Pee-Wee Harris Adrift Part 20

CHAPTER XXVIII

IT PAYS TO ADVERTISE

On Friday night it rained and the Alligators were driven into their tent. It rained all night and was still raining when the momentous Sat.u.r.day dawned. They were compelled to eat breakfast in their tent, the top of which was plastered with apple blossoms so that the khaki-colored fabric looked not unlike a brown wall paper with a floral design.

The tide being out, the rain pattered down on the surrounding mud and shallow places, and the members of the patrol sat in the open doorway of their cozy little shelter wistfully gazing at the downpour, and watching the little holes that the raindrops made in the mud.

Each drop, like a bullet, drove a little hole in the oozy bottom, which slowly closed up again. Schools of darting killies hurried this way and that frantically seeking an avenue into the deeper places where puddles would afford them a haven during the lowest ebb. Rain, rain, rain.

On the porch of the boat-house a mile or so down-stream was gathered a group of young fellows, also watching wistfully. Through the intervening s.p.a.ce of rain they seemed like pictures of spectres, misty and unsubstantial.

"The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide," said Townsend cheerily. "I think when it comes in it's going to stop raining, that's what I think.

It's going to clear up and be warm this afternoon, you see. Rain before seven, clear before eleven. What do you say we catch some of those killies and fry them?"

"That's what you call an inspiration," said Roly Poly.

They caught some killies with a bent pin and fried them and they were not half bad.

Along about eleven o'clock the tide began running up, the killies which had not been lured to their undoing, disappeared in the swelling water, and soon the ripples danced up over the mud, submerging it entirely.

The river began to be attractive again. And then the sun came out.

"This is going to be some peach of a tide for races," said Townsend; "it will be good and full after such an all night rain."

At two o'clock, when the river was about half full, a launch came chugging up from the boat club bringing a flag and the young fellow who was to be posted at the turning point. He planted the flag on its tall standard near the sh.o.r.e and settled down to mind his own business.

Pee-wee received him as if he were a foreign amba.s.sador.

Our hero was now so intent upon his commercial enterprise that he forgot all about the races except in their commercial aspect. The island was but the turning point for the contestants and seemed detached from the excitement and preparations which prevailed down at the club house.

Soon, along the sh.o.r.e, there began to be visible little groups of boys sprawling on the gra.s.s, waiting. The boat-house porch and the adjacent float were filled with high school pupils. They made a great racket, and from all the noise and bustle thereabouts the little island seemed removed, as if a part of the events and yet not a part.

Presently a little group of girls appeared at the edge of Gilroy's Field, which was the nearest point on the mainland to Alligator Island.

They seemed to be looking about in a bewildered, inquiring sort of way.

Evidently the advertising was bringing results. It seemed as if they might have banded together (as girls will) for the cut rate cruise which they had seen advertised. At all events they seemed to be strangers. Whoever they were, it spoke well for their adventurous spirit that they should wish to book pa.s.sage to an unknown sh.o.r.e, when there were no others in sight who seemed the least interested in the voyage.

"Is that Alligator Island?" one of them called.

"It certainly is," Townsend answered. "I'll come over and get you; the boat is leaving right away."

"Have your fares ready," Pee-wee called in a voice of thunder.

As Townsend approached the mainland there was much whispering and giggling among the girls. "We came from Edgemere," said one of them; "we're in the Edgemere High School and we came over on the trolley to see the Bridgeboro High School beaten. We saw a small boy in the street with a sign----"

"That was me," shouted Pee-wee; "I saw you on Main Street. Have your fares ready and he'll bring you over. All aboard! All aboard to Alligator Island with its tropic vegetarians and boat races!" And, in his excitement and enthusiasm he added, "Step this way! Step right this way!"

"Did you ever hear of such a thing," laughed one girl.

"He means after you step out of the boat," said Townsend.

You would have thought that Pee-wee was selling desert islands out of a basket. He stood on the extreme edge nearest to the field, shouting, "Here you are, this way for your desert isle! See the tropic variations----"

"He means vegetation," said Townsend.

"He means fresh vegetables," called Brownie.

"Here you are for your fresh vegetables," Pee-wee shouted, hardly knowing what he said at this actual prospect of business which he saw before his very eyes. "The races encircle this island. Here you are for your best seats! Come early and avoid the rush!"

"That's the wild man of the island," Townsend said; "he's perfectly harmless: step right in the boat."

They were rowed over and escorted to seats, where they did not have to wait long, for scarcely were they settled on one long bench when a chorus of shouts arose down at the boat-house, as out into the river shot two canoes.

"Oh, they're coming! They're _coming_!" the girls carolled in great excitement and antic.i.p.ation.

"Oh, look! Do _look_!" one of them said, clutching the shoulder of her neighbor. "He's in the red canoe! It's Willie Dawdle, and he's ahead!

_Hurrah for Edgemere_! Oh, he's _coming_, he's _coming_! I knew we'd _annihilate_ them, I just _knew_ it! Oh, it's simply _glorious_!"

"Hurrah for Bridgeboro!" shouted Pee-wee.

"Hurrah for Edgemere!" shouted the girls.

The two canoes, with Edgemere a little ahead as well as they could see, came gliding up the river, two streaks, red and green, in the sunshine . . .

CHAPTER XXIX

THE RACE

The canoe race, which was the first of the events, was also the best--as well as the last. Never was there wilder excitement on Pee-wee's island than when the green and red canoes glided northward, approaching the turning point.

The red canoe skilfully paddled by the Edgemere champion, Willie Dawdle, was some ahead and gaining rapidly and the girls from Edgemere High School could not contain themselves for joy. Among the Alligator Patrol, too, the excitement ran high and shout upon shout for Bridgeboro arose as Wingate Chase spurted to get the inner turn about the island. He gained fast now and as the distance between the two canoes shortened the air was rent with deafening yells for Bridgeboro.

The two contestants were abreast when suddenly amid the uproar could be heard a voice, a voice singularly matter-of-fact and sensible, uttering words which if not of excitement seemed at least pertinent to the occasion, "How are they going to go around that blamed thing when it's sailing up the river?"

Alas, it was too true. The most unusual development which could possibly complicate an athletic event had occurred; the turning point had deserted the race and was sailing majestically up the river. It had already sailed a hundred feet or so before the watchers on the mainland discovered the fact.

As for the striving contestants they were too intent upon the race to perceive the strange turn of affairs until the wild mirth upon the "mainland" apprised them of it. They must have looked funny enough from the sh.o.r.e frantically pursuing the fugitive turning post, and the unhallowed joy of the spectators was only increased by Pee-wee's heroic efforts in the emergency as with a long pole he strove to stay the progress of the recreant island. Failing in these herculean efforts, he still tried to save the day by shouting to the racers.

"_Keep up_! _Keep up_!" he yelled. "You can go around it. You're going faster than the island is. _Don't give up_! It makes it all the more exciting. It's like--like--like--kind of--like running up an escalator! Don't stop! Keep it up, it's an escalator race!"

It certainly made it "all the more exciting." As for the inhabitants of the island, they were carried away in more than one sense. Townsend lay flat upon the ground in a spasm of silent laughter. Several others of the new Alligator Patrol sat on the edge of the stern and rock-bound coast, their legs dangling in the water, and seemed in danger of falling in, so gymnastic was their merriment. As for the occupants or the grandstand, they probably thought (if they were able to think at all) that ten cents was a small price to pay for such an exciting race.

Only one occupant of the fleeing island was up and about and fully conscious. With his companions lying flat or doubled up and screaming so that the woods along sh.o.r.e echoed with their insane mirth, our hero stood amid the chaos, shouting to the racers at the top of his voice.

They were almost abreast of him now, and laughing themselves, for the race had become a farce.

"Come on! Keep it up!" he shouted. "You can go around it while it's sailing just as good as if it were standing still! The race kind of stretches out like an elastic--it's an extensible race. Keep it up!

Keep it up!"

"Don't," moaned Townsend from his place on the ground. "This is too much----"