Well, I guess that’s all there is to tell you about the meeting, and in the next chapter I’m going to tell you all about how we collected the books for the fellows in camp, and how the mystery about the boat was solved. Those are Pee-wee’s words about the mystery of the boat. I can’t see that there was any mystery about it, but there was another kind of a mystery, believe me, and that kid was the cause of it. I guess maybe you’ll like the next chapter better than this one.
So long.
CHAPTER II
SWATTING THE SPY
Now I’m going to tell you about how we collected books for soldiers and especially about Pee-wee’s big stunt.
The next morning we started out and by night we had over five hundred books. Mr. Ellsworth said they were mostly light literature, but if he had only had to carry fifty of them on his shoulder like I did, he’d have thought they were pretty heavy literature, believe me.
This is the way we fixed it. The Raving Patrol (that’s Pee-wee’s patrol, you know) used Doctor Harris’s five-passenger Fraud car. It didn’t go very good and Pumpkin Odell (Raven) said he guessed it was because the wheels were tired—that’s a joke. They held up all the houses in Little Valley. That’s about sumpty-seven miles or so from Bridgeboro. They’ve got two stores there and a sign that says “Welcome to Automobilists” and how they’ll be arrested if they don’t obey the speed laws. Welcome to jail—good night!
The Elk Patrol (that’s our new patrol, you know) went over to East Bridgeboro with Pinky Dawson’s express wagon (one horsepower) and some horse—I wish you could see him. The Elks were a pretty lively bunch, I’ll say that, and they cleaned out all the private libraries in East Bridgeboro. They even got cook-books and arithmetics and books about geometry—pity the poor soldiers.
The Silver Fox Patrol took care of Bridgeboro. That’s the best patrol of the whole three. I’m leader of the Silver Foxes. The Ravens call us the Silver-plated Foxes, but that’s because we call them the Raving Patrol and the reason we call them the Raving Patrol is on account of Pee-wee.
Let’s see, where was I? Oh yes, the Silver Foxes took care of Bridgeboro. Brick Warner (he’s red-headed) has a Complex car or a Simplex, or whatever you call it—I should worry. I mean his father has it. He’s got a dandy father; he gave Brick five dollars so that we could have a blow-out at lunch time. Oh, boy, we had two blowouts and a puncture.
We got over two hundred books that day—light literature, dark literature, all colors. I could tell you a lot of things that happened that day, because we did a lot of good turns, and one bad turn, when we grazed a telegraph pole. What cared we? But you’ll care more about hearing of Pee-wee and the raving Ravens and how they made out.