Pee-wee scented her unfavorable decision in this matter and groping in his fertile mind, dragged up a blighting argument.
“You want him to be dressed like a gentleman, don’t you? Sure, you as much as said so. You like the way he has his handkerchief all tucked nice and pretty in his pocket. Suppose he should pull that out and wave it at me! That would spoil it all, wouldn’t it? So will you say you’ll do it—and cross your heart?”
“I don’t know how to drive oxen,” she said, hedging.
“All you have to do is keep saying ‘gee’,” said Pee-wee. “So will you do it?”
“No, I won’t,” said Hope, “because it’s silly. We haven’t got any money and we haven’t got lots of people and everybody would just laugh at our float. That boy would just laugh at us.”
“That shows how much you know about scouts,” Pee-wee said; “they’re supposed to spread laughter.”
“Well, I’m not going to have people laughing at me,” said Hope. “I’d rather come hiking in the woods like this—if I can’t do the things I want to do,” she added.
“You don’t need any money to have fun,” Pee-wee said, loud enough so the very woods echoed this magnificent truth. “As long as we have fun, what do we care what people say?”
“Well, I care,” Hope said, “and I’m not going to be a silly. Everybody up in town would laugh at this poky old place if we went in the parade. So let’s forget about it and look for the thrush. Nobody’ll laugh at us here, anyway, even if we don’t have any excitement.”
But Miss Hope Stillmore was presently to have excitement enough to last her for several days. And that without the presence of dancing and grown-up boys. She was to learn that the woods were not quite as “poky” as she had thought. And incidentally she was to learn something about scouts, too....