“Don’t risk your young lives up at the Lyric Theatre,” I told him. “Be careful when you’re crossing Main Street.”
“Don’t let the mosquitoes eat you up,” Charlie Seabury said.
“Thanks,” I told him. “Look out you don’t get run over by a baby carriage.”
“We’re going to start for Temple Camp in the morning,” Dorry said, very grouchy.
“Just tell them that you saw us,” I said.
“Tell them we wouldn’t desert the old car in the marsh,” Westy shouted after them.
“I’m through with it,” another one of them said.
“We’re going to stick to our wounded comrade in No Man’s Land. Hey?” Pee-wee said. Gee, that was a good name for Cat-tail Marsh.
So that’s the way it was. Will Dawson, Westy, Pee-wee, the inventor and I stayed down in the car, only Pee-wee went up with the others because he was going to tell our mothers and get some eats and things. We told him to get games and hooks, too. As long as there wasn’t anything better to do, and it was raining and blowing, we thought we might as well camp in the old car that night. We knew there wouldn’t be much doing, but, gee whiz, I’m tired of the movies.
The others went back along the trestle, Pee-wee with them, and we could see them when they got out from among the cat-tails and started up across the Sneezenbunker land. It was raining hard and it was getting dark and we could see the little lights shining on Main Street. It was nice and cozy in that old car. Maybe it wasn’t a good place for it, I’m not saying, and maybe it wouldn’t be any use there, especially in the summer, but anyway, we were going to have one last night in it.
“Will he come back?” the inventor asked me.
“Who? Pee-wee?” I said. “You bet he will. He’s not missing anything; not even a soda.”
“Can I watch you play checkers?” the kid wanted to know.
“I hope it rains all night. Don’t you?” he asked me.
“I like water better than fire. Don’t you?” he wanted to know.
He went over and sat with his face plastered against one of the windows, watching for Pee-wee. The rain was just dripping down outside the windows. The kid’s nose was flat against the pane.
Pretty soon he shouted, “I see him! Here he comes!”
Away up on the Sneezenbunker land we could see a black speck coming toward us through all the rain. In a couple of minutes it got down to the edge of the marsh and we couldn’t see it any more on account of the cat-tails.