“Well, then,” said Townsend, spinning the quarter into the air, “what are we going to do? Beg at a farm? Or spend this man’s money buying something of a farmer? Or are we going to be scouts? Not hot air scouts but real, honest-to-goodness scouts. You said I wasn’t much on scouting; said you’d teach me some things if I was only your unknown pal. Well, how about it?” he asked, still spinning the quarter in the air. “Are we going to stand here grouching and looking in that window like a couple of hoodlums rubbering in a bakery shop window? Or are we going to be scouts? What do you say? Shall we beat it into the woods and get supper? How about you?”
“I’ve got an inspiration!” shouted Pee-wee. “We don’t have to eat bark. I know real mushrooms when I see them and there are lots and lots and lots and lots of them only you’ve got to know them!”
“Now you’re shouting,” said Townsend. “You were only talking a little while ago.”
“When was I only talking?” Pee-wee demanded.
“On the way to the river.”
“I was shouting then,” he said.
“Well, then you’re screaming now. Did I ever tell you my middle name, Kid? It’s mushrooms.”
CHAPTER XXXII
THREE’S A COMPANY
That was the night of the mushroom feast, gathered by a scout who knew where to find them and how to distinguish them and how to cook them and how to eat them—oh, very much so. And so you see that scouts need not starve, though they seem to be always half starved at that.