Pee-wee never had to pause and consider which thing he preferred, since he preferred all things. The place that he liked best to go was everywhere. The thing that he liked best to do was everything. Broadly speaking, the thing which he liked best to eat was food. And speaking more particularly the food that he liked best was dessert. But it might be said that he ate everything; adventures, hairbreadth escapes, colossal enterprises, dark mysteries—he ate them alive.
So it befell that when Pee-wee’s mother offered him the choice of going to Temple Camp or accompanying her into the mountains where she hoped to rest, he announced that he would go to the mountains first and to Temple Camp afterward. He did not specify how long he would remain in the mountains, but he assured his mother that Temple Camp and the mountains would be a moderate mouthful for one summer.
“I’m afraid it is very quiet up there,” said Mrs. Harris warningly.
“Gee whiz, I’ll show them how to make a noise,” Pee-wee assured her. “I can multiply my voice three times. Do you want to know how?”
“I’d rather hear you subtract it,” said Pee-wee’s mother.
“Do you want to know how?” he persisted.
“Tell me but don’t show me,” she said.
“You do it with echoes,” Pee-wee said; “it’s a scout stunt. I bet you couldn’t do it. Gee whiz, you say it’s quiet up there; I bet I can make those mountains talk. If I shout at a mountain that’s facing another mountain they’ll both answer; that makes three voices. Only I have to shout good and loud; I have to yell. See? All I need is a lot of lonely mountains. The quieter it is up there the more noise I can make. See? I might even make four of them shout.”
The vision of Pee-wee acting as a sort of orchestral leader to a range of mountains rather appalled his mother, but she said with a gentle smile as was her wont, “I’m afraid the place is very quiet and lonely, and such pleasure as you have you will have to make for yourself. I don’t want you to be restless and disappointed when you get there. It isn’t at all like Temple Camp, you know.”
“Have they got a windmill?” Pee-wee demanded vociferously.