Pee-Wee Harris Adrift | Page 5

of stockings and garters. This was
accomplished by the use of a pair of trousers with legs of such ample
diameter and of such length as to render stockings altogether
superfluous. This released both garters for more important duties, they
being tied end to end, thus constituting a sort of single strand suspender
which at its junction with his trousers in front was securely held by a
large nail. His hair presented an appearance not unlike the negligent
architecture of an eagle's nest, which is of the bungalow type in its
loose irregularity. He had not the slightest reason for supposing that
Pee-wee was equipped with commissary stores, but on general
principles he said,
"Give us a hunk of candy, will yer?"
As luck would have it, this random shot, fired at every strange boy
from the upper world, hit the mark, to his unspeakable astonishment.
Pulling out of his pocket a licorice jaw-breaker of vast dimensions,
Pee-wee sent it shooting in a bee-line at the face of the stranger.
Never before in all his checkered history had Keekie Joe ever received
any edible of any character whatever in response to his menacing
demands. He had always assumed that boys who were well dressed had
fruit or candy in their pockets. He had sometimes required them to

verify their denials by an exhibition of the interior of these receptacles.
His invariable demand had become a habit with him. Therefore the
little sugared black brick which now hit him in the eye came as an
unprecedented surprise. For a moment he did not know whether to
construe it as a propitiatory gift or a warlike missile.
"What's the matter with you, can't you catch?" Pee-wee demanded.
CHAPTER IV
KEEKIE JOE
It required but a few seconds for Keekie Joe to decide to run true to
form. The situation was an unusual one, the missile was a delicious
morsel, and was nothing more nor less than what he had demanded. But
still it had been thrown at him and Keekie Joe elected to consider it as a
shot fired by the enemy.
"Whatcher chuckin' things at me fer?" he demanded, descending from
the fence and approaching Pee-wee with a terrible look of menace. He
had been careful, however, to pick the jawbreaker up and put it in his
mouth.
"Didn't you say you wanted one?" Pee-wee asked. "Didn't you just put
it in your mouth?"
"Never you mind wot I done," said Keekie Joe. "D'yer think yer cin
sass me?"
"I'll show you how to catch if you'll say you'll be a scout," Pee-wee
answered. There could be no better illustration of his desperation as a
scout missionary than this artless proposition to the sentinel of Barrel
Alley.
"Who can't catch?" Keekie Joe demanded.
"You can't."

"Me?"
"Yes, you."
"Yer dasn' say it again."
"You can't catch, you can't catch, you can't catch," said Pee-wee.
There seemed nothing left now but to break off diplomatic relations
altogether. The issue was clear. But Keekie Joe did not plunge his
outlandish person into war.
"If I didn' have ter lay keekie I'd slam yer one," he announced.
"What's the use of giving you candy if we can't be friends?" Pee-wee
said. "Gee whiz, I wouldn't care how much candy fellers threw at me;
the more the merrier. They can throw mince pies at me for all I care,"
he added. "If you want to be a scout I'll show you how and we can start
a patrol maybe."
[Illustration: Keekie Joe interviews Pee-wee]
The word patrol seemed to suggest something ominous to Keekie Joe,
for he glanced furtively up and down the alley, and then waved his
hand reassuringly to the group in the middle of the field.
Pee-wee perceived now that the scene of the crap game had been
selected with keen military wisdom, affording a safe avenue of
precipitate retreat in any direction. Disaster could have resulted only
from a surrounding host. Officer McMahon, the tyrant on this squalid
beat, was large. But he was not large enough to surround the camp.
The crap-shooters of Barrel Alley had been surprised in every nook and
corner of their neighborhood until they had hit upon the bold expedient
of playing in an open lot, reposing their trust in a sentinel. It would not
have been well for the sentinel to relax his vigilance.
"What I want ter join them scout kids fer?" Keekie Joe inquired. "Der
yer call me a sissy?"

"Do you call the scouts sissies?" Pee-wee inquired angrily. "They have
more fun than you do, that's one sure thing. If you don't want to join
you don't have to but you don't have to get mad about it. Gee whiz,
you're always mad, kind of. I guess you got up out of the wrong side