Pee-Wee Harris Adrift | Page 6

of
the bed, that's what I think."
This was not true, for indeed Keekie Joe did not sleep in a bed at all; he
slept on a heap of old inner tubes in Ike Levine's tire repair shop. He
was about to resent this slander from Pee-wee with a glowering look
and a threat, when suddenly something happened, which precipitately
terminated his performance of his official functions. His father called
him from a tenement across the street, accompanying his summons
with such dismal predictions of what would happen if he did not obey
that the official sentinel had no choice but to desert his post.
"If I have ter come over there'n git yer," the father said, "I'll----"
Poor Joe glanced at his father in the window, then at the gamesters in
the field. It was evident that chastisement of the severest character
awaited him in any case. For a moment he had a wild notion of making
a spectacular retreat along the street, crawling through a broken part of
the fence beyond the range of parental vision, and resuming his duties
of sentinel at another vantage point. Such a maneuver would at least
postpone a reckoning with his father and enable him to be faithful to
his trust. A very unworthy trust it may have been but his one thought
was to be faithful to it. And there you have Keekie Joe in a nutshell . . .
CHAPTER V
A QUESTION OF DUTY
Pee-wee's advice to Joe in this predicament was rather singular, and the
scout law on which he based it covered a rather larger field of
obligation than was necessary in the circumstances.
"Go ahead over," he whispered; "you have to obey your parents and all
other duly constituted authorities. I'll lay keekie for you while you're
gone; go ahead over, I'll keep watch."

"Yes, you will!" said Joe incredulously. "I know youz guys, y'll put one
over, that's what y'll do. Wat'd'yer mean, constute--con--authorities?
Yes yer will, not!"
"That shows how much you know about scouts," Pee-wee said, always
ready to explain the ins and outs of scouting. "Do you think I'd cheat?
Gee whiz, I've got to be faithful to a trust, haven't I? If I say I'll do a
thing I'll do it. You go ahead over and I'll keep watch and if I don't do it
you can punch me in the eye the next time you see me."
It was not so much this proffer of indemnity as a supplementary threat
from the window across the way which decided Keekie Joe. He did not
believe in Pee-wee for he did not believe in anybody. But he was a bit
puzzled at this self-possessed little stranger from another world. There
was a straightforward, clear look in the little scout's eyes which
bespoke both friendliness and sincerity and Keekie Joe did not
understand this. The emergency decided him to repose faith in the
strange boy but it was not in him to do this graciously.
"You keep yer eyes peeled till I git back, and giv'm the high sign, d'yer
hear?" he said with insolent skepticism, "or the first time I see yer on
Main Street I'll black up both yer eyes fer yer, d'yer see?"
"That's one thing I like about you," said Pee-wee; "gee whiz, you obey
scout laws without even knowing them. That shows you're a kind of a
scout and you don't know it."
Keekie Joe did not look much like a scout, as he shuffled across the
street; he did not even look like the rawest of raw scout material. But
statues are carved out of hard rock. And Keekie Joe was a very hard
rock indeed.
Pee-wee vaulted up onto the ramshackle fence, placed one of those
granite bricks known as a licorice jaw-breaker in his mouth, and
prepared for his indefinite vigil. He was not thinking of the "constituted
authorities," he was not thinking of the crap-shooters either; his back
was turned to them and his all seeing eye was fixed on the distant street
corner. He was thinking of Keekie Joe and of how Keekie Joe had tried

to obey one of the good scout laws by being faithful to a trust. And
there you have Pee-wee Harris in a nut-shell . . .
The game in the middle of the large field must have become exciting,
for its votaries were gathered into a close group. None of the players
seemed able now to spare so much as a cautious glance toward the
street. Once, during his intense preoccupation, Slats Corbett gave a
quick, furtive glance afar, but it was only in a sort of sub-consciousness
that he glimpsed a figure sitting on the fence, its back toward him. That
was enough.
The group gathered closer, voices