SEEING NEW YORK
The difference between Pee-wee and Emerson Skybrow was illustrated by
the contents of their respective pockets.
Pee-wee carried with him as regular equipment a piece of chalk for
marking scout signs, the broken cap of a fountain pen used to simulate
the call of a sea-gull, a cocoon containing a silkworm (daily expected
to emerge in wingful glory but which never did), a scout jack-knife, a
compass, a nail for converting his watch into an emergency sun-dial, an
agate handle of an umbrella, a golf ball, a receipt for making
scout-scrapple (a weird edible) written on birch bark, and a romantic
implement which no scout should be without, a hairpin. Some of these
things were rather sticky from recent proximity to gum-drops; the
compass seemed almost sugar-coated.
Emerson carried in the inside pocket of his jacket a respectable leather
wallet with his name stamped in gilt upon it. In this he carried five
new one-dollar bills, a ten-trip ticket on the Erie road, a tiny
calendar, some engraved cards and a railroad time-table. This latter he
now unfolded and found that the next train on the Bridgeboro branch left
Jersey City at ten twenty-two. This left time enough for a little
sightseeing, and they lingered in the city.
Emerson did things handsomely. He treated Pee-wee to soda in a gorgeous
emporium and bought some candy as well. He seemed quite at home in this
night life of the metropolis. Pee-wee found him companionable and
generous. All the unfavorable things which he had thought about Emerson
simmered down to a certain unfortunate habit the boy had of talking well
and using words that grown people use. It seemed an insufficient reason
for disliking him that he called a “cop” a policeman.
Pee-wee felt a little under his protection as they hiked down Broadway
looking in the brilliantly lighted windows and finding free
entertainment everywhere—in the electrical displays, the vociferous
merchants who sold things (“while they last for a dime, ten cents”) out
of the leather valises which they hurriedly closed and departed at the
approach of a policeman.
Particularly they enjoyed a man on stilts with the placard of a
restaurant on his back proclaiming the delights of wheatcakes and
coffee. This man sat on the roofs of taxicabs and was followed by an
admiring throng. Emerson suggested that they sample the wheatcakes and
coffee.
Emerging from the restaurant, they strolled down to Herald Square and
gazed at the woodland camp settings in the illuminated windows of the
mammoth stores. They spoke seductively of spring, these displays. One
showed a campfire with wax scouts sitting about; the cheerful blaze
consisted of sparkling red paper crumpled upon real logs. Another wax
scout was sitting in a canoe, staring with ghastly fixity upon the
street. An open lunch basket stood on the painted ground.
“That’s just the way scouts are,” Pee-wee said. “So now wouldn’t you
like to be one?”
“They look rather stiff,” said Emerson. He was not without a sense of
humor. “You mean that scouts are dummies?”
“What d’you mean, _dummies_?” roared Pee-wee. “That shows just the way
they live in the woods when they go camping. If that scout in the canoe
wants to know what time it is, do you know how he can tell?”
“By looking at his watch,” said Emerson.
“_Naaaah_, by the stars; he can tell by the consolations—stars all in
crowds, sort of. Anyway, you’d make a dandy scout, do you know why?
Because you like to eat. Do you know how to save yourself from
drowning?”
“By not going in the water,” said Emerson.
“Nope,” said Pee-wee. “Scouts, the more they go in the more they don’t
get drowned. They have to know how to track animals too, and stalk birds
and everything. They have to sneak up on birds when the birds aren’t
looking——”
“I wouldn’t call that honorable,” said Emerson.
“_You’re crazy_!” Pee-wee shouted. “That hasn’t got anything to do with
a scout being honorable; that’s stalking. You can be—stealthy, can’t
you? Suppose you were out in the woods where you couldn’t—where you
couldn’t get any—any wheatcakes and coffee, maybe; then what would you
do?”
“I’d go home.”
“Suppose you were lost. Suppose you were going to starve. Can you tell
mushrooms from toadstools?”
“Would that help me to get home?” Emerson asked.
“It would help you to know what to eat,” said Pee-wee contemptuously.
“Gee whiz, if you’ll say you’ll join, I’ll get you into my patrol. Will
you?”
“When I lose my wits,” smiled Emerson.