DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION—AND WAR
Perhaps it was Pee-wee’s propensity for going up in the air on all sorts
of occasions that enabled him so dextrously to hand himself from the
slender, upright gate to the firmer support of the window ledge. Here he
sat for a few seconds dangling his feet and surveying the landscape in
every direction.
“Gee whiz, it’s dandy up here,” he called; “I can see way, way along the
track and way down the road, too; it’s a pamerana.”
“A which?” Townsend called.
“It’s the same as a bird’s-eye view.”
“Do you see the village of Idner?”
“I see some sort of a village or something,” Pee-wee answered; “I see a
church steeple and a kind of a building that maybe is a store; I bet we
can get ice cream cones there.” With which preliminary report he
disappeared into the tower house, presently reappearing at the window to
announce additional discoveries. “There’s a lot of stuff up here,” he
called; “there are handles to move switches with and everything. There’s
an old time-table—it says nineteen fourteen on it—tacked on the wall.
“There’s a kind of a shelf you sit at. There’s a stool here, too.
There’s a magazine, it’s—it’s—wait a minute—it’s seven years old—the
pages are all yellow—there’s a name of an article that says maybe there
might be a great war—there’s a big wasps’ nest up here, too.”
“Well, you’d better watch out or maybe there will be a great war,”
laughed Townsend.
“There’s a piece of bread up here, it’s petrified,” shouted Pee-wee;
“it’s all faded, kind of yellow. It’s dandy up here.”
“You don’t see anything of a gasoline wagon on the horizon, do you,
Sister Anne?” Townsend called.
“No, but there’s an old five-gallon tank,” Pee-wee shouted; “It’s on a
grocery box that says Lingate’s soap is best and it’s got some oil in
it. There are lanterns up here, too, a couple of red ones and a white
one and there’s a picture of an actress out of a newspaper tacked on the
wall. There’s a big spider-web, too, and there’s a wasp caught in it;
he’s dead.”
It was hard to divert Pee-wee’s inquisitive mind and eagle eyes from
their exploration of this new discovery. And indeed, even to Townsend’s
imagination, these homely, deserted memorials of a former time appealed
strongly. The little tower house was so much removed from the world as
to have some of the enchanting qualities of a desert island.
“I can hear oil splashing in it when I shake the can,” Pee-wee shouted.
“There’s an old red flag up here, too, and a picture of a prizefighter;
I guess it was on the wall but it fell on the floor; there was a
centipede under it, I stepped on him—a great big one.”
The prizefighter flat on the floor (where prizefighters so often find
themselves) and the actress on the wall hinted that the former towerman
had been a lover of the ring and of the stage.
“Take a squint up the road,” Townsend called, “How about it?”
“I’ll tell you,” said Pee-wee.
“Please do,” called Townsend.
“About a half a mile away, maybe three-quarters of a mile, is a village;
it’s right in the road. And about—wait a minute—about—about—halfway
between here and there—maybe not so much as quite half-way—_there’s some
chewing gum up here, too_, it’s hard like a rock—_there are mountains!_”
“Where is the chewing gum and where are the mountains?” Townsend called.
“Up here—there’s kind of something the matter like, along the road.
Throw me up my field-glass, it’s rolled up in my sleeping blanket with
my camera.”
“Here you go—catch,” called Townsend.
“Look out how you throw it,” Pee-wee shouted down.
“Look out how you catch it,” Townsend called.
The field-glass in its leather case went sailing accurately up through
the window but for some reason unexplained, Pee-wee did not catch it.
That is, he did not catch it in the sense of catching the field-glass.
But he did “catch it.” The entrance of the leather case through the
window was followed instantaneously by such a medley of noises
intermingled with frantic shouts that for a moment Townsend feared he
had set fire to the universe. Knowing Pee-wee’s propensity for packing
unsympathetic articles together, he called: “What was in the case?
Dynamite?”
The only response was such a chorus of sounds as might have issued from
Bedlam.
“_You knocked down the wasps’ nest!_” Pee-wee roared. “_They’re all
over!_”
It seemed to Townsend, as he stared, that there were a dozen Pee-wees in
the little tower house. Horrible thought—for surely one Pee-wee was
enough! Now a head could be momentarily seen in one window, now two
frantically waving arms in another, now a leg kicking, amid the fearful
sounds of combat. A few wasps sailed out into the open air, but most of
them stuck to their posts.
At last, amid the frantic tumult, the voice of our young hero could be
heard shouting, “_I’ve got an inspiration._” And this reassuring
announcement was shortly followed by the frantic waving of a flag of
fire amid which the legions of the enemy could be seen dispersing and
fleeing pell-mell.
“I poured kerosene on the signal flag and waved it,” Pee-wee shouted, as
the upper part of him appeared in the window all but enveloped in oil
smoke. He looked not unlike the pictures one sees of spirits. “I foiled
them!” he shouted.
“Did you get stung much?” Townsend called, laughing. He could not help
laughing.
“I triumphed over them,” Pee-wee shouted. “I got stung in three or four
places. Put some engine oil in a bottle and throw it up here, quick.
That’ll take out the information.”
“You didn’t set fire to anything, did you?” Townsend asked.
“I _foiled_ them!” Pee-wee shouted.