Tom and Roy were on their way up to the Blakeley place to set about preparing for the hike, for they meant to start as soon as they could get ready. Pee-wee lingered upon the veranda at Temple Court swinging his legs from the rubble-stone coping—those same legs that had made the scout pace famous.
"Oh, crinkums," he said, "they'll have some time! Cracky, but I'd like to go. You don't believe all this about Roy's making a noble sacrifice, do you?" he added, scornfully.
Mary laughed and said she didn't.
"Because that isn't a good turn," Pee-wee argued, anxious that Mary should not get a mistaken notion of this important phase of scouting. "A good turn is when you do something that helps somebody else. If you do it because you get a lot of fun out of it yourself, then it isn't a good turn at all. Of course, Roy knows that; he's only jollying when he calls it a good turn. You have to be careful with Roy, he's a terrible jollier—and Mr. Ellsworth's pretty near as bad. Oh, cracky, but I'd like to go with them—that's one sure thing. You think it's no fun being a girl and I'll admit I wouldn't want to be one—I got to admit that; but it's pretty near as bad to be small. If you're small they jolly you. And if I asked them to let me go they'd only laugh. Gee, I don't mind being jollied, but I would like to go. That's one thing you ought to be thankful for—you're not small. Of course, maybe girls can't do so many things as boys—I mean scouting-like—but—oh, crinkums," he broke off in an ecstasy of joyous reflection. "Oh, crinkums, that'll be some trip, believe me."
Mary Temple looked at the diminutive figure in khaki trousers which sat before her on the coping. It was one of the good things about Pee-wee Harris that he never dreamed how much people liked him.
"I don't know about that," said Mary. "I mean about a girl not being able to do things—scouting things. Mightn't a girl do a good turn?"
"Oh, sure," Pee-wee conceded.
"But I suppose if it gave her very much pleasure it wouldn't be a good turn."
"Oh, yes, it might," admitted Pee-wee, anxious to explain the science of good turns. "This is the way it is. If you do a good turn it's sure to make you feel good—that you did it—see? But if you do it just for your own pleasure, then it's not a good turn. But Roy puts over a lot of nonsense about good turns. He does it just to make me mad—because I've made a sort of study of them—like."
Mary laughed in spite of herself.