Chapter XXVIII: Brent and Pee-Wee

The unexpected return of the Hop-toad Patrol and its almost immediate dissolution had some very far-reaching consequences at Temple Camp.

Howard Delekson had to go home and Willie Rivers’ parents stopped at camp with their auto and took him for an extended tour of the Catskills. So Pee-wee became in fact a free lance. This did not trouble Artie Van Arlen because he knew that once back in Bridgeboro Pee-wee would start a new patrol of permanent residents, and probably make a success of it. It would be a joke patrol, but that would be better than a lifeless patrol of which there are many. You can’t keep a good scout down.

But there was one at Temple Camp whose amusement at Pee-wee turned to sympathy as he saw the sturdy little scout going about by himself, always busy, yet sometimes lingering wistfully around the Ravens’ cabin. This quiet, keen observer was Brent Gaylong.

Pee-wee was so much a camp institution, and had been so thoroughly a raven of the Ravens that it seemed grotesque to observe him now, emerging from the wreck of his own disbanded enterprise without any troop home. He seemed to be flopping around like a fish out of water. Probably he was in need of no sympathy or assistance, being a host in himself. But the sight of him and the thought of him impressed good old Brent so much that he stopped the Lone Star, as Pee-wee was now called, and had a little chat with him. It was on the veranda of the main pavilion where Brent liked to sit tilted back with his long legs against the railing.

“Anything new?”

“Sure, everything’s new, I got a lot of new ideas. I’m going to get a snapshot of Connie Bennett when he’s racing and I’m going to give a print to each member of the Elks. I can get a dandy snapshot because I’m going to sit in the canoe with him, because I did last summer.”

“If he wins,” laughed Brent.

“Sure he’ll win, because we’ve got to keep that cup in our troop--I mean his troop. Gee whiz, I keep forgetting. I bet they’ll be glad to get those snapshots, hey?”

“If he wins,” laughed Brent.

“Sure he’ll win; we’ve--they’ve got to win--the Bridgeboro troop.”

“Wish you were back in it?” Brent drawled.

“Sure, now that the race is coming on. Gee whiz, I was in that patrol since it started--I was in it _before_ it started even, because I was with Doc. Carson when he thought of it. We were drinking sodas in Bennett’s--that’s in Bridgeboro--and he said the Ravens would be a good name and I said yes, only we’d have to wear black scarfs and I hate black but that’s not saying I don’t like licorice. Yum, _yum_! Anyway, I like Billy Simpson only most of the fellows don’t, because he doesn’t mix in with them, I guess. When he shook hands with me, oh baby, didn’t he twist my hand! He’s awful strong in the wrist, that feller is. Do you know how to not make a noise when you sneeze? I can do that. That’s good when you’re stalking.”

“He shook hands with you? Talked with you?”

“Sure, he’s not mad at me.”

“You get kind of lonesome sleeping in the dormitory?”

“Gee whiz, you can’t be lonesome when you’re asleep.”

“No, that’s true. But when you’re awake.”

“Part of the time I’m eating. I bet you don’t know how to tell if it’s going to be cold by moss.”

“No. You go up to the cabin much?”

“Sure I do, because all those fellers live in my town, don’t they? El Sawyer lives right across the way from me. You know him, don’t you? He’s got a birthmark on his neck but you can’t see it. It’s the shape of Australia. That’s one place I’d like to go to--Australia. I bet it’s nice there.”

“Ed and Grove Bronson, they’re in the Ravens, aren’t they?”

“Sure, didn’t I bring them in? I knew how to handle their mother, all right. They’ve got an Airedale in their house.”

“And Benton?”

“He’s in the Silver Foxes, that’s Roy Blakeley’s patrol. I can beat him in an argument, I mean Roy. He’s a special chum of mine. My patrol has, now you count them; Artie Van Arlen, Doc. Carson, Grove Bronson, Ed Bronson, Punkin Odell and Wig Weigand and El Sawyer and myself--I mean Billy Simpson.”

“And I bet you’d join again if there was a vacant place, now wouldn’t you? I bet you’re sorry you ever left them.”

The question seemed to strike home. It subdued Pee-wee in an instant. He was sitting on the railing and to Brent’s surprise he turned his head and looked out across the lake.

“Am I right? Huh?”

He only nodded his head up and down and kept looking away. It was funny how that casual question just caught him and silenced him, as a cloth thrown over its cage will suddenly silence a singing bird....