Pee-wee Harris: Fixer

by Percy Keese Fitzhugh

To do him justice, he did not intend to desert his new friend. Probably he assumed that no boy living would hang back in such an enterprise. The worst that can be said of him is that he forgot to look behind him. Nor did Emerson hold back because he lacked interest and desire. But he saw that he was an outsider, superfluous, disregarded. In the intense preoccupation of this hustling, fraternal company, his detachment from them seemed hopeless. Perhaps he had not the initiative to push into this exciting enterprise where his presence would hardly be known....

The next thing that he knew he was standing alone in the woods, listening to distant and receding voices. Only a cheery little cricket was there to keep him company. He seemed very far from joining the scouts. He bore no resentment toward Pee-wee. He looked at his gold watch to see what time it was. Then, from force of habit, he felt to see if his neat, leather wallet was in place. There were only two crisp bills in the wallet now; the rest had been spent in the entertainment of his exuberant little friend.

Poor Emerson was no pathfinder (the very thought seemed to suggest laughter) but the kindly path would guide him to the state road, and from there he could find his way home easily enough. As he made his lonely way along the path, he could still hear voices, spent by the distance, farther and farther off. He thought the different groups were calling to each other. He fancied those two aggressive, resourceful, hurrying, purposeful patrol leaders jollying Pee-wee.

He picked his way along the path and was soon upon the state road. He looked funny walking along through the country in the night.

CHAPTER XVIII
DEDUCTION

Emerson knew that scouts were always called out whenever any one was lost. He wondered whether they had investigated the neighborhood of the circus. Though he had not been included in their organized search, there was no harm in his thinking about the affair and forming theories as he went along. No one could “guy” him or interfere with him in that purely academic pastime.

He had never before been brought so close to a possible tragedy. He felt the excitement, the thrill of it, though the door had been so heedlessly slammed in his face. Poor Emerson’s adventures were mostly in his mind where no one could see them—and make fun of them. It was not a bad sort of mind.

As he hurried along with his funny, prim walk, he decided that the “public authorities” had certainly not failed to consider the perils which accompany a visiting circus. They would certainly investigate that field of major importance, leaving the less important field to the scouts. There was, as he saw it, an affinity between scouts and woods, and the woods would naturally be the scene of their quest. He wondered if there were any particular reason for supposing that little Margie Garrison had gone into the woods. He assumed that the scouts knew what they were about....

As he took his lonely way homeward, he did not put himself out of sorts by any feeling of resentment toward these scouts whose organization he had consented, and really desired, to join. He was quite without malice. Pee-wee would be disappointed and he was sorry for that. But even Pee-wee must see....

So this gentlemanly young pedestrian indulged in a little mental investigation all his own. He did not know that scouts were supposed to be strong on this sort of thing, deducing and the like. For some incomprehensible reason Pee-wee had neglected to tell him that.