“Sit up and look pretty,” Dorry shouted.
“We’ve got all the signs on Broadway beaten,” Hunt said.
“Sure,” I said, “this is a live sign, full of pep. All sit up straight when the train passes. Remember Mr. Wild Bull is in there. Maybe he’ll give us a job on a sign up on top of a building in New York. I’d like to be an electric sign, wouldn’t you?”
“I’d rather be a sign of spring,” Westy said.
“You’ll be pushed over backwards if you crack another one like that,” I told him.
“Look at Pee-wee,” Dorry said.
I had to laugh at the kid. There he sat right in the middle, straight upright, with his hand up making the full scout salute as the train came along. He looked like a little radiator ornament for an automobile. I guess he felt very proud being part of an ad.
As the train went past all the passengers looked out of the windows, laughing. The more they laughed the straighter Pee-wee sat. All of a sudden, good night, over he went backwards, kerflop, into the marshy land just underneath the sign. All the people in the train howled.
He came up the ladder, with mud and grass all over him, just in time for the people in the last two cars to get a look at him. They just screamed. They even came out on the back platform of the last car, cheering him and laughing at him.