a placid lake in the black bosom of which shone a myriad of inverted
stars and through which was a golden path of flickering moonlight. The
ice-house, or whatever it was, had never been painted and the grain stood
out on the shrunken wood like veins in an aged hand.

At a respectable distance from the woods near the shore where Pee-wee
stood was a sizable village, or young town, big enough to have traffic
signs and parking zones and a main street and a movie show and such like
pretentious things. Between this town and the shore were a few outlying
houses, but mostly sparse woodland. To the north the woods were thicker.

The lights of this neighboring town formed a cheery background to the
dark, silent lake shore. This town was West Ketchem and the chief
sensation in West Ketchem during the last few years had been the
destruction by fire of the public school, a calamity for which every boy
went in mourning.

Across the lake, Pee-wee could see other and fewer lights. These
belonged to a smaller village in which nothing at all had ever happened,
not even the burning of its school. Far from it. The school stood there
in all its glory, under the able supervision of Barnabas Wise and
Birchel Rodney, the local board of education.

About in the center of the lake, Pee-wee saw a small red light.
Sometimes there seemed to be two lights, but he thought that one was the
reflection of the other in the water. The light seemed very lonely, yet
very inviting out there. He supposed it was on a boat Perhaps some one
was fishing....

But in all this surrounding beauty and peacefulness, Pee-wee saw no sign