THE MISSIONARY
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superseded every other interest and like the true missionary he did not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'd _you_ know 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.
"_Sure_ I 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; "anyway _I_ do--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 be _sure_ to 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.