“They get a different boy in every town,” Pee-wee said, “because Mr. Ranter, he says it’s cheaper to do that than it is to pay his railroad fare all over the country, so can I do it? The iron isn’t really hot. So can I do it? Roy Blakeley and all the troop are coming to see me and maybe they’re going to get a flashlight and they’re going to clap a lot. So can I do it? I’m going to do good turns with the ten dollars so if you stand up for good turns like you told Mr. Ellsworth, you’d better let me do it or else that shows you don’t believe in good turns. So can I do it?”
In the interval of suspense which followed, Pee-wee strengthened his spirit with a bite of pie and stood ready to take still another upon the first hint of an adverse decision.
“I don’t like the idea of you going on the stage with actors, especially with the Punkhall Stock Company,” said Mrs. Harris doubtfully. “What would your Aunt Sophia say if she should hear of it?”
“How can she hear of it when she’s deaf?” said Pee-wee. “Anyway, they never hear of things in North Deadham. I only have to be on the stage about one minute and I don’t have to talk and I’d rather do it than—than—have a bicycle on Christmas. So can I do it?”
“I hope you don’t impersonate a scout,” said Mrs. Harris, weakening gradually.
“I’m the son of a cowboy that owns a ranch,” Pee-wee vociferated, “and his name is Deadshot Dan, and he gave me some peanuts when Mr. Ranter was talking to me. Gee whiz, you can tell from that that he’s not really bad, can’t you? Mr. Punkhall was there too, and he said I’d do it fine and they’ll show me how to do it at a rehearsal to-morrow morning and it doesn’t really hurt the horse, so can I do it?”
“You remember how scandalized your Aunt Sophia Primshock was when you kept a refreshment shack by the roadside? We have to think of others, Walter. Aunt Sophia would be—I can’t think what she’d be if she knew you joined the Punkhall Stock Company. And your cousin Prudence who is going to Vassar! I had to listen to their criticisms the whole time while I was visiting them, and your father thought they were right.”
Poor Mrs. Harris lived in mortal terror of the Primshock branch of the family which occupied the big old-fashioned house at North Deadham. No stock companies, no movies even, ever went there. No popular songs or current jokes or wise cracks of the day penetrated to that solemn fastness. All that ever reached there, apparently, were the tidings of Pee-wee’s sensational escapades, his floundering around the country in a ramshackle railroad car, his being carried off in an automobile, and, worst of all, his epoch-making plunge into the retail trade when he had sold and sung the praises of hot frankfurters by the road-side.
“I’m afraid she’d think it—unwise,” Mrs. Harris said in her gentle, half yielding manner.
“Ah now, Mudgy,” Pee-wee pleaded; “I told those men I’d do it and a scout has to keep his word, gee whiz, you have to admit that. And Aunt Sophia doesn’t have to know anything about it and I promise, I promise, not to tell her, and anyway Prudence has joined the Girl Scouts and maybe by this time she’s got to be kind of wild—kind of; and anyway I’ll never tell them so they can’t jump on you and if I say I won’t, I won’t because a scout’s honor is to be trusted. So can I do it? I won’t buy gumdrops with the ten dollars if you’ll let me do it.”