ess baggage. That's the Japanese junk man. Did you
ever hear that song? It's dedicated to him. We should worry about the
scouts. But you see this is the way it is. We've got the movie people
after us and we can't get rid of them. They're trying to stir up a new
war here in Bridgeboro after everything is all peaceful again and school
is closed. We're on a bee-line hike to a big tree over on west ridge,
and we have to go straight no matter what's in the way. Gee whiz, it's
not much fun.

"But, anyway, that big fellow thinks if we try to climb across your
porch it will be a good idea for you to come out and look very grouchy
and try to stop us; maybe you could look that way if you tried to, hey?
And then we'll be very sweet and nice and give you a big hunk of candy
and you'll say the boy scouts are all right and you'd like to join them.
Of course you don't have to _really_ join them. All you have to do is be
in the animated news, all the world in pictures, right in the same film
with President Harding. Maybe you wouldn't care to be a movie actor,
hey? You should worry, it will soon be over. Mr. Gilligan, he just
wants to show how fellows get to be scouts. It's propaganda. After it's
all over you can go in the house again, and we'll beat it for the river.
You don't have to _really_ join, it's only in the picture. See? It won't
be a real chunk of candy we hand you so as to show that we're kind and
generous. It will be a rock. But it will look like candy. It will be
rockcandy."

CHAPTER X

THE BEE-LINE

So if you saw that animated-news-of-all-the-world film and saw Pee-wee
Harris handing a nice piece of candy to a boy who isn't a scout, you'll
know it wasn't real candy he was handing him. That's why he had such a
generous, kind look on his face. A scout is brotherly--especially with
rocks.

That was the only movie play I ever wrote. I didn't write that, but I
thought it up. Tom Gilligan said it was fine. One good thing, there were
only three pictures in it. It was a scout propaganda picture. It was
called _Kindness Wins, or Letting Him Have a Rock_. Only Tom Gilligan
cut out the last part of the name.

That picture showed us all climbing over the railing of that porch, and
then it showed Warde Hollister coming out and shaking his fist at us.
He did that fine for a fellow that wasn't a scout. Then it showed us
telling him about our adventures and showing him the coffee-pot and all
the cooking things. And then i