“I’ll give you the envelope my examination papers came in,” said the girl enthusiastically.
“Did you study rhetoric?” Pee-wee demanded.
“Yes, and I just hate it,” she said. “Just you wait a minute,” she added, going into the house. She presently reappeared with an envelope large enough to contain a brief history of the world on its outside, and together she and Pee-wee made up the detailed address which, in Pee-wee’s handwriting, was destined to astonish Postmaster Hiram Hicks, of Hicksville, North Carolina.
CHAPTER XV
WITHIN REACH
“Maybe she’ll get it, you can’t tell,” Pee-wee said as they took their way back to camp, the big envelope stuck under his belt, like a death warrant carried by some awful dignitary of old. “Anyway I’m glad we came because it will make Warde a first class scout.”
Pee-wee was strong for the scouts and the troop even though he looked with a kind of lofty scorn on the Silver Foxes. That Warde should become a first class scout was a matter of honest joy to him.
“It was a full seven miles all right,” said Roy, referring to the distance mentioned in the test, “so I guess you’re as good as in the first class. I’m good and tired, I know that. You gave them good measure.”
“I bet you’re proud,” said Pee-wee.
“I bet I am,” Warde answered. “I feel like a real scout now. A fellow isn’t a real scout till he gets into the first class.”