“Anyway, I promised to send her a post card, and if the country is so wild that there aren’t any post cards I’m going to take a picture with my pocket kodak and send it to her. One thing, I’d like to get a snapshot of a wildcat and send it to her—if we go where there are wildcats. Do you think we will?”
“I can’t say,” said Fuller, “but we may be able to trap a post card; the young ones are easy to catch. We’ll be on the watch for them. They shall not escape us.”
“That girl wishes she was a boy,” Pee-wee said; “gee, I don’t blame her. Because I told her maybe we’d get on a desert island or something like that, like Robinson Crusoe. That’s one sure thing, he didn’t know where he was at, did he? Neither did Columbus. That shows you’re right. Trotsky said he wouldn’t want to go because he had enough of starving. But, anyway, Mr. Koyn wanted to go only he’s got rheumatism. If it wasn’t for Lotta Koyn I bet Chesty Marshall would have wanted to go, because he likes adventures, only he likes her better. Girls aren’t as good as adventures, are they?”
“Positively not,” said Fuller.
“They’re worse,” said Ray.
“Anyway, one thing, you never know where you’re at with them,” said Pee-wee, thinking, perhaps, of his own bitter experience. “Anyway, one thing, I’d never be a quitter no matter what. I wouldn’t care if—if—if—I was—was being chased by cannibals, I wouldn’t.”
The idea of hungry cannibals chasing Pee-wee, in the expectation of a square meal, seemed to amuse his friends.
“Are you going to send Miss Stillmore a post card?” Fuller asked him.
“I am not! I wouldn’t bother with her. I’m not mad at her but I wouldn’t bother with her and it serves her right being—being—marooned—with a lot of old ladies.”
“I thought you liked being marooned,” said Ray.
“On desert islands, I do,” Pee-wee said; “but, gee whiz, not with old ladies. You bet it serves her right for—for saying you were lovely fellers—gee, I don’t say you’re not dandy fellers, but anyway all she wanted was to meet fellers, and now she can’t meet you and I’m glad of it. Do you hope we go where there’s water or where there’s mountains?”
“There you go,” said Ray, “thinking about destinations. The place I want to go to is where there’s the most fun and that’s the little town of Anywhere.”
“That’s us,” agreed Fuller. And then he hummed a little song which Pee-wee always afterward remembered:
I love, I love, the summer-time,
I love the winter drear;
But the time I love the best of all,
Is every day in the year.
I love, I love, a rainy day,
I love the sunshine, too;
But the things I love the best of all,
Are the things I happen to do.
“Let’s hear you deny that,” said Fuller.
“That’s a peachy argument,” Pee-wee said.
“If you don’t like that time and that place you must be hard to please,” said Ray.
“Gee whiz, I like it better than any other place, that’s sure,” said Pee-wee.
“We’re the inventors of that time and place,” said Fuller.
“I invented lots of things,” Pee-wee said. “I invented that float.”
Westover was some distance by the road, but not so far through the woods and across fields. It was on the main line and was quite a little town. It was not exactly a world centre but, as I said, its station facilities afforded good possibilities in the particular kind of lottery in which Ray and Fuller were interested.
“Who’s going to ask?” Pee-wee inquired, his excitement and expectation mounting.
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said Ray.
“Shall we say eenie, meenie, minee, mo?” suggested Fuller.
These magic words seemed to be their means of determining everything. “Those four words are better than the four points of the compass,” Fuller explained; “because on a compass one way is right so the other three must be wrong. A compass is always three-quarters wrong. See?”
“Sure it is,” said Pee-wee.
“But those four words are all right; one is as right as another.”
“More so,” said Ray. “The compass is not scientific.”
“And they get all stuck up with glue, too,” Pee-wee said.
“Absolutely,” said Fuller. “If Columbus had said eenie, meenie, minee, mo, he might have discovered Columbus, Ohio, before he got through.”
So they chose their spokesman by those reliable words and the responsibility fell to Fuller Bullson.
In the ticket office of the Westover station sat a very sober looking young man, listening to the telegraph instrument.
“Maybe he’s getting a wire that his grandmother’s dead,” said Ray.
“He looks as if he had just been drafted,” said Fuller.
“Shh, I think he’s posing as a model for a tombstone,” said Ray.
“He looks like an accident on its way to happen,” said Fuller.
“Maybe he has to go to the dentist’s,” said Ray; “he looks like the middle of the night.”
For once Pee-wee was satisfied not to “handle” the situation. Fuller strolled aimlessly up to the ticket office and laid one elbow on the window in an offhand, companionable fashion.
“Good morning, it’s a beautiful afternoon, this evening,” said he.
“How’s that?” said the ticket agent.
“I said we’re having a lot of weather,” said Fuller. “Got any new tickets in?”
“What?” said the ticket agent.
“Your summer styles in tickets,” said Fuller.
“What do you want?” the ticket agent asked.
“We’re looking for some nice tickets,” said Fuller. “Have you any blue ones? A mixture of blue and pink would do.”
“Where do you want to go?” the ticket agent demanded, in the soberest manner.
“How do we know till we’ve seen the tickets?” said Fuller. “I’m not going to buy anything till I see what it is. I’ve been cheated before.”
“Quite right, Fuller,” said Ray; “safety last.”
“Do you want something or don’t you?” asked the ticket agent.
“You are right,” said Fuller.
“What?” demanded the ticket agent.
“What have you in tickets?” queried Fuller.
“What do you mean? Are you crazy?” asked the ticket agent, much nettled and with a face as sober as the grave.
Fuller studied the rack with great earnestness and then varied his usual formula of selection by saying eenie, meenie, minee, mo. “I’d like three nice tickets,” said he, “from the third pigeon-hole from the left side and one down from the top. Be careful not to soil them.”
“Where do you want to go?” thundered the young man, thoroughly aroused.
“Do I have to tell you where I want to go?” said Fuller. “Did you ever hear of such a thing, Ray? Talk about personal questions!”
“Well, you’d better get out of here,” said the ticket agent.
“That is one place I’m not going,” said Fuller.
“You’re entirely right,” said Ray.
“I’ll call the constable,” said the agent.
“What for?” said Fuller. “I’m a cash customer and I ask for three tickets out of that rack. Will you sell them to me or not? I won’t tell you where I’m going.”
“You ought to go to the insane asylum,” said the ticket agent, subsiding somewhat.
“Don’t tell me where I ought to go,” said Fuller; “I won’t allow even myself to tell me that. Will you sell me the tickets or not? Three holes from the left and one down; that’s my order. I always have trouble with you ticket agents. Don’t you suppose I know what I want?”
“Quite right, Fuller,” said Ray.
“We’ve got a right to go to—to the Rocky Mountains if we want to,” Pee-wee piped up.
With an air of grim finality, as if washing his hands of all responsibility in the matter, the ticket agent reached around, took three tickets out of the pigeon-hole indicated and slapped them down in the worn hollow of the little window counter. At that moment Pee-wee wrenched open his shirt and frantically unpinned his sumptuous fortune. He hoped it would be enough.
“Ninety-three cents,” said the ticket agent, looking straight ahead of him, as if he scorned all connection with this thing.
“Ninety-three what?” demanded Pee-wee.
“Cents,” said the ticket agent, distantly.
“Thank you very much,” said Fuller, taking the tickets and paying the money.
“Is it—is it ninety-three cents each?” Pee-wee gasped, still hoping desperately.
“Thirty-one cents each,” said the ticket agent, still looking straight ahead of him and speaking like a mechanical doll.
“Where are we going to go? Where are we going to go?” Pee-wee whispered excitedly as they strolled away.
“We are going to have the time of our lives,” said Fuller.
“Yes, where?” Pee-wee demanded in a fever of suspense.
“We are going to Snailsdale Manor,” said Fuller Bullson.