"Oh, I think it"s just _wonderful_!" the girl said.
"That"s nothing," Pee-wee told her; "you can even cook moss and eat it if you"re lost and hungry. Once I went two days without food."
"You mean two hours," Connie said.
"Anyway, it was _two_ something or other," Pee-wee shouted.
"Most likely it was two minutes," I told the girl.
"And you came all the way out here _alone_? Oh, isn"t that perfectly _adorable_! And you"re going to give a show to earn money----"
"So we won"t perish," Pee-wee said.
"Which?" Westy asked him.
"Perish," he said; "don"t you know what perish means?"
"And will the pictures show you doing all those things?" one of the girls wanted to know.
"Sure," Pee-wee said; "maybe you"ll get some good ideas from them, only you mustn"t scream when you see one of the fellows fall out of a tree into the water, because that"s nothing. That"s one thing scouts don"t do--scream."
But believe me, that was one thing scouts did do the very next day. I did, anyway; I screamed till I had a headache.
CHAPTER XI
WE MEET THE CHEERFUL IDIOT
They said they would surely canoe across that night and take in the show and so we told them we"d see them later. Westy gave Pee-wee one of his sign placards and we marched up and down Main Street for about an hour, till we got hungry. Then we decided that as long as everybody in Skiddyunk knew about our show, we"d go back to Ridgeboro and catch some fish. Mr. Tarkin told us that as long as everybody had laughed so much and had seemed to take so much interest, he guessed our show was a safe investment and that if we needed a couple of dollars or so to carry us through, he"d let us have it. But we didn"t take it, because scouts like to rely on themselves, and we knew there were lots of fish in that lake.
When we got back to Ridgeboro, the man that owned the store came and gave us a telegram. He said a boy on horseback had brought it from the office in Skiddyunk. This is what it said:
"Just learned of unfortunate error of freight conductor. Don"t be afraid or worried. Have wired money to Skiddyunk. You can get eastern train there at three. Parents informed. Keep cool.
"JOHN TEMPLE."
"Just our luck," Westy said; "we"ve got to go home."
"What!" Pee-wee shouted.
"_Keep cool_," I said; "that means _you_."
"Are you going to answer it?" he wanted to know.
"Absolutely, positively," I told him; "and I"m going to send it collect."
"If you think I"m going home," Pee-wee yelled, "you"ve got another think. A scout is not a quitter. We"ve got things coming our way now--do you think I"m going to admit----"
"Come on in the car and we"ll make up an answer," I said, "and I"ll sign it, because I"m patrol leader."
So this was the answer we made up and Westy and Connie went back to Skiddyunk with it, while the rest of us were fishing.
"Cannot make afternoon train. Are giving big movie show in car to-night. Great excitement. Expect to clear thirty dollars. Will not desert car. Expect us when you see us. Good fishing. Love to all. We should worry.
"ROY (S. F.)"
When Westy and Connie got back, they had fifty dollars that Mr. Temple had sent, but we decided we wouldn"t use a single cent of it, just so as to show him that we could look after ourselves. Anyway, we should bother about fifty dollars, because we had a big string of perch and some catfish.
It was about the middle of the afternoon when we got the fish cooked and, believe me, we were good and hungry. After the meal was over, we were sprawling around in the car before starting to get ready for the show, when all of a sudden we heard somebody speaking outside, and then in came a little man with an awful funny face and a funny little cap on.
He wore spectacles way down near the end of his nose and he was smiling and seemed awful happy, but there was something funny about his eyes. I guess he wasn"t more than about thirty years old, but he looked awful funny and his eyes were bright and queer like.
He said, "How _do_ you do." And then he started to shake hands with all of us. He said, "I called twice this morning, but you weren"t here. And now I have found you and I"m delighted, and I suppose you wonder who I am, eh?" Then he looked all around and put his finger to his lips and said, very secret like, "My name is Ebenezer Brewster and I"m a poet. I have written a little poem to thank you boys for the great honor you have done me, in naming the village after me. Shh! There is opposition.
The public is scandalized. There is likely to be a riot. I am not appreciated--shh."
"Six or seven people wouldn"t make much of a riot," I told him. "If they start any riot here, we"ll put the village in the car and take it away with us."
"That"s a very good idea," he said, "a _very_ good idea. Did you graduate from a public school?"
I said, "No, I have my ideas made to order; they last longer."
He said, "_Much_ longer, that"s my idea exactly. And they fit better.
Would you like to hear the poem?"
"Go ahead, shoot," Westy said.
So then he took a paper out of his pocket and read what was on it, and this was it:
"There are eleven people here, Nine chickens and a rooster; The village it is named for me, I"m Ebenezer Brewster."
Connie came over and whispered to me, "Where are we, anyway? I feel like Alice in Wonderland. He"s a cheerful idiot. He thinks we named this town after him. This is _some_ comedy."
CHAPTER XII
ON THE SCREEN
That fellow didn"t stay long and he went away very sudden like, just the same as the way he came. We told him to come to the movie show and he said he would. We decided that he was kind of crazy, but anyway, he was awful nice about it, and gee whiz, if you"re happy, what"s the difference whether you"re crazy or not? He was happy all right, and he seemed to be mighty proud, because he thought the town was named after him. So we let him think so.
By six o"clock we had everything ready for the big show. We fixed the apparatus so that the lens cylinder stuck through the ticket window, and that way the operator (that was Pee-wee, because the machine belonged to him) could be all by himself in the ticket agent"s room. We hung the screen at the other end of the car, and turned all the seats facing that way.
The man over in the store came and watched us and got friendly. I guess he knew how it was by that time, and he wasn"t afraid that the name of the village was really changed. He gave us some cakes and we had cakes and fried perch for supper. They were dandy cakes, with jam in them.
There were seven of them and only five fellows, but anyway, Pee-wee hadn"t done any good turn that day, so he ate three. That was so none of the rest of us would get a stomachache. That"s the way with Pee-wee, he"s always thinking about some one else.