here and there for possible
recruits. But no human material was to be seen. The older boys were
playing craps in Dennahan's lot and the smaller boys were watching
them. One lonely sentinel was perched on the fence scanning the
horizon for cops. For this he received the regular union pay of a
stale apple-core.
He was an unkempt urchin with an aggressive and challenging
countenance, but he had solved several problems in economy. One of
these was the entire elimination of stockings and garters. This was
accomplished by the use of a pair of trousers with legs of such ample
diameter and of such length as to render stockings altogether
superfluous. This released both garters for more important duties,
they being tied end to end, thus constituting a sort of single strand
suspender which at its junction with his trousers in front was securely
held by a large nail. His hair presented an appearance not unlike the
negligent architecture of an eagle's nest, which is of the bungalow
type in its loose irregularity. He had not the slightest reason for
supposing that Pee-wee was equipped with commissary stores, but on
general principles he said,
"Give us a hunk of candy, will yer?"
As luck would have it, this random shot, fired at every strange boy
from the upper world, hit the mark, to his unspeakable astonishment.
Pulling out of his pocket a licorice jaw-breaker of vast dimensions,
Pee-wee sent it shooting in a bee-line at the face of the stranger.
Never before in all his checkered history had Keekie Joe ever received
any edible of any character whatever in response to his menacing
demands. He had always assumed that boys who were well dressed had
fruit or candy in their pockets. He had sometimes required them to
verify their denials by an exhibition of the interior of these
receptacles. His invariable demand had become a habit with him.
Therefore the little sugared black brick which now hit him in the eye
came as an unprecedented surprise. For a moment he did not know
whether to construe it as a propitiatory gift or a warlike missile.
"What's the matter with you, can't you catch?" Pee-wee demanded.