In a minute or so Hervey came sailing out of the station with a funny kind of a hop, skip and jump that he has. He’s always doing that. He reached up and gave the telephone sign a good swing as he passed it. He had queer kind of bright eyes, Hervey had; all the scouts said so. I don’t know what it was about them. They were gray color and awful bright. I noticed them as he came over toward us that night. He was laughing and he said, “All right-o.”

“What’d they say?” Brent asked him.

“All right-o,” Hervey said again.

“Who’d you talk with?” Brent asked him.

“Who’d I talk with?”

“Yere.”

“Oh, I talked with a fellow, a scout,” Hervey said, sort of careless like.

For a couple of seconds it seemed to me that Brent would go over to the station himself. But I guess he didn’t want to hurt Hervey’s feelings. He just said, “What was his name?”

Hervey said in that happy-go-lucky way he has, “His name? Let’s see, his name was Wilkins. He said he’d tell the keepers.” Hervey always called the officials of Temple Camp keepers. The more he knew we didn’t like it the more he did it.

Brent said kind of serious-like, “You talked to a scout by the name of Wilkins and told him we were going to the carnival and would get back about eleven?”

“Precisely, exactly.”

“And he said he’d tell the management?”

“Precisely, exactly.”

“Just what did he say?”

“He said ‘All right.’ I bet I can kick that telephone sign down if I take a good running jump.”

“All right, let’s beat it for the carnival,” Brent said. “Let’s leave the sign where it is.”

“Just as you say, Doc,” Hervey said.

All the way to the carnival, Brent was kind of quiet. But Hervey, he should worry. He was doing a new kind of scout pace, it was awful funny. The thing that stopped Brent from being kind of sober and worried happened at the carnival. After that everything seemed all right again. It was all on account of Pee-wee.

The carnival was on the left-hand side of the road but I guess we would have gone to it anyway because we were hungry. Any port in a storm, that’s what Brent said. We had some frankfurters and, yum, they went good. Brent treated to them.

There were lots of city people at that carnival, because Greenvale is a kind of a young city. It has a high school up on the hill. I suppose that’s why they call it high. It has movie shows and everything.

In the field where the carnival was, was an old sign that said Earth For Sale. That shows how important Greenvale is. They thought they owned the earth. The field was all dolled up and there were a lot of booths and a merry-go-round and ten cent shows and everything. There were lots of people there wandering around.

At the edge of the field, near where the road was, were two or three houses. There were men selling things on the back porches of those houses. There was a sign on one of them and it said Hot Waffles and Honey, 15 Cents. There were three or four tables on the porch and a kind of a counter inside. There was a fat man who I guess owned the place. He had a big white apron on. There was an Italian boy who was waiting on people too. All along the railing of the porch and even inside of the room were more signs. They said De-licious. They Melt in Your Mouth. Real Southern Waffles. The Kind That Mammy Used to Make. Here They Are, as Sweet as Sugar, as Soft as Snowflakes.

Pee-wee said, “I’m going to get some of those.”

I guess we would all have bought some because, yum, yum, they smelled good, but all of a sudden, Pee-wee started ahead of us, pell-mell, for the building. “I’m going to get two helpings,” he shouted; “I’ve got thirty-four cents.” Just then, kerplunk, down he went sprawling on the ground.

“Going down,” Warde said.

“Did you know you fell?” I called to him, just as he was scrambling up again. “Do you need any first aid or would you prefer orangeade?”

“It’s a rope from that tent,” he shouted. “I tripped over it.”

Before we could reach him a girl went running up to him calling, “Oh, did you hurt yourself?” She began brushing him off and asking him if he hit his head and kept on brushing him off all the time, straightening his scarf and everything like that. “Oh, you tore your stocking,” she said. “Isn’t that a perfect shame!” She was a regular little finale hopper, that girl. She had on one of those hats, whatever you call it, and everything. She had on sandals, she had bobbed hair too.

When we reached the scene, Pee-wee was just standing there letting her brush him off.

Warde said, “That’s the way with him, he falls for everything. He fell for waffles and then he fell for a rope.”

I said, “Look at the hole in your stocking. Where’s the part where the hole is? Look around on the ground.”

“Don’t you mind them, they’re crazy,” Pee-wee said.

Brent said to the rest of us, “You shouldn’t laugh at a fellow because he’s down.”

“Most always he’s up in the air,” I said.

“Don’t you mind them,” the girl said.

“Do you think I’d mind them?” Pee-wee shouted. “They think they’re having adventures, but they’re crazy.”

“I wouldn’t lower myself as you do,” Warde said.

“He thinks that’s a joke,” the kid said. “They start on a trip——”

“Don’t talk about trips,” I said. “Yours was the best one I ever saw.”

“Did you hurt yourself, kid?” Brent asked him.

I said, “Your stocking looks like a corkscrew.”

“Don’t pay any attention to them,” the girl said.

Pee-wee said, “I wouldn’t bother my head about them; come on and I’ll treat you to waffles.”

“Are we in on this?” I asked him.

“No, you’re not,” he said. “Come on and I’ll treat you to waffles,” he said to the girl. “They make me tired.”

“Why do you eat them, then?” I said.

“I think it’s awfully nice of you,” the girl said.

I said, “Oh, that’s nothing, he’s a rising young scout. Didn’t you just see him rise? If you want to see him at his best go and have some waffles with him.”

“Will they mind?” she said to Pee-wee.

“What do you care if they mind or not?” Pee-wee said. “Will you come?”

She said, “If—I don’t know—if you think they won’t mind—if you really want me to.”

“Absolutely, positively,” I said. “Take him away from us a little while. The pleasure is ours.”