INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS

Pee-wee emerged safely, if not triumphantly, from this ordeal amid much laughter, and was just congratulating himself upon his skillful handling of “the trade” in a period of acute shortage when he received a knockout blow. In depositing the trifling price of the peppermint sticks in his trousers pocket, he discovered there four gumdrops glued together and clinging so affectionately that nothing could part them.

At the moment of this discovery, Scout Harris, thus driven into a corner and standing at bay with nothing but one huge, consolidated gumdrop for defense, heard the unmistakable sound of another car crawling over the rocks and hubbles of that outlandish road in second gear. On, on, on, it came like some horrible British tank.

And now again he heard voices, “We can eat about twenty of them in my patrol; y-mm. Are we hungry? Oh, no! Hot frankfurters! Oh, boy, lead me to them. I could even eat the sign, I’m so hungry. Put her in high. What do we care about the road?”

Pee-wee listened and waited in terrible suspense. Scouts! He knew something about the scout capacity. Then, upon the fresh morning air there floated another voice calling a sentence which he knew too well; it was the good scout motto.

“Hey there, you, whoever you are, Mr. Refreshment Man? Be Prepared! We’re s-c-o-u-t-s, we are, and we’re h-u-n-g-r-e-e! We haven’t had anything since breakfast at four-thirty. We had to come around through this rocky tour or detour or whatever you call it. Somebody ate the bridge last night. Are there any scouts down in this South African backyard?”

If Pee-wee had not heard that familiar motto “Be Prepared,” he would have known the approaching caravan to be scouts by their talk and banter.

Be Prepared. Pee-wee glanced at the bare counter and the empty jars and the shiny dishpan which held nothing but Pepsy’s ball of worsted and the terrible ornamental thing that she was knitting. There they were, just as she had laid them the day before. Poor little Pepsy....

Then they descended upon him as only hungry scouts can descend. Pee-wee’s glowing promises which decorated the woods (and which he could not fulfill) had brought the party to a state of distraction. It was a big Crackerjack touring car overflowing with scouts and driven by a smiling scoutmaster. It seemed as if they ought to have been pressed in and down with a shovel, like ice cream in a quart box.

“For the love of—” one of them began.

“Look what’s here, it’s a scout.”

“That?” shouted another. “Let’s have the magnifying glass, will you?”

Pee-wee straightened himself up to his full height. The big Crackerjack touring car stopped.

“Some detour,” the scoutmaster said with an air of infinite relief.

“Do they have scouts down here?” a member of the party asked.

“I’m only staying here, I belong in Bridgeboro, New Jersey,” Pee-wee said.

“Don’t talk about bridges,” another scout said.

“Talk about something pleasant. A scout is supposed to save life, scout law number six; let’s have a couple of thousand hot dogs, will you? We’re dying. And forty-eleven dozen doughnuts with the holes removed.”

“Do you—I—eh—do you—need any tire tape?” Pee-wee stammered, playing for time.

“Tire tape! What do you take us for? A lot of blow-outs? Let’s have some eats and we’ll take care of the blow-out.”

“Come on, hurry up, a scout is supposed to be prepared,” piped up a natty scout wearing the bronze cross.

“Where’s all the food?” the scoutmaster asked, glancing at the empty counter. “We were led to suppose—”

“Don’t you know what a shortage is?” Pee-wee piped up in sheer desperation.

“We know what a shorty is,” one of the party shot back.

“You don’t expect us to eat a shortage, do you?” another said. “Come ahead, hurry up, a scout isn’t supposed to be cruel. You can always depend on scout signs that you find in the woods. A scout that puts scout signs—”

“Those are different kinds of signs!” Pee-wee shouted. “Those are trail signs. You think you’re so smart! That shows how much you know about—about—”

“Three strikes out,” one of the scouts shouted. “About—about industrial conditions,” Pee-wee concluded. “Don’t you know what a—a—what d’you call it—a—”

“Yes, that’s what you call it,” a scout laughed. “Don’t you know what a reconstruction period is?” Pee-wee fairly yelled, amid uncontrollable laughter. “If something happens like a war—or a—a bridge burning down—or something—or other—that makes business conditions—what d’you call it—it makes them all kind of upside down, doesn’t it? Sometimes—kind of—things are hard to get. Everybody knows that.”

“We can see it,” a scout said.

By this time the scoutmaster was laughing heartily but with the greatest good humor. Pee-wee continued bravely, to the great amusement of the party.

“Gee whiz, nobody ever came along this road. You admit that scouts are hungry, don’t you?”

“We proclaim it,” said the scoutmaster.

“I ate a lot of the stuff and my aunt wouldn’t cook any more stuff for us because nobody ever came and it got stale and I ate too much of it, that’s what she said. So now, anyway, we’re going to start in again because the business world—and we’re—we’re going to speed up production.”

“All right, speed up the auto and good luck to you,” the scout with the bronze cross said. He seemed to be a patrol leader.

There was a little fraternal chat before this boisterous troop moved on and all seemed interested in Pee-wee and his enterprise. They were on their way to camp somewhere down the line.

“You’ll succeed all right,” they called back to him, “only be sure to have plenty of stuff on hand when we come back in a couple of weeks or we’ll kill you.”

“Do you like waffles and honey?” the proprietor shouted after them.

“We’ve got the bees working overtime for us,” a scout called back.

“I’ll have a lot of those—ten cents each,” Pee-wee announced. “Do you like clam chowder?” he called, raising his voice to cover the increasing distance.

“Don’t you make us hungry,” one called back. “Good luck to you, you’ll make it a go all right.”

“I’m lucky, I always have good luck,” the small optimist screamed at the top of his voice. “Do you like peanut taffy? Do you like hot corn,” he added, fairly yelling this sudden inspiration after the departing sufferers; “with butter and pepper on it; do you like that? I’ll have some!”

These were the last words they heard as the big car moved slowly over the rocky, grass-grown road. They are good words to end a chapter with—hot corn with pepper and butter on it....

Oh, boy!