I said, “Good night, that ends it for us. We can’t keep this up for
three hours and a half. There’s no use trying. We’re beaten.”
“Scouts beaten!” one of the girls said.
“Just the same way as Napoleon was beaten,” I said. “You think you’re so
smart. Maybe you don’t know he was beaten because his reinforcements
didn’t show up.”
“Don’t let’s give up,” Pee-wee shouted, just as he finished his last
mouthful of pie.
Minerva Skybrow said, “Isn’t it nice how much you know about history?”
“Sure,” I said. “It’s just too cute. But my favorite studies are the
multiplication table and the dining table. You’re so smart, maybe you
can suggest something. You don’t expect to go on eating for three hours,
do you? Even—even—General—even Foch couldn’t do that. And he’s
greater than I am, I guess.”
She just said, “Oh, is he, _really_?”
“And so is Washington,” I said. Because I was good and mad.
“You mean he _was_,” she said. “He’s dead, you know.”
“If you can get us out of this scrape,” I said, “let’s see you do it.”
She just said, “Well, of course, if you admit that your appetites have
failed you, and if you really want the Girl Scouts to tell you what is
in your _own handbooks_, I’ll remind you of the value of mushrooms.”
“Oh, is that so?” I said. “I know all about mushrooms and I can tell a
mushroom from a toadstool or a footstool or a piano-stool or any other
kind of a stool. But that’s not going to keep this blamed wagon here, is
it?”
She said, “Oh, isn’t it?”
“Well,” I said, “you’re so smart, you were always getting E plus in Miss
Harrison’s class and you wrote a poem for the High School paper and all
that, let’s see you keep this wagon here for three hours. Do you mean to
tell me you and the rest of these girl scouts could go on eating for
three hours?”
“No, but we could use our brains for three seconds,” she said.
“Maybe you think it’s easy to argue with a wop that doesn’t understand
ten words of English. What would you do? You’re so smart. What would you
do?”
She said, “Well, of course we’re only girls and we haven’t had the
advantages of a Temple Camp, and we can only eat raspberry sundaes and
banana splits. But if I were a smart, wonderful boy, head of a scout
patrol and had my face on the covers of a lot of books, and knew all
about the boy scout handbook, _I’d_ try to make this man understand that
that dark spot underneath where his wagon stood is simply _filled_ with
mushrooms. I’d try to make him understand that the _best_ mushrooms grow
in the dark and damp places. And I’d tell him (because you know scouts
know everything) that mushrooms are worth about seventy-five cents a
pound. I’d do him a good turn. I’d show him how to dig them all up so as
to get the spawn and everything, and I’d show him how to plant them in
boxes. Then he’d have two beds of them. Perhaps all that would occupy
him for the rest of the afternoon, and of course the wagon——
“But then, I’m only a girl, and I can’t _eat_ my way to power and world
dominion.” That’s just the way she talked. Honest.
I said, “Minerva Skybrow, you’ve got Joan of Arc beaten about ’steen
dozen ways. I know that about mushrooms in the handbook; it comes right
after Woodcraft. When I used to see you in Assembly I thought you were
stuck up, and I know I’m always making fun of the girl scouts. But
you’ve done us a good turn. Gee whiz, I always hated Miss Harrison,
didn’t you? Because she kept us in till five o’clock. I guess she didn’t
have any home. But, anyway, I have to admit you can play on the piano
all right.
“And another thing I know about you, too: you started taking Italian in
the Academic course. I bet you can speak Italian. I know the girl that
used to sit next to you before you went to the High School; I pulled her
on a sled once. You know the girl I mean. She was always eating
chocolate. Believe me, I have to admit that you’ve got more sense than
we have, and if you’ll help us to keep this blamed wagon out of our path
of glory till the milk train comes we’re going to give a big racket in
your honor when we get our car down to the field near the river, if we
ever do.
“Honest, Minerva, to tell you the truth, we can’t eat another thing, and
I see that what counts most in the world is brains—brains and
mushrooms. But, gee whiz, I like ice cream, too.”