Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike Part 20

As we went through the hall he kept looking all around as if he expected to see sharpshooters behind all the doors. It was a dandy house, with a nice big wide hall and it had a moose's head for a hat rack. First I guess we were all pretty scared.

The kid walked on tiptoe through the hall, and he kept whispering to me, "This is just like--it's just like burglary. Girls are reckless. We'd better look out. Do you hear a footstep upstairs? I hear a bell ringing.

I bet he's calling up the police, hey?"

That girl led the way into a dandy big dining room and then all her friends began laughing again.

She said, "We'll take everything there is to eat in the pantry. My brave army must be fed."

Pee-wee said, "I'm--I'm not so hungry." Gee whiz, it was the first time I ever heard him admit that.

She said, "If there is any bird seed in this house you shall have it.

Sit down."

Pee-wee sat down on the edge of a chair, looking all around, good and scared. Every time a door creaked he gave a start. He said, "It's--it's in--it says in the scout handbook that we have no right to trespa.s.s----"

She waved the belt-axe and she said, "The scout handbook! _Ho, ho!_ A mere sc.r.a.p of paper." She was awful funny.

Pee-wee said, "We didn't mean to stay here. All we wanted was to go through----"

"Do you eat pie?" she said.

He said, "Yes, but--maybe we'd better start."

We were all sitting around the dining room. I guess all of us felt kind of shaky. I thought every minute that Pee-wee was going to get up and run.

All of a sudden Westy (gee, he's a fiend for noticing things)--he said, "Dora Dane Daring, the boy scouts have to hand it to you; you've done a good turn, that's sure. This house looked like a hard proposition. All we have to do now is climb over that fence in back. We all admit you're a heroine. But there's one thing I'd like to ask you. Do you notice that big silver cup on the sideboard has D D D engraved on it? Maybe scouts aren't so much as warriors but they're observant. I was wondering if you know whose initials those are?"

At that all the girls started laughing.

"_It's your own house!_" Pee-wee shouted. "Now you see how scouts are observant. What did I tell you?"

She said, "It is not my own house; so there, Mr. Canary Bird Harris."

"Whose house is it?" Westy said.

"It's my father's, Mr. Smarty," she said.

"No sooner said than stung," I told Westy.

Hunt said, "What difference does it make whose house it is as long as we go through it? We have to give you the credit anyway."

"Is your father home?" Warde asked her.

She said, "n.o.body's home but myself--and the butler."

I said, "Yes, I seem to remember him. I think Pee-wee met him once."

"I--I found out that I'm--kind of--that I'm hungrier than I thought I was," the kid said.

"Oh, sure," I said; "his appet.i.te is like a cat, it always comes back."

And believe me, that was the only time in the life of P. Harris that I ever knew him to lose his appet.i.te. Even then it was only for four minutes. Westy said it was three minutes and a half, but what's the difference?

He got it back anyway.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE SHERO

One thing about scouts--I mean two things about them. They always keep their words and they always keep their appet.i.tes--you can ask anybody.

I said, "Bring down a bottle of shoe-blacking with a sponge brush and we'll let the whole World know that you're a hero, I mean a shero."

She said, "First we're going to have refreshments."

I said, "No, first we're going to give you credit."

She just laughed and she said, "No, because it's my father's house."

I said, "That's not your fault. If that butler was in my house he'd scare the life out of me just the same. I hope you never feed him meat.

Even if I met him at the Peace Conference he'd scare me."

So two or three of those girls went upstairs and got a bottle of shoe blacking and a big piece of cardboard. It was the cover of a box a suit comes in. I printed on it good and plain:

WITH THE a.s.sISTANCE OF THE GIRL SCOUTS

and we fastened that just underneath the other sign on our martial standard. Pee-wee kind of balked at that.

But he didn't balk at eating pie. They had dandy pie in that house. We all sat around the dining room eating refreshments and we had a good time. Pee-wee showed them that a scout could eat, anyway. Even still, every time there was a noise he gave a start. Safety first.

Dora Dane Daring said she liked Bridgeboro.

Pee-wee said, "Were you ever in Bennett's there?"

She said no, but she knew some girls there.

I said, "Do you know Minerva Skybrow? We named a kind of mushroom after her."

She said, "The idea!"

I said, "It's a good idea; she showed us all about how to grow mushrooms. She can play tennis in four languages, that girl can. There are a lot of smart people in Bridgeboro. We've got three patrols in our troop but, thank goodness, there's only one of them here. That's enough, hey?"

Westy said, "If you ever come on a hike to Bridgeboro----"

"Maybe you can't walk that far," Pee-wee said.