Percy Keese Fitzhugh

“ The old-fashioned porch commanded a view of mountains extending afar until the rugged profusion was tinged with the sky’s gray and seemed to merge in the horizon. Not a house was there to be seen in all that wild expanse. Once a day a train of smoke crept across above the wooded lowland near at hand, and the cheerful whistle of the locomotive could be heard echoing among the hills. Often, as she sat upon the funny, rickety little porch, Hope Stillmore wondered what would happen if she were to start out and go straight across all those wooded mountains. ”

“ Every auto in the village (and nine tenths of them were Fords) was decorated and filled with city folk in holiday spirit and attire. Wheelbarrows and bicycles, too, were pressed into service. Youths on draped stilts strutted about, waiting. A thriving business was going on in candy and lemonade. Flags and hotel pennants were everywhere. One bicycle with a bathtub conveyance beside it was occupied by a child in the briefest of bathing customs, waving soap and towel.
It must be confessed that the irrepressible Pee-wee felt a little chagrin amid this motley assemblage. ”

“ It was very amusing to see these two sitting side by side on the fender, dangling their legs, with apparently not the slightest curiosity about where they were going.
“That’s one thing I don’t like about the Earth,” said Ray; “it travels in an orbit; you know just where you’re going. Otherwise I like it.”
“Oh, the Earth isn’t so bad,” said Fuller. “You’re crazy!” Pee-wee shouted. “Railroads go to places; everything goes to places. You have to know where you’re going.”
“No you don’t, Scout,” said Fuller in a way of thoughtful consideration. “The way we go on a vacation is the best way. ”

“ A scout is resourceful.
Pee-wee never had to pause and consider which thing he preferred, since he preferred all things. The place that he liked best to go was everywhere. The thing that he liked best to do was everything. Broadly speaking, the thing which he liked best to eat was food. And speaking more particularly the food that he liked best was dessert. But it might be said that he ate everything; adventures, hairbreadth escapes, colossal enterprises, dark mysteries—he ate them alive. ”

“ In the fulness of time they made Hickson Crossing, then Hawley’s, then passed the road where the phantom station had hidden coyly in the fog, and were then on the home stretch for Snailsdale Manor. They were, in point of fact, nearer to the farm than they had been at Westover, but Ray and Fuller arose, stretched themselves, brushed off their clothing and glanced out of the car window as if they were beholding a strange and foreign scene. This greatly exasperated Pee-wee.
“This is a pleasant looking place,” said Fuller; “I hope the natives will prove friendly.” ”

“ On Friday Everett Braggen, apparently committed to long trousers for good and all, arrived in his Ford and Hope and her mother bade farewell to Goodale Manor Farm. Poor Mrs. Stillmore seemed quite overcome, as she kissed kind old Mrs. Goodale again and again. “Hope is simply going to dance off the nine pounds that she gained here, that’s what I tell her,” the good lady whispered. “But there’s no holding her down; she always has her own way. Her father has spoiled her.”
“Don’t you blame the men now,” said Mr. Goodale cheerily; “girls will be girls and so will boys, as the fellers says.” ”

“ The distant mountains could not be seen for the mist; a kind of gauze curtain seemed to hang in the countryside subduing everything to its own dull shade. It was not a penetrating rain, it was hardly a rain at all, but a kind of gossamer wrap which covered everything. The clammy dampness stood out in little beads all over the boy’s clothing. One could draw one’s finger through it and leave a mark, as in an area of dust. The decorations wilted under this all pervading moisture and the gay rosettes dropped in despair. But the colors did not run.
Neither did the oxen. ”

“ The engineer and the conductor were all there was to the train crew and there was a pleasant air of family familiarity between them and the few lounging passengers bound for Snailsdale Manor, all calling each other by their first names.
The engineer, glancing backward, shot remarks about the crops to the occupants of the baggage compartment who were playing checkers on a milk can. He wore old-fashioned spectacles, did this engineer, and he looked over the top of them along the track like a stern schoolmaster. His very look was enough to frighten away any cow that had ever attended school. ”

“ We haven’t got any money and we haven’t got lots of people and everybody would just laugh at our float. That boy would just laugh at us.”
“That shows how much you know about scouts,” Pee-wee said; “they’re supposed to spread laughter.”
“Well, I’m not going to have people laughing at me,” said Hope. “I’d rather come hiking in the woods like this—if I can’t do the things I want to do,” she added.
“You don’t need any money to have fun,” Pee-wee said, loud enough so the very woods echoed this magnificent truth. “As long as we have fun, what do we care what people say?” ”

“ Fuller and Ray slept peacefully enough for the balance of the night, but Pee-wee did not sleep. Skimper’s was transformed into a desert island where he had come to search for buried treasure. He would stay six months if necessary. So far as he was concerned he had voyaged a thousand miles to the desolate haunt of pirates, all for thirty-one cents. Once again his spirit rallied to the standard of Ray and Fuller. “Gee whiz, they’re right,” he said. “One place is as good as another if not better.” ”

“ Almost ashamed, his eyes sought out the float of the Snailsdale House, and there it was, a veritable rolling lawn, with his faithless partner lying in a hammock strung between two imitation trees. There were several children on the float, too, and ladies playing cards and Straw-hat Braggen (apparently faithless to his flivver) was there in all his glory. ”

“ But if our hero paused to consider this lack of spirit and cooperation he probably consoled himself with the reflection that all great inventors and promoters are scorned by the world until their triumphs have been won. In Pee-wee’s mammoth enterprises he was not unaccustomed to working alone. The well-known case of Christopher Columbus was always in his mind.
Farmer Goodale and his wife had too long prayed and hoped for summer boarders at their sequestered homestead to believe that a boy scout could perform the miracle of bringing any trunk and suitcase pilgrims to their door. ”

“ Pee-wee vociferated as they drove away from the village. “I can handle more people than that. I can handle all the fellers at Temple Camp and there are as many as three hundred sometimes. I can handle scoutmasters, too.”
He seemed prouder than if he had won the prize. Poor Simon was awed by the freedom with which his small companion “handled” these sophisticated, dressed up city folks. He felt that Pee-wee was equal to any occasion.
“You can be successful even when you fail,” Pee-wee explained to him. ”

“ Pee-wee said; “it’s a scout stunt. I bet you couldn’t do it. Gee whiz, you say it’s quiet up there; I bet I can make those mountains talk. If I shout at a mountain that’s facing another mountain they’ll both answer; that makes three voices. Only I have to shout good and loud; I have to yell. See? All I need is a lot of lonely mountains. The quieter it is up there the more noise I can make. ”

“ Pee-wee fairly shouted. “Suppose—suppose my watch should be slow?”
“I wouldn’t think them scouts would have their watches slow,” said Simon.
“Even the clock on the City Hall is slow sometimes,” Pee-wee thundered, in despair for an argument. “Do you mean to say I’m smarter than a city hall is? Gee whiz! A scout has to be resourceful and he doesn’t depend on watches. That’s why he carries a nail.”
“The nail is no good if he has a watch and it’s no good if he hasn’t got a watch,” Simon said soberly. “He can’t have the back of a watch unless he has the front of a watch.” ”

“ Pee-wee said; “but, gee whiz, not with old ladies. You bet it serves her right for—for saying you were lovely fellers—gee, I don’t say you’re not dandy fellers, but anyway all she wanted was to meet fellers, and now she can’t meet you and I’m glad of it. Do you hope we go where there’s water or where there’s mountains?”
“There you go,” said Ray, “thinking about destinations. The place I want to go to is where there’s the most fun and that’s the little town of Anywhere.” ”

“ She had had her chance to be an adventurer on a caravan and she had chosen another destination and lost out while the people down at Goodale Farm were having the time of their lives. Perhaps she began to see that if one cannot find fun in one place it is useless to search for it in another; that it is better to carry your fun with you, like Fuller Bullson and Raysor Rackette, and then it will be always handy when you want it. Don’t bother with ready-made fun, gotten up to sell, but make your own like Scout Harris.
Hope wished now that Pee-wee would remain a little longer and talk with her ”

“ It was Pee-wee’s fate in life to be accepted as a substitute for something better because he was amusing. He did not object to this because, as he said, he had plenty of fun just the same. Being small and full of enterprises entirely disproportionate to his size, he was acceptable everywhere and universally liked. Girls thought he was “excruciating” and “adorable.” Men were greatly taken with him and liked to hear him talk. At Temple Camp, where he and his scout troop spent the summers, he was called the mascot, sometimes the animal cracker. Pee-wee had not an enemy. ”

“ Then if we turn to the right we’ll get up on the hill road again. If we turn to the left we’ll get to the other road. Anyway we’re going in the right direction; if we weren’t the oxen wouldn’t be so willing to go. Home Sweet Home is the song they like best, that’s what the old man says.”
Pee-wee was rather squelched by Simon’s unobtrusive show of homely knowledge. Our scout was somewhat out of his depth here in this stifling, milky wilderness where even the friendly trees looked weird and unsubstantial. ”

“ That he himself had side-tracked the gayety from Skimper and should then go upon a great adventure and wind up at Skimper’s, seemed to him no joke at all.
“They’re crazy,” he said as he settled his head on his pillow. “If they think I’m going to stick around here for a week they’ve got another think. Gee whiz, I don’t call this having adventures. This place is dead and it doesn’t know it. I don’t care, I’m going home in the morning. If they think they can make a fool out of me, they can’t. That’s what I get for listening to them and not believing in destinations. ”

“ Goodale say there is a cave there that nobody has ever penetrated.”
“We had a narrow escape,” said Fuller.
“Do you mean to tell me you’re glad we’re going to Snailsdale Manor?” Pee-wee demanded, in utter exasperation. “You said you were so crazy about adventures! Gee whiz!”
“Scout,” said Fuller, “I said we didn’t care where we went. You know our motto. The fun is in your head—or else it isn’t. That ticket agent wouldn’t have any fun at a circus. Look at that girl pal of yours; she went after something and see what she got. We take what comes; we’re true to our colors. ”

“ Goodale and Mrs. Harris, the plan was to organize a party en route, which should loll in and about the float, to give an impression of youth and merriment at Goodale Manor Farm.
“You have to have action,” Pee-wee informed Simon, who seemed greatly edified. “It doesn’t make any difference how many decorations you have, you have to have a lot of people. So we’ll ask everybody we see to get in and we’ll start them singing and all like that. We’ll take a lot of apples and cookies and things and have them eating, too.” ”

“ Stillmore said it was roorish, a name derived from rural. The structure, which was of a familiar sort seen on farms, slanted out from its base till it reached the point of juncture with a roof disproportionately massive and heavy. The sides of the structure had slats instead of siding so that the whole business had not a little the appearance of a rolling circus cage.
It was this fact that put it into Pee-wee’s fertile brain to use a pig or a calf as a tenant of this traveling cell by way of suggesting the bounteous fare at Goodale Manor Farm. ”

“ Everett Braggen winked significantly at Hope and she smiled. Both the work and the smile were at Pee-wee’s expense.
“You ought to see the float we’re going to shoot into the parade,” said the visitor; “it’s a traveling landscape. Yours, sincerely, is going to be sitting on the lawn playing cards while we roll merrily, merrily on. The girls up at the Snailsdale House—that’s my little old hang-out—they can’t eat their meals on account of getting that float ready. ”

“ In the character and adventures of Roy Blakeley are typified the very essence of Boy life. He is a real boy, as real as Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. He is the moving spirit of the troop of Scouts of which he is a member, and the average boy has to go only a little way in the first book before Roy is the best friend he ever had, and he is willing to part with his best treasure to get the next book in the series. ”

“ The card game went on. The young Russian seemed ready to reach for his miniature coffin at the least jerk. Mr. A. Pylor Koyn continued striding back and forth in the aisle. Conductor Hink slept.
Suddenly the rumbling was more clamorous, the front car bunked against the engine, the second car bunked against the first car, the stubby little train seemed trying to hold itself back and A. Pylor Koyn lost his balance and nearly fell over the lap of the young Russian who was reaching for his violin case. ”