Pee-wee shinned up the elm and was soon concealed amid the safety of the spreading branches. He was a monkey at climbing. He handed himself about, looking this way and that in quest of the flat-iron handle. Soon he discovered it caught on a stub of a branch like a quoit on a stake. The branches in its neighborhood were numerous and strong and he had no difficulty in approaching it.

He sat wedged in a comfortable fork of two stout branches, his foot locked in a limb just below him. An upright branch, like a stanchion, afforded the additional precaution of steadying himself with a hand, but that was not necessary. He was as safe and comfortable as if he had been on a merry-go-round with his feet in a pair of stirrups, his hand holding a brass rod.

Pleased with the coziness and safety of his aerial perch, he was moved to celebrate his arrival by eating an apple which he had thoughtfully brought from the dining table. And having finished the apple (and being only human) he was moved to drop the core plunk on the head of Emerson Skybrow, brother of Minerva Skybrow, who, being an exemplary youth and not having much appetite, was always in the advance guard of returning pupils. That studious boy paused, looked up curiously and proceeded on his way.

Pee-wee found it pleasant sitting high up in his leafy bower looking down on the unfortunates who had to go to school. He deferred his labors for a few minutes to enjoy the sight. He refrained from calling for fear of attracting attention from the house; his mother was likely to disapprove his ascent of the tree.

The straggling advance guard became more numerous, pupils came in twos and threes, then in little groups, until there was a steady procession toward the school. There were Marjorie Blakeley and the two Roberts girls going arm in arm—talking of the masquerade, possibly. There was Elsie Benton (big sister of Scout Dorry Benton) strolling along with Harrison Quinby—as usual. There were the Troville trio, so called, three sisters of the flapper type. Along they all sauntered, laughing, chatting....

Pee-wee, suddenly recalled to his duties, shook off his mood of contemplative reverie and reached for the flat-iron handle. Never in all its homely, domestic career had that flat-iron handle been cast for such a sensational role. Pee-wee held the cord which ran to the porch roof. He agitated it, moved it clear of leafy obstructions, pulled it taut, shook it away from a branch which rubbed against it, and began pulling vigorously.

Across the distant window-sill of his sister’s room tumbled the cumbersome aerial and fell on the porch roof. Elated, Pee-wee pulled. Soon he heard laughter below and looked down on the increasing group whence the laughter emanated. He saw Crabby Dennison, teacher of mathematics, standing stark still some yards beyond the tree, looking intently across the Harris lawn.

Directly beneath him the group had increased to the proportions of a crowd. And they were all laughing. Pee-wee gazed down at them, the while pulling hand over hand. Assured of his success, it afforded him pleasure to look down upon the curious multitude who seemed to have forgotten all about school.

It is said that Nero fiddled while Rome was burning. Thus Pee-wee pulled.

Suddenly a chorus of mirth arose beneath him, interspersed with flippant calls, the while the merry loiterers looked up, trying to espy him in the tree.

“Look what’s there!”

“Who’s running the clothes-line?”

“Where is he?”

“Did you ever?”

“What on earth——”

“It’s an oriental ghost.”

“It’s a jumping-jack.”

“It’s just an ad.”

“I never saw anything so——”

Pee-wee peered through the sheltering foliage toward the house and beheld a horrifying spectacle. Hanging midway between two sagging lengths of cord was his aerial. Depending from this was a motley apparition which he perceived to be his sister’s masquerade costume, revealed in all its fantastic and colorful glory to the gaping multitude. No Bridgeboro girl ever did, or ever would, wear such a costume in the streets; its bizarre design proclaimed its theatrical character.

It depended gracefully, naturally, from the treacherous aerial, as if Queen Tut herself (minus her head) were being hanged. No seductive shopkeeper could have displayed it more effectively in his window. Pee-wee stared dismayed, aghast.

“Oh, I know what it is,” caroled a blithe maid below; “it’s Elsie Harris’ masquerade costume; I just bet it is.”

It was a safe bet.

Cold with horror, Pee-wee gazed upon this result of the ghastly treachery of his aerial. As far as he was able to think at all he believed that some truant end of wire had caught the royal robe and dragged it forth. There were many truant ends of wire. Perhaps one of the wire grapnels contrived from a package handle had coyly hooked it as the aerial crossed the window-sill. At all events it was hooked. And there it dangled above the Harris lawn in the full glare of the sunlight and in full view of the enthralled multitude.

They did not scruple to advance upon the lawn.

“Isn’t it perfectly gorgeous!” one girl enthused.

“What on earth do you suppose—— There’s one—I bet it’s Walter Harris up in that tree,” said another.

“Did you ever in your life see such a perfectly sumptuous thing?” chirped a third.

“Oh, I think it’s a dear,” said still another.

For a few moments the clamoring people were so preoccupied with the splendor of the dangling robe that they neglected to investigate the machinery which had brought it thus into the public gaze until a thunderous command from up in the tree assailed their ears.

“Don’t you know enough to go to school?” Pee-wee roared. “Gee whiz, didn’t you ever see an aerial of a radio before? Anyway, you’re trespassing on that lawn! Get off that lawn, d’you hear? You can each be fined fifty dollars, maybe a hundred, for trespassing on that lawn. Don’t you know enough to go to school?”

He pulled the cord in the hope of lifting the display above the reach of the curious, and immediately discovered the total depravity of his whole tangled apparatus. The cord was now caught somewhere below him in the tree and his frantic pulling only communicated a slight agitation to the dangling garment as if it were dancing a jig for the edification of its gaping audience.

The heavy cords, with the tangled mass of collapsed aerial midway between tree and house, sagged at about the curve of a hammock with the flaunting royal robe almost grazing the lawn. It was easily approachable for critical feminine inspection and as Pee-wee looked down it seemed as if the whole student body of the high school were clustered about it in astonishment and admiration. He could single out many of his sister’s particular friends, Olga Wetherson, Julia Stemson, Marjorie Blakeley.

“Get away from there!” he shouted, baffled by the treacherous cord and having no resource save in his voice. “Go on now, get away from there, do you hear? You leave that dress alone! Don’t you know you’ll be late for school? Don’t you know an accident when you see one? Do you think that dress is there on purpose? Go on, get off that lawn—that—that costume isn’t supposed to be there——”

The face of Elsie Harris appeared in the window, a face gasping in tragic dismay. Her mother’s face presently appeared also. They could not see the hero in the tree but they saw the exhibition and the crowd. And they could hear the hero.

“Tell them to go on away,” he bellowed. “It’s an accident; can’t you see it’s an accident that happened behind my back when I wasn’t looking and how could I help it if it got caught when I wasn’t there and didn’t know anything about it——”

“Oh, I think it’s just gorgeous, Else,” caroled Olga Wetherson. “How did you ever think——”

“Go on to school!” the hero thundered, “and let that alone. Don’t you know accidents can happen to—to—even to the most—the smartest people? Don’t you know that that isn’t supposed to be there on purpose?”

This was shouted for the benefit of his mother and sister and intimated his line of defense. But Elsie heard him not. One horrified glance and she had withdrawn from the window and buried her face in the pillows of the bed, clenching her hands and weeping copiously.

“Walter,” called his mother, “you come in the house at once.”

“Do you blame me for something that happened when I wasn’t there?” he shouted. “Do you say I’m to blame for something that happened behind my back? Gee whiz, do you call that logic? Hey, Billy Wessels, you’re in the senior class, gee whiz, is that logic—what happened behind my back when I wasn’t there to stop it? Can I be in two places at once?”

“Walter, you come down out of that tree and come in the house at once.”

“Do you say I’m to blame?” he roared.

“I say for you to leave whatever you’re doing and come in the house—at once.”

“Gee whiz.”

Mrs. Harris closed the window and turned to her daughter who still clutched the pillow as if it were a life preserver, and shook her head as if she could not look or speak, and sobbed and sobbed and would not be comforted.