“That’s all girls can do—giggle,” the kid said. “When they get in a boat they scream, and when they see a mouse they scream, and when they see a spider they scream, and they’re scared of snakes and caterpillars, especially toads, and all they can do is giggle. Anyway just to show you how smart you’re not with your giggling and laughing at Scouts, now I’ll tell you what we came to this village for and it wasn’t to get something to eat—you’re so smart! It’s because we know where some robbers are camped, and if they’re the ones we think they are we’ll get a reward, I don’t know how much it is. But anyway did you ever hear of girls getting a reward for scouting, I mean doing big things? Stopping trains and finding lost people and saving lives and all that? So now you know why we want to go to the police station—you’re so crazy all you can do is to sit there and giggle! Sweep with brooms, that’s all girls can do.”
She stood up all of a sudden, very brave—you know how they throw their heads back—girls. She stamped her foot at Pee-wee and looked straight in his eyes as if she was trying to scare him and she put her face right close up in front of him.
I said, “Don’t you dare to kiss him.”
“I wouldn’t kiss such a dunce,” she said. “But I’ll tell you what my pal and I did yesterday afternoon. There’s a crazy man named Saul Bagley in this village and he escaped from his home and wandered away three days ago and there was a reward of a hundred dollars offered by his cousins where he lives to anybody that would find him. And we two girls traced him to Dale’s Corners and he was telling everybody there that Charlie Chaplin gave him a million dollars and the Boy Scouts got it away from him. And last night Miss Ella Bagley gave us a check for one hundred dollars. So there, Mr. Smarty.”
CHAPTER XIII
IT IS TO LAUGH
Dub and Sandy and Pee-wee and I all just stared at each other.
“Did—didn’t his—Mr. Bagley—didn’t his father leave him a lot of money and everything in a will?” the kid blurted out.
The girl said, “Oh goodness me, no. He’s been telling everybody that for years. Oh he’s perfectly harmless, only he wanders off.”
I said, “Will you please excuse me while I drop dead? We met him over at Bagley’s Green and he told us his father got killed in Beaver Chasm and that his last will got lost there.”
“That’s just like him,” the girl said. “His father did lose his life there but there wasn’t any will. Oh goodness me, did he tell you that?”