CHAOS AND CONFUSION

It was ten months after the conversation just recorded and the momentous summer had come around, when our hero, so tall, slender, athletic and silent, sprawled on the parlor floor near the front hall and squirmed in heroic contortions in his endeavor to reach a can of spaghetti which he had supposed was under the Victrola cabinet.

“It isn’t there,” he said; “I had two cans; where’s the other one?”

“I don’t know, Walter,” the hero’s mother was tempted to observe as she sat watching his frantic maneuverings; “you’re a boy scout and claim to be so good at tracking and trailing, I should think you could trail a can of spaghetti.”

“Cans of spaghetti aren’t wild animals,” Pee-wee thundered. “That shows how much you know about scouting. Even you don’t know what a relay race is.”

“Well, I know you’re not going to Westwood for any purpose whatever until you’ve picked up all the things you scattered about and repacked them. Suppose Townsend should come for you this afternoon. Isn’t a scout supposed to be prepared? He’ll find you off on some wild-goose chase—”

“All I have to do is to start the ball rolling,” Pee-wee said, struggling to his feet after triumphantly recovering the can of spaghetti. “Then it will take care of itself.”

“I think you’ve started enough things rolling this morning, Walter. Is that a bottle of olives under the leather chair? I never told Martha she could give you that.”

“Will you listen?” Pee-wee pleaded in dramatic despair. “Is a relay race anything like cans of stuff? Do you think I’m going to roll cans of spaghetti and things all the way to Temple Camp? A relay race is where one scout—suppose I should send a letter to—will you please listen?”

“I’m listening, Walter.”

“I’m going to choose a fellow to visit me and stay with me at Memorial Cabin, ain’t I?”

“Don’t say ‘ain’t,’ Walter. Yes, you are.”

“Well, you want to see me do it the scout way, don’t you?”

“I thought you might ask Mrs. Gardner’s son; they’re very poor—”

“I’m going to start a relay race to Temple Camp, that’s better. And the last feller, the one that brings me the letter, he’ll be the one to stay with me and have my hospital—tal—”

“Hospitality, Walter.”

“Hospitalality, that’s what I mean. I’m going to write the letter and take it to Westwood, because that’s north of here and it’s on the way to Temple Camp and I know scouts there. Then the scout I give it to will take it to—to—maybe to Haverstraw or some place like that and give it to another scout and he’ll take it to—maybe to—to—Newburgh, say—and he’ll give it to another scout that’ll take it to—to—to—to—I didn’t decide yet, but anyway he’ll give it to a scout that takes it to Kingston, and he’ll take it to another place to a scout that’ll take it to Catskill, and the one that brings it to me at Temple Camp—”

“You mean you’re going to send a letter to yourself, dear?”

“Sure, but I’ll be in a different place when it comes to me, I’ll be in Temple Camp; see?”

“I see, but it seems like a good deal of running and hiking all for nothing. You write a letter to yourself and then motor up to Temple Camp and wait for the letter. Isn’t that the idea? I think it would be better to take Mrs. Gardner’s poor little lame boy up in the car with you. You’re going to a great deal of trouble and putting a number of other boys to a great deal of trouble just to get one boy. They’re going to get all over-heated—”

“It’s in the handbook! It’s in the handbook!” Pee-wee shouted. “It’s in the handbook about relay races. You told Mr. Ellsworth the handbook is all right, so now! The fellers get their fun out of the relay race. A relay race can be thousands and millions of miles long without anybody getting tired out. In most everything that a lot of people are in, only one wins, doesn’t he? Let’s hear you answer that. Maybe each one’ll only go about seven or eight miles, and maybe he’ll win a merit badge or something doing that much. Maybe one of them is trying for his first-class badge, how do you know, and he has to go seven miles anyway. All the scouts will be crazy about it, you see! What do they care who wins? Anyway, it isn’t who wins, because the last one is the one who lands at camp—”

“And gives you the letter you wrote to yourself?” his mother asked mildly.

“Sure,” said Pee-wee, quite out of breath; “and all I have to do is to start the ball rolling by going to Westwood, because you only have to hike going the one way, so can I go to Westwood? You have to say yes, because you told Mr. Ellsworth and dad and everybody that the handbook is all right and it’s in the handbook about relay races.” He paused again, and came up for air.

During this interval his mother casually inspected the road map and the handbook. “Well,” said she finally, “all I can say is that I think you have too many schemes and you’re going to get all over-heated and—”

“Will you answer me one question?” Pee-wee demanded.

“Yes dear, what is it?”

“A scout is supposed to give pleasure to others, isn’t he? They’re all going to have fun, aren’t they? Maybe the others will even have more fun than the last one; maybe he’ll be sorry he wasn’t one of the others; see?” This seemed likely enough considering his imposed proximity to Pee-wee for the summer. “Maybe the others’ll be the lucky ones,” Pee-wee added.

“Well, you are to promise me that you won’t walk farther than Westwood,” his mother said, yielding.

“Yop, sure I will, I mean I promise.”

“And I think this outlay race, or whatever you call it, is perfect nonsense. The last boy will never get there, Walter; you’ll never see him. There are too many slips between cup and lip, Walter.”

“Not with me,” Pee-wee vociferated. Which was true enough, for the full cup always reached Pee-wee’s lips safe and sound. “You can ask Roy Blakeley if I don’t always succeed, and I can prove it by Minerva Skybrow, because didn’t I get all the eats at her lawn party?”

“I don’t want you to be always boasting of that, Walter.”

“Anyway, it shows I’m lucky, and a relay race is something scouts have to do. I could start a relay race around the world and nobody would have to get tired.”

“Well, I think it would be better, Walter, for you to talk it over with Townsend first; he’s your patrol leader.”

“He always does what I say,” said Pee-wee.

“And I think it would be very much better for you to leave half these things at home and make room for poor little Teddy Gardner in the auto. I can’t imagine why you should take that nickel tube from the old vacuum cleaner with you.”

“On account of the stars,” Pee-wee said.

“You’re not going to vacuum clean the stars, are you?”

“No, but I can put a lens in it and make a telescope out of it and study the stars, can’t I? Don’t you know scouts study astronomy? You don’t suppose I’m going to listen to music all the time, do you, just because I take some old Victrola records, do you? We can eat off those, can’t we?”

By the time he had gathered up his miscellaneous equipment and repacked it, his mother had resumed her sewing upstairs, but she called to him when she heard him go forth on his path of glory:

“Walter!”

“Yop.”

“What are you eating?”

“A doughnut.”

“Did you shut the screen door?”

“N—n—no—yop. Now it’s shut,” And he was gone.