HOPE TRIUMPHANT
“I tell you what I’ll do,” said Everett Braggen, quick to interpret
Hope’s thoughts. “I’ll take you and your mother up to town in my car and
you can see how you like the place, and I’ll bring you back again.”
“Don’t you do it, Hope,” said Pee-wee, “because don’t you know, you and
I are partners?”
“Oh, it’s so _silly_,” she said, “trying to compete with those houses up
in Snailsdale.”
“That shows how much you know,” Pee-wee continued excitedly, for he saw
the case was desperate. “Just because I’m a boy scout that doesn’t say I
wasn’t in the same movie film that showed President Harding, you can ask
anybody. And the President of the United States sent the Boy Scouts a
letter, too, and I saw a lot of famous people and I know a feller at
Temple Camp that shook hands with Buffalo Bill, gee whiz, the Snailsdale
House isn’t so much; anyway you crossed your heart.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Well, you were going to, and don’t you know how I said I was going to
treat you to ice cream after the parade?
It shows if you quit
You haven’t got grit.
That’s what all the scouts say up at Temple Camp, and anyway you can ask
any feller up there if I don’t always win, because I’m lucky—you can ask
anybody. So let’s start work, hey? And he can watch us if he wants to.”
It was characteristic of Pee-wee that with all his flaunting boasts
about his triumphs in everything he undertook, he did not mention his
real heroic act of killing the rattlesnake and saving his pal’s precious
life.
Nor, alas, did she think of that, either. Without saying a word she
arose and started toward the house. As she crossed the barnyard she
threw the hammer down in the mud. But the strip of bunting was still
over her shoulder and wound around her waist and it made her look very
winsome.
She ran up the stairs and into her mother’s room flushed with hurry and
excitement and fresh hopes.
“Oh, mother, just listen,” she panted. “There are two rooms at the
Snailsdale House and we can have them if we want them, only we’ll have
to act _right straight away_! Remember, you _promised_ we’d go up there
after you rested—if we could get rooms. There’s a boy outside that knows
little Walter Harris and he has a car and he says he’ll take us up
there. Oh, it would be just a wicked shame to miss the chance. There are
going to be _lots and lots_ of people there for August. Two _perfectly
lovely_ fellows are coming up Saturday—”
“How do you know they are perfectly lovely fellows?” her mother
inquired.
“Because they are, and there’s a _perfectly wonderful_ musician coming
and there’ll be dancing and everything. You don’t need any hat, come
just the way you are, and we’ll engage the rooms before any one else
gets them. He’s the _nicest_ boy—only we have to hurry!”
“If he’s such a nice boy I guess he can wait a few minutes,” said Mrs.
Stillmore.
“But I’m afraid some one will get the rooms— oh, I’d _just die_ from
disappointment. You know how it is up at the Snailsdale House, people
just _begging_ for rooms.”
“Well, we’re not beggars,” said Mrs. Stillmore.
“Oh, you’re just provoking!” Hope said, stamping her foot impatiently.
“You know Mr. and Mrs. Goodale won’t care a bit—they’re too slow to
care. Oh, I’m just sick and disgusted with this poky old place—even that
boy makes fun of it and I felt so _ashamed_! He’d take us out in his car
_lots_ and here we can’t even go _driving_ with the horse.”
“Have you thought about Walter?” her mother asked. “Weren’t you going to
help him?”
“Oh, it’s just too silly,” Hope said, impatiently. “You know perfectly
well that before the day of the parade comes he will have forgotten all
about the float and he’ll be doing something else. Even his mother says
he’s “_fickle_.” Hope shot out the word fickle as if she understood it
to mean something very dreadful. “I’ll speak to Mr. Goodale if you’re
afraid to,” she added, as an inducement. And as a clincher she said,
“Remember, you promised you would when you first came here. You know how
fond you are of music. You said yourself that this _horrid_ farm-boy
here drove you to _desperation_ with his accordion.”
“I didn’t call him horrid.”
“Well you _looked_ it.”
“Well, I’ll go and see the rooms if you want me to,” Mrs. Stillmore
said, resignedly; “I did tell you that I was thinking of your happiness
more than of my own. As you know I would be willing to stay here—”
“That’s just because you like Mrs. Harris and Walter. If they weren’t
here you’d _never_ be willing to stay on here. I know you
“_thoroughly_.” It was wonderful how much Miss Hope Stillmore
understood.
“If Walter Harris had not been with you in the woods, Hope, you would
probably not be alive to want to go up to Snailsdale,” her mother said
as a sort of final shot. “I’m perfectly willing to go and see the rooms
but this young man will have to wait till I have talked with Mr.
Goodale.”
Indeed the young man was already waiting.
Not desirous of wasting any more time with Pee-wee, he had brought his
Ford up to the porch and was sitting at the wheel with a very
ostentatious air. When Hope and her mother came out on the porch after
talking with Mr. and Mrs. Goodale, he nonchalantly threw open both front
and rear doors of his car by way of encouraging Hope to sit beside him.
But he was doomed to disappointment in this for she sat with her mother.
Perhaps it was because she felt that her mother might weaken and require
to be stimulated with fresh arguments.
As for Pee-wee, he sat upon the float and watched the Ford go down the
road. His friend, the rooster, was there upon the fence, and seemed to
be watching, too, as if he also could not comprehend this astonishing
turn of affairs....