MISSIONARY WORK

We had about two weeks to hang around Bridgeboro (that’s where we live) before starting for Temple Camp. If you want to know why we stayed behind when the Ravens and the Elks went, you’d better read the story that comes before this one. That will tell you how our young hero, the raving raven of the Ravens, happened to be wished on us, too.

Now a couple of days after Charlie Seabury started out west two or three of us were sitting in the swinging seat on my porch talking about what we’d do to kill time for a couple of weeks.

“What’s the matter with killing Pee-wee?” Westy wanted to know.

I said, “Speak of angels and you’ll hear the flutter of their wings; here he comes up the hill.”

“What’s he eating?” Dorry Benton asked.

“I think it’s peanuts,” Hunt Manners said.

Pretty soon the little angel eating peanuts crossed the road and cut up across the lawn. He’s always cutting up in some way or other.

“For goodness’ sake, look at him,” I said; “he’s a walking junk shop. We could sell him for old metal.”

Honest, I had to laugh. That kid looked like a Christmas tree. He was wearing his belt-axe and it looked as if it weighed a ton the way it dragged his belt down. In front he had his scout jack-knife dangling from his belt and his big nickel-plated compass hanging by a cord around his neck. He had all his badges on, and besides he had his aluminum cooking set hanging by a strap from his shoulder. He had his brown scarf on too, he didn’t care how hot it was. The reason the Ravens chose brown for their color is because they’re all nuts in that patrol. He had his scout staff with the Raven pennant on it and he was jabbing it into the ground as he came along.

Westy said, “What’s this? A traveling hardware store?”

Dorry said, “Are you starting off on a crusade, Kid? Where’s your steel armor? What’s the large idea? Have the Germans invaded Bridgeboro?”

I was laughing so hard I could hardly speak. The kid looked like that picture in the handbook that shows just how to wear the medals and things.

“What’s this? A coffee-pot?” Ralph Warner asked him. “You must be going to join the Cook’s Tours with all your cooking things. What’s the big idea of all the exterior decorations?”

“I’m a delegation,” Pee-wee said.

“A what?” I asked him.

“Don’t you know what a missionary is?” he shot back at me.

“Good night! Pity the poor heathens,” I said. “So that’s what you’ve got the compass for! You’re going to China? Break it to us gently. You sound like a Ford when you walk.”

“You think you’re smart, don’t you?” he shouted. “I was out doing a good turn, so there. I was out doing a good turn for your patrol. I was trying to get you a new member. When you go after new members you’ve got to look like a scout, haven’t you? You’ve got to show them what scouting is, so they’ll see. Everybody knows that. Didn’t you ever hear that it takes a scout to catch a scout?”

“You couldn’t catch a snail with all that junk hanging on you,” I told him. “Who did you try to catch?”

“Warde Hollister,” he shouted.

Good night, we all began to laugh.

“Warde Hollister?” I said. “You couldn’t catch that fellow with a lasso. He loves the wild and woolly front porch too much. You stand a tall chance of getting Warde Hollister into the scouts. You’re wasting your time, Kiddo. What did he tell you?”

“He said he has something better to do with himself,” Pee-wee said.

“There you go,” Dorry told him; “that’s him all over. Why should he join the Silver Foxes when he can shoot buffaloes and Indians and hunt train robbers and kidnap maidens and dig up buried treasure?”

“Where can he do that?” Pee-wee wanted to know.

“Right in the public library,” I told him, “division B, second shelf from the top. That’s a dangerous place, that is; I’ve known fellows to get killed in there. There used to be a kid that lived on Willow Place and he got drowned in a sea story in there.”

“What are you talking about?” Pee-wee screamed. He always gets excited when we jolly him.

“We’re talking about adventures,” I said; “hair-breadth adventures—not even as wide as that, some of them. I know a fellow that got buried in a book; it was absorbing just like quicksand, and he got absorbed in it. What were you going to do, Kid? Throw the coffee-pot at him if he didn’t join? You didn’t intend to hack him to pieces with your scoutknife, did you? Because a scout is supposed to be kind.”

“You make me tired, all of you!” Pee-wee shouted. “Do you want to hear about it or don’t you?”

“Answered in the affirmative,” I told him. “Begin at the end and go on till you come to the beginning.”

“Then take the second turn to your left,” Westy said.

“That’s what I get for trying to do you a good turn,” the kid shouted. “No wonder Warde Hollister said you were all crazy.”

“Did he say that?” Westy wanted to know.

“Sure, and other people have said so, too,” the kid piped up.

“They don’t need to say so, we admit it,” I told him. “Go ahead with your story. What do you want us to do? Light a camp-fire so you can unravel your yarn?”

“That fellow can be circum—circumnavigated yet,” Pee-wee said, very dark and mysterious.

“Circumvented you mean,” Westy said.

“You know what I mean,” the kid shouted.

“Go ahead,” I told him; “the plot grows thicker.”

“Give us a couple of peanuts,” Dorry said.

The kid turned his aluminum coffee-pot upside down and, good morning, sister Anne, it was full of peanuts!

“Let’s see what’s in the saucepan,” I said.

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