And there you are.
CHAPTER VIII
PEE-WEE GOES TO IT
It was not until afterward that Hope realized the full significance of Pee-wee’s act. When she saw her mother embrace and kiss him (much to Pee-wee’s discomfort) and heard the comments of the household generally, it struck her that she had been rescued from a horrible death, like a girl in a story. The one false note in the whole business was that her hero was not tall and commanding, like some of the college boys she knew at home. Then she could have regarded him with romantic tenderness.
Farmer Goodale, somewhat doubtful about the affair, made a trip to the scene of Pee-wee’s triumph and his inspection only increased the little scout’s glory. He said that the reptile was a rattlesnake, sure enough, and a very formidable one. Simon Hasbrook, the farm-boy, also made a pilgrimage to the historic field of glory, and reported that the dead snake was the largest he had ever seen.
As for Pee-wee, his exploit was soon relegated to the back of his seething mind in the interest of more important conquests. For he intended to triumph over Straw-hat Braggen as he had triumphed over the snake. He intended to vanquish him, not with a mop and a cudgel, but with a float which would be a vision of splendor.
His first move was against Mr. Goodale. “If we have a float in the parade,” he said excitedly, “it’ll make lots and lots of people come and board here, because it pays to advertise, and all we have to do is kind of to drop that building down onto the hay wagon and then decorate it; see? All we have to do is to saw off the four stilts and let it down—kerflop. It’ll come down all right.”
Mr. Goodale agreed that if the four stilts were sawed off the structure would undoubtedly descend upon the hay wagon.
“On account of the attraction of gravity,” Pee-wee said. “Then when we’re all through with it we can sort of raise it up again, because then we’ll have plenty of money on account of the farm getting to be so popular, so it’s a kind of an investment. So will you do it? If you’ll help me saw it off I’ll do all the rest, and I can even print a great big sign, because I know all about printing, because my uncle is in the printing business. So will you do it?”
“I don’t see how as it’s goin’ ter bring folks here,” drawled Mr. Goodale, good-humoredly, and somewhat captivated in spite of himself, by Pee-wee’s enthusiasm; “because all the folks up ter Snailsdale hev got boardin’ places—”