Now as long as you couldn’t be there to have any of the eats there’s no
use telling you about it. Because a scout is supposed to be kind.
Anyway, I wouldn’t want you to buy this story just because refreshments
go with it. Because actions speak louder than frankfurters and pie and
things, but, anyway, Tony came across just as I said he would. And that
was when the plot began to get thicker.
We had running matches and jumping matches and sulphur matches and all
kinds of games, and a lot of girls came and watched us, and Main Street
was full of people watching us.
But nobody went over to Tony’s. Sometimes scouts would kind of stroll
over that way and look at the list of things pasted on the door and sort
of jingle their money and then stroll back again. The field was all full
of people just like at a carnival, and we put boards on grocery boxes
for the girls to sit on and watch the big events. Pee-wee went over and
told the girls about how he was a martyr like Nathan Hale because he
couldn’t eat any frankfurters and things—I mean Pee-wee. And they said
he was _noble_ and that they were all on our side.
Pretty soon, _good night_, over came Fritzie from Bennett’s with popcorn
and ice cream cones and things, and everybody began buying them, and
that was too much for Tony. He wasn’t going to stand there and see
Germany conquer the world. So just then, oh, boy, Italy began getting
ready to come into the war.
I called all the scouts together and I said, “Sh-h! We’ve won the day,
only we have to beware of strategy. Tony is coming over here with a lot
of sandwiches and things in a basket. Don’t buy anything. Stand firm.
Leave him to me.”
Pretty soon over he came with a big basket under his arm, shouting,
“All-a hotta, all-a hotta, fiver de cents, all-a hotta.”
I went up to him and I said, “Have you got any soup?”
He said, “Buy-a de frank; all-a hotta.”
Everybody began crowding around and asking for soup. I said, “You
haven’t got any counter for us to eat at. Some of us want soup. Others
want soup. Still others prefer soup. Nothing doing.”
He said, “All-a fresh-a.”
I said, “I’m sorry, but we’re tired and we want to eat sitting down. We
can’t eat soup out of brown paper.”
After a while he saw there wasn’t any use trying to peddle things around
the field, so he went away and in a little while we saw him and his
brother pulling down the boards from underneath the wagon. Oh, boy, but
weren’t we glad! He wasn’t going to miss that chance. I guess he knew
what we wanted all right. All the scouts began shouting, “_We’ve won,
we’ve won!_” And the fellows in my troop went around telling all the
others how they had done us a good turn. They all began calling me
General Blakeley because I had managed it.
But one thing, girls are smarter than fellows, I have to admit that.
Just you wait and see. Because something terrible is going to happen.
Pretty soon Tony’s old lunch wagon came lumbering over toward us. There
were about seven or eight men pushing it and Tony was holding onto the
shaft to steer it. When we saw that, we all began shouting and yelling
and a scout from East Bridgeboro jumped up on a grocery box and tied his
scarf on the end of his scout staff and began calling:
“Hurrah, for General Blakeley! Hurrah for the young Napoleon of
Bridgeboro! Three cheers for the hero of the battle of Downing’s lot!
All hail the conqueror of Tony Spaghetti! Three cheers for the greatest
strategist of the age! _The car shall pass!_”
Believe me, we didn’t do a thing but lay waste to that conquered
territory! I bought three frankfurters to start. Vic Norris bought two
slices of lemon pie, just to begin. Dorry Benton bought a whole cake.
The counter inside that wagon was lined with victorious scouts, and
others were waiting outside for their turns. Our young hero was opening
his program with a ham sandwich and a piece of custard pie, and a cup of
coffee. That was just the prologue.
Pretty soon over came the girls and one of them wanted to know what we
were all shouting about. I know that girl; she’s Professor Skybrow’s
daughter and she wears big spectacles. She’s too smart to live, that
girl is. She was in my class last term and she took all the merits in
sight. She’d have taken the whole school if it hadn’t been fastened
down.
Pee-wee went up to her and tried to speak. He was trying to hold his cup
of coffee and sandwich and his pie in two hands, and there was custard
all over his face. He looked as if he’d been through a war.
“We’ve—we’ve won the war,” he was trying to say. “Roy Blakeley planned
the whole thing—he——”
“I’m the modern Napoleon,” I said. “I’ve got General Pershing tearing
his hair.”
She said, “Did you ever study the battle of Waterloo?”
I said, “This is the battle of coffeeloo. We like that better than
water. Will you have a piece of pie?”
She just stared at me and said, “And you consider yourself a
strategist!”
“He’s—he’s the great mil—mil——” Pee-wee began, trying to talk and
eat a piece of pie at the same time. “He’s the greatest military genius
of the age.”
She just looked through those big glasses, very smart and superior like,
and she said, “If _I_ were a general I wouldn’t be so stupid as to
forget all about my reinforcements.”
“W-a-a—what d’ y’ mean—reinforcements?” Pee-wee blurted out, while the
coffee and custard were trickling down off his chin. “Wha’ d’ y’ mean?”
She just said, “When is that train going to arrive that you are waiting
for?”
“At exactly four-sixty—five o’clock,” I told her.
She said, “Well, then, Mr. Smarty, you timed your battle wrong. You made
a blunder——”
“The pleasure is mine,” I said.
“And in order to hold this wagon here and keep the track clear till your
friend Mr. Jenson comes, you have got to keep on eating for exactly two
hours and forty minutes. If you can hold the fort that long you can move
your car. _But you’ll have to keep eating all the time._”
There was a dead silence.
“We—can—d-d-d-wit,” Pee-wee managed to blurt out, all the while
spilling his coffee and munching his pie. “Scoutscam——”
Good night! I just stood there, and that girl kept looking right at me
through those big glasses. She got ninety-nine in arithmetic, that girl
did, and she wrote a poem that was in the newspaper, too.
Then she said, “You see, General Napoleon, you didn’t figure your
campaign properly. If you had gotten the Girl Scouts to help you,
perhaps you wouldn’t have found yourselves in this ghastly predicament.”
Those are just the words she used—_ghastly predicament_.