Pee-Wee Harris Adrift Part 1

Pee-Wee Harris Adrift.

by Percy Keese Fitzhugh.

CHAPTER I

ALONE

When Pee-wee Harris returned from Temple Camp in the fall, he found himself a scout without a patrol. He had indulged in a colossal speculation and lost out.

Forsaking the Raving Ravens, he had set forth to mobilize all the small, unattached boys at camp into the Pollywog Patrol, but the Pollywog Patrol had proved about as substantial as the s.h.i.+fting sand.

Like the beloved Black Lake it had both an inlet and an outlet. As fast as one boy entered it another had to go home, so that conducting the Pollywog Patrol was like pouring water into a leaky pail. Pee-wee, with all his flaunted efficiency, could not be at both ends of this patrol at the same time.

As soon as some miniature scout from New York had been duly initiated, some previously initiated scout from Chicago found that his time was up, and Pee-wee's time was chiefly occupied in rus.h.i.+ng frantically about trying to keep pace with this epidemic of resignations.

At last the epidemic reached an acute stage and the Pollywog Patrol, after a glorious career of nine days, was struck a mortal blow, never to be heard of again except in the pages of history. Its three remaining members were summoned to their several homes simultaneously; one new scout was hastily secured but on learning that he could not be patrol leader he tendered his resignation and was soon called home to attend his sister's wedding. Scout Harris faced a cruel world alone.

Meanwhile, Billy Simpson had been called to Temple Camp from Bridgeboro to fill (if anyone could fill) the enormous s.p.a.ce left vacant in the Raven Patrol by the withdrawal of its enterprising genius.

"Never mind," said Mr. Ellsworth, the troop's scoutmaster, "there are plenty of fish in the sea--to say nothing of Pollywogs. Bridgeboro is full of permanent material. You have all this winter to round up a new patrol."

"Only don't round up any snow men because they melt," said Roy Blakeley, leader of the Silver Foxes; "and don't bother with shadows because you can't depend on them. And when you get a scout put a paper weight on him so he won't blow away."

"If you'll give me some of the biscuits you make, I'll use them for weights," Pee-wee shouted.

"You mean you'll eat them," Roy said. "What are you going to name the new patrol? Why don't you name it the Canned Salmon? Then they can't get away from you."

"Sure, you can have a can-opener for your emblem," said Dorry Benton.

"Maybe we'll call ourselves the Airedales because scouts like fresh air," Pee-wee said. "I got a lot of ideas."

"He thinks Airedales are named after the air," said Doc Carson.

"Sure, just the same as Pennsylvania is named after the Pennsylvania Railroad," Roy said.

"You make me tired!" Pee-wee shouted disgustedly. "You leave it to me, I'll think up a name. I know four fellers already that'll join. Maybe I'll decide to start a whole new troop and not bother with this one."

"Why don't you start a whole new scout movement?" Roy asked. "Call it the Boy Scouts of Pee-wee Harris. Discharge the Boy Scouts of America altogether."

"I'll start something all right, you leave it to me," Pee-wee announced darkly. "You think you're smart just because you write stories about your adventures and you always make out that you're the hero. You always make out that I get the worst of it. Gee whiz, if I ever write any stories, I'll get my just deserts."

"Did I ever say you didn't get plenty of desserts?" Roy shot back at him. "I gave you three helpings in every story and that's all the thanks I get. You think so much about desserts that you're going to desert the troop. We should worry."

"If I write any stories I'll write them good and loud," Pee-wee shouted.

"Open the cut-out of your fountain pen," Roy said, "and be sure to turn to the right whenever you come to the end of a page and look out you don't skid."

"Maybe I'll write my remittances," Pee-wee said darkly.

"He means his reminiscences," said Arrie Van Arlen.

"I think," said Mr. Ellsworth, "that Scout Harris will be quite busy enough forming the new patrol, and when it is formed I hope he will present it to the First Bridgeboro Troop, B. S. A."

"That's us," said Westy Martin.

"I don't see how Pee-wee can get out of the troop," Mr. Ellsworth laughed, "because strictly speaking, he has never been in the troop; on the contrary the troop has been in him, as one might say."

"_Good night_, did he swallow that too?" said Roy. And he rolled backward off the troop-room table on which he had been sitting.

CHAPTER II

SAt.u.r.dAY MORNING

Though Pee-wee was without a patrol he was by no means without a troop.

He still held his position of troop mascot and official target for the mirthful Silver Foxes. He was a whole patrol in himself and held his own against raillery and banter, his stock of retaliatory ammunition seeming never to be exhausted.

"I can handle them with both hands tied behind my back," he boasted, which is readily enough believed since it was mainly his tongue that he used.

But recruits did not flock to Pee-wee's standard. Perhaps this was partly because of the fall and winter season when the lure of camping and roughing it was in abeyance. Perhaps it was because he was so small that boys were fain to think that scouting was a thing for children and beneath their dignity.

Once or twice during the winter, Pee-wee piloted some half-convinced and bashful subject to the troop-room, which was an old railroad car (of fond memory) down by the river. Here, in the cosy warmth of the old cylinder stove, the troop played checkers and read and jollied Pee-wee, which was about all there was to do on winter nights. The visitors, unimpressed with these makes.h.i.+ft diversions of the off season, did not return, and so the good old springtime found Pee-wee still a scout indeed (with something left over) but a scout without a patrol.

And now the st.u.r.dy little missionary began to feel this keenly. Patrol spirit is usually not much in evidence during the winter; the several divisions of a troop intermingle and form a sort of club in which an odd member is quite at home. But with the coming of spring the patrol spirit becomes aroused. It is a case of "united we stand, divided we sprawl," as Roy Blakeley was fond of saying. Each patrol goes separately about its preparations for camping and hiking, does its shopping, repairs its tents, denounces and ridicules its a.s.sociate patrols, and troop unity gives way somewhat to patrol unity. This is well and as it should be.

It was very much so with the well organized Bridgeboro troop. With the first breath of spring the Ravens became Ravens, the Elks foregathered and were Elks and nothing else, and the Silver Foxes began a series of exclusive meetings at Camp Solitaire under a big shady elm on Roy's lawn.

The Silver Foxes, imbibing the mirthful spirit of their leader, were all pretty much alike, and the Ravens were thankful that they were not like them, and the Elks congratulated themselves that they had more pep than the Ravens. "The Elks say the Ravens are no good and the Ravens say the Elks are no good and they're both right; we should worry," said Roy. "There's one good thing about the Elks and that is that they're not Ravens, and there's one good thing about the Ravens and that is that they're not Elks. They both have everything to be thankful for if not more so. They're in luck."

"Do you call that logic?" Pee-wee demanded in the tones of an earthquake. "If one thing is better than another thing how can that other thing be better than the other thing? You're crazy!"

"Goodness gracious, look who's here?" said Hunt Manners, who was sorting out some fish-hooks. "The whole Canned Salmon Patrol."

Pee-wee stood outside the tent, breathing hard after his long tramp up the hill to the Blakeley place.

"Don't you know this is private land?" Warde Hollister said, rather heedless of the possible effect of his remark.

"I didn't come in the tent, did I?" Pee-wee retorted wistfully.

"Come ahead in, Kid," said Roy. "Are you hungry? Here's some fish-hooks."

"No, I'm not hungry," Pee-wee said. He had been so touched by Warde's thoughtless remark that he held himself aloof from Roy's hospitality.

"I only came up to tell you that the thunderstorm up the river did a lot of damage; a house was struck by lightning in North Bridgeboro and a lot of trees were blown down." This was not what he had come up for, though indeed the news was true, but his pride was touched by that remark of Warde's and he would not now admit that he had tramped up there just to visit them.

"Gee whiz, do you think I don't know that eight's a company, nine's a crowd with patrols?" he said. "Do you think I don't know that?

Anyway, if I wanted to go and hang out with any patrol I'd go with the Ravens, wouldn't I? I only came up to tell you that, because I thought you'd like to know. Do you think I'm trying to find out your secrets?