Pee-Wee Harris | Page 3

not eating that banana. So there."
"That's a very fine argument." the postman said as he went away.
"I know better ones than that." Pee-Wee shouted after him.
CHAPTER II
A TRAGIC PREDICAMENT
So there he sat upon his precarious perch trying to reassume the posture which insured a good balance, clinging to the trunk with one hand and to the banana with the other.
And now that the encounter which had almost resulted in a tragic sacrifice was over, and while our scout hero pauses triumphant, it may be fitting to apologize to the reader for introducing our hero in the act of eating. But indeed it was a question of introducing him in the act of eating or of not introducing him at all.
For a story of Pee-Wee Harris is necessarily more or less a story of food. And this is a story abounding in cake and pie and waffles and crullers and cookies and hot frankfurters. There will be found in it also ice cream cones and jaw breakers and coconut bars and potatoes roasted on sticks. Heroes of stories may have starved on desert islands but there is to be none of that here.
In this tale, if you follow the adventures of our scout hero (who now at last appears before you as a star), you shall find lemonade side by side with first aid, and all the characters shall receive their just desserts, some of them (not to mention any names) two helpings.
So there he sat upon the branch, the mascot of the Raven Patrol, with an interior like the Mammoth Cave and a voice like the whisperings of the battle zone in France. Take a good look at him while he is quiet for ten seconds hand running. Everything about him is tremendous--except his size. He is built to withstand banter, ridicule and jollying; his sturdy nature is guaranteed proof against the battering assaults of unholy mirth from other scouts; his round face and curly hair are the delight of the girls of Bridgeboro; his loyalty is as the mighty rock of Gibraltar. A bully little scout he is--a sort of human Ford.
The question of removing the letter from the banana and getting rid of the banana (in the proper way) now presented itself to him. He took a bite of the banana and the letter almost fell. He then tried releasing his hold upon the trunk but that would not do. He then extracted the letter with his teeth which effectually prevented him from eating the banana.
What to do?
Steadying himself with one hand (he could not let go the trunk for so much as a moment), he brought the banana to his lips, held it between his teeth and took the letter in his unoccupied hand. As he bit into the banana the part remaining trembled and hung as on a thread; another moment and it would drop. The predicament was tragic. Slowly, but surely and steadily, the remainder of the banana broke away and fell--into the hand that held the letter.
Holding both letter and banana in the one perspiring palm, Pee-Wee devoured first the one and then the other. Both were delicious, the letter particularly. It had one advantage over the banana, for he could only devour the banana once, whereas he devoured the contents of the letter several times. He wished that bananas and doughnuts were like letters.
CHAPTER III
AN INVITATION
The envelope was postmarked Everdoze which, with its one thousand two hundred and fifty--seven inhabitants, was the cosmopolitan center of Long Valley which ran ( if anything in that neighborhood could be said to run) from Baxter City down below the vicinity of the bridge on the highway. That is, Long Valley bordered the highway on its western side for a distance of about ten miles. The valley was, roughly speaking, a couple of miles wide, very deep in places, and thickly wooded. It was altogether a very sequestered and romantic region. Through it, paralleling the highway, was a road, consisting mostly of two wagon ruts with a strip of grass and weeds between them. To traverse Long Valley one turned into this road where it left the highway at Baxters, and in the course of time the wayfarer would emerge out of this dim tract into the light of day where the unfrequented road came into the highway again below the bridge.
About midway of this lonely road was Everdoze, and in a pleasant old-fashioned white house in Everdoze lived Ebenezer Quig who once upon a time had married Pee-Wee's Aunt Jamsiah. Pee-Wee remembered his Aunt Jamsiah when she had come to make a visit in Bridgeboro and, though he had never seen her since, he had always borne her tenderly in mind because as a little (a very little) boy her name had always reminded him of