A SCOUT IS POLITE

They liked it so much lolling under their little tent in the rain that they lingered there till noon-time. The water trickled down the little knoll and they were as dry as if surrounded by an elaborate drain ditch. It is fascinating doing nothing and just watching the rain; that is, it is when you are camping and in no particular hurry.

Their talk was as it should have been, aimless, bantering, idle. They told Ford jokes by the dozen. Pee-wee told about Temple Camp. They discussed the great relay race.

For fully half an hour they watched a beetle trying to climb up a wet, slippery leaf. They watched this beetle and found it diverting. They stood an olive bottle some yards from their shelter and, sitting in the doorway of the tent, threw pebbles at it. They counted the drops that fell slowly, one after another, from a limb.

Oh, the things they did were very important. They put a griddle-cake directly under the dropping point to see if in time the drops would bore a hole through it. But a chipmunk came and took the griddle-cake and they watched him eat it.

Every now and then they wondered if it was going to clear and told some more Ford jokes. They watched a busy little glutton of a bird hopping about and pulling worms out of the ground and they wondered how he knew just where to plunge his bill in. They even went out to see if there were holes in the ground, but there were none. Then they told ghost stories.

At last, about three o’clock in the afternoon the rain ceased to fall, though the sky continued dull and threatening.

“Now’s our time to make the break if we’re going to,” said Townsend. “We can’t make Catskill to-day, no matter what. The roads will be horrible. What do you say? Shall we move on?”

“It’s nice here,” said Pee-wee.

“It is nice,” said Townsend.

“I tell you what let’s do,” said Pee-wee; “I’ll throw this stone at the bottle and I’ll try to hit it; see? If it hits we stay and if it misses we go, and I hope it hits, because I’d rather stay. We didn’t play mumbly-peg yet; we can do that.”

So it happened that their going partook of the same delightfully aimless character as the way in which they had spent the day in their cosy little tent. For Pee-wee missed the bottle. But just the same he didn’t leave it there, for a scout has as much respect for the woods as he has for the parlor in his home. Not a sign did they leave of their presence, except a little charred spot under a tree. They did not want to go, but now the die was cast and they would not go back on their resolution.

The patient little Ford was waiting along the roadside and really seemed glad to see them. Townsend toppled the seat cushions over to their proper positions, threw their camping paraphernalia in behind, then he and Pee-wee climbed into the front seat, and Townsend instantly got out again to crank the engine. “I dreamed I had a self-starter,” he said.

It required several crankings to get started, but at last they were off, the car looking quite clean after its bath.

“Good-by, old camp,” said Townsend as they rattled away.

“So long,” called Pee-wee, waving his hand.

“Gee whiz, it was nice in there, wasn’t it? We had a lot of fun there, didn’t we?”

“Sure thing.”

“If two fellers like each other they kind of have fun anyway, don’t they?”

“That’s what they do. You read the books and you’d think you couldn’t find any fun this side of South Africa. How about that, Liz?”

“Kkkkkk,” said the Ford.

“How did you make it do that?” Pee-wee asked.

“It’s the back door on the other side; slam it, will you?”

“Don’t forget we’ve got to hunt for gasoline,” said Pee-wee.

“The boy hunters,” said Townsend, “hunting for gasoline. Leveling his rifle, our young hero crouched behind the garage, fixing his eagle eye upon the distant gas pump—”

“You’re crazy,” said Pee-wee.

“When suddenly,” said Townsend, “a terrific report rent the air and there at the brave lad’s feet—”

“What?”

“Was a blown-out tire.”

“That shows how much sense you have,” said Pee-wee, with a kind of mingled pride and amusement in his friend; “you’re crazy.”

They rattled merrily down hill for half a mile or so, then around a bend and a couple of miles along a straight, level road. Then they made another curve and stopped, plunk in front of the little supply shack where the man with the suspenders and the straw hat had given them the direction. He was sitting on a bench in front of his place with a straw in his mouth and his eyes squinted as if he had not moved hand or muscle since the previous night.

Townsend did not appear to be at all surprised; he maintained a dignified calm, but Pee-wee was plainly dumbfounded.

“How do you do?” said Townsend.

“What does it mean?” Pee-wee gasped.

“It means we forgot to thank this gentleman for directing us,” said Townsend, “and we have come back to do it. Friend, we thank you.”

With which commendable demonstration of scout politeness he turned the car around and rattled away again in the direction from which they had just come.

“A scout is supposed to be polite,” said Townsend soberly.

“You forgot to turn the car around where we camped up on the hill,” said Pee-wee in thunderous accusation. “You forgot to turn the car around and you thought we were going down the other side of the hill instead of back the same way we came from. You forget that we went up the hill backwards. Haaah, haaaah!”

“Kiddo,” said Townsend, “a scout is supposed to be polite. Last night when I lay awake listening to the rain, I happened to remember that I never thanked—”

“You make me tired!” yelled Pee-wee.