“That means he has to treat to soda ten times,” said Roy; “it’s on page forty-eleven of the handbook. If he treats to soda fifteen times he’s a soda scout and he can wear the soda badge, all down the front of his coat, just like you. Come on, let’s go home, Mr. Bennett wants to shut up.”
“I wouldn’t shut up for anybody,” Pee-wee said.
CHAPTER III—SUCH IS FAME
Pee-wee’s plans, indeed, were more numerous than the miscellaneous possessions which he displayed upon his scout regalia and which set him off like a sort of animated Christmas tree. If his active brain could have been revealed to view it would have been found decorated with plans of every description; schemes and enterprises would have been seen dangling from it, as his jack-knife and his compass and his cooking pan and his watch and his coil of rope were seen dangling from his belt and jacket. His mind was a sort of miniature attic, full of junk. An artist familiar with rummage sales might picture our scout hero in all his glory. But alas, no artist could picture his brain!
At the time of the beginning of this odd train of happenings, Pee-wee had cause to be both proud and satisfied. For one thing he had eight dollars and sixty cents, the rest of his ten dollars having gone to Bennett’s.
The animal first aid badge which he had lately won, being his tenth award, had made him a star scout. The badge itself had not yet been tendered him but this would be done by the exalted powers when he reached Temple Camp. It would be done with befitting ceremony. It was not necessary for anyone to tell Pee-wee that he was a hero; he admitted it. After he had received his rank of star scout all of the pioneer[1] scouts at camp would rally to his standard, clamoring for admittance to his new, and altogether unique, patrol. So Pee-wee’s path of glory was mapped out, as far as it was possible for the human imagination to map it. The new patrol was to be called the Hop-toad Patrol, because it was by tracking a hop-toad to its savage lair that Pee-wee had won the stalking badge, one of the stepping stones to his pedestal of glory.
But the fame of Scout Harris had already gone further than he knew; it had penetrated to North Deadham, and had appealed to Aunt Sophia Primshock’s eyes, if it could not sneak in through her ears. On the very next morning after Pee-wee’s brief career upon the stage he received the following letter:
My dearest nephew Walter:
We were so pleased to see in the Council Fire column of a newspaper that you have been awarded the scout badge for first aid to animals. Prudence is so proud of her cousin that she cannot wait to see you and tell you so. When we think of all the cruelty that is inflicted on poor dumb creatures, and sometimes by boys, it makes me very happy to think that my very own nephew stands as the champion of the beasts and birds, and will not harm them or allow anyone else to harm them. That is better than selling sausages like a pedler, and if it is true that they are made of dogs it makes one’s heart ache to think of it. We want you to come here and see us very soon, and you must stay for several days.
Your proud and happy
AUNT SOPHIA
Enclosed in the envelope was another missive, rather more formal in tone, which read:
TO WALTER HARRIS, SCOUT:⸺
The Humane Committee of the Girl Scouts of North Deadham invite you to attend their rally on Saturday evening, July the tenth, and to accept the Black Beauty Cross of Mercy, for friendship and kindness to dumb creatures. This cross is given only by the North Deadham organization, to those rendering conspicuous service in the field of humanity by championing our dumb friends who cannot speak for themselves.
Katherine Kindheart
Sympathea Softe
Dorothy Docile
Prudence Primshock
Committee