TO THE RESCUE
We made the plush seats up into beds that night and, oh, didn't we
sleep, with the breeze blowing in through the windows! It was dandy.
In the morning none of us said anything about dinner. That was funny,
because most always that's the principal thing we talk about on Sunday
mornings, especially at Temple Camp. Once Wig said that he guessed the
hike around the lake through the woods would make us good and hungry,
and I noticed Pee-wee didn't say anything. He was so still you could
hear the silence.
Along about ten o'clock we saw the boat coming over. Two of the girls
were in it, and each of them was rowing with one oar. The boat went
swirling around in circles.
"That's what they call the waltz stroke, I guess," Connie said; "they'd
get along better if they had some dreamy music."
Westy gave me a sly wink and said, "If you can't do a thing, do it
anyway."
Pee-wee stood on the shore with a scowl on his face watching them. The
girls were Grace Bentley and another one they called Pug Peters. They
have awful funny nicknames for each other, girls do. They flopped
against shore about fifty feet from where they intended to land, and
they giggled as if they thought it was a lot of fun.
"This boat reminds me of a balky horse," Pug Peters said.
"It reminds me of a pin wheel," I told her.
"Oh, you needn't talk," she said; "you started to go about five miles
south and you landed eighty miles west--in your old car."
"Scouts aren't afraid of long distances," I told her; "they don't bother
with little five-mile runs."
"Is he ready?" Grace Bentley asked.
"A scout is always ready," Westy told her; "that's his middle name."
"And we're not going to let him row, either," Pug Peters said.
"Aren't you afraid he'll get dizzy?" I said. "Remember his little head
is full of recipes; two heaping teaspoonfuls to a half cup of milk----"
"Never you mind, Walter," she called to Pee-wee (because that's his real
name), "you just get right in."
Oh, boy! Laugh! I just sat down on the bank and began to roar. Pee-wee
didn't care anything about rowing. He didn't care about anything, I
guess. He was in a state of cromo, or whatever you call it. He just got
in and sat down in the stern seat as if he was going to be executed.
"Aren't you going to show them how to row?" Connie called out, as the
girls stood up in the boat, each with an oar, trying to push off.
But Pee-wee wasn't going to show them anything.
"We'll show _him_ we can do something," they said.
Pretty soon they got off and the last we saw of Pee-wee he was sitting
like a nice little boy scout in the stern of the boat. Every time the
boat swerved around in a circle, we could see his face, all sober and
scowling. The boat went every which way, one girl giving a long pull and
the other breaking her stroke and almost losing her oar. But what cared
they, yo, ho? Sometimes the boat seemed to be coming back to us, and
then we could see Scout Harris sitting there with his knees together,
looking fierce and terrible, like Billikins with a grouch. The rowing
wasn't much of a joke to him.
* * * * *
We allowed about an hour and a half for hiking around through the woods.
We didn't think it would take that long, but we knew the land was low
and we guessed that the lake might run into marshes. Safety first. But
we found a trail in the woods and it was easy going. So the way it
happened, we got to _Camp Smile Awhile_ a little before twelve instead
of at one. It was lucky for _Camp Smile Awhile_ that reinforcements
reached the bloody scene in time to save the day--I mean the dinner.
The first thing we saw was a good-sized tent and the next--oh,
_Christopher Columbus_, what a sight! Talk about the West Front!
There were girls sitting all around on the ground, simply screaming.
Close to the fireplace, that was made out of stones, stood Pee-wee with
a great big white apron on that went right down to his feet.
"It--it--would have been all right if I hadn't tripped," we heard him
say; "that could happen----"
"Look at him," I said to the fellows; "only look at him. He looks like
the end of a perfect day."
All over his hair was yellow stuff, and there was flour on his face and
all over his stockings and shoes. There were big black smootches on his
face, too. He had a can in one hand and a girls' curling iron in the
other and a big greasy frying pan under one arm.
We were about a hundred feet off, among the trees, and we just stood
there staring and trying not to scream.
"This is terrible," Westy said; "what do you suppose happened?"
"What's he doing with the curling iron?" Wig whispered.
I just leaned against a tree and shook and shook till my head ached.
I said, "I don't know what he's doing with the curling iron, but I
think--wait a minute till I can speak--oh, oh, oh--I _think_ he tripped
over the apron while he was trying to flop an omelet and the omelet came
down on his head. Don't speak to me!"
"He's suffering from shell shock or something," Connie said.
"Not shell shock, _omelet_ shock," I told him; "this is--gh--gh--astly.
I wonder what became of the ch--ch--ch--icken!"