THE NEW SCOUT
From the adventure just narrated you might suppose Emerson Skybrow
rather than Pee-wee to be the hero of this faithful chronicle. Such,
however, is not the case. Emerson was in truth a hero, but he was
Pee-wee’s property by right of discovery.
“Didn’t I invent him?” Pee-wee demanded in a thunderous voice of
challenge.
Poor Emerson was in for it now and the next night he went up to
Pee-wee’s house to take his first lesson in scouting and to listen to
Pee-wee’s radio.
Since the unhappy episode of the Queen Tut costume, Pee-wee and his
sister had not been on cordial terms; indeed the relation was so
strained that our hero contemplated the prospect of having a boy come to
see him not without some trepidation. He selected the following night
(which was Wednesday) because he knew that Elsie in a hastily devised
Joan of Arc costume would be absent at the masquerade. Queen Tut had
died a sudden death and in her place “The Maid of Orleans” had appeared
as a sort of understudy.
Since Pee-wee’s brief illness a reform movement had been instituted in
his home looking to the avoidance of any more holidays from school. A
feature of this brutal program was the closing of the pantry against
late raids. “This continual eating, especially at night, has got to
stop,” Doctor Harris had said.
Pee-wee knew that neither of his parents would enforce this rule and
that it would presently become a dead letter. But he feared that Elsie,
capable of any atrocity now, would spy on him and shame her indulgent
parents into making good their resolution. Pee-wee could “handle” his
mother and father, but he could not in that critical time “handle” his
infuriated sister. If she heard him go downstairs at the significant
hour of ten or eleven she would balk his project, appealing to the
powers higher up, out of pure spitefulness.
All this was easily to be avoided by inviting the new hero on the
evening of the great masquerade, and thereby other adventures ensued
confirming Pee-wee’s right to the title of “fixer.” Queen Tut was dead
but the dreadful radio still lived.
“I’m sure I should be very glad to listen in,” said Emerson politely,
“and it’s very good of you to ask me.”
Emerson was the kind of boy who voluntarily wiped his feet before
entering a house, but even this defect could not dim his glory now; he
might be a little gentleman, but he was still a hero.
“I guess every one in town has gone to the masquerade to-night,” he
observed, pausing in his encounter with the doormat. “Shall I hang my
hat here?” he added, as he stepped in.
“Come ahead up into my room,” Pee-wee said, leading the way, “and I’ll
show you some things in the handbook; I’ll show you a woodchuck skin
too. I know a lot of things about scouting. Do you know how to tell the
time if you’re out in the woods a hundred miles from anywhere?”
“By looking at my watch?” Emerson ventured.
“That shows how much you know about scouting,” Pee-wee said. “Suppose
the mainspring should break; then what would you do? You can tell time
by a nail if you know how.”
“Well, I’m in for it now,” said Emerson, looking curiously about
Pee-wee’s room. “I want to learn all there is.”
“The troop’s just crazy about you,” said Pee-wee. “But anyway, I’m the
one that discovered you. All these stones and things, and these cocoons
and everything, they all came from up around Temple Camp—I picked ’em up
in the woods. Gee whiz, we won’t bother with the radio now, hey? Because
they’re having a lecture about agriculture; that man he talks every
Wednesday night; he gets through at about nine o’clock and after that
to-night there’s a sympathy orchestra——”
“You mean symphony?” Emerson asked.
“Sure, and after that a man’s going to tell about how they catch salmon
but anyway what do I care about that? If I have a can opener, that’s all
I care about. But anyway, if I didn’t have one it wouldn’t make any
difference even if I was in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, because I
can use a pointed stone to open a can but if I didn’t have a can of
salmon I wouldn’t starve anyway; gee whiz, I wouldn’t starve no matter
what.”
It is a pity that the dissertation which Pee-wee gave Emerson on the
subject of scouting could not have been broadcasted. He found Emerson a
good listener and a likely pupil. The new boy, turning the pages of the
handbook thoughtfully, asked questions which showed an intelligent
interest and which Pee-wee was sometimes at perplexity to answer. Here
was a scout in the making indeed.
At about ten o’clock Pee-wee suggested refreshments, and, going
downstairs, presently reappeared with a dishful of cookies and a couple
of apples. And Emerson was forced to agree with Pee-wee’s pronouncement
that there was no likelihood at all of him starving.