CHAPTER XIV
SEEING NEW YORK
The difference between Pee-wee and Emerson Skybrow was illustrated by the contents of their respective pockets.
Pee-wee carried with him as regular equipment a piece of chalk for marking scout signs, the broken cap of a fountain pen used to simulate the call of a sea-gull, a cocoon containing a silkworm (daily expected to emerge in wingful glory but which never did), a scout jack-knife, a compass, a nail for converting his watch into an emergency sun-dial, an agate handle of an umbrella, a golf ball, a receipt for making scout-scrapple (a weird edible) written on birch bark, and a romantic implement which no scout should be without, a hairpin. Some of these things were rather sticky from recent proximity to gum-drops; the compass seemed almost sugar-coated.
Emerson carried in the inside pocket of his jacket a respectable leather wallet with his name stamped in gilt upon it. In this he carried five new one-dollar bills, a ten-trip ticket on the Erie road, a tiny calendar, some engraved cards and a railroad time-table. This latter he now unfolded and found that the next train on the Bridgeboro branch left Jersey City at ten twenty-two. This left time enough for a little sightseeing, and they lingered in the city.
Emerson did things handsomely. He treated Pee-wee to soda in a gorgeous emporium and bought some candy as well. He seemed quite at home in this night life of the metropolis. Pee-wee found him companionable and generous. All the unfavorable things which he had thought about Emerson simmered down to a certain unfortunate habit the boy had of talking well and using words that grown people use. It seemed an insufficient reason for disliking him that he called a “cop” a policeman.
Pee-wee felt a little under his protection as they hiked down Broadway looking in the brilliantly lighted windows and finding free entertainment everywhere—in the electrical displays, the vociferous merchants who sold things (“while they last for a dime, ten cents”) out of the leather valises which they hurriedly closed and departed at the approach of a policeman.
Particularly they enjoyed a man on stilts with the placard of a restaurant on his back proclaiming the delights of wheatcakes and coffee. This man sat on the roofs of taxicabs and was followed by an admiring throng. Emerson suggested that they sample the wheatcakes and coffee.
Emerging from the restaurant, they strolled down to Herald Square and gazed at the woodland camp settings in the illuminated windows of the mammoth stores. They spoke seductively of spring, these displays. One showed a campfire with wax scouts sitting about; the cheerful blaze consisted of sparkling red paper crumpled upon real logs. Another wax scout was sitting in a canoe, staring with ghastly fixity upon the street. An open lunch basket stood on the painted ground.
“That’s just the way scouts are,” Pee-wee said. “So now wouldn’t you like to be one?”
“They look rather stiff,” said Emerson. He was not without a sense of humor. “You mean that scouts are dummies?”
“What d’you mean, dummies?” roared Pee-wee. “That shows just the way they live in the woods when they go camping. If that scout in the canoe wants to know what time it is, do you know how he can tell?”
“By looking at his watch,” said Emerson.
“Naaaah, by the stars; he can tell by the consolations—stars all in crowds, sort of. Anyway, you’d make a dandy scout, do you know why? Because you like to eat. Do you know how to save yourself from drowning?”
“By not going in the water,” said Emerson.
“Nope,” said Pee-wee. “Scouts, the more they go in the more they don’t get drowned. They have to know how to track animals too, and stalk birds and everything. They have to sneak up on birds when the birds aren’t looking——”
“I wouldn’t call that honorable,” said Emerson.
“You’re crazy!” Pee-wee shouted. “That hasn’t got anything to do with a scout being honorable; that’s stalking. You can be—stealthy, can’t you? Suppose you were out in the woods where you couldn’t—where you couldn’t get any—any wheatcakes and coffee, maybe; then what would you do?”
“I’d go home.”
“Suppose you were lost. Suppose you were going to starve. Can you tell mushrooms from toadstools?”
“Would that help me to get home?” Emerson asked.
“It would help you to know what to eat,” said Pee-wee contemptuously. “Gee whiz, if you’ll say you’ll join, I’ll get you into my patrol. Will you?”
“When I lose my wits,” smiled Emerson.