PEE-WEE’S LUCK
“Oh, just look, there’s a team of oxen!” said Miss Pocahontas Gamer;
“isn’t it nice and primitive? And look at the _boy_! He’s got streamers
all over his head! Oh, he looks like a circus clown.”
“I’m a boy scout,” said Pee-wee with withering scorn.
A closer approach to the dismantled and hapless float revealed the awful
truth to the bewildered little party. There, upon the primitive fender
above one of the wheels, sat Scout Harris dangling his legs, the picture
of rakish abandonment. His festal array looked like some tattered emblem
of warfare. His gala turban had utterly collapsed like some
unsubstantial house, and his small shoulders supported the patriotic and
romantic ruin. All about him hung limp and faded bunting. Poor Simon
seemed to confess his utter inability to cope with the occasion and sat
contemplating the party with a kind of bashful, amused and slightly
frightened smile.
“Leave them to me, I’ll handle them,” Pee-wee whispered.
“Good evening, Scout,” said Fuller; “or perhaps I should say _to-morrow
morning_. Whence comest thou? You look like the end of a perfect day.”
“I comest whither,” shouted Pee-wee, “or something kind of like that;
anyway I bet I don’t care about where I go as much as you do, because
scouts are supposed to be—kind of wild and reckless. We’re on our way
home from the parade.”
“Are we to understand that this is not Snailsdale Manor?” asked Mr.
Pylor Koyn.
“It’s better than Snailsdale Manor,” said Pee-wee; “and we’ll take you
to a better place than any of the houses up there. This sign up on top
tells you about the place; it’s named Goodale Manor Farm and there are
rattlesnakes there and everything.”
“Oh mercy!” said Mrs. Gamer.
“But I killed him,” Pee-wee reassured her.
“This is beginning to look good,” said Fuller Bullson; “this is more
than I expected. How slow do those oxen go? We’re accustomed to three
miles an hour.”
“They can go even slower than that,” Pee-wee boasted.
“Say no more, we’re with you,” said Raysor Rackette, jumping onto the
fender beside Pee-wee. “How about you, Cap?” he added, rather ruffling
the dignity of A. Pylor Koyn. “Will you take a chance with
Good-for-nothing Manor Farm? Come ahead, be a sport. How about you
ladies? How about you, Trotsky?”
“I go to diss blase anyvares to lay my head,” said Vociferinski.
“That’s the way to shout,” said Fuller; “hop up; you can’t go wrong.
Help the ladies up, Ray. We can eat the shingles if there isn’t anything
else there. And if you forget to stop at the house when you come to it,
Scout, it won’t make any difference. We’ll just go on till we come to
the next one. Step inside, Cap, yours is the seat of honor. That empty
grocery box was just made for you.”
“I want to sit outside on the fender,” said Miss Pocahontas Gamer.
“You’ll fall off,” Pee-wee warned her.
“I won’t do anything of the kind,” she said; “how about yourself?”
“I’m a boy,” Pee-wee said.
“Well, you’re not a very big one,” said she.
With much amusement (amid which even Mr. A. Pylor Koyn’s dignity
weakened) the party climbed aboard Pee-wee’s vanquished chariot. Mr.
Koyn, Mrs. Gamer and the young Russian sat on the camp stools and
grocery boxes inside, and the three young fellows with Miss Pocahontas
dangled their legs from two of the old curved wooden fenders of the
hay-rig.
Thus it befell that while Miss Hope Stillmore was getting ready for her
surprise attack on West Point, and preparing an overwhelming assault
upon the “two perfectly lovely fellows,” these weary but undaunted
vacationists were on their way to the peaceful scenes she had deserted.
While she buckled on her little pumps in anticipation of Russian music
and dances, Clamordinevich Vociferinski was seated on an empty soap box
(as if soap were a kind of emblem of his native land) with his little
black coffin across his knees, en route for Goodale Manor Farm. While
she was still dreaming of a proud acquaintance with the wealthy and
fashionable Koyns, A. Pylor himself was being shaken up in the very
float to which she had proven faithless! While the bus waited patiently
at Snailsdale Manor, Scout Harris had emptied the train at Mr. Goodale’s
lonely cross-roads.