OUR YOUNG HERO
Now it was so dark that we had some trouble finding our car, and before
we got to it, we passed a funny kind of a little shack with a high porch
in front. It didn't look exactly like a place to live in--gee, I
couldn't tell you exactly what it did look like. But anyway, it was all
closed up. As we passed it, we heard voices inside, but we were too
sleepy and hungry to pay any attention.
All of a sudden our young hero paused and, _you_ know, stood riveted to
the spot where he stood. Anyway, if he wasn't riveted he was nailed
down.
"_Listen! Hark!_" he said.
"We're harking," I said; "what is it?"
"Shh-h," he whispered and held his hand to his ear.
"What's the matter; have you got an earache?" Connie asked him.
"Break it to us gently," I said; "let us hear the worst."
"Shhh, listen!" he said. "Somebody's being killed."
"How tragic!" Wig said.
"It isn't tragic at all," Pee-wee said; "listen----it's true."
"Have it your own way," I told him.
"In that little house," he whispered, all the while going back on
tiptoe; "hark--shh."
We all followed him back, giggling, because we had been through things
like this before with our boy hero. Believe me, Dauntless Dan of the
Dauntless Dan Series has nothing on Scout Harris. In front of the little
shack we all stood stark still, listening.
"Do you hear it?" Pee-wee whispered. "It's a bitter struggle."
The first sound that _I_ noticed was a sound as if a chair was falling
over. Then I heard a man's voice say, "I'll choke you till you tell me.
Are you ready to speak?" Then another voice said, "Never!"
Pee-wee said, "Shh, what did I tell you?"
We were all pretty interested by that time. Pretty soon a kind of a
high, squeaky voice said, "Do you think I'm afraid of you--you
big----" Then it seemed as if the voice was just kind of choked off,
because there were stifled cries, sort of, and all the while a gruff
voice saying, "Are you ready to take that back? This is your last
chance--I'll teach you----" And all the while that other voice kept
crying and yelling, and it seemed just as if the person must be
struggling.
"It's a child," Westy said, all excited.
"He's strangling it to death," Pee-wee whispered, so scared and excited,
that his voice was hoarse. And just then we could hear a long kind of a
gurgle and a man's voice saying, "I'll teach you! I'll teach you!" And
then the two voices seemed to be mixed up together.
"Wait here," Pee-wee said, and off he started, pell-mell for the tent
where there was a light inside.
In ten seconds he was back with a couple of men, and shouting, "_In that
shack! In that shack! A man is murdering somebody in that shack! Hurry
up!_"
By that time we were all pretty scared, I guess. The two men vaulted up
on to the platform and pushed the door open and we stood outside looking
up over the edge of the platform. All of a sudden Westy said,
"_What--do--you--know----_"
That was all he could say. He just vaulted up himself with the rest of
us after him. And there we all stood in the doorway, only Pee-wee pushed
his way inside.
_Jiminetty!_ I almost fell in a fit, I laughed so hard. "Save me," I
said to Westy, "before I fall off the platform."
But Westy was laughing too hard to save anybody.
Right there in front of us in a little room, there was a man in his
shirt sleeves sitting on the side of a kind of a sleeping bunk. Sitting
on one of his knees was one of those big funny-looking dolls with a
black face and a big, square mouth that works by a hinge. The doll was
straddling the man's knee and one of its legs was dangling down on
either side.
"What's the big idea?" the man said.
Both of the other men were laughing so hard, they couldn't speak, but
one of them pointed at Pee-wee. Our young hero just stood there,
panting, all out of breath, and gaping like an idiot.
"I--I--eh--I didn't know you were a ven--a ven-----" he blurted out. "I
thought you were murdering somebody--I--I did."
The man just looked at him and smiled; then he began to laugh. He said,
"I consider that a compliment, my young friend; you're welcome. Sam,
tell the young gentleman he is welcome."
The big fancy doll said, "You're welcome." And, gee whiz, it sounded
just as if it came out of his own throat. Pee-wee just stood there
staring at Sam, and Sam sat there on the ventriloquist's lap, staring
very bold at Pee-wee.
"Tell the young gentleman we were having a rehearsal," the man said; and
Sam said, "We were having a rehearsal."
Pee-wee just stood there not saying a word, and gaping at Sam and at the
man. All of a sudden we heard a cat meowing right near.
"Look out, you're stepping on the cat," the man said to Pee-wee. Pee-wee
moved his feet as if he were in a trance and looked down.
But there wasn't any cat at all.
Gee, that man was a wonder.