He was a nice man, that fellow in the candy store. He started to laugh and he said he guessed we wouldn't starve, because he could see we were a wide-awake lot.
"You ought to have seen us last night," Wig said; "we reminded ourselves of Rip Van Winkle."
So then he told us it would be good for us to see Mr. Tarkin who printed the Skiddyunk News. First we got some fish-hooks and a ball of cord and then we had five cents left—a cent each. Never laugh at poverty. Then we went to the place where the Skiddyunk News was printed and asked for Mr. Tarkin. He was in a little bit of an office with papers all over the floor.
I said, "We're boy scouts and our railroad car that we're going to use for a troop room is on a side track up at Ridgeboro, because it was brought there by mistake and we want to have a movie show in it to-night." I told him all about the whole thing, just how it happened, and I asked him if he thought the people would come.
Pee-wee piped up and said, "We have pictures of Temple Camp where we go in the summer, and they show scouts doing all kinds of things—rowing and cooking and hiking and climbing trees and eating."
Mr. Tarkin said, "And eating, eh?"
"Sure, and snoring," Pee-wee said. Cracky, I could hardly keep a straight face.
"There's a picture showing me peeling potatoes and another one where I'm stirring soup," the kid told him, "and a lot of other peachy adventures."
Mr. Tarkin said, "I should call the soup picture a stirring adventure. I'm afraid that potato peeling scene would be too thrilling for our simple people."
"Anyway," I said, "if we could help you on account of the strike maybe you'd be willing to help us let the people know—maybe."