RESOURCES AND THINGS
“What—do—you—know—about—that?” Warde said.
“We’re too slow for _him_,” said Hervey. “Let’s climb up on the roof
while we’re waiting.”
“Let’s not,” Brent said.
“Isn’t he the gallant little scout?” Warde said, laughing all the while.
“What do you suppose came over him?” said Brent.
“I guess he wants to show that he’s not a sharpy, that’s all I can make
of it,” I said. “He didn’t lose much time. He’ll have four cents when he
comes out.”
We all laughed, it seemed so funny. Then we all tiptoed up onto the
porch and looked in through a window that was open. I could hardly keep
a straight face to see him in there sitting at a table opposite that
flapper. His feet were up on a cross-piece under the chair and he was
studying the menu card with a terrible scowl on his face. One stocking
was all screwed around from his grand flop.
The girl wasn’t any bigger than he was. Brent said she was a flapper in
the chrysalis stage. He gave one look and turned away with his hand over
his mouth.
Hervey said, “Shall I plug him with a pop-corn ball?”
“You keep the pop-corn in your pocket,” Brent whispered.
“Don’t spoil the show,” I said.
By that time the Italian boy was standing by the table waiting. Pee-wee
looked as if _he_ should worry about the Italian boy. I think there
wasn’t anything on that card but maybe about two things, but Pee-wee
kept studying it. Pretty soon the waiter went away and came back with
two waffles on two plates and a little jar of honey. Then they started
eating.
“What do you think of it?” Warde asked.
“It’s a scene that none but an artist could paint,” Brent said.
“Keep still, don’t laugh,” Warde said to me.
Pretty soon we could hear Pee-wee telling the girl about the scouts. He
told her they have to be shivellers.
“Do you suppose she knows he means chivalry?” Warde asked us.
“Hsh, keep still,” Brent whispered. “Listen.” He caught Hervey by the
arm; I guess he was afraid Hervey was going to throw something.
“They have to be thrifty,” we could hear Pee-wee saying; “so that’s why
they always have money. They don’t need it because they can depend on
nature, but they have it because they’re thrifty. In the forest you need
a lot of lore and things like that. A sharpy, he’d starve in the forest,
but I wouldn’t.”
“Can you picture him starving,” I whispered to Brent.
“Cake-eaters, they never have any money,” Pee-wee said.
“They never treat,” the girl said.
“Sometimes they even make girls treat,” Pee-wee said. “Do you call that
being a shiveller?”
The girl said, “I should say not. I know a boy and when he took me to
have refreshments, he dropped a penny in a slot and got a piece of
chocolate and broke it in half. He called that refreshments.”
“A scout can make a light in the dark even if he hasn’t got any
matches,” Pee-wee said. “Do you know what phosphates are?”
“You mean orange phosphates and lemon phosphates?” the girl asked him.
“N-o-o-o,” Pee-wee said, very lofty like. “It’s something you can make
light with in the pitch dark. If you’re going to be a scout you have to
have a lot of resources. Nature, you have to be able to kind of boss
it.”
The girl looked as if she didn’t see how any one could do that. She
said, “If you’re bossy I don’t like you.”
“I don’t mean I’d boss you,” Pee-wee said. “I’d only boss nature. The
woods—you know—and the stars and things like that.”
“Mr. Silly, you couldn’t boss the stars,” the girl said.
“That shows how much you know about the stars being guides,” he said.
“Maybe on another planet there are scouts. Maybe there are Boy Scouts of
Mars. And maybe to-night they’re taking a hike on Mars and maybe they’re
following this earth, maybe it’s guiding them. See? Right while we’re
sitting here eating waffles maybe some scouts are following this earth.
“Maybe this earth doesn’t look bright to us while we’re sitting here
eating waffles, but just the same that’s the color of it when you get
billions and billions of miles away. Maybe it’s in their handbooks, how
do we know? Right now this minute while I’m sitting on it taking this
mouthful, maybe it’s leading them out of the woods to safety. See?”
“I think you’re just too silly,” she said.
Gee whiz, when I thought of Pee-wee sitting on the earth eating a waffle
and a lot of scouts on Mars following him around I couldn’t keep a
straight face. I whispered to Brent, “If they’re anything like him up
there they’d be following the waffle, not the earth.”
“Shh, keep still,” Brent said.
“Shiveller guided to safety by a waffle,” Warde whispered.
Just then the fat man who ran the place came sailing out through the
door with a great big trayful of waffles. I guess he was going around
the grounds selling them. “Out from under,” he said to us. He was a nice
kind of a man.
Now the way I remember it, it was right away after that Warde said, “The
earth seems to be having an eclipse.”
“What do you know?” I whispered. Because inside the light seemed to be
getting dim all of a sudden. “I hope he has some phosphates in his
pocket,” I said. It was awful funny, the light seemed to be just getting
dimmer and dimmer. “Pity the poor scouts on Mars,” I said.