Pee-Wee Harris Adrift | Page 3

had more pep
than the Ravens. "The Elks say the Ravens are no good and the Ravens
say the Elks are no good and they're both right; we should worry," said
Roy. "There's one good thing about the Elks and that is that they're not
Ravens, and there's one good thing about the Ravens and that is that
they're not Elks. They both have everything to be thankful for if not
more so. They're in luck."
"Do you call that logic?" Pee-wee demanded in the tones of an
earthquake. "If one thing is better than another thing how can that other
thing be better than the other thing? You're crazy!"
"Goodness gracious, look who's here?" said Hunt Manners, who was
sorting out some fish-hooks. "The whole Canned Salmon Patrol."

Pee-wee stood outside the tent, breathing hard after his long tramp up
the hill to the Blakeley place.
"Don't you know this is private land?" Warde Hollister said, rather
heedless of the possible effect of his remark.
"I didn't come in the tent, did I?" Pee-wee retorted wistfully.
"Come ahead in, Kid," said Roy. "Are you hungry? Here's some
fish-hooks."
"No, I'm not hungry," Pee-wee said. He had been so touched by
Warde's thoughtless remark that he held himself aloof from Roy's
hospitality. "I only came up to tell you that the thunderstorm up the
river did a lot of damage; a house was struck by lightning in North
Bridgeboro and a lot of trees were blown down." This was not what he
had come up for, though indeed the news was true, but his pride was
touched by that remark of Warde's and he would not now admit that he
had tramped up there just to visit them.
"Gee whiz, do you think I don't know that eight's a company, nine's a
crowd with patrols?" he said. "Do you think I don't know that? Anyway,
if I wanted to go and hang out with any patrol I'd go with the Ravens,
wouldn't I? I only came up to tell you that, because I thought you'd like
to know. Do you think I'm trying to find out your secrets? Gee whiz!"
"Come ahead in, Kid," said Roy; "Warde didn't mean that."
"I will not."
"What's the matter with you anyway?" Will Dawson asked.
"I'm not in your patrol," Pee-wee said.
"What's the big idea?" Westy Martin asked. "You weren't in it when
you went on the bee-line hike with us either, were you?"
"That's different," Pee-wee said. "Anyway I was a scout then, because I
was in the Ravens and anyway I've got to go to the store."

Before they realized it he was gone.
"What the dickens did you want to say that for?" Roy asked Warde.
"Oh, it just jumped out of my mouth," Warde said; "I didn't think he'd
be so touchy. Wait, I'll call him back."
But the sturdy little figure trudging down the hill paid no attention to
Warde's call. And the Silver Foxes, friendly and sympathetic as they
were, were too preoccupied to think much about this trifling affair.
Perhaps they had just a little disinclination to having visitors, even the
little mascot, participating in their private councils just then.
The point of the whole matter was that Pee-wee had been
unintentionally eliminated; it was a sort of automatic process
attributable to the springtime. And he found himself alone. He was not
out of the troop, but he was not in any of the patrols, and in spite of all
his spectacular missionary work he had not been able to form a patrol.
Pee-wee's pride was as great as his voice and his appetite, and he would
not sponge on the patrols which had a full membership and were busy
with their own concerns. The rock on which he had stood all winter had
split in three and there was no place for him on any of the pieces.
On Saturday morning the Silver Foxes went into the city to buy some
camping things and to see a movie show in the afternoon. The Ravens
went off for a hike. A Saturday spent alone was more than the soul of
Pee-wee could endure, so he conquered his foolish pride and went up to
Connie Bennett's house to find out what the Elks were going to do. He
would not join in with the Elks, he told himself, but he would pal with
any single Elk, or even with two or three. That would be all right as
long as he did not foist himself upon a whole patrol. "Eight's a
company, nine's a crowd, gee whiz, I have to admit that," he said to
himself. "It's all right for me to go with one feller even if he's a scout
but a patrol's different."
It was a