Tom Slade on the River

  CHAPTER XII PEE-WEE TRIUMPHANT

  It was toward the close of a beautiful summer afternoon that a trimRacine cruiser poked her nose around the boat club's anchorage near Nyackon the Hudson, and brought up alongside one of the commercial wharves,which made an inharmonious background to the spotless white hull andshining mahogany cabin. She made no more noise than a canoe. The firstrays of the declining sun fell upon her knife-like brass bow andreflected from her shining metal parts. As she touched the dock severalscouts scrambled from her and made her fast.

  "Jimin-_ety_! But she gets over the water!" remarked Connie Bennet. "We'dhave been a couple of days or more coming down in the _Good Turn_."

  "And doesn't she take the hills fine!" said Roy Blakeley.

  "She's a _regular_ boat," observed Garry.

  "The _Good Turn_ is all right only her bow's too near the stern," saidRoy.

  "Gee, everything looks the same, doesn't it," said Pee-wee, gazing abouthim. "This is just where we stood when it began to rain last year. Thenwe went up that road and that's where we found the _Good Turn_."

  "The sun was going down just as it is now," said Tom, climbing out overthe combing. "I remember those hills over there looked just like they donow."

  "Sure, even the water's wet, just the same as it was then. Don't youremember how I spoke about the water being so wet?"

  "This is just like a book," said Pee-wee. "Gee, I never thought it wouldhappen this way; I saw a movie play once where a feller--a long lostbrother--came home, and oh, cracky, they fell all over him. They thoughthe was dead and his mother she was looking at his picture and crying--Imean weeping--when all of a sudden----"

  "All of a sudden Pee-wee Harris will be left behind if he doesn't get ahustle," said Roy. "Come on, wash up and get your hair fixed if youexpect to make that speech."

  "Do you know how I'm going to begin?"

  "I know how you're going to end, if you don't get a hustle."

  The whole Bridgeboro troop with Garry and Raymond and Harry Stanton, hadcome down from Catskill Landing. Their stay at Temple Camp was ended andthey had said good-bye to Harry Arnold and his young friend, whom theyhoped to meet again next summer. Little they dreamed of the strangecircumstances under which that meeting was to occur. They had left the_Good Turn_ up the river for they hoped to cruise northward again in thelarger boat.

  In the cool of the evening the three scouts who had trod this same road ayear before, accompanied by the boy who had trod it many times himself indays gone by, made their way through the beautiful hilly country for WestNyack. And, indeed, their errand seemed, as Pee-wee had suggested, like achapter out of a book.

  Garry had positively refused to go with them.

  "It was you fellows that she gave the boat to and it's for you to pay herback," he had said.

  "Do you remember how old--how Mr. Stanton laughed when I talked to him?"said Pee-wee as they tramped along the familiar road. "You can't denythat I put it into his head to give us the boat. And I bet if I ask himto let Harry go on a cruise now, he'll do it. You leave it to me--I knowhow to handle him."

  "All right, kiddo, we'll leave it to you," laughed Roy, "but I've got asneaking idea that when they once get their fists on our long lost sonand brother it'll take a crow-bar to pry him loose again."

  "You leave it to me."

  It would be hard to say what Harry Stanton's feelings were as he walkedhomeward with his three companions. He seemed nervous and anxious andsaid but little, but every object which met his gaze now was familiar tohim and as he looked about upon the very fields where he had played andthe houses which he knew he seemed to acquire poise and self-possession.An odd habit which he had shown to Garry and somewhat to the others ofconfusing his life at Mr. Waring's with his old life at home, was fastdisappearing and now each familiar sight seemed to act like a potentmedicine to bring him to himself.

  A man who passed them on the road turned and stared at him, then went on,turning again and again. He spoke to a man who was raking a lawn and whoalso stared after him. The boys paid no heed.

  At last they reached the house. No one was about, and they took a shortcut across the lawn, right under the big tree where Pee-wee had capturedthe fugitive bird. Here was a garden bench and leaving Harry Stantonseated upon it, they went up on the porch and rang the bell. Pee-wee wasvisibly nervous and even Roy showed repressed excitement, but Tom wasstolid as he always was.

  There was the calling of a voice within, the faint sound of footsteps onthe stair, and young Ruth Stanton stood on the inner side of the screendoor looking at them. For a moment she stared in amazement and in thatmomentary look Tom caught a glint of the same expression that had puzzledhim in Jeffrey Waring in their first encounter on the lonely hill. Thensuddenly her face lighted up with a merry smile of recognition.

  "Oh, hello," she said, opening the door and speaking in great surprise."I didn't know you----"

  "You remember us?" laughed Roy.

  "I should think I did, but you're the last persons I ever expected tosee. Isn't it lovely, your coming again--just as if you had dropped fromthe clouds!"

  "We'd have been some shower, wouldn't we?" laughed Roy.

  "Oh, I think it's fine," she repeated; "and you've got to stay to supper.We're going to have popovers--do you like popovers? I adore them!"

  "We don't know what they are," said Roy, "but we like them."

  They sat down in the wicker chairs which formed a little circle on thedeep, shaded porch, the girl swinging her feet back and forth and gazingfrom one to the other.

  "We've been up to camp," Tom began. "We're on our way down the river."

  "Oh, isn't that lovely--I wish I was a boy! How's the boat?"

  "Gee, it _is_ great being a boy," said Pee-wee. "I--"

  "The boat is in the best of health, thank you," interrupted Roy, fearingthat Pee-wee would say too much; "and one of the reasons we hiked up hereis because we want to pay you back for it. As Pee-wee says, a scout hasto be cautious and he didn't want us to pay you back till we were surethe boat was all right."

  "I never said that!" cried Pee-wee, indignantly. "Don't you believe him,I never said that!"

  "So we've been a long time getting around to it," continued Roy.

  "That's ridiculous," said the girl. "I thought you just came to _see_me."

  "So we did," said Roy.

  "And we're going to tell you our adventures since we saw you," addedPee-wee. "We've had some dandy ones. One in particular that you'll liketo hear about," he added, with an air of mystery.

  "When anybody does anything for a scout," Tom began again in his soberway, "he has to remember it and do them a good turn. We couldn't do youone because we couldn't think of anything big enough----"

  "You see, I'll tell you how it is," interrupted Pee-wee, "each goodturn's got to be better than the other one--they get bigger--kind of,and----"

  "That's nonsense," said Ruth. "Then I'd have to do you a bigger one topay back and you'd have to--"

  "We think we've hit on a pretty good one," said Roy. "Anyway, how's thebird?"

  "Oh, he's fine! He can say 'Good-night' and 'Welcome, home'!"

  "That's a good thing to say just now," Roy said.

  "And I'm teaching him to say 'Down with the Kaiser'! Isn't that perfectlyterrible! Anyway, I'm not neutral. Are you?"

  "Not so you'd notice it," Roy confessed.

  "Would you go to war if we had a war?" she asked impulsively.

  "Oh, I guess we'd give old Uncle Samuel a hand."

  "Isn't that glorious! But suppose you should get killed."

  "We're not supposing things now," said Roy. "We've got something to tellyou. We came back to bring you a present. When people come across withboats and things like that we don't let them get away with it--hey, Tom?So we're here with our little come-back. What d'ye say we stroll down onthe lawn? We left our package on that bench out there; and just for thefun of it we'd like to poke around where Pee-wee pu
lled his stunt lastsummer. Then well go in and hear the parrot say 'Welcome home'--what d'yesay?"

  "Yes, but you've got to stay to supper, so that you can see papa," Ruthsaid. "He laughs whenever he thinks of how you called him Old ManStanton. But he isn't grouchy--only he'll never be the same since mybrother--died. And besides, you have to tell me your adventures, youknow."

  They went down the steps and crossed the lawn. The girl, running ahead,seemed not to notice the lone figure on the bench with its back towardher till she was within a few feet of it. Then she paused in surprise andas she did so, Harry Stanton rose and turned to face her, the whilegrasping the back of the bench nervously....

  The several accounts of the three scouts as to what happened then,differed materially. There was no doubt that Ruth stepped quickly back inmomentary fright, grasping the arm of Pee-wee who happened to be nearesther. Pee-wee said that her hand was trembling and that she "clutched himin terror." Roy maintained that the "clutching in terror business" cameout of a heroic scene from one of Alger's books. Tom said that for amoment she seemed about to run, which Pee-wee admitted, claiming that shethought better of it when she found that he was near. All agreed that shewas first panic-stricken and then greatly agitated as Roy took her handand drew her to the bench.

  At all events, it was only for a moment or two and then she and herbrother were in each other's arms. There is no authentic account of whathappened then, for the three visitors, being good scouts, strolled to thehedge which bordered the lawn and looked at the scenery beyond. It musthave been beautiful scenery and very affecting, for Pee-wee's eyes werebrimming, and Tom's and Roy's were not exactly what you would calldry....