Brent said, “I bet Brother Abbington will be pretty hot to-day with that
frock coat of his and that high hat.”
I said, “It’s going to be a scorcher, all right.”
“Lucky for me,” he said, “as long as my mackinaw and my khaki shirt have
gone in the good cause.”
“You should worry,” I told him.
“Only I don’t look very presentable,” he said.
“Don’t you care,” I said; “we won’t meet anybody along this road.”
“It’s the least of my troubles,” he said; “what I’m thinking about is
this pesky engine. It jumps like a bull-frog; I think it’s got the pip.”
Pee-wee said, “Some engines have the sleeping sickness and they won’t go
at all.”
Then we all got to saying how we hoped that Harry and Rossie and Tom
would get the three cars to Grumpy’s Cross-roads in time so those actor
people could give their show.
“Even if we’re not with them,” I said.
“I guess we’ll be able to make connections before they get there,” Brent
said.
“Oh, boy, that’ll be some good turn,” Pee-wee said. “I bet old Grump
won’t be mad at the scouts any more; he’ll see that they’re dauntless
and—something or other.”
“Oh, he’ll see that they’re something or other,” Brent said. “I never
knew a scout that wasn’t something or other.”
“He’ll see that they do good turns,” the kid shouted. Gee whiz, good
turns are his favorite fruit—good turns and doughnuts. Even if he had a
turning lathe he couldn’t turn out any more good turns.
Now maybe you know what a tornado is. Anyway, there wasn’t any that day.
So you don’t need to worry. But all of a sudden dark clouds came and
pretty soon the sky was all black and the wind was blowing like
anything. I guess it was a cyclone, all right, only it decided not to
come that way on account of the road being so bad.
Anyway the wind kept up and blew right in our faces and after a while
Brent said, “Did you bring those old togs along, kid?”
Pee-wee said, “You mean the convict suit? It’s in the van.”
“Well, get me the coat and I’ll slip it on,” Brent told him. “We may not
be able to catch the convict, but I’m blamed sure I’ll catch cold.”
So Pee-wee went around and into the van by the doors in back and got the
convict’s jacket. I guess none of us thought there was anything funny
about Brent wearing it for a little while. Only I said to him, just
joking like, “You wanted to be a convict, now you’ve got your wish.”
“If my mother could only see me now,” he said. “Do I look like a zebra,
Pee-wee?”
We had to laugh, he looked so funny in that striped jacket; but anyway
it was a pretty lonely road and we weren’t likely to meet anybody.
Pretty soon we began passing houses, and Brent took the jacket off and
threw it back into the van through the little window in front. In about
five minutes we came to a village. I said, “Go slow or you’ll run over
it.” The village was almose right underneath the van. The main street of
that village was all black and sticky from tar and oil that they had
been sprinkling on it and pretty soon we came to the sprinkler, standing
still right in the middle of the road, with a couple of men near it.
We had to stop because we couldn’t get past, so we just sat there on the
seat, watching them. The sprinkler wouldn’t work and they were trying to
fix it. One man was sticking a piece of wire into all the little holes
along the pipe that ran crossways at the back of the big tank.
Brent said, “They’ll never fix it that way. Maybe some of those holes
are clogged up, but not all of them.” Then he called down to the man and
said, “What seems to be the trouble? Won’t she sprinkle?”
“Mixture’s too gol darned thick, I reckon,” one of the men called back.
“Well, it wouldn’t clog up all the holes,” Brent said; “probably the
feed pipe is clogged up.”
The man said, “Well, I don’t know how we’re ever going to get at that
unless we take the whole bloomin’ thing apart.”
Then I heard Brent say, under his breath kind of, “I could fix that in
five minutes.”
“Then you have to do it,” the kid shouted; “you have to do a good turn.”
“Look and see if there isn’t a turn cock on the feed pipe,” Brent called
down; “maybe it joggled shut. That sometimes happens on an auto.”
The two men got down under the sprinkler and began looking and feeling
around, but they couldn’t seem to find anything. After a couple of
minutes Brent climbed down and said, “Let’s take a look at this.” I
guess they could see that he was a pretty good mechanic, all right.
Anyhow they stepped out of the way and Brent crawled down under the
sprinkler. He lay on his back part way underneath it and we all watched
him.
“He’ll find the trouble,” Pee-wee said to the man; “he’s head of a scout
troop, he is, and he’s resourceful. A scout has got to be resourceful.
Don’t you worry, we’ll do you a good turn, all right.”
The men kind of smiled, and one of them said, “All right, sonny. So yer
fer doin’ good turns, hey?”
“Sure,” Pee-wee said; “that’s one of our rules. If anybody’s in trouble
we’ve got to help them out—no matter how much trouble it is. You see a
scout can always help you out, because he’s resourceful.”
One of those men said, “Oh, that’s it, is it?”
“Sure,” the kid shouted; “all you have to do is come to us. Even Uncle
Sam came to us when he wanted to sell Liberty Bonds; we helped him out.”
The man said, “I bet he was tickled to death.”
I said to Pee-wee, “Shut up; don’t be shouting so much about good turns.
Actions speak louder than words.”
“Words speak loud enough,” the kid yelled.
“_Good night_, you said it,” I told him.
“Even now we’re doing a good turn,” the kid shouted; “we’ve got three
more autos over on the other road and we’re taking some Uncle Tom’s
Cabin actors to the Veteran’s Reunion. We should worry if the railroad
trains don’t run.”
Jimmies, I don’t know how much more he might have told them, he’s a
human billboard for the Boy Scouts of America, that kid is; but all of a
sudden, _zip goes the fillum_, that black tarry stuff came shooting out
from all the holes in the sprinkler and Brent came crawling out from
underneath it with his trousers and his shirt all black and sticky and
his hair all mucked up with the stuff and with a big streaky smudge all
over his face.
“_Good night!”_ I shouted. “What happened?”
“I found it,” he said; “it had joggled shut, just as I thought. If you
happen to have a few feathers handy, you can tar and feather me. I did a
good turn, only I didn’t turn over and get out quick enough.”
Oh, boy, that fellow was a sight!
XIX—BRENT GETS HIS WISH
One thing about those men, they weren’t very good scouts, I’ll say that
much. The only good turn they did was to turn around and drive away.
Maybe the Union wouldn’t let them do good turns; Unions have got no use
for good turns.
First we decided that we’d stop at the nearest house, but one thing
about scouts, they don’t like to ask for help unless they have to. But
if you offer them something to eat it’s all right for them to take it.
I said to Brent, “Well, you were crazy for an adventure, now you’ve got
one.”
He said, “I don’t care about such a sticky one. I’m not exactly what you
would call crazy about tar shower baths.”
“You’ll have to cut your hair off, that’s one sure thing,” I told him;
“you’ll never be able to get that stuff out of your hair.”
“I’d like to sit down, too,” he said; “but if I did, I could never get
up again. I think the sooner I’m fixed up the better. Let’s run the van
alongside the road and get inside and see what we can do. Our friend’s
suit of clothes is still in there. After boasting about my dreams of
adventure it seems rather tame to go into somebody’s back kitchen for
repairs. I’m afraid Harry would indulge in a gentle smile.”
“He’d indulge in a gentle fit if he saw you now,” I told him.
“I say let’s not go to anybody for assistance,” Pee-wee spoke up. “We
can get gasoline out of the tank, so you can wash the tar off your face,
and I’ve got a folding scissors in my scout knife. I’ll cut your hair
for you.”
“How would you like to have it cut?” I asked him, just kidding him.
“I think I’d like it cut dark,” he said.
I said, “Well, we’ll cut it short and then if you don’t like it we’ll
cut it longer.”
So we decided that we wouldn’t depend on anybody but would act just the
same as if we were on a desert island where there weren’t any barbers
and bathtubs and things, because Columbus and Daniel Boone didn’t have
barbers and bathtubs and things.
“They depended upon their own initials,” Pee-wee said.
“You mean initiative,” I told him.
He said, “What’s the difference?”
So then I ran the machine over to the side of the road right close to a
kind of a grove and we got some gas out of the tank and Brent and I went
inside the van. We told Pee-wee to stay outside so as to keep people
from opening the doors or fooling with the car, because we were in the
village and we thought maybe people would be hanging around.
There was only one thing to do with Brent’s hair, and that was to cut it
off, because the tar was so thick there that the gasoline wouldn’t melt
it. I made a pretty good job of it with the little folding scissors in
Pee-wee’s scout knife. We managed to get most of the tar off his face
with the gasoline, but it left his face kind of all black and sooty
looking.
He couldn’t sit down or lean against anything on account of the tar all
over his clothes, so he took them off and I handed them out to Pee-wee
and told him to throw them in the grove. Then Brent put on the convict’s
suit, and he looked awful funny in it with his dirty face and his hair
all cut short.
He said, “At last the dream of my young life has come true; I am a
criminal. The only thing is I haven’t committed my crime yet.”
I said, “Oh, you needn’t be in any hurry about that.”
He said, “But it seems sort of _false_ for me to be wearing a convict’s
suit when I haven’t committed any crime. It seems like deceiving people.
It troubles my conscience. And I haven’t really escaped either. What
would you do if you were me? I don’t want to disgrace the uniform I
wear. I wish I could think of some nice easy crime. I feel nice and
clean in these things, anyway. But my conscience is black. Do you
suppose there’s a bank in this burg, and a jail? I was thinking if I
could just let myself down by a rope. Only it would be just my luck to
have a cell on the ground floor.”
I said, “The best cell for you is right in this little old van, at least
till we get out of town. You leave the rope business to Douglas
Fairbanks. If anybody in this place should see you, _good night_, Sister
Anne! And it isn’t any joke, either. Now you’ve got your wish, you’ll
see it isn’t going to be as much fun as you thought it was.”
Brent sat down on an old grocery box that we had inside the van, and,
jiminetty, I had to laugh, he had such a funny way about him. He looked
awful tough, sort of, without his hair. He said, “Well, I appoint you my
keeper. I hope I’m not such a cheap sort of a criminal as to try to
escape from a delivery van. A stone dungeon or nothing for me.” Gee
whiz, that fellow’s particular.
Just then the plot grew thicker—oh, _boy_! One of the doors of the van
opened and Pee-wee squeezed in. He had a big piece of paper in his hand.
He said, “I went up the road a little way—shh!”
I said, “I thought it was kind of quiet outside.”
He said, “Shh, look at this; it was tacked to a tree. We’re in desperate
peril——”
Brent said, “In which?”
“Read this,” the kid whispered. “I didn’t see it till after I threw the
clothes away and they floated down the brook. Dangers thicken—look at
this.” He got those words out of the movies, _dangers thicken_.
Brent and I read the printing on the paper and this is what it said:
ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD
Offered for information leading to the recapture of Mike
Donovan, alias Rinky, escaped from Indiana State Prison. Was
serving term of fifteen years for burglary and child murder.
Slender of stature. Five feet nine inches in height. Is supposed
to have relations in the east. Age about nineteen. Is known to
be a desperate character, having served terms in New York and
Pennsylvania for burglary and highway robbery.
There was some more, about who to notify and all that, but I can’t
remember the rest. Brent took the paper from me and sat there on the
grocery box in the dim light with the doors closed, reading it. It
seemed awfully dark and secret, kind of, in there.
He said, “Larceny, child murder, burglary, and highway robbery. That
isn’t so bad, is it? That’s really more than I expected. I haven’t lived
in vain.”
“You’ll live in a jail, that’s where you’ll live,” Pee-wee whispered.
“What are we going to do?”
“You ought to know,” I told him, “a scout is resourceful.”