CHAPTER XX—WE CONSIDER OUR PREDICAMENT
(THAT’S PEE-WEE’S HEADING)
I said to Brent, “Now you’ve killed a child and highway-robbed people and broken into houses, I hope you’re satisfied.”
“And larcenied,” the kid shouted.
“Shut up,” I told him; “do you want the whole town to hear you? It’s bad enough as it is; suppose somebody should come walking into this van.”
Brent said, in that crazy way of his, “Boys, this is the end of an evil career. This is what comes of getting mixed up with the boy scouts. See where it has brought me. Never again will I do a good turn.”
“You’re crazy,” Pee-wee shouted.
“Shh,” I told him; “have a heart. Do you want to get us all pinched?”
“It was about the best turn I ever did,” Brent said; “I turned the stop-cock all the way open. And here I am a prisoner in a dry goods delivery van with boy scouts for keepers. I’d be ashamed to look an honest burglar in the face.” Honest, that’s just the crazy way he talked. He said, “Now the question is to escape. I want to escape in a way that’s full of pep.”
Pee-wee said, “You make me tired. Do you mean to say that good turns——”
“Will you shut up about good turns, and listen?” I said.
“I mean to say that a good turn is the cause of my downfall,” Brent said; “and I wish I had a cigarette. Boys, take a lesson from my terrible example and don’t ever do a good turn.”
“What are you talking about?” the kid shouted.
“Shh,” I told him; “keep still, will you? The first merry-go-round you see you can get on it and do all the good turns you want, only keep still and give us a chance to see where we’re at, will you?”
“It’s printed on the National Headquarters’ letterheads,” he said, “to do a good turn——”
“It’s bad advice to give a young boy,” Brent said.
I said, “Keep still, you’re worse than he is. Give me a chance to think, will you?”
“Roosevelt’s name and Taft’s name are on that letterhead,” the kid began, “so that shows——”
“I’m surprised that they should give such advice to young boys,” Brent said. “I wonder if I could escape from this van with a file and let myself down with a rope?” Then he picked up a can opener and said, “Ha, ha, just the thing.”
I said, “Will you please keep still a minute, both of you? Maybe you’ve heard the scout motto, ‘Be Prepared.’ That’s just as important as good turns. How are we going to get away from this town? That’s the question. You and your crimes, and Pee-wee and his good turns, make me tired. We’ve got to look facts in the face.”
Brent said, “I’m ashamed to look even a fact in the face.”
“Well,” I told him, “you’ll be looking a sheriff in the face if you don’t talk in a whisper, and maybe you’ll find it isn’t so pleasant being arrested.”
Brent said, “I’m not thinking about being arrested, I’m thinking about escaping.”
“Well, you can’t escape from a dry goods van,” I told him.
He said, awful sad, kind of, “I know it. Oh, if I were only Eliza and could be pursued by ferocious bloodhounds.”
I said, “Well, you can’t have everything. You’ve done pretty well so far.”
“Sure you have,” Pee-wee whispered; “there’s one of those notices tacked up in the Post Office, and everybody is talking about that fellow escaping. I told them that often boy scouts find missing people. I was telling them about good turns, and I said we’d be on the lookout.”
“I hope they won’t look in” Brent said.
“What else did you tell them?” I asked him, good and scared. Because I knew that if our young hero had been able to round up an audience in the Post Office, most likely he had given them the whole history of the Boy Scouts of America and a lot of other stuff besides.
“I was telling them about good turns,” he said. “There was an old lady there and I carried a big bundle out to her carriage for her.”
“And that’s all you told them?” I asked him.
“I told them we were going to the Veterans’ Reunion at Grumpy’s Cross-roads,” he said.
I said, “Did anybody ask you any questions?”
“Sure,” he said; “a man asked me if I liked gumdrops. He gave me a bag of them. Want one?”
“Well,” I said, “the best thing for us to do is to get out of this place as quick as we can. When we once strike open country, we’ll be all right and when we meet the rest of the crowd we can scrape up some civilized duds.”
“I wonder how I’d look in Brother Abbington’s plug hat just now,” Brent said.
“You should worry,” I told him; “you look bad enough already.”
“Speaking of plug hats,” he said, “don’t forget we have to get a couple of plugs for the motor. What place is this, anyway?”
“It’s the place we were looking for,” Pee-wee said; “it’s Barrow’s Homestead. There aren’t any scouts here, but I told the people all about them. They’re going to start a troop.”
I said, “Well, it’s time to start this troop if we don’t want to get into trouble. This is a pretty risky business.”