MISSIONARY WORK
Pee-wee was a good scout, and a good scout is a good loser. He
accompanied Emerson to the city and to the exhibit of medieval art.
Emerson, having passed his time entirely among his elders, was the kind
of boy who enjoyed the things which appeal to grown people. Yet the
pictures in the exhibit seemed too much even for him.
“Gee whiz, we might have gone to a movie show,” said Pee-wee, as he
followed him dutifully about; “they have dandy ones here in the city.”
“It’s sort of dry, I admit,” said Emerson. “I don’t like it as well as
the Metropolitan Museum.”
“Is that where they have skeletons and mummies and things?” Pee-wee
asked. “I heard they have mummies of Egyptians there. Did you ever hear
of Queen Tut? My sister was going to be Queen Tut at the masquerade only
she changed her mind and decided to be—something else. Gee whiz, there’s
no pep to this kind of a show. I don’t see anything in those bowls and
things.”
“That’s medieval pottery,” said Emerson. “That one looks like a thing
the cook baked beans in,” said Pee-wee, alluding to a bulging urn. “Oh,
boy, I’m crazy about those, ain’t you? At Temple Camp we have those lots
of times.”
“I guess we’ve seen about everything,” said Emerson.
“I bet you don’t like things like this as much as you think you do,”
said Pee-wee, encouraged to find some flickering spark of boyhood in his
companion. “I bet you’d like to be a scout if you only once got started,
because I can prove it—do you know how? Because you said you liked some
of those pictures because they’re so barbarous and that shows you like
things that are barbarous and that’s how scouts are, kind of. If you
like things that are barbarous, I should think you’d like to be
barbarous yourself. If you want to join, I’ll show you how, because I’m
one.”
“I meant I enjoyed the pictures because they were so outlandish,” said
Emerson.
“Scouts are outlandish,” Pee-wee vociferated.
“I don’t think I’d care for camping,” said Emerson.
“Not even getting lost—in the wilderness?” Pee-wee demanded.
Emerson seemed to think that he would not care greatly for that either.
He was a queer boy.
“Scouts always have to have their wits about them,” Pee-wee said. “They
have to be prepared and be observant and all that. Did you ever go away
and forget to take matches? Scouts don’t care if they do that, because
they can get a light with two sticks; they don’t care.”
“If they have their wits about them, I shouldn’t think they’d forget to
take matches,” said Emerson, sagely.
“Maybe sometimes they don’t always have their wits,” said Pee-wee, “but
if you’ve got resources and—and—and forest lore and things like that it
doesn’t make any difference. See? Gee whiz, I admit you know all about
the city and subways and trains and all things like that. But anyway I
bet you’d like being a scout, I bet you would.”
“I think I’d rather have my wits about me,” said Emerson. “Sometime when
I haven’t my wits about me, perhaps I’ll join the scouts.”
“Will you promise?” said Pee-wee.
“Well, you kept your promise with me,” Emerson conceded.
“That’s because I’m a scout. See?”
“Well, if I ever lose my wits I’ll promise to become a scout,” said
Emerson, amused in spite of himself.
Little did he know that the sequel of that promise was to prove more
terrible than the sequel of the promise which Pee-wee had made.
“Absolutely, positively, cross your heart?” Pee-wee demanded.
It seemed altogether unlikely that the prim, level-headed, cultured
little Emerson would ever lapse in the matter of poise and sanity. But
Pee-wee had at least that one forlorn hope to cling to, so he clung to
it.