“Soda?” said the proprietor. “Certainly.” He placed upon the counter three enormous boxes of washing soda.
“Stung,” said Fuller. “Carry these home, Scout, the joke is on us. Let’s try the third store beyond the second tree.”
They all filed soberly out, Pee-wee carrying the washing soda.
CHAPTER XXIX
THREE OF A KIND
The pigeon-holes in the station at Westover were not sufficiently numerous, nor varied in their contents, to send an aimless pilgrim to any great distance. Tickets for points along the main line and along the several branches were to be had there. By the grab-bag device one might find himself at the seashore or at some remote mountain hamlet. He could not go through to South Africa or to the island of Yap without change.
But this made no difference to Pee-wee. He included the heaven above and the earth beneath and the waters under the earth in his preparations. He was not going to take any chances of finding himself in the Klondike without snow shoes, so he devised a pair out of two old tennis rackets.
He built a camp-fire and got a huge tin can and stewed up an odorous concoction, following a recipe for mosquito dope which he had seen printed in a camping booklet. This was for use in the tropics. A scout must be prepared. It would probably have driven all the tropical pests to cover for it certainly drove all the Goodale guests in from the porch. They barricaded themselves in the sitting room and closed the windows.
Pee-wee seemed to go on the principle that the less junk he carried in his brain the more he should carry in his duffel bag and dangling from his person. This stuff was all thoroughly edited by his two friends on the momentous day of their departure, and when they started, Pee-wee carried with him nothing but thirty-five dollars and a safety-pin. With this latter his mother pinned the bills within his shirt for safe-keeping. By pulling his shirt out from his neck he could look down and see that his fortune was all right.
“It’s too bad we know we’re going to Westover, hey?” he said. “But, gee whiz, you’ve got to know something to get started, or we’d just kind of keep going round and round the house maybe, like you did at that lake.”