Read Ebook: Pee-wee Harris by Fitzhugh Percy Keese Barbour Harold S Illustrator

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Ebook has 857 lines and 38750 words, and 18 pages

So there he sat upon the branch, the mascot of the Raven Patrol, with an interior like the Mammoth Cave and a voice like the whisperings of the battle zone in France. Take a good look at him while he is quiet for ten seconds hand running. Everything about him is tremendous--except his size. He is built to withstand banter, ridicule and jollying; his sturdy nature is guaranteed proof against the battering assaults of unholy mirth from other scouts; his round face and curly hair are the delight of the girls of Bridgeboro; his loyalty is as the mighty rock of Gibraltar. A bully little scout he is--a sort of human Ford.

The question of removing the letter from the banana and getting rid of the banana now presented itself to him. He took a bite of the banana and the letter almost fell. He then tried releasing his hold upon the trunk but that would not do. He then extracted the letter with his teeth which effectually prevented him from eating the banana.

What to do?

Steadying himself with one hand , he brought the banana to his lips, held it between his teeth and took the letter in his unoccupied hand. As he bit into the banana the part remaining trembled and hung as on a thread; another moment and it would drop. The predicament was tragic. Slowly, but surely and steadily, the remainder of the banana broke away and fell--into the hand that held the letter.

Holding both letter and banana in the one perspiring palm, Pee-wee devoured first the one and then the other. Both were delicious, the letter particularly. It had one advantage over the banana, for he could only devour the banana once, whereas he devoured the contents of the letter several times. He wished that bananas and doughnuts were like letters.

AN INVITATION

The envelope was postmarked Everdoze which, with its one thousand two hundred and fifty--seven inhabitants, was the cosmopolitan center of Long Valley which ran from Baxter City down below the vicinity of the bridge on the highway. That is, Long Valley bordered the highway on its western side for a distance of about ten miles. The valley was, roughly speaking, a couple of miles wide, very deep in places, and thickly wooded. It was altogether a very sequestered and romantic region. Through it, paralleling the highway, was a road, consisting mostly of two wagon ruts with a strip of grass and weeds between them. To traverse Long Valley one turned into this road where it left the highway at Baxters, and in the course of time the wayfarer would emerge out of this dim tract into the light of day where the unfrequented road came into the highway again below the bridge.

About midway of this lonely road was Everdoze, and in a pleasant old-fashioned white house in Everdoze lived Ebenezer Quig who once upon a time had married Pee-wee's Aunt Jamsiah. Pee-wee remembered his Aunt Jamsiah when she had come to make a visit in Bridgeboro and, though he had never seen her since, he had always borne her tenderly in mind because as a little boy her name had always reminded him of jam. The letter, as has been said, bore the postmark of Everdoze and had been stamped by the very hand of Simeon Drowser, the local postmaster.

This is what the letter said:

DEAR WALTER:

Your uncle has been pestering me to write to you but Pepsy has been using the pen for her school exercise and I couldn't get hold of it till today when she went away with Wiggle, perch fishing. Licorice Stick says they're running in the brook most wonderful but you can't believe half what he says. Seems as if the perch know when school closes, least ways that's what your uncle says.

Pee-wee reread these enchanting words. Pepsy! Wiggle! Perch fishing! Licorice Stick! And school closing! And perch that knew about it. That was the sort of perch for Pee-wee. He read on:

I told your uncle I reckoned you wouldn't care to come here being you live in such a lively place but he said this summer you would like to come for there will be plenty for you to do because there is going to be a spelling match in the town hall and an Uncle Tom's Cabin show in August.

You can have plenty of milk and fresh eggs and Miss Arabella Bellison who has the school is staying this summer and she will let you in the schoolhouse where there is a library of more than forty books but some of the pages are gone Pepsy says.

She says to tell you she will show you where she cut her initials but I tell her not to put such ideas in your head and she knows how to climb in even if the door is locked, such goings on as she and Wiggle have, they will be the death of me.

Well, Walter, you will be welcome if you can come and spend the summer with us. I suppose you're a great big boy by now; your mother was always tall for her age. There are boys here who would like to be scout boys and your uncle says you can teach them. We will do all we can so that you have a pleasant summer if you come and tell your mother we will be real glad to see you and will take good care of you.

I can't write more now because I am putting up preserves, one hundred jars already. The apples will be rotting on the trees, it's a shame. You will think we are very old-fashioned, I'm afraid.

Pee-wee paused and smacked his lips and nearly fell backward off the limb. One hundred jars of preserves and more coming, Apples rotting on the trees! All that remained to complete his happiness was a bush laden with ice cream cones growing wild. He read the concluding sentences:

Your uncle would be glad to go and bring you in the buckboard but it would take very long and he is busy haying so if you don't mind the bad road it would be better for your father to send you in the automobile. Be sure to turn off the highway to the right just above Baxters. The road goes through the woods.

Your loving

AUNT JAMSIAH.

Steadying himself with one hand, Pee-wee took the letter between his teeth as if he were about to eat it. Then he cautiously let himself down so that he hung by his knees, then clutched the limb with his hands, hung for a moment with his legs dangling, and let go. In one sense he was upon earth but in another sense he was walking on air. ...

HE GOES TO CONQUER

Thus it befell that on the second day after the receipt of this letter Pee-wee Harris was sitting beside Charlie, the chauffeur, in the fine sedan car belonging to Doctor Harris, advancing against poor, helpless Everdoze.

He traveled in all the martial splendor of his full scout regalia, his duffel bag stuffed to capacity with his aluminum cooking set and two extra scout suits. His diminutive but compact and sturdy little form was decorated with his scout jackknife hanging from his belt, his compass dangling from his neck, and his belt ax dragging down his belt in back.

A suggestive little dash of the culinary phase of scouting was to be seen in a small saucepan stuck in his belt like a deadly dagger. Thus if danger came he might confront his enemy with a sample of scout cookery and kill him on the spot.

His sleeves were bedecked with merit badges; from the end of his scout staff waved the flaunting emblem of the Raven Patrol; his stalking camera was swung over his shoulder like a knapsack; his nickel-plated scout whistle jangled against the saucepan and in his trousers pockets were a magnifying glass, three jaw breakers, a chocolate bar, a few inches of electric wiring, and a rubber balloon in a state of collapse.

The highway from Bridgeboro was a broad, smooth road, a temptation and a delight to speeders, where motorcycle cops lurked in the bushes hardly waiting for cars with New York licenses.

It was late in the afternoon when they reached Baxter City and here they turned into such a road as Charlie vowed he had never seen before.

Scarcely had they gone a mile over rocks and ruts when the dim woods closed in on either side, imparting a strange coolness. It was almost like going through a leafy tunnel projecting branches brushed the top of the car and mischievously grazed and tickled their faces. The voices of the birds, clear in the stillness, seemed to complain at this intrusion into their domain.

"I'd like to know how I'm going to get back through this jungle after dark," Charlie said. "I wonder what anybody wanted to start a village down here for?"

"Maybe--maybe they did it kind of absentmindedly," Pee-wee said. "I never started a village so I don't know."

"Well, you'll startle one anyway," Charlie said.

"I guess the village isn't much bigger than you are."

The road took them southward through the valley. They were not far west of the highway but the low country and the thick woods obscured it from view. They could hear the tooting of auto horns over that way and sometimes human voices sounding strange across the intervening solitude.

"I don't see why they didn't set the village down over at the highway; it's not more than a mile or so," Charlie said. "Maybe they were afraid the autos would run over it; safety first, hey? Nobody'll run over it here, that's one sure thing."

Pee-wee took the last bite of a hot frankfurter he had bought at a roadside shack on the highway and was now more free to talk.

"Listen," he said, "what's that?"

It was a distant rattling sound which began suddenly and ended suddenly. They both listened.

"There must be a bridge up there along the highway," Charlie said, "that's the sound of cars going over it. Loose planking, hey?"

Pee-wee listened to the rattling of the loose planks as another car sped over the unseen structure, little dreaming of the part that bridge was destined to play in his young life. The commonplace noise of the neglected flooring seemed emphasized by the quiet of the woodland. That reminder of human traffic, so near and yet so far and out of tune with all the gentler sounds of the valley, presented a strange contrast and jarred even Pee-wee's stout nerves.

"There goes another," Charlie said; "we must be nearer to the highway than I thought."

They had, indeed, inscribed a kind of loop and having passed its farthest point from the main road were traveling toward it again and would have emerged upon it just beyond the bridge but for the wood embowered and sequestered village which was their destination. The first sign of this village was a cow standing in the middle of the grass-grown road as if to challenge their approach. Perhaps she was stationed there as a sort of traffic cop.

ENTER PEPSY

It will be seen by a glance at the accompanying sketch that the village of Everdoze was about opposite the bridge on the highway. From this main road the village could be reached by a trail through the woods. On hearing of this, Charlie expressed regret that he had not allowed his passenger to make the final stage of the journey on foot.

"Well, I never in all my life !" said Aunt Jamsiah as Pee-wee stepped out of the car. "In goodness' name, where's the rest of you? I thought you were a great, tall, strapping boy. I hope your appetite's bigger than your body. And what on earth is that saucepan for? Are you going to cook us all alive? Did you ever see such a thing?" she added, speaking to Uncle Ebenezer who had stepped forward to welcome his nephew.

"He's all decked out like a carnival! He's just too killing!" She then proceeded to embrace him while his martial paraphernalia clanked and rattled.

"We won't need any more brass band," said a young girl in a gingham apron and with brick red hair in long tightly woven braids, who stood close by; "he's a melodeon. I don't see what they sent such a big car for with such a little boy. 'Taint no fit, it ain't."

Pee-wee gave this girl a withering look which she boldly returned, continuing to stare at him. Her face was covered with freckles and she was so unqualifiedly plain and homely in face and attire that she might be said to have been attractive on the ground of novelty.

"Pepsy," said Mrs. Quig, addressing her, "you shake hands with Walter and tell him you and he are going to be good friends. You come right here and do as I say now and no more of those looks."

"I ain't going to kiss him," the girl said by way of compromising.

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