Peter experimented with the axe in the woodshed but it was so long that
the handle dragged on the ground and he could sit on it. He had likewise
pinned a Harding and Coolidge button on his sleeve and pretended it was
a signalling badge. _A signalling badge!_ He did not tell his mother
what he was pretending for she would not understand. Out in the small
barn he had presented himself with this, with much scout ceremony, and
he had actually trembled when he told himself (in a man's voice) to
"step forward and receive this token...."

The car in which Scout Harris was being carried reached the lake and
still Peter Piper poured over his scout handbook by the dim, oily
smelling lamp, up in that little room. The two scoutmasters rowed across
and were greeted by their noisy troops and still Peter Piper read his
book. The scout of scouts, W. Harris of the nifty Bridgeboro outfit, was
nearly suffocated, then escaped and stood triumphant over the ruins of
the West Ketchem school, and still Peter Piper's smarting eyes were
fixed upon that book. They were riveted to page two hundred and
eighty-four and he was reading the words "Scouts should thoroughly
master these two standard...."

He read it again and again for his strained eyes were blinking and the
page seemed all hazy. He paused to rest his eyes, then read on. But he
did not turn the page. For an hour his gaze was fixed upon it. Just on
that one page....




CHAPTER XX