“They’re observant about—kind of—about—you know—about natural things.”
“Oh, has he got false hair?”
Suddenly Pee-wee had an inspiration. “I couldn’t see his hair on account of his having a straw hat over it,” he said.
“Everybody that stays at the Snailsdale House is rich,” said Hope wistfully. “They have dances there every night. Do you know how to dance?”
“Sure,” said Pee-wee, “I’ll teach you. I know an Indian war dance. I know the dance that the cannibals dance, too. Do you want to learn it?”
“Oh, horrors, no!”
“So will you help me with the float?” he asked after his erratic fashion of rebounding to the main subject. “Do you know where the hay wagon stands? Under that crazy old kind of a building? The one on stilts?”
“With corn-husks in it?” Hope asked.
“I don’t know what’s in it,” Pee-wee continued excitedly, “but, anyway, it’s all old and rotten and it’s no good except to keep the hay wagon under. So I’m going to ask Mr. Goodale to let it down onto the hay wagon, all he’ll have to do is kind of to saw off the legs. See? Even he can put it back if he wants to. And then we’ll decorate it all up and put a great big sign on that says Goodale Manor Farm and we’ll get the oxen and you can drive them if you want to and we’ll drive up to Snailsdale Manor and join the parade. So will you? Because all the houses are going to have floats in that parade. And, gee whiz, that’ll be something to do, won’t it? You bet I’m not going to stand in the street and have that feller waving his hand to me from a float—I’m not, you can bet. Not that feller.”
“You just dislike him because he dressed like a young gentleman,” said Hope.