  PEE-WEE’S LOSS Pee-wee gave a sudden start, then stopped. We all kind of stood back a little. Westy and Dorry stayed by the railing. We were all ready to retreat in disorder. There was that great big man filling up the whole doorway and his brass buttons shining. He looked like the Allied Army. She just shouted right in his face, “Stand aside and let these boys pass, in the name of the Girl Scouts of America!” G-o-o-d night, as sure as I’m writing this, that great big colored man stood out of the way and in she marched waving Pee-wee’s belt-axe. We all followed after her, kind of scary. “You’d—you’d better look out,” Pee-wee whispered to her. “He can lock us in here and have us all arrested. Maybe—you can’t tell—maybe he meditates treachery. What—what are you going to do?” “We’re going to devastate his country, Private Canary Bird Pee-wee,” she said. “Now you see what the Girl Scouts of America can do. Maybe sometime you’ll want to know how to break through hostile territory and then you’ll remember Dora Dane Daring, won’t you? Do you think I’m afraid of a butler?” “You’d—you’d better look out,” Pee-wee said; “safety first.” As we went through the hall he kept looking all around as if he expected to see sharpshooters behind all the doors. It was a dandy house, with a nice big wide hall and it had a moose’s head for a hat rack. First I guess we were all pretty scared. The kid walked on tiptoe through the hall, and he kept whispering to me, “This is just like—it’s just like burglary. Girls are reckless. We’d better look out. Do you hear a footstep upstairs? I hear a bell ringing. I bet he’s calling up the police, hey?” That girl led the way into a dandy big dining room and then all her friends began laughing again. She said, “We’ll take everything there is to eat in the pantry. My brave army must be fed.” Pee-wee said, “I’m—I’m not so hungry.” Gee whiz, it was the first time I ever heard him admit that. She said, “If there is any bird seed in this house you shall have it. Sit down.” Pee-wee sat down on the edge of a chair, looking all around, good and scared. Every time a door creaked he gave a start. He said, “It’s—it’s in—it says in the scout handbook that we have no right to trespass——” She waved the belt-axe and she said, “The scout handbook! Ho, ho! A mere scrap of paper.” She was awful funny. Pee-wee said, “We didn’t mean to stay here. All we wanted was to go through——” “Do you eat pie?” she said. He said, “Yes, but—maybe we’d better start.” We were all sitting around the dining room. I guess all of us felt kind of shaky. I thought every minute that Pee-wee was going to get up and run. All of a sudden Westy (gee, he’s a fiend for noticing things)—he said, “Dora Dane Daring, the boy scouts have to hand it to you; you’ve done a good turn, that’s sure. This house looked like a hard proposition. All we have to do now is climb over that fence in back. We all admit you’re a heroine. But there’s one thing I’d like to ask you. Do you notice that big silver cup on the sideboard has D D D engraved on it? Maybe scouts aren’t so much as warriors but they’re observant. I was wondering if you know whose initials those are?” At that all the girls started laughing. “It’s your own house!” Pee-wee shouted. “Now you see how scouts are observant. What did I tell you?” She said, “It is not my own house; so there, Mr. Canary Bird Harris.” “Whose house is it?” Westy said. “It’s my father’s, Mr. Smarty,” she said. “No sooner said than stung,” I told Westy. Hunt said, “What difference does it make whose house it is as long as we go through it? We have to give you the credit anyway.” “Is your father home?” Warde asked her. She said, “Nobody’s home but myself—and the butler.” I said, “Yes, I seem to remember him. I think Pee-wee met him once.” “I—I found out that I’m—kind of—that I’m hungrier than I thought I was,” the kid said. “Oh, sure,” I said; “his appetite is like a cat, it always comes back.” And believe me, that was the only time in the life of P. Harris that I ever knew him to lose his appetite. Even then it was only for four minutes. Westy said it was three minutes and a half, but what’s the difference? He got it back anyway. |
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