Pee-Wee Harris Adrift Part 13

"Listen," said Minerva, "I have a perfectly _marvellous_ idea."

She sat down on the grocery box and in her joy and excitement fairly drowned out Pee-wee who was struggling with a vehement running narrative of the day's adventures.

"Oh, it will be simply _divine_," said Minerva. "Listen--don't interrupt me--I'm going to have the refreshments served on this island.

I'm going to have the old painter's scaffold for a _gang-plank_ leading to it----"

"There are refreshments then?" Townsend asked quietly.

"Refreshments? Aren't you perfectly _terrible_! Of course there are--_oceans_ of them."

"No more oceans for me," said Townsend. "Hereafter I'm going to live on sh.o.r.e. My sailing--flopping--days are over."

"You're too funny for anything," said Minerva. "Listen, do you see that little tent? The refreshments are all in there. There's just time before the guests all come to move everything over here. I want you boys to help me. We're going to call it the _dessert island_ instead of the _desert island_. Isn't that adorable? Isn't it odd?

Everyone will go into raptures over it, you see if they don't. You'll let us use your island, won't you?"

"We'll make you a present of it," said Townsend.

"My idea," said Miss Timerson, "would be to tie it to these bushes that stick out over the water. It ought to be far enough away from the--the mainland--to be romantic. How far away do you think it should be, Mr.

Ripley?"

"The way I feel about it I think it should be at least two thousand miles off."

"Silly!" said Miss Daring. "Please be serious. Do you think about three yards would be romantic?"

"I never measured romance by the yard," said Townsend, "but I should think about three yards and a half of romance would be enough. If we have any left over we can give it to the discoverer. He eats it alive."

"And I'll tell you what I'll do," shouted Pee-wee; "it's an inspiration."

"Another?" Townsend asked.

"I'll--I'll--I'll stay on the island----"

"I thought so," said Townsend.

"And--and--I'll stand right here by the traffic sign and after somebody that's eating has had enough, I'll turn the sign so it says STOP; I'll turn it so it's facing him."

"Did you ever hear anything so absurd?" said Minerva.

"I think it would be picturesque," said Dora.

"And sensible, too," said Margaret, "because some of those scouts will just stay here and gorge themselves and won't dance at all."

"I think it's a very good idea," said Townsend; "it will relieve congestion here. A food traffic cop."

"I'll be it," shouted Pee-wee.

"Where is this romantic scaffold?" Townsend asked.

"The painters left it in the cellar," said Minerva. "Let's hurry, I'll show you where it is."

There was, indeed, just time enough to arrange this novel life-saving station with its picturesque gang-plank before the guests began to arrive.

"And this is the end of our wild adventures on a foreign sh.o.r.e," said Townsend, as he carried one end of the old scaffold across the dim-lighted lawn accompanied by the group of excited maidens; "we wind up at a lawn party. This is what the discoverer has brought us to."

"Don't you think he's just _killing_?" Minerva asked.

"More than that," said Townsend; "his hunter's stew is more than killing. Did you ever try any of it?"

"Never mind, you're going to have some delicious chicken salad," said Minerva.

The boys, under Minerva's enthusiastic supervision, tied the island about six feet from sh.o.r.e. The romantic gang-plank kept it from drifting closer in while two clothes-poles driven into the bottom of the river just below it prevented it from drifting with the ebbing tide. Pee-wee's trusty clothesline was stretched between the little apple tree and the overhanging rhododendron bushes as an auxiliary mooring and to hold the island steady.

Thus secured and free from the prosaic sh.o.r.e, the romantic isle presented an inviting scene, with the little tent upon it and j.a.panese lanterns shedding a mellow light from the bushes and the securing clothesline. The rippling water flickered with a gentle and undulating glow and inverted paper lanterns could be seen reflected beneath the surface, as if indeed the beholder could look down and see romantic and picturesque j.a.pan on the opposite side of the earth.

The scaffold, forgetting its prosy usage, was resplendent in a winding robe of bunting and on its railing where cans of white lead and linseed oil had disported hung lanterns of every color in the rainbow. To this enchanted isle would stroll dance-weary couples and famis.h.i.+ng scouts to regale themselves in this dim, detached, earthly paradise.

"Wait a minute, oh, just wait a minute!" cried Minerva in the spell of such an inspiration as comes only once in a lifetime. "Oh, just wait _one minute_."

She hurried across the lawn, returning presently with a huge, spotless ap.r.o.n with strings of goodly dimension which, in a very glow of inspired joy, she tied around the waist of Pee-wee Harris. It was necessary to shorten it by a series of pokes and pushes by which it was tucked up under its own strings and lifted clear of the adventurous feet of the scout. Nor was that all, for somewhere out of the mysterious depths of the house, Minerva had brought a starched and snowy chef's cap with which she crowned our hero.

"You be right here when they begin coming down," Minerva said, "and stand close to the traffic sign and if any boy stays here too long turn the STOP sign on him."

"And turn it on yourself if necessary," said Townsend.

"I won't let anybody eat more than about--about--five helpings.

That'll be enough for them, hey?" said Pee-wee.

"Goodness gracious, yes," said Dora Dane Daring.

"You're the steward, remember," said Minerva. "Do you know what a steward is?"

"He's--he's named after a stew," said Pee-wee, hitching up his spreading ap.r.o.n. "You leave the people to me, I'll handle them."

CHAPTER XX

GONE

The steward (or the stew, as Townsend thenceforth called him) did not attend the party. A preliminary tour of the grounds convinced him that adventures of his particular kind were not to be found there. Dancing was not in his line. Music (except the clamorous music of his own voice) he did not care for. And he did not care to hear what Mrs. Wild had to say about the Camp-fire movement.

To him the crucial part of the whole party was the eats and he lingered near them like a faithful sentinel. The artistic quality of these saved them from devastation. Those pyramids of luscious beauty could not be denied by human hands without showing the indubitable signs of vandalism. Their very splendor saved them.

It is true that he skilfully extracted an olive from the symmetrical mound of chicken salad and took an almond and a macaroon and other detached dainties that were not made sacred and secure by their own architecture. But for the most part Pee-wee was faithful to his trust.

He knew his time would come. And then, oh, then, that proud tower of interlaced sandwiches would look like Rheims Cathedral.

Thus an hour pa.s.sed and the merry throng emerged upon the lawn and made a direct a.s.sault upon the dancing platform, lured by strains of irresistible music. Some strolled about but none out of the radius of that melodious magnetism, and Pee-wee remained undisturbed on the romantic isle of eats.