E-text prepared by Roger Frank and Sue Clark

PEE-WEE HARRIS F. O. B. BRIDGEBORO

Pee-wee reached out a leg to get a foot hold.

PEE-WEE HARRIS F. O. B. BRIDGEBORO

BY

PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH

Author of

THE TOM SLADE BOOKS

THE ROY BLAKELEY BOOKS

THE PEE-WEE HARRIS BOOKS

ILLUSTRATED BY

H. S. BARBOUR

Published with the approval of

THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS—NEW YORK

Made in the United States of America

Copyright, 1923, by

GROSSET & DUNLAP

CONTENTS

PEE-WEE HARRIS F. O. B. BRIDGEBORO

CHAPTER I

THE ONLY ORIGINAL

It was often observed by Roy Blakeley that whenever Pee-wee opened his mouth he put his foot in it. Unquestionably he put something in it on a very large percentage of the occasions when it was open, and there is no denying that it was open a great deal of the time; probably a hundred and twenty per cent of the time.

There was probably nothing about Pee-wee which he opened as often as his mouth, unless it was his scout handbook. And on one occasion when he opened his scout handbook, he put his foot in it with a vengeance. And thereby hangs a tale. There can be no doubt that Pee-wee knew all about scouting—oh everything. But the trouble was that he did not know all about scouts. And this was his undoing.

It is a harrowing story with a frightful ending. Scouts right and left died—laughing. As one of the girls connected with it said, “it was just killing.”

The story, as I shall relate it, begins with Pee-wee sitting on the railing of his porch, reading his scout handbook. He was glancing over the hints on camping, for he and Townsend Ripley were going to Temple Camp in Townsend’s flivver and although they would probably be not more than two or three days making the trip, Pee-wee intended to carry a commissary which would hold out for several weeks. He was not going to run any risk of being stranded in the desert wastes of Ulster County without supplies.

Pee-wee was now the “feature” of the new Alligator Patrol, of which Townsend Ripley was patrol leader. But in a certain sense it might be said that the new Alligator Patrol was a part of Pee-wee. It was just as much a part of him as his voice and his appetite, and these were certainly parts of him.

In a broad sense, it cannot be said that Pee-wee was in anything (unless it was the apple barrel in the cellar). Things were in Pee-wee, all sorts of things, patrols, troops, ideas, everything. He consumed everything that he touched. Even the Boy Scouts of America was a part of Pee-wee.

Pee-wee had deserted the Ravens of the First Bridgeboro Troop for the purpose of organizing a new patrol. That was at Temple Camp and he had organized the Pollywogs, consisting of two members who for a while submitted to his autocratic sway. But the Pollywogs became frogs and hopped away. There was too much coming and going at Temple Camp for permanent organization.

Returning to the more stable population of his own town, Pee-wee had formed the Alligators and, like the true dictator that he was, had made Townsend Ripley patrol leader. But the power behind the throne was Scout Harris.

Shortly after the formation of the Alligator Patrol (which was intended to form the nucleus of a new Boy Scouts of America) it was annexed (in defiance of international law) to the First Bridgeboro Troop and thus came under the wise and kindly supervision of Mr. Ellsworth, scoutmaster of that familiar and lively troop.

With four patrols, Ravens, Silver Foxes, Elks and Alligators, Mr. Ellsworth, that never-tiring friend of scouting, had his hands full. In the new patrol was little Joe McKinny, alias Keekie Joe of Barrel Alley, so really Mr. Ellsworth’s hands were more than full, they were overflowing.

When school closed the entire troop excepting Pee-wee and Townsend Ripley went to Temple Camp in the Catskills. The reason why Townsend deferred his going was because his parents intended shortly to go to Orange Lake, near Newburgh, to spend the summer and wished Townsend to drive them there in the flivver.

He intended then to motor on to Temple Camp, which, as all friends of the Bridgeboro boys know, is situated among the mountains five or six miles in from Catskill Landing. Pee-wee, who loved everything, above all things loved motoring, and he had lingered behind to accompany Townsend and, as he said, “show him the right way.”

“You have our sympathy,” Roy Blakeley of the Silver Foxes had said to the leader of the new patrol.

“That’s all right,” Townsend had said; “the flivver makes lots of noise and will drown his voice. Don’t worry about me, I’m all right. We’ll come rattling up to camp in a few days.”

“Maybe we’ll be there in two days,” Pee-wee had shouted.

“Don’t hurry,” Roy had answered.

“Maybe we’ll be there by Saturday,” Pee-wee had announced in a voice of thunder.

“Any time you’re passing we’d be glad to see you—pass,” Roy had said.

“Drop in some time when you’re at the lake,” Connie Bennett had remarked.

And so they had gone and Pee-wee had spent three rather lonesome days waiting for Townsend’s parents to get ready to go to Orange Lake. It was during that time that he had his great inspiration.

Pee-wee had had many inspirations; they seemed to grow wild in his brain. But this was by far the greatest one of all. And it furnished an example of how great events may flow from trifling causes. For this world catastrophe started with a gum-drop. When that fateful gum-drop hit the pavement in front of Pee-wee’s porch, it was like the famous shot at the battle of Concord, which is said to have been heard around the world.

If, with that gum-drop (several years before), Pee-wee had hit the Grand Duke of Servia plunk in the eye, the universal conflagration could hardly have been greater than it was in this momentous summer, the events of which are now faithfully to be related.

CHAPTER II

THE FATEFUL GUM-DROP

Pee-wee sat upon the railing of the porch reading the handbook and eating gum-drops. The particular gum-drop with which we are conceived was black, symbolic of the dark cloud which overhung Pee-wee. He wore his negligee scout attire. His scout hat was on the back of his head exposing his curly hair.

Upon his round countenance was the well-known scowl which was partly the result of his deep schemings and cogitations and partly the result of his defensive attitude toward the troop, and toward Roy Blakeley in particular. It was not the scowl of ill nature. Rather was it the scowl of a hero. It seemed to say, “Come on, you bunch of jolliers, I can handle you!” It was a scowl that no artist could paint. It was a tremendous scowl to be worn by such a small boy, and it was said in the troop that this was the cause of his being top-heavy and falling off roofs and fences, and diving into cracker jars and provision barrels. Certain it is that wherever Pee-wee went, he went head first.

It may have been because his left stocking was afraid of his scowl that it always shrank from it, pursuing a downward course, and the act of pulling up his stocking had become second nature to Pee-wee, so that he did it instinctively whenever he started or stopped, whether it was necessary or not.

He traveled in two directions, horizontally and vertically. When he traveled horizontally he usually went scout pace. And when he went up in the air (which he did on an average of a hundred times a day) he traveled by means of his voice, which was of such volume as to strike terror. With the exception of the inside of his head, the parts of him which were most crowded to capacity were his pockets. To say that his brain was like an attic would be doing it an injustice. Rather was it like a rummage sale or like San Francisco after the earthquake.

There is no word in the English language suitable to describe Pee-wee’s appetite. Though he carried bananas stuck in his belt like cartridges and was usually provisioned with innumerable cookies, it cannot be said that he ate between meals, since his life consisted of one continuous meal. But he scrupulously observed one intermission from eating and that was the time spent in sleeping. Ingenious though he was, and full of inspirations, he had never hit on an idea for sleeping and eating at the same time.

When Pee-wee stood upon the ground he was exactly four feet and three-sixteenths of an inch high, but when he went up in the air his greatness baffles description. When in scout negligee he always wore his sleeves rolled up which somehow bespoke his terrible combativeness. When he wore his jacket a score of merit badges were displayed instead of his bare arms. These were interspersed with campaign and advertising buttons. Upon the front of his scout hat was a lone button as large as a fifty-cent piece, advising the beholder to use Rizeman’s Yeast. Perhaps this was the secret of Pee-wee’s going up in the air so readily.

Need I conclude this faithful description by saying that Pee-wee was an all-around scout of the first class? When he held up his right hand with the three middle fingers extended, they reminded him of the three helpings of dessert which he often had at Temple Camp, and he remembered the twelve good scout laws because they were an even dozen like ten cents’ worth of licorice jawbreakers.

So there he sat upon the railing of his porch looking over the camping hints in the scout handbook and eating gum-drops. Suddenly he dropped a gum-drop, a black one, and as he slid down from the railing in quest of it in the flower-bed below, his handbook slipped out of his other hand and fell among the bushes.

He first recovered the black gum-drop, and having dusted it off, placed it where it would never again go down except inside him. Then he lifted the handbook and casually noticed that it had fallen open at pages four hundred and four and four hundred and five. These were in the section describing scout games, and, as Pee-wee glanced half-interestedly at the headings, his idle gaze was arrested by a particular heading and he read the paragraph which followed it:

RELAY RACE

One patrol pitted against another to see who can get a message sent a long distance in shortest time by means of relay of runners (or cyclists). The patrol is ordered out to send in three successive notes or tokens (such as sprigs of certain plants) from a point, say, two miles distant or more. The leader in taking his patrol out to the spot drops scouts at convenient distances, who will then act as runners from one post to the next and back. If relays are posted in pairs, messages can be passed both ways.

Suddenly, with a wild hallo, he announced to the world at large, “I’ve got an inspiration! I’ve got an inspiration! I’m glad I dropped that gum-drop, because I’ve got an inspiration! I know what I’m going to do! I’ve got a peach of an idea! Oh, boy, I know what I’m going to do!”

He did not know what he was going to do, far from it. But he knew what he thought he was going to do.

“I’m going to—I’m going to start something!” he said in the full exuberance of his new idea.

Never in all his life did Scout Harris, Alligator, formerly Raven and Pollywog, say a truer word. He was certainly going to start something.

CHAPTER III

ANOTHER INSPIRATION

“Now I know who I’ll have for a good turn guest! I’ll have somebody I don’t know!” Pee-wee shouted, entering the house.

“Is that you, Walter?” his mother called downstairs.

“It’s me, and I’ve got an inspiration,” Pee-wee shouted. “Where’s the duffel bag and things that were here in the hall?”

“Did you shut the screen door?” his mother called.

“Where’s the stuff I laid here?” Pee-wee demanded excitedly. “I left it here ready so as—

“Did you shut the screen door, Walter?”

“No,—because there’s a fly inside and I want him to get out. Where’s my camping stuff that I left in the hall?”

“It’s near your father’s golf sticks, under the hall table. Be sure to wipe your feet.”

“Are there any more cookies?”

“Not unless you left some. Have you closed the screen door?”

“Sure, do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to start a relay race to Temple Camp and the last feller’ll be my good turn guest. I want the map that’s in the coffee-pot in the duffel bag. I got the idea from a licorice gum-drop that fell down where the pansies are—”

“I hope you didn’t eat it,” Mrs. Harris called.

“Don’t you know a scout isn’t supposed to waste anything?” Pee-wee shot back.

“Well, then I think he shouldn’t waste his time packing up his things and then pulling them all to pieces again,” said his mother gently, as she appeared at the head of the stairs. The occasion seemed so momentous to Pee-wee that Mrs. Harris could not refrain from surveying the tumultuous proceedings from the top landing of the stairs. “You’re going to get all over-heated about nothing, Walter,” she said gently. “Why don’t you sit down and read a book?”

“You stick up for the handbook, don’t you?” Pee-wee demanded. “Well, that’s where I got it, so there! I put my road map in the coffee-pot, now where is it?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, Walter, but I wish you’d be careful of your father’s straw hat. Put the rug down at the corner where you kicked it up and do try not to get so excited.” She gazed ruefully down at the litter at the foot of the stairs, where saucepan, shirts, belt axe, fishing tackle, semaphore flags and every variety of preserved edibles lay in utter chaos. “Pull that can of salmon out from under the hat-rack, Walter, before you forget it. And get that can of evaporated milk that has rolled into the parlor; I can see it under the piano. And close the screen door tight; how many times have I told you—”

“It isn’t in the coffee-pot,” shouted Pee-wee; “there’s nothing there but the mosquito dope and the ink—”

“You shouldn’t put bottles like that in the coffee-pot, Walter. Suppose they should break—why, the ink might get into the coffee.”

“Lots of people like black coffee,” Pee-wee shouted, hurling things right and left and suddenly pouncing on the elusive map.

“Have you got it?” called his despairing mother.

“Yop.”

“Where was it?”

“I never thought I’d need it, that’s why,” said Pee-wee abstractedly, as he unfolded the map in high excitement. “I forgot I put it there.”

“Where did you put it?”

“It was rolled up in the sweater.”

“The sweater I told you to wear every night at camp? And you expected never to unfold—”

“Oh, look; oh, look; oh, look! Westwood’s the first place north!” Pee-wee shouted. “It’s about ten miles, and that’s just right—”

“Walter, you’re not going to walk to Westwood,” said Mrs. Harris, descending bravely into the arena. “I don’t know what your plans are but you’re not going to walk to Westwood. And you’re going to pack these things all up again before you leave the house. Do you think I want the hall stand looking like a grocery store?”

“I’ll pack them up when I get back,” Pee-wee replied.

“No, you’ll pack them up again now and you’ll pick up that great slice of greasy bacon from the rug. The idea of putting that in a shoe box! I want—”

“Listen! Listen!” said Pee-wee, munching a fig which had fallen out of an empty compartment of his writing case. “I’ve got a dandy argument—listen, I—”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Walter.”

“Listen, you want me to remember to wear the sweater every night, don’t you? Don’t you? You said you did, so don’t you?”

“I want you to pick up—”

“I tell you what I’ll do,” Pee-wee vociferated. “The thing that I like best here is doughnuts, isn’t it? You admit I like doughnuts best, don’t you? You said I could ask Martha—”

“I never told Martha to give you a whole pail full of them; why they’ll be all stale—”

“Listen,” said Pee-wee. “I’ll take them out of the pail and wrap them up in the sweater and every time I want one, I’ll have to go to the sweater and gee whiz, that means about every hour, you ask Townsend when he comes, and besides I always—always—eat one right after supper at night, so I’ll have to go to the sweater, won’t I? And that’ll remind me to put it on, won’t it? So now can I go to Westwood?”

“What do you want to go to Westwood for, Walter?”

“Listen, I’ll tell you, it’s a dandy idea.”

CHAPTER IV

THE CARLSON-BATES MEMORIAL

When Pee-wee spoke about his good turn guest he referred to a sort of small bank balance which he had standing to his credit up at Temple Camp.

Once upon a time there was a tragedy at Temple Camp; a scout lost his life in trying to save the life of a comrade. Both went down in the shadowy waters of a lake. They had both come from the same town; in fact, had been members of the same troop. The fathers of these two scouts resolved to perpetuate their memories at the camp by an appropriate memorial which should exemplify at once the idea of heroism and of comradeship. Temple Camp was full of endowments of various sorts; special privileges could not be bought but could be won. Heroism bore interest at Temple Camp.

But there was something peculiarly gentle in the idea underlying this Carlson-Bates Memorial. For it perpetuated not only the strong quality of heroism but the gentler quality of friendship. And this quality of friendship was insisted upon. It was quaint and unique because it was a living memorial. The memory of those two who had gone was ever perpetuated by the scouts themselves in a continuous exemplification of scout comradeship.

The actual monument itself was simple enough. It was a little rustic cabin in a quiet grove, removed from the turmoil of the camp. Birds sang in the trees about it and squirrels poked their inquisitive eyes in and about its interior, sometimes even availing themselves, uninvited, of its open hospitality.

Within its one rustic apartment were two comfortable bunks, a tiny library with Carlson-Bates Memorial stamped on every book, a rough writing table, a cupboard for provisions, and even a fireplace of field stones, with two primitive high-backed chairs facing it. These looked as if they might have belonged to Daniel Boone.

Flanking this rough fireplace were pictures framed in unbarked wood, one on either side, of Horace Bates and Danny Carlson, scouts who had gone down together in Black Lake.

In both of these portraits the boys seemed to be looking straight at the beholder, and it was customary when showing a visitor over this tiny, hallowed reservation, to ask him to guess which of the two pictures was that of the would-be rescuer. There was nothing on either picture or anywhere else about the spot which hinted at this, for the place was as much a memorial to friendship as to heroism. Outside was another rough fireplace, also built of field stone, and intended for cooking.

The Carlson-Bates Memorial was everything that a rustic abode for two scouts should be. Money had not been spared to make it so, but care had been taken that the power of money should not overstep itself by making the place pretentious and modern. Over the fireplace, between the portraits, was a rough-hewn board in which were burned the familiar words which had a certain pathos there, TWO’S A COMPANY. On the center table were writing paper and envelopes, appropriately coarse and ragged on the edges, bearing the heading:

CARLSON-BATES MEMORIAL

TEMPLE CAMP

Two’s a Company

Down at camp there was a rough sign on one of the trees with an arrow pointing; TO CARLSON-BATES MEMORIAL, it read. You followed a beaten path up through the woods, across a little brook, to a spot as dim and solemn and remote as any hermit’s cave. And there you were. Visitors, whose casual expectations had pictured a marble monument, were wont to pause in silent astonishment on reaching the spot. Girls usually said they could live there for the rest of their lives.

Tom Slade, camp assistant, who usually took visitors to the quaint little outpost, would snap his fingers at the squirrels and whistle at the birds while the others gazed about captivated and enraptured. Sometimes a squirrel would scurry up his khaki trousers and perch upon his shoulder and he would tease it with some morsel or other while he answered questions.

“Is it ever occupied?” visitors would ask.

“Oh yes, sometimes, but a scout has got to go some to win the privilege,” Tom would answer. Then to the squirrel he would say in his offhand way, “How ’bout that, Pete?”

“And does he live here all alone?” they would ask.

“No, he can invite a friend to stay all summer with him here. Can’t he, Pete? Two’s a company, read that? Only the friend must be some one who isn’t at camp. Pete usually steals all their food from them. Don’t you, Pete?”

“And which is the one who tried to rescue the other?” would be another query as the visitor gazed about.

“You’re not supposed to ask that,” Tom would laugh.

“But it must be known,” a girl was almost sure to ask.

“Oh, it’s known,” Tom would say. “Danny, that one on the left, he was the boy. But they were friends, that’s the point, hey, Pete?” he would inquire of the squirrel.

“It isn’t true that the place is haunted, is it?” was another question. “That colored cook you have says their ghosts come here in the dead of night.”

“Chocolate Drop?” Tom would smile. “Oh, you’re likely to hear all sorts of things from him.”

On the way back through the woods, Tom would usually be more communicative. “You know scouts have to do good turns, don’t you? Well, if any scout does six good turns, big ones, that are passed on by the trustees, he can live there for the rest of the summer and invite one other boy to spend the summer there with him. See? Provisions for two are sent up from cooking shack—the kids have no expenses. You see it’s a memorial of one great big good turn that didn’t work out, and of the friendship those two fellows had for each other.

“Let’s see, this summer it wasn’t occupied at all. Last summer a scout from Boston was up there and he invited a poor little shaver from his home town to share it with him. They lived on beans, those two. Did their own cooking mostly. Summer before that, let’s see—nobody. You see a scout has got to put over six big ones, then after that he’s got to be a friend to one particular fellow. He has to be host. Pretty good idea, huh? Private cabin, stationery, all primeval inconveniences, and everybody coming up with kodaks to take their pictures.”

“Oh, I should think it would be bliss living there,” one girl remarked after a visit to the hallowed spot, “and the idea of two’s a company, I think that’s just wonderful.”

“That’s the idea,” said Tom as they followed the trail down.

“Friendship means just two, don’t you think?” the girl asked, edging her way into a line of talk which girls delight in. “Just two, alone, together. Isn’t the idea sweet? Friendship!”

“That’s the dope,” said Tom.

“And is any one going to live there next summer?”

“Oh goodness, yes,” laughed Tom; “very muchly. I suppose I ought to be very proud, he’s a scout from my own home town in New Jersey.”

“Isn’t that wonderful! And he did six heroic deeds?”

“Good turns,” said Tom; “real ones. He specializes on those. He eats them raw.”

“Oh, and who is he going to invite up?”

“Now you’ve got me,” said Tom. “All I know is he sprang six stunts and went home with the Carlson-Bates certificate. He can invite whoever he pleases. He usually blows in about the Fourth of July; he goes off on the Fourth, they say home in Bridgeboro.”

“I should think you would be proud,” the girl said. “Is he tall?”

“Tall? Oh yes, he’s about six feet three inches or three feet six inches, I forget which. But he’s a great hero, in fact, he’s eight or ten heroes.”

“I never know whether to believe you or not,” the girl said. “Will you tell me his name?”

“Positively,” said Tom. “His name is Harris—Walter Harris.”

“Oh, how proud he must be,” said the girl. “Just to think how he’ll live up there all alone with some poor—oh, I think it’s wonderful. And his summer will be consecrated to friendship. Do you know how I picture him? I picture him as tall, and—and—sort of slender and athletic. Not exactly dignified but—you know—kind of quiet and reserved. Like a—oh, you know what I mean—like a—kind of aloof and silent. That’s the word—aloof. I picture him as being different from other boys. Isolated.”

“Oh, he’s different,” said Tom.

CHAPTER V

CHAOS AND CONFUSION

It was ten months after the conversation just recorded and the momentous summer had come around, when our hero, so tall, slender, athletic and silent, sprawled on the parlor floor near the front hall and squirmed in heroic contortions in his endeavor to reach a can of spaghetti which he had supposed was under the Victrola cabinet.

“It isn’t there,” he said; “I had two cans; where’s the other one?”

“I don’t know, Walter,” the hero’s mother was tempted to observe as she sat watching his frantic maneuverings; “you’re a boy scout and claim to be so good at tracking and trailing, I should think you could trail a can of spaghetti.”

“Cans of spaghetti aren’t wild animals,” Pee-wee thundered. “That shows how much you know about scouting. Even you don’t know what a relay race is.”

“Well, I know you’re not going to Westwood for any purpose whatever until you’ve picked up all the things you scattered about and repacked them. Suppose Townsend should come for you this afternoon. Isn’t a scout supposed to be prepared? He’ll find you off on some wild-goose chase—”

“All I have to do is to start the ball rolling,” Pee-wee said, struggling to his feet after triumphantly recovering the can of spaghetti. “Then it will take care of itself.”

“I think you’ve started enough things rolling this morning, Walter. Is that a bottle of olives under the leather chair? I never told Martha she could give you that.”

“Will you listen?” Pee-wee pleaded in dramatic despair. “Is a relay race anything like cans of stuff? Do you think I’m going to roll cans of spaghetti and things all the way to Temple Camp? A relay race is where one scout—suppose I should send a letter to—will you please listen?”

“I’m listening, Walter.”

“I’m going to choose a fellow to visit me and stay with me at Memorial Cabin, ain’t I?”

“Don’t say ‘ain’t,’ Walter. Yes, you are.”

“Well, you want to see me do it the scout way, don’t you?”

“I thought you might ask Mrs. Gardner’s son; they’re very poor—”

“I’m going to start a relay race to Temple Camp, that’s better. And the last feller, the one that brings me the letter, he’ll be the one to stay with me and have my hospital—tal—”

“Hospitality, Walter.”

“Hospitalality, that’s what I mean. I’m going to write the letter and take it to Westwood, because that’s north of here and it’s on the way to Temple Camp and I know scouts there. Then the scout I give it to will take it to—to—maybe to Haverstraw or some place like that and give it to another scout and he’ll take it to—maybe to—to—Newburgh, say—and he’ll give it to another scout that’ll take it to—to—to—to—I didn’t decide yet, but anyway he’ll give it to a scout that takes it to Kingston, and he’ll take it to another place to a scout that’ll take it to Catskill, and the one that brings it to me at Temple Camp—”

“You mean you’re going to send a letter to yourself, dear?”

“Sure, but I’ll be in a different place when it comes to me, I’ll be in Temple Camp; see?”

“I see, but it seems like a good deal of running and hiking all for nothing. You write a letter to yourself and then motor up to Temple Camp and wait for the letter. Isn’t that the idea? I think it would be better to take Mrs. Gardner’s poor little lame boy up in the car with you. You’re going to a great deal of trouble and putting a number of other boys to a great deal of trouble just to get one boy. They’re going to get all over-heated—”

“It’s in the handbook! It’s in the handbook!” Pee-wee shouted. “It’s in the handbook about relay races. You told Mr. Ellsworth the handbook is all right, so now! The fellers get their fun out of the relay race. A relay race can be thousands and millions of miles long without anybody getting tired out. In most everything that a lot of people are in, only one wins, doesn’t he? Let’s hear you answer that. Maybe each one’ll only go about seven or eight miles, and maybe he’ll win a merit badge or something doing that much. Maybe one of them is trying for his first-class badge, how do you know, and he has to go seven miles anyway. All the scouts will be crazy about it, you see! What do they care who wins? Anyway, it isn’t who wins, because the last one is the one who lands at camp—”

“And gives you the letter you wrote to yourself?” his mother asked mildly.

“Sure,” said Pee-wee, quite out of breath; “and all I have to do is to start the ball rolling by going to Westwood, because you only have to hike going the one way, so can I go to Westwood? You have to say yes, because you told Mr. Ellsworth and dad and everybody that the handbook is all right and it’s in the handbook about relay races.” He paused again, and came up for air.

During this interval his mother casually inspected the road map and the handbook. “Well,” said she finally, “all I can say is that I think you have too many schemes and you’re going to get all over-heated and—”

“Will you answer me one question?” Pee-wee demanded.

“Yes dear, what is it?”

“A scout is supposed to give pleasure to others, isn’t he? They’re all going to have fun, aren’t they? Maybe the others will even have more fun than the last one; maybe he’ll be sorry he wasn’t one of the others; see?” This seemed likely enough considering his imposed proximity to Pee-wee for the summer. “Maybe the others’ll be the lucky ones,” Pee-wee added.

“Well, you are to promise me that you won’t walk farther than Westwood,” his mother said, yielding.

“Yop, sure I will, I mean I promise.”

“And I think this outlay race, or whatever you call it, is perfect nonsense. The last boy will never get there, Walter; you’ll never see him. There are too many slips between cup and lip, Walter.”

“Not with me,” Pee-wee vociferated. Which was true enough, for the full cup always reached Pee-wee’s lips safe and sound. “You can ask Roy Blakeley if I don’t always succeed, and I can prove it by Minerva Skybrow, because didn’t I get all the eats at her lawn party?”

“I don’t want you to be always boasting of that, Walter.”

“Anyway, it shows I’m lucky, and a relay race is something scouts have to do. I could start a relay race around the world and nobody would have to get tired.”

“Well, I think it would be better, Walter, for you to talk it over with Townsend first; he’s your patrol leader.”

“He always does what I say,” said Pee-wee.

“And I think it would be very much better for you to leave half these things at home and make room for poor little Teddy Gardner in the auto. I can’t imagine why you should take that nickel tube from the old vacuum cleaner with you.”

“On account of the stars,” Pee-wee said.

“You’re not going to vacuum clean the stars, are you?”

“No, but I can put a lens in it and make a telescope out of it and study the stars, can’t I? Don’t you know scouts study astronomy? You don’t suppose I’m going to listen to music all the time, do you, just because I take some old Victrola records, do you? We can eat off those, can’t we?”

By the time he had gathered up his miscellaneous equipment and repacked it, his mother had resumed her sewing upstairs, but she called to him when she heard him go forth on his path of glory:

“Walter!”

“Yop.”

“What are you eating?”

“A doughnut.”

“Did you shut the screen door?”

“N—n—no—yop. Now it’s shut,” And he was gone.

CHAPTER VI

NORTHWARD BOUND

As far as it is possible to reduce Pee-wee’s ideas to a common denominator, they comprehended a scheme somewhat as follows. I hesitate to ask the reader to study a map in vacation time, but road maps are not so bad, and if you will glance at the crude one which I have included here, you will see that the Hudson River formed a sort of backbone to Pee-wee’s pilgrimage and colossal enterprise. The Hudson River rises somewhere or other, pursues a southerly course, and empties into the Hudson Terminal, whence it derives its name.

From the neighborhood of Bridgeboro there is a state road which runs up through Tuxedo, Newburgh, Kingston, Saugerties, Catskill and points north. It goes so far that it runs out of our story altogether, and it is a very good road except for motorcycle cops who lurk in the bordering woods. It does not run directly north from Bridgeboro but (as you may see) makes a rather sweeping curve between Bridgeboro and Newburgh. From that point north it runs pretty straight along the river. The bee-line way to go from Bridgeboro as far as Newburgh would be up through Westwood, Nanuet, West Haverstraw, and Fort Montgomery. From this latter point the hiker might (only scouts prefer not to) follow the state road all the way up to Catskill.

Now it was these towns somewhat east of the state road in its lower section that Pee-wee picked out as the points of his famous relay race. He did not intend to be autocratic in this matter and when the letter to himself was once out of his own hands, the hikers might go as they pleased so far as he was concerned. The one requirement was that each relay hiker should move northward to a town or village where it was known that scouts could be found.

Pee-wee’s own responsibility would end at Westwood, which he now set out to invade, and where he intended to let loose his contagious enthusiasm. Then he would return to Bridgeboro and, on the morrow, set forth in the flivver for Temple Camp, where he would live in austere retirement awaiting the lone, unknown hiker who would be his guest and friend.

But before we accompany Pee-wee to his own chosen terminal we must pause to scan the letter which he prepared for eventual delivery to himself:

With this official passport into the golden realm of Temple Camp, safely deposited in his trouser pocket, his scout handbook as a kind of high legal authority stuck in his back pocket, and the road map stuck in his belt, Pee-wee sallied forth from Bridgeboro eating an apple.

The last that was seen of him by any inhabitant of Bridgeboro was when a jitney driver saw him hurl the apple core at a willow tree along the road on the northern outskirts of Bridgeboro. He was then going about three miles an hour, scout pace. The jitney driver saw him take another apple out of his pocket. The weather was clear and warm, the wind north by east.

CHAPTER VII

SAID PEE-WEE—

Pee-wee knew who he wanted to see at Westwood and that was Alton Beech, a star scout, whom he had met at a scout rally in Bridgeboro. He knew him for an A-1 all-around scout, and the merriest fellow he had ever met into the bargain.

Alton Beech, as Pee-wee remembered him, had a smile that could not be washed off or sandpapered off; it was absolutely warranted. Alton had seemed to like Pee-wee, and the mascot of the Alligators was now going to draw this genial scout acquaintance into the terrible maelstrom of his enterprises. He looked for Beech in the ’phone book and was told by some one (it seemed to be a girl speaking) that Alton was mowing the lawn.

“You don’t need to call him,” Pee-wee said; “because I’ll drop around.”

“Oh, that will be so nice,” said the voice; “you’ll find him on the lawn.”

Alton Beech deserted his mower upon Pee-wee’s appearance at the low fence and came over and talked with him. They sat side by side on the fence and Pee-wee found Alton not only acquiescent but enthusiastic. “It’s a great idea,” he said, “only I don’t know who’ll take the next jump unless I do it myself.

“Let’s see your map. The next jumping off place above this would be—six or seven miles is enough for a hike, hey? Let’s see, the next place above here would be—would be—let’s see—Spring Valley. They’ve got a pretty good bunch of scouts up there, too. Then one of that crowd could take a hop, skip, and a jump up to—Haverstraw, I should say. Oh, it ought to be easy as pie. Something like passing the thimble, hey? I could go to-morrow if it comes to that.

“I know Charlie Norton in Spring Valley; he’s a fiend for hiking. I was up there one day and he hiked home with me and I didn’t want to be impolite so I hiked back with him, and he was going to hike back here with me again only his mother sent him to the store. He sticks like glue, that fellow.”

“That’s the kind of a fellow I like,” Pee-wee enthused.

“Oh, yes,” said Alton Beech, “he runs up moving stairways, that fellow does. That’s a pretty good letter you wrote, Bridgeboro.”

“It’s kind of official like,” Pee-wee said.

“I just happened to think,” said Beech, “that there ought to be some pretty good scouts up at Bear Mountain; that’s only about ten miles above Haverstraw, you know. Then there’s a boys’ camp up at New Paltz, too. There must be a lot of scouts in Kingston. Oh, it’ll be like a row of dominoes.”

“You said it,” vociferated Pee-wee. It was so seldom that any one ever gave unqualified approval of his schemes that he felt highly elated at Beech’s spirit of ready cooperation. “It was an—an inspiration,” he said.

“Some idea,” said Beech.

“How long do you think it’ll take?” Pee-wee asked.

“Oh, I don’t know; short runs are best, that’s what I think.”

“That’s what I think, too,” said Pee-wee.

“You see each scout has got to find another before he comes back—”

“Sure,” Pee-wee interrupted; “he has to show resource, that’s another good thing about it. And it’ll be a lot of fun because it’ll be kind of—you know—it’ll be kind of like a—a grab-bag sort of, because I don’t know what I’m going to get.”

“You might get a lemon,” mused Beech.

“Scouts aren’t lemons,” Pee-wee shouted. “Anyway, the one that reaches me has to take a good hike before he gets there, hasn’t he? So that’ll prove he’s all right, won’t it? Gee whiz, I feel sorry for the others, but I can’t help it, can I? They’ll have adventures hiking, won’t they?”

“Oh sure, leave it to them.”

“That’s what I say,” Pee-wee agreed.

“I was just thinking,” Beech mused, “I’ve got to make test four for the first-class badge—”

“I know that one,” Pee-wee interrupted, excitedly, “you’ve got to make a round-trip to a point seven miles away, that’s fourteen miles, and you’ve got to have a witness and you’ve got to write a satisfactory account of it when you get back; I passed that one. My scoutmaster said the hike I took was seven miles long and the account I wrote of it was seven miles long. Anyway, I believe in giving good measure, don’t you?”

“Sure thing. I was just wondering when you showed up whether going round and round and round with a lawn-mower would be a round-trip—”

“It’s a teckinality,” said Pee-wee.

“I bet I’ve pushed that little old lawn-mower seven miles this morning,” said Beech, “and you see that way I don’t have to make a trip seven miles and back, because I’m always back; it’s a good idea. Do you think I could get away with that?”

“Nnnnooo!” with the authority of one who knew the scout law. “Because how about a witness?”

“I thought of that,” said Beech; “there’s a hop-toad on the lawn, I’ve passed him a dozen times; he must have seen everything.”

“It’s got to be a brother scout,” Pee-wee said; “hop-toads don’t count. Anyway, you really don’t have to have a witness.”

“Sure of that?”

“Sure, I’m sure,” said Pee-wee.

“Well then,” said Beech, “why couldn’t I take care of the first relay, seven miles and back? I’ll trot up to Haverstraw and give them good measure.”

“Gee whiz,” said Pee-wee, “I like you. I wish you were going to be at Temple Camp.”

“I’m on the wrong end of the line,” said Beech. “I bet that’s a pretty nifty place up there. Bathing and everything?”

“Bathing?” shouted Pee-wee. “You said it! Bathing and boating and fishing and stalking and tracking and everything. And the cabin where I’m going to live—Memorial Cabin—it’s about a half a mile from the regular camp, and you can live there all separated from the camp and do your own cooking and—and—and eating—”

“That must be fine to do your own eating,” said Beech.

“It’s—it’s requested,” said Pee-wee.

“What, that you do your own eating?” Beech asked.

“No, I mean it’s all by itself with nobody to bother you, sort of.”

“Oh, you mean sequestered,” said Beech.

“And Chocolate Drop—he’s the colored cook—he sends stuff up for two all through the season. You can cook it yourself if you want to. That’s the way I’m going to do, because it’s kind of more wild like. Wouldn’t it be dandy if I got a feller that’s an Eagle scout, hey? I’ve got a patrol, the Alligators, only I’m not going to stay with them this summer. I’m going up to-morrow in an auto with my patrol leader.”

“That isn’t very wild like, is it?” Beech asked innocently.

“In an old Ford it is,” Pee-wee said. “I wouldn’t ride in a Packard, because nothing ever happens to Packards—Cadillacs either. But it’s all right for a scout to go in a Ford, because things happen to Fords and it’s adventure. See? I’m going up to-morrow by the state road and when I get there, do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to have Chocolate Drop send up canned stuff for two, enough to last all summer, and besides I’m taking a lot of things with me, doughnuts and bacon and spaghetti and salmon and, oh, gee, a lot of things.”

“Well, I’ll start the ball rolling,” said Beech. “I’ll bang up to Spring Valley first thing in the morning and see if I can find Norton. I’ll get my first-class badge in the bargain, so don’t have any vain regrets about me. Kill two birds with one stone, hey? I dare say the last scout will come trotting in in a few days. So long, I’ll see you again some time, Bridgeboro. Hike up some Saturday in the fall, why don’t you? Ever play basket-ball?”

Pee-wee liked Alton Beech. He was attracted by the off-hand, friendly way in which Beech came over and sat on the fence with him, as if they had known each other for ages. Pee-wee was accustomed to hearing his schemes and enterprises treated with disrespectful mirth and it fired him with the wildest expectations of sensational triumph to know that his great relay race was in competent hands. It would have served his mother right if she could have seen Alton Beech fall at her son’s feet.

As he waited for the bus back to Bridgeboro, he pictured the lone, unknown scout who would cover the last stretch of country to Temple Camp. Perhaps this scout would arrive at midnight, out of the dark woods, like some Indian runner in days of yore. Who would he be? What would he look like? What exciting narratives passed from scout to scout in the long series, would he have to recount? He would bring tidings of the others and what they had done and what had happened along the way.

Of one thing Pee-wee was resolved. He was not going to say a word at Temple Camp about his great enterprise. And he was going to swear Townsend Ripley to secrecy. He would take up his abode in mysterious and solemn isolation at Memorial Cabin, explaining that his guest and comrade would shortly arrive. When he should arrive, then the sensation. He was rather sorry that Alton Beech would not be that last, lonely deputation. But anyway, Alton would improve the occasion to win his first-class badge, and that was something.

Pee-wee was not the only one who liked Alton Beech; everybody liked him. He was so agreeable and friendly and ready and accommodating. He did not jump out of his skin at every new idea as Pee-wee did. But he was always ready to try something—anything. He never objected. He was not the great inventor and organizer and promoter that Pee-wee was. He had not Pee-wee’s open mouth. But he had an open mind. The scouts of Westwood liked him immensely. All scouts liked him immensely.

That was just the trouble.

CHAPTER VIII

ENTER LIZZIE

When Pee-wee spoke about Fords he was thinking of Townsend Ripley’s Ford, and when he said that things happened to it he never said a truer word. Many things had happened to Pee-wee, but not nearly so many as had happened to Townsend Ripley’s Ford.

Townsend’s Ford had a long and checkered history extending years back prior to the time when it enters this story. It got on the downward path when it was very young, continued going down till it struck a tree and terminated its youthful escapade upside down in a mill pond.

One would say that this should have been a lesson to it, but no such thing. Within a week it had parted with one of its fenders. The life of a Packard or a Cadillac would be tame and prosy, indeed, compared with the sprightly history of Townsend’s Ford. Townsend often said that Pee-wee was the Ford among scouts. Perhaps it was because he made so much noise and things were always going wrong with him.

When Townsend’s flivver came to make its home with the Ripley family it was seven years old, minus a top, and with three fenders which looked like ancient tomato cans. In regard to the other fender, it was not. It might have been in good enough condition, only it wasn’t there. Townsend said it was the best of the four, but no one had ever seen it.

A unique feature of the car was its pair of headlights. These, to put it plainly, were cross-eyed. Their columns of light formed an X on the smooth highways. Townsend had done his best to cure this affliction but had only made it worse. The lights had a way of joggling back to their eccentric posture. Nuts, wrenches, wire and clothesline, were all in vain. Townsend’s car could not look you in the face.

Townsend had not reached the age at which a citizen of New Jersey is thought to be qualified to drive a car. His was one of those cases where a license may be secured under the requisite age, upon satisfactory proof of competency. He was just seventeen. The exact age of the car is unknown. It was undoubtedly old enough to enjoy the respect due to age. But it did not enjoy this respect—far from it.

To see Townsend sitting upright on the front seat of his flivver, utterly regardless of the mirth it occasioned, was as good as a circus. Long familiarity with the car’s eccentricities had given him a sort of magic power over it, so that it would obey him as a dog obeys its master.

Certain it is that it would never start for anybody but Townsend. And it is a fact that when he said “lay down” to it, it would stop. Some said that these words of stern command were never uttered until the engine had already made up its mind to “lay down.” If that is the case then Townsend must always have sensed its intention well in advance, for it invariably complied with his mandate.

On the morning following Pee-wee’s trip up to Westwood, the Townsend flivver rolled up to Pee-wee’s home with Townsend at the wheel, looking as if he were running a Rolls-Royce. In the rear seat sat Mr. and Mrs. Ripley. Townsend pushed the horn button but the horn did not honk. He then took the crank, which was lying on the floor, and reaching through the opened windshield struck the hood with it. Instantly the horn began to honk and would not stop honking till he hit the hood again. Townsend did all this as a matter of course.

Presently our hero, laboring under a mountain of luggage, appeared.

“Can you take all this?” he called.

Townsend would never admit that there was anything he could not carry in his Ford; if Pee-wee had appeared with a piano, his answer would have been the same.

“Sure thing,” he called cheerily; “the more the merrier.”

It required a few minutes for Doctor and Mrs. Harris to chat with Mr. and Mrs. Ripley and wish them a pleasant summer and to say, “A Ford always gets you there.”

“Yes, but it’s so outlandish,” said Mrs. Ripley; “I positively think that Townsend is proud of it. But it’s really amusing. Townsend, make it say good-by for Doctor Harris. Doctor, I just want you to listen to it.”

“Giddap!” said Townsend soberly. “Say good-by.”

As it started the car gave forth a weird noise which was not unlike the words good-by. A parrot would have to practice long to say it as well.

“Did you ever hear such a thing in your life?” Mrs. Ripley called back to Doctor Harris. “It’s a broken spring, I think.”

“I’m going to teach it to say, ‘Be Prepared,’” said Townsend to Pee-wee. “The scout motto, good idea, huh?”

There was no sign of a smile on his face.

CHAPTER IX

ADVENTURES WITH A FLIVVER

Townsend’s flivver, as he said himself, was slow but unsure and they were three hours reaching Orange Lake. Here, at a pleasant summer boarding house, Mr. and Mrs. Ripley alighted. It was funny to see with what an air of sober complacency Townsend drove up the winding private roadway and saying, “whoa,” stopped in front of a spacious veranda filled with summer boarders.

“Make it talk for them,” whispered Pee-wee.

“I’ll make it say, ‘hurray,’” said Townsend. He leaned far out of the car, rocking it somewhat, and it undoubtedly did utter an uncanny response which sounded for all the world like that joyous call.

“Make it sit up and beg, can’t you?” asked a man in a hammock.

“I’ve got an inspiration,” whispered Pee-wee; “let’s make it talk and take up collections wherever we go. Will you? We can get a lot of money that way. I’ll pass around my hat now, shall I, and then we’ll make it say ‘good-by.’”

“We don’t want any money,” said Townsend; “you’ll spoil all the fun. It talks for love, like you. It doesn’t talk for money. I wonder if I could borrow a hatchet while I’m here?” he asked aloud.

“You going to chop down your little Ford?” the genial occupant of the hammock inquired.

It seemed that a hatchet was the only implement which would reach a certain bolt and act as a screw-driver.

“Maybe it won’t talk any more if you do that,” Pee-wee warned.

“Oh, yes, it’ll sing for a while now,” said Townsend. And so it did, a weird oriental tune, for eight or ten miles till they stopped to get gasoline. This was at a little supply station in a shack and the proprietor of the establishment could not be found. After wandering about, and whistling and calling, Townsend decided to go on to the next place.

“Have we got enough gas?” Pee-wee asked concernedly.

“I don’t know where the next place is,” Townsend said. “What do you mean by enough?”

As Pee-wee never had enough of anything himself he was not able, when put to it, to say just what was meant by that word.