Percy Keese Fitzhugh

“ Harry said. “As soon as you go to sleep those boy scout watches take advantage of you. I wouldn’t trust one of them any more than I’d trust a pickpocket. How about that, Brent?”
“Oh, I’ve met some pretty honest pickpockets,” Brent said. “Of course, some of them are dishonest. But it’s the same as it is in every other business; some are honest and some are not. I’ve seen some good, honest, hard working pickpockets. What time is it, Tom Slade?”
Gee whiz, I was afraid when Tom took out his watch, because he usually stands up for Pee-wee, and I was afraid he’d let him know. ”

“ Brent said, “We represent the Archibald Abbington Uncle Tom’s Cabin Company who are touring the country, drawing laughter and tears with their excruciating and heart-rending drama, and I am in search of one of our ferocious bloodhounds. We are in partnership with the Boy Scouts of America and any one attempting to interfere with our noble effort to put an end to slavery will be punished to the full extent of the law. When we have an opportunity we will endeavor to find your convict for you. ”

“ The thing those dogs did mostly was to chase Eliza. Miss Le Farge, she was the one that played Eliza. They never let anybody feed the dogs except her, so they’d be sure to chase her.
Harry said, “Why don’t you let them chase some of these squashes away? They stand around gaping just as if they never saw a human being before. How far is Grumpy’s Cross-roads anyway?”
Mr. Abbington said, “It’s a matter of a hundred miles or thereabout.” ”

“ Gee whiz, when Harry and Brent Gaylong get together, good night!
Harry said, “The trouble with those heavy duty watches is they’re not intended for night work. They work all right in the daytime, but you see at night when they haven’t got the sun to go by, they get to sprinting——”
“Do you know what kind of a watch this is?” Pee-wee shouted at him. “It’s a scout watch——”
Brent said in that sober way of his, “That’s just the trouble. Those scout watches go scout-pace. A scout is always ahead of time; so is a scout watch. ”

“ I asked him.
“I told them we were going to the Veterans’ Reunion at Grumpy’s Cross-roads,” he said.
I said, “Did anybody ask you any questions?”
“Sure,” he said; “a man asked me if I liked gumdrops. He gave me a bag of them. Want one?”
“Well,” I said, “the best thing for us to do is to get out of this place as quick as we can. When we once strike open country, we’ll be all right and when we meet the rest of the crowd we can scrape up some civilized duds.”
“I wonder how I’d look in Brother Abbington’s plug hat just now,” Brent said.
“You should worry,” I told him; “you look bad enough already.” ”

“ I said, “We should worry about the cavalry; the only thing that this cavalry can surround is the organ on the merry-go-round.”
“I can surround a frankfurter,” Pee-wee shouted. Believe me, he could.
Harry said, “The cavalry will dismount; you’re all court-martialed and ordered to be shot at sunrise in the shooting gallery. Fall in line.”
Jiminies, I had to laugh to see that bunch trotting along after the autos, all the while munching frankfurters. I guess we were the craziest looking parade that ever was; but you can have a lot of fun being crazy, that’s one thing sure. ”

“ Harry said, “Boys, the fun isn’t in getting money; the fun is in finding treasure. Why wouldn’t it be a good idea to send a couple of thousand, say, to those little fellows back at Grumpy’s Cross-roads?” ”

“ Brent said. “I wonder if I could escape from this van with a file and let myself down with a rope?” Then he picked up a can opener and said, “Ha, ha, just the thing.”
I said, “Will you please keep still a minute, both of you? Maybe you’ve heard the scout motto, ‘Be Prepared.’ That’s just as important as good turns. How are we going to get away from this town? That’s the question. You and your crimes, and Pee-wee and his good turns, make me tired. We’ve got to look facts in the face.” ”

“ This convict is having the time of his life. That’s the life—being a fugitive.”
Harry said, “Well, I hope you get your wish.”
Pee-wee said, “You’re crazy, that’s what I say.”
I said, “Gee whiz, there’s fun enough making a cross country trip in four autos and running into a stranded Uncle Tom’s Cabin Company with bloodhounds and everything, without being sent to jail.”
Brent said, “Well, I can’t help it; that’s the way I feel. I envy that convict. I long to languish in a dungeon cell and file away the bars in the dead of night and kill three keepers and escape in an airplane. That’s living.” ”

“ How about it, Roy? Do you think we could squeeze in a good turn, just to vary the monotony? You’re the boss of that end of the outfit. It would mean driving all night instead of stopping to camp as we meant to do. Let’s look on the map and see where Grumpy’s Cross-roads is, anyway.”
I said, “The more the merrier; I don’t care where it is or how long it takes us to get there. We’ll take you. That’s our middle name, doing good turns.”
“We give shows ourselves sometimes,” Pee-wee said. “We have a movie apparatus and we give movie shows. But one thing, we’ve never been stranded.” ”

“ We want that shady little grove over there as indemnity. If we don’t get it we’re going to seize all the ice cream, all the soda water, all the lemonade, all the candy, all the popcorn on this bloody battlefield and starve you out. The Grand Army will look like Grand Street, New York, when we get through with it.”
“And frankfurters too!” Pee-wee shouted.
“There won’t be a frankfurter left to tell the tale,” Harry said; “this peaceful land will run red with red lemonade. Now what do you say?” ”

“ Harry said, “Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Kid. I happen to know something about those watches and they’re not to be trusted. The boy scout watch is a pile of junk. If that watch isn’t at least an hour ahead of time when we sit down to breakfast to-morrow morning, I’ll buy you the biggest pie they’ve got in the city of Cleveland. If your watch is wrong by as much as an hour you’ll have to do a good turn between every two stations we stop at till we get to Chicago. What do you say?”
“I won’t have to worry about any good turns,” Pee-wee shot back at him. ”

“ Pee-wee likes auto tires, because they’re the same shape as doughnuts—that’s what I told him.
There’s one good thing about our troop and that is that one patrol never gets jealous of another. If my patrol gets a chance to go somewhere the other fellows don’t get mad, because they get more to eat. Absence makes the dessert last longer. In our troop each patrol does as it pleases—united we stand, divided we sprawl. Each patrol always has more fun than the other patrols. So if everybody has more fun than anybody else, they ought to be satisfied, I should hope. ”

“ Pee-wee shouted, “A message is no good at all—even the most important message in the world is no good to the fellow that makes it——”
Brent said, “Then he’s just wasting his time making it. Before we send this message we’d better talk it over. If it’s any good we’ll keep it.”
Gee whiz, you should have seen our young hero; I thought he’d jump off the mountain. He yelled, “Do you know what logic is? You get that in the third grade. My uncle knows a man that’s a lawyer and he says—besides—anyway, do you mean to tell me——”
Harry said, “Go on.”
Brent said, “Proceed; we follow you.” ”

“ Harry was sitting on the back end of the van, swinging his legs and looking in the fire. I knew his thoughts were kind of serious, all right. He’s crazy about adventures, that fellow is. Brent took my scout knife and held it between his teeth and glared into the fire, very fierce and savage, just like a pirate. ”

“ ROY BLAKELEY’S MOTOR CARAVAN
CHAPTER I—SOME EXPEDITION!
Gee whiz, whenever I see that fellow Harry Domicile, I know there’s going to be a lot of fun. Just the same as I can always tell if we’re going to have mince turnovers for dessert. That’s one thing I’m crazy about—mince turnovers. I can tell when I go through the kitchen if we’re going to have them, because our cook has a kind of a look on her face. I can eat five of those things at a sitting, but that isn’t saying how many I can eat standing up. Pee-wee Harris can eat seven, even while he’s talking at the same time. ”

“ Pee-wee shouted.
Brent said, “Well, it’s a kind of a dim communication. Only two scouts and our trusty leader know about it. They have kept their lips sealed. I wish now, by the light of this camp-fire, to ask you one and all, if you are ready to undertake an enterprise that is fraught with mortal peril?”
“Is it fraught with anything to eat?” Will Dawson wanted to know.
“Isn’t mortal peril good enough for you?” Pee-wee shouted.
Gee whiz, some fellows are never satisfied. ”

“ I said to Pee-wee, “Shut up; don’t be shouting so much about good turns. Actions speak louder than words.”
“Words speak loud enough,” the kid yelled.
“Good night, you said it,” I told him.
“Even now we’re doing a good turn,” the kid shouted; “we’ve got three more autos over on the other road and we’re taking some Uncle Tom’s Cabin actors to the Veteran’s Reunion. We should worry if the railroad trains don’t run.” ”

“ You call the Grand Army a kind of brotherhood, but let me tell you, Major, that we’ve got that name brotherhood copyrighted, all rights reserved. When you put these little fellows off your land, you put half a million scouts off your land, and that’s a bigger army than the Grand Army ever was. ”

“ XXIV—SNOOZER SETTLES IT
That was a home-run all right I said, all flabbergasted. “You see, the only trouble is I’m not an experienced driver and these are—they’re pretty rough roads—and—eh—”
“That’s one thing about us,” Pee-wee piped up; “we’re not as smart as we look. Maybe it seems as if we could do most anything, but we can’t. That’s one thing about a scout, he has to admit it if he doesn’t know everything. He has to—he has to—eh—he has to safeguard the lives of others. See? Suppose we ran into a ditch and upset the car and everybody got killed. ”

“ XIV—PEE-WEE’S GOAT
That fellow, Harry Domicile, he’s crazy. He said, “If you like signals so much I don’t see why you send them. Why don’t you keep them?”
Will Dawson said, “It isn’t the signal we send, it’s a message; we send a message by a signal. See?”
Harry said, “But if it’s a good message why should you want to send it away? Why don’t you keep it? If it’s worth anything what’s the use of getting rid of it? A scout should not be wasteful.” Then he winked at Brent Gaylong. ”

“ I felt kind of shaky driving that van, but I knew I had to do it, and if a scout has to do a thing he does it. Gee whiz, I like things that are hard—except licorice jaw breakers. You get three of those for a cent. Even I can eat those if I have to, but I like marshmallows better. I like peanut brittle too. But anyway that hasn’t got anything to do with driving a car. ”

“ Pee-wee had the convict’s suit rolled up tight and tied with a couple of thin willow twigs. If you wet them they’re just as good as cord; you can even tie them in a knot. He carried the bundle on the end of his scout staff and he had his scout staff over his shoulder. He looked so important you’d think he had just captured the convict, too.
Brent said, “That’s what I call real adventure; escaping from a prison and beating it off to some lonesome mountain and being taken away in an airplane. That fellow has old Monte Cristo beaten twenty ways. Some convicts are lucky. I’d like to be that chap.” ”

“ Even if the telegraph operator at Grumpy’s Cross-roads should see that smudge he’d read the message, all right. But we said that more likely he’d he asleep and that scouts are always up early because up at Temple Camp Uncle Jeb Rushmore (he’s camp manager) is always telling us that the early bird catches the first worm. But, gee whiz, if I were the first worm I’d stay in bed and then the early bird wouldn’t catch me.
That’s what Pee-wee calls logic. That’s one thing he’s crazy about,—logic. Logic and Charlie Chaplin. He likes girls, too. He says they always smile at him. ”

“ Anyhow they stepped out of the way and Brent crawled down under the sprinkler. He lay on his back part way underneath it and we all watched him.
“He’ll find the trouble,” Pee-wee said to the man; “he’s head of a scout troop, he is, and he’s resourceful. A scout has got to be resourceful. Don’t you worry, we’ll do you a good turn, all right.”
The men kind of smiled, and one of them said, “All right, sonny. So yer fer doin’ good turns, hey?”
“Sure,” Pee-wee said; “that’s one of our rules. If anybody’s in trouble we’ve got to help them out—no matter how much trouble it is. ”

“ He’s head of a troop up in Newburgh and we met him when we were on a hike once. He can drive a Ford so easy that you don’t know it’s moving. He says most of the time it’s not moving. He’s crazy about adventures. Good night, when he and Harry Domicile start talking, we have to laugh. He said he’d do anything provided we got into trouble. Harry told him there ought to be plenty of trouble between Missouri and New York. That fellow tries awful hard to get arrested but he never can.
Now I’ll tell you about the other fellows. Harry was the captain—he had charge of the whole outfit. ”

“ Junkum trusted him a lot. But one thing, Harry never does anything for money. He says money is no good except when it’s buried in the ground and you go and try to find it. That’s the kind of a fellow he is. He didn’t get killed three times in France. But he came mighty near it. He’s got the distinguished service cross. He lives in Little Valley near Bridgeboro. Bridgeboro is my town. I don’t mean I own it. Harry’s got a dandy Cadillac car of his own. He takes my sister Marjorie out in it.
There was one other big fellow that went on that trip and that was Rossie Bent who works in the bank. ”

“ He shouted, “Every new recruit report to the commissary general and receive six rounds of peanuts and three rounds of licorice jaw-breakers. Step up!”
Oh, boy, you should have seen those veterans laugh; they just chuckled—you know the way old men do. One of them said he had fought at Gettysburg but that he had never seen anything like this before; oh, boy, didn’t he chuckle!
I don’t know when Brent got them, but anyway, he had the pockets of that crazy old coat full of bags of peanuts, and he handed them around to all those little fellows. He made those kids stay in his car, too. ”

“ Pretty soon an old man with an old blue army cap came hobbling out of the crowd, and Harry helped him up into the van. That was a starter. Men began bringing boxes from the Post Office and putting them in the van for seats. Most of the mothers wouldn’t let their children go because there wasn’t any way for them to get back, but the veterans didn’t seem to mind that. We got three veterans in Barrow’s Homestead and then started out. I don’t know what the constable thought, but we should worry about that. All the people cheered us and gave us a fine send-off. ”

“ First it seemed kind of as if that bloodhound was just scooping; that means using something that another scout has found. If I should find a robin’s nest and then another scout should stalk there, that would be scooping. Gee whiz, that’s a mean thing to do. Up at Temple Camp a scout will get himself disliked for doing that. But it’s all right to stalk the cooking-shack. Pee-wee thinks he’s the only one who has a right to hang out there—I should worry. ”