Scoop

“ That, my boy,” and he put his hand on my head in a fatherly way, “is vastly more important than the money part.”
“Scoop, the preacher,” laughed Peg.
“Ours,” preached Scoop, getting in some of the soap man’s fancy gestures, “is a very noble work. ”

“ Even so, I wondered, if, despite the Edict and WPA, the Flacks hadn't gotten their Crimmus reminder before the public, after all. I stared in at the Scoop.
Physically, the Scoop is just a short, thick tube projecting from a blank wall; it ends in a round orifice covered by a grille, and is adjustable to the height of the speaker. Below it is an ID sensor plate, and above it, the viewer and the preamble to the Edict.
The Scoop isn't large. But it gives man a voice no man ever had before: it could bring his words almost instantly to men throughout the world. ”

“ I've got my shovel and my cart."
"I'm afraid," said the man, "that it wouldn't do. You see that great scoop?"
4He pointed to a big iron scoop that was in the cart.
The little boy looked and nodded.
"Is that a scoop? What is it for?"
"The horses drag it, and a man takes hold of those two handles like plough-handles, and it scoops the dirt right up."
The little boy nodded again.
"You can watch us if you want to," the man said then. "But you must be careful not to get in the way of the horses."
"And can my kitty watch too?"
The man laughed and said his kitty could watch if she wanted to. ”

“ Feeling around under the deck, where our provisions were stored, Scoop brought out a loaf of bread and the boiled ham that his father had generously donated. He made two sandwiches apiece.
Coming to the small wide waters, halfway between Tutter and Ashton, we anchored the scow close to the right-hand wooded shore, putting out the required lights. Then we turned in.
Just before I dozed off I heard a fish flop close to the boat. It must have been a big carp. Then a screech owl settled on a limb directly over the boat and told us, in mournful, plaintive hoots, what it thought of us. ”

“ We filled our pockets—that is, Scoop filled his pockets. You must remember that I had no pockets to fill except a small shirt pocket.
While we were in the kitchen Scoop got his [177] eyes on the lock tender’s long white nightshirt. It lay on a kitchen chair, where its owner had probably dropped it, after having arrived at the determination to sleep in his clothes.
“ ‘A fair exchange is no robbery,’ ” the leader quoted, handing me the nightshirt. “Take it along, Jerry,” he grinned. “You may need it. And later you can trade even-up with the old gent for your pants.” ”

“ Kelly to bring me to town. She’s at the house.”
“You haven’t helped us any by scaring us,” [189] grunted Scoop. Then he sort of cooled off and told the newcomer, in better manners, where the soap man was.
“We’ve got to hurry,” he concluded, “if we expect to find the hidden fortune before the spy gets back to town.”
“Let me help you,” the girl offered quickly.
“It will be a big help to us,” Scoop told her, “if you’ll go below and watch for the enemy. If he comes before we’re through up here, yell ‘jiggers.’ ”
Well, we kept on smashing the bricks. And pretty soon we disclosed a metal box. ”

“ Scoop Ellery’s face was rigid.
“Got to,” he said, steady-like. “If I miss, he’ll turn on us and kill us both.” [2]
“It’s a lucky thing for Red and Peg,” I said, thinking of my other chums, “that they aren’t in it.”
“They’ll miss us,” said Scoop, “if we get killed.”
My thoughts took a crazy jump.
“Why not aim for a tickly spot in his ribs,” I snickered, pointing to the dinosaur, “and let him giggle himself to death?”
“Sh-h-h-h!” cautioned Scoop, putting out a hand. “He’s listening. The wind is blowing that way. He smells us.” ”

“ Scoop scratched his head.
“A thing I hate about the country,” he said, [183] “is the distance between the farmhouses. It takes so long to get from one house to another that a fellow can’t do enough business to make it pay.”
“You ought to have bicycles,” the old man said.
“What we need,” Scoop said, “is a horse and buggy.”
The faded eyes were greedy in their expression.
“Mebby I kin let you borry Romeo.”
“I hate to drive other people’s horses,” hesitated Scoop. “For I’m not a first-class driver.” Then he brightened. “I’ve got it!” ”

“ A clique is as necessary to it as to the 'scoop' business. There is a stock on the list, for instance, that the public persist in letting alone, and the holders of it want to stir up some excitement in this stock, and induce the public to buy it. ”

“ They were at Peg’s house, where Scoop was importantly lettering a fancy cloth sign. Here it is:
THE “SALLY ANN” SHOW COMPANY
Mystery and Magic
To-night at 8:30
Admission, Including War Tax, 15c.
Children 10c.
Red hates girls.
“Who’s ‘Sally Ann’?” he scowled, letting out his freckled neck at the sign.
Scoop quickly read the other’s thoughts.
“You’ll like Sal,” he grinned.
“If you’re going to have a gurl in it,” Red balked, “you can count me out,” and he hitched up his pants and started off. [7]
“Hey; come here!” ”

“ But after a day or two, knowing that we are still in business, they’ll begin to wonder if our show isn’t of some account after all. They’ll get curious to see it. And then, when they come to the boat to satisfy their curiosity, we’ll get their money. See?”
I had to admit to myself that Scoop was pretty smart.
“Wouldn’t it be darby,” I said, “if we could [35] hitch an engine to our boat, as the newspaper says. We could ride our audience up the canal, instead of giving our show here at the dock.” ”

“ Make the bowl of the next scoop 6⁄8 of an inch long, the next 7⁄8, and so on; the handle will always be 1 inch long. The last, for the top star, [Pg 17] will have a bowl of 3 inches. The smallest scoop ought to hold as much grain powder as will weigh about 1⁄12 of the star; but to have the scoops accurate, it will be necessary to charge a roman candle, fire it, and observe whether the stars go a uniform height. For measuring the interval fuse, or fuse between the top of one star and the bottom of the next, a large scoop of the size of fig. ”

“ All the people within reach had suspended their business, or their idleness, to run to the spot and drink the wine. The rough, irregular stones of the street, pointing every way, and designed, one might have thought, expressly to lame all living creatures that approached them, had dammed it into little pools; these were surrounded, each by its own jostling group or crowd, according to its size. Some men kneeled down, made scoops of their two hands joined, and sipped, or tried to help women, who bent over their shoulders, to sip, before the wine had all run out between their fingers. ”

“ Commons, subs. (University) .—Rations of bread, butter, and milk, supplied from the buttery. [When a number of men breakfast together, the student whose rooms are the rendezvous tells his scout the names of those in-college men who are coming to breakfast with him. The scout then collects their COMMONS, which thus forms the substratum of the entertainment. The other things are of course supplied by the giver of the breakfast, and are sent in by the confectioner. As to the knives and forks and crockery, the scout produces them from his common stock.] ”

“ Once I went home from church with a girl, and on the way back home the father of the girl came out with a ghost sheet over him, with phosphorus eyes, and scared me into a hen coop, and as I was praying to die, a negro with a dark lantern came to steal the chickens, and when he saw me in the coop he gave me some chickens he had stolen from another coop, and he run one way and I run the other, and I guess he went around the world one way and I the other, and we met last night at the barbecue, sure, and he started back around the world the other way when my fireworks went off. ”

“ All scrambling and fighting over the grains of daily corn, even though the hand of the fatal purchaser is already descending into the mouth of the coop. Like their human brethren who do not wear feathers, the tallest and the strongest gets his head up through the slats and gets wider views of the world. He often mistakes the single street he can see for the Universe and crows out his discovery until he is picked out of the coop and hurried off to lose his head, an operation which teaches him that in fact he has discovered nothing. ”

“ If caught and placed in a hen coop till morning, they will, on being released, stagger awkwardly about over the slippery deck; for they are unable to take to the wing unless they can have some good starting point, as the edge of a ship's railing or the crest of a heaving wave. ”

“ I had just opened one which contained, as I thought, brass cooking-pots and water-vessels, and was overjoyed to find some gold and others silver, when the alarm was given from outside. We all got out as quickly as we could and inquired the cause. "There are two men," said the scouts, "whom we have watched come round the corner of the houses yonder and approach the bottom of the rocks; they do not walk fast, and appear to be carrying loads of something." ”

“ In the few precious minutes when the ship stands still, before she weighs her anchor, set your house, that is to say, your state room, as much in order as if you were going to be hanged; place every thing in the most convenient position to be seized without trouble at a moment's notice; for be sure that in half an hour after sailing an infinite desperation will seize you, in which the grasshopper will be a burden. If any thing is in your trunk, it might almost as well be in the sea, for any practical probability of your getting to it. ”

“ As a cage, or coop, is full of birds, and of food for them to fatten them for the table, so are their houses full of deceit, of wealth obtained by fraudulent practices or of arts and methods of defrauding. ”

“ Bring it back to me and I'll give ye a dollar; and thin ye can become a scout.'
"The lad looked at me and then at the governmint check. He shook his head till the dirt rolled into his [48] ears, for he was still full of the clods he had rubbed into himself in the hole. 'I can't take a dollar from a man in the service,' he says. 'I must earn it.'
"'The Governmint's money is clane,' I rebukes him. 'I'm ould and me legs ends just above me feet, so that I walk with difficulty. ”

“ Friend Copp—if you will wait till to-morrow, I'll pay you double the sum.
Copp. Double the sum!!—thunder and lightning! what do you take me for?—Look ye, neighbour, to an honest tar in distress, my house and purse are open—to a jolly tar who wants a caper, and has no coin at hand, drink to-day and pay to-morrow is the word—but to a sharking land lubber, that hoists the colours of a gallant cruiser, to play off the tricks of a pirate, old Copp will show him his match any day. ”

“ There are twelve of those laws, and the one I like best is law number eight, because it says a scout has to be cheerful and smile a lot. I always smile except when I’m asleep, and I’m not asleep much, because a scout is supposed to be wide awake. ”

“ Would any man in his senses, take all that trouble to look at a parcel of water! I think he carries on a snug business in the smuggling line, and, in these journies, is on the look out for some wet cargo! ”

“ The ploughshare, heavy and drawn with great force, smooths the earth as it cleaves it, giving it for a time a 'face,' as it were, the moisture on which reflects the light. If you watch the farmers driving to market, you will see that they glance up the furrows to note the workmanship and look for game ”

“ Every scout ought to be able to fish in order to get food for himself. A tenderfoot who starved on the bank of a river full of fish would look very silly, yet it might happen to one who had never learnt to catch fish. ”

“ Chingach—Hist! what stirs the bush?”
“The colt.”
“That colt, at least, must die,” muttered the scout, grasping at the mane of the nimble beast, which easily eluded his hand; “Uncas, your arrows!”
“Hold!” exclaimed the proprietor of the condemned animal, aloud, without regard to the whispering tones used by the others; “spare the foal of Miriam! it is the comely offspring of a faithful dam, and would willingly injure naught.”
“When men struggle for the single life God has given them,” said the scout, sternly, “even their own kind seem no more than the beasts of the wood. ”

“ One partner may sell and give credit, and deliver parcels of goods to what sum, or what quantity, he thinks fit, and to whom, and so, by his indiscretion, or perhaps by connivance and knavery, lose to the stock what parcel of goods he pleases, to the ruin of the other partner, and bring themselves to be both bankrupt together. ”

“ They are placed in a little coop by themselves and there treasured as a shrine. Sometimes, to be sure, the little coop where the woman plies her work is in the mind of the man quite other than a shrine. ”

“ Speak, shipmate,’ turning to the coxswain, ‘what’s to be done?’
“‘We might get close in-shore, abandon the frigate, and take to the boats,’ replied the coxswain.
“‘And going without compensation in our hands,’ rejoined Farmer, ‘be delivered up as mutineers, or confined in dungeons as prisoners of war! We have no further time for argument; men, will you obey my orders, or shall I here abandon you to your fate?’
“‘Every man will obey,’ was shouted by the crew, ‘either to fight or fly!’
“‘’Tis well,’ replied Farmer. ‘Brace the yards up, and let her come to the wind on the larboard tack ”