DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION—AND WAR

Perhaps it was Pee-wee’s propensity for going up in the air on all sorts of occasions that enabled him so dextrously to hand himself from the slender, upright gate to the firmer support of the window ledge. Here he sat for a few seconds dangling his feet and surveying the landscape in every direction.

“Gee whiz, it’s dandy up here,” he called; “I can see way, way along the track and way down the road, too; it’s a pamerana.”

“A which?” Townsend called.

“It’s the same as a bird’s-eye view.”

“Do you see the village of Idner?”

“I see some sort of a village or something,” Pee-wee answered; “I see a church steeple and a kind of a building that maybe is a store; I bet we can get ice cream cones there.” With which preliminary report he disappeared into the tower house, presently reappearing at the window to announce additional discoveries. “There’s a lot of stuff up here,” he called; “there are handles to move switches with and everything. There’s an old time-table—it says nineteen fourteen on it—tacked on the wall.

“There’s a kind of a shelf you sit at. There’s a stool here, too. There’s a magazine, it’s—it’s—wait a minute—it’s seven years old—the pages are all yellow—there’s a name of an article that says maybe there might be a great war—there’s a big wasps’ nest up here, too.”

“Well, you’d better watch out or maybe there will be a great war,” laughed Townsend.

“There’s a piece of bread up here, it’s petrified,” shouted Pee-wee; “it’s all faded, kind of yellow. It’s dandy up here.”

“You don’t see anything of a gasoline wagon on the horizon, do you, Sister Anne?” Townsend called.

“No, but there’s an old five-gallon tank,” Pee-wee shouted; “It’s on a grocery box that says Lingate’s soap is best and it’s got some oil in it. There are lanterns up here, too, a couple of red ones and a white one and there’s a picture of an actress out of a newspaper tacked on the wall. There’s a big spider-web, too, and there’s a wasp caught in it; he’s dead.”

It was hard to divert Pee-wee’s inquisitive mind and eagle eyes from their exploration of this new discovery. And indeed, even to Townsend’s imagination, these homely, deserted memorials of a former time appealed strongly. The little tower house was so much removed from the world as to have some of the enchanting qualities of a desert island.

“I can hear oil splashing in it when I shake the can,” Pee-wee shouted. “There’s an old red flag up here, too, and a picture of a prizefighter; I guess it was on the wall but it fell on the floor; there was a centipede under it, I stepped on him—a great big one.”

The prizefighter flat on the floor (where prizefighters so often find themselves) and the actress on the wall hinted that the former towerman had been a lover of the ring and of the stage.

“Take a squint up the road,” Townsend called, “How about it?”

“I’ll tell you,” said Pee-wee.

“Please do,” called Townsend.

“About a half a mile away, maybe three-quarters of a mile, is a village; it’s right in the road. And about—wait a minute—about—about—halfway between here and there—maybe not so much as quite half-way—there’s some chewing gum up here, too, it’s hard like a rock—there are mountains!”

“Where is the chewing gum and where are the mountains?” Townsend called.

“Up here—there’s kind of something the matter like, along the road. Throw me up my field-glass, it’s rolled up in my sleeping blanket with my camera.”

“Here you go—catch,” called Townsend.

“Look out how you throw it,” Pee-wee shouted down.

“Look out how you catch it,” Townsend called.

The field-glass in its leather case went sailing accurately up through the window but for some reason unexplained, Pee-wee did not catch it. That is, he did not catch it in the sense of catching the field-glass. But he did “catch it.” The entrance of the leather case through the window was followed instantaneously by such a medley of noises intermingled with frantic shouts that for a moment Townsend feared he had set fire to the universe. Knowing Pee-wee’s propensity for packing unsympathetic articles together, he called: “What was in the case? Dynamite?”

The only response was such a chorus of sounds as might have issued from Bedlam.

“You knocked down the wasps’ nest!” Pee-wee roared. “They’re all over!”

It seemed to Townsend, as he stared, that there were a dozen Pee-wees in the little tower house. Horrible thought—for surely one Pee-wee was enough! Now a head could be momentarily seen in one window, now two frantically waving arms in another, now a leg kicking, amid the fearful sounds of combat. A few wasps sailed out into the open air, but most of them stuck to their posts.

At last, amid the frantic tumult, the voice of our young hero could be heard shouting, “I’ve got an inspiration.” And this reassuring announcement was shortly followed by the frantic waving of a flag of fire amid which the legions of the enemy could be seen dispersing and fleeing pell-mell.

“I poured kerosene on the signal flag and waved it,” Pee-wee shouted, as the upper part of him appeared in the window all but enveloped in oil smoke. He looked not unlike the pictures one sees of spirits. “I foiled them!” he shouted.

“Did you get stung much?” Townsend called, laughing. He could not help laughing.

“I triumphed over them,” Pee-wee shouted. “I got stung in three or four places. Put some engine oil in a bottle and throw it up here, quick. That’ll take out the information.”

“You didn’t set fire to anything, did you?” Townsend asked.

“I foiled them!” Pee-wee shouted.