ANOTHER INSPIRATION

“Now I know who I’ll have for a good turn guest! I’ll have somebody I don’t know!” Pee-wee shouted, entering the house.

“Is that you, Walter?” his mother called downstairs.

“It’s me, and I’ve got an inspiration,” Pee-wee shouted. “Where’s the duffel bag and things that were here in the hall?”

“Did you shut the screen door?” his mother called.

“Where’s the stuff I laid here?” Pee-wee demanded excitedly. “I left it here ready so as—

“Did you shut the screen door, Walter?”

“No,—because there’s a fly inside and I want him to get out. Where’s my camping stuff that I left in the hall?”

“It’s near your father’s golf sticks, under the hall table. Be sure to wipe your feet.”

“Are there any more cookies?”

“Not unless you left some. Have you closed the screen door?”

“Sure, do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to start a relay race to Temple Camp and the last feller’ll be my good turn guest. I want the map that’s in the coffee-pot in the duffel bag. I got the idea from a licorice gum-drop that fell down where the pansies are—”

“I hope you didn’t eat it,” Mrs. Harris called.

“Don’t you know a scout isn’t supposed to waste anything?” Pee-wee shot back.

“Well, then I think he shouldn’t waste his time packing up his things and then pulling them all to pieces again,” said his mother gently, as she appeared at the head of the stairs. The occasion seemed so momentous to Pee-wee that Mrs. Harris could not refrain from surveying the tumultuous proceedings from the top landing of the stairs. “You’re going to get all over-heated about nothing, Walter,” she said gently. “Why don’t you sit down and read a book?”

“You stick up for the handbook, don’t you?” Pee-wee demanded. “Well, that’s where I got it, so there! I put my road map in the coffee-pot, now where is it?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, Walter, but I wish you’d be careful of your father’s straw hat. Put the rug down at the corner where you kicked it up and do try not to get so excited.” She gazed ruefully down at the litter at the foot of the stairs, where saucepan, shirts, belt axe, fishing tackle, semaphore flags and every variety of preserved edibles lay in utter chaos. “Pull that can of salmon out from under the hat-rack, Walter, before you forget it. And get that can of evaporated milk that has rolled into the parlor; I can see it under the piano. And close the screen door tight; how many times have I told you—”

“It isn’t in the coffee-pot,” shouted Pee-wee; “there’s nothing there but the mosquito dope and the ink—”

“You shouldn’t put bottles like that in the coffee-pot, Walter. Suppose they should break—why, the ink might get into the coffee.”

“Lots of people like black coffee,” Pee-wee shouted, hurling things right and left and suddenly pouncing on the elusive map.

“Have you got it?” called his despairing mother.

“Yop.”

“Where was it?”

“I never thought I’d need it, that’s why,” said Pee-wee abstractedly, as he unfolded the map in high excitement. “I forgot I put it there.”

“Where did you put it?”

“It was rolled up in the sweater.”

“The sweater I told you to wear every night at camp? And you expected never to unfold—”

“Oh, look; oh, look; oh, look! Westwood’s the first place north!” Pee-wee shouted. “It’s about ten miles, and that’s just right—”

“Walter, you’re not going to walk to Westwood,” said Mrs. Harris, descending bravely into the arena. “I don’t know what your plans are but you’re not going to walk to Westwood. And you’re going to pack these things all up again before you leave the house. Do you think I want the hall stand looking like a grocery store?”

“I’ll pack them up when I get back,” Pee-wee replied.

“No, you’ll pack them up again now and you’ll pick up that great slice of greasy bacon from the rug. The idea of putting that in a shoe box! I want—”

“Listen! Listen!” said Pee-wee, munching a fig which had fallen out of an empty compartment of his writing case. “I’ve got a dandy argument—listen, I—”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Walter.”

“Listen, you want me to remember to wear the sweater every night, don’t you? Don’t you? You said you did, so don’t you?”

“I want you to pick up—”

“I tell you what I’ll do,” Pee-wee vociferated. “The thing that I like best here is doughnuts, isn’t it? You admit I like doughnuts best, don’t you? You said I could ask Martha—”

“I never told Martha to give you a whole pail full of them; why they’ll be all stale—”

“Listen,” said Pee-wee. “I’ll take them out of the pail and wrap them up in the sweater and every time I want one, I’ll have to go to the sweater and gee whiz, that means about every hour, you ask Townsend when he comes, and besides I always—always—eat one right after supper at night, so I’ll have to go to the sweater, won’t I? And that’ll remind me to put it on, won’t it? So now can I go to Westwood?”

“What do you want to go to Westwood for, Walter?”

“Listen, I’ll tell you, it’s a dandy idea.”