Chapter XXII: In the Glare of the Search-Light

Now the tide is a funny thing, especially in a small suburban river. The banks of a river being for the most part sloping, the river bed is narrower at the bottom than at the top. You don't have to wear glasses to see that. That is why the tide, as it recedes, runs faster and faster; because during the last hour or two of its recession it flows in narrower confines. This has been the settled policy of nature for many centuries, and it was so ordered for the benefit of Pee-wee Harris.

When the Merry-go-round Island floated leisurely against the Skybrow lawn the tide had been flowing out for about an hour. When this same rechristened island broke loose disguised as an earthly paradise, the tide was in a great hurry. And when the earthly paradise caught upon the flats the little remaining water was running as if it were going to catch a train.

Rapidly, ever so rapidly, the water slid down off the flats to join the hurrying water in the channel. And, presto, all of a sudden there was the Isle of Desserts high and dry surrounded by an ocean of oozy mud while the river, narrowed to a mere brook, rushed in its channel some fifty feet distant. And there you are.

That is why the man in the moon (who knows all about the tides) winked at Pee-wee. At least, I suppose that is why he winked.

You could not have reached the Isle of Desserts with a boat or with snow-shoes or with stilts or with anything except an airplane. Swimming to it was out of the question. Shouting and screaming to it was feasible, of course. Radio operations were conceivable. But reach it no one could. The adventurer would have been swallowed in mud. This safe isolation would continue for a couple of hours and then the playful water would come rippling in again spreading a glinting coverlet over the flats once more and lifting the island upon its swelling bosom.

Down the narrowing river rowed our rescuing crew, and as they rowed the river narrowed. Soon the lantern light on the island was abreast of them, some forty or fifty feet distant.

"Hello, over there," called Warde.

"I'm pretty well," called Pee-wee.

"What are we going to do?" asked Townsend. "The tide has beat us to it. He's safe enough."

"Oh, he couldn't be safer," said Warde. "Our name is mud. All our rowing for nothing."

"How about the eats over there, Kid?" Warde called.

"They're all right," called Pee-wee, "only the ice cream is starting to melt. I stuck my finger in through the ice and the cream is kind of oozing out. Maybe I better eat it, hey? It won't hold out till the tide comes in. I ate a sandwich and that made me thirsty and I didn't want to be drinking the lemonade so I ate a piece of ice out of the freezer and that made me more thirsty so I drank some lemonade anyway and that made me hungry again and I'm going to eat a sardine sandwich only I'm afraid that'll make me thirsty and----"

"This is horrible," said Townsend; "it's like an endless chain. Where will the end be?"

"Do you think it would be all right for me to eat some chicken salad?" Pee-wee shouted. "The tide won't be high enough to float this island for two hours."

"Don't!" called Warde, stopping up his ears. "Have a heart."

"Have a what?" called Pee-wee.

"Have a doughnut," shouted Roy.

"All right," called Pee-wee. "There's some dandy cheese here in a kind of a little jar--_yum--yum_!"

"Don't!" shrieked Warde.

"Doughnut?" called Pee-wee.

"No, I said '_don't_'," called Warde. "You'll have me eating one of the oarlocks in a minute."

Soon a faint chugging could be heard; it ceased, presumably at the Skybrow lawn, then started again. Nearer and nearer it came until presently the racing boat of Dashway Speeder came to a stop alongside them. Half a dozen girls and as many hungry male guests of the party were in it clamoring for news.

"This is terrible!" said Minerva. "I never _dreamed_ of such a thing as this. Why, he's _marooned_!"

"I'm all safe," shouted Pee-wee, "don't you worry."

"_Safe_! I should think he is," said Dora. "If he had the British navy all around him he couldn't be safer."

"The world is at his feet," said Townsend.

"You mean at his mouth," said Roy.

"I never heard of such a thing in all my born days," said Margaret.

"He's cornered the food market," said another hungry guest.

"For goodness' sake turn your search-light on him, Dashway," said Minerva, "and let's see what he looks like. This is simply _tragic_."

Dashway Speeder turned the search-light of his launch across the flats and there amid the surrounding mud, still bubbling from the effects of the departing tide, was presented a scene like unto a picture on a movie screen. There, bathed in light amid the surrounding gloom, like a film star in a disk of brightness, sat Scout Harris upon a grocery box surrounded by fallen sandwiches and with a goodly bowl securely held between his diminutive knees. It was a superb and mouth-watering close-up, to use the film phrase.

"I--I might as well eat some things, hey?" the lone voyager called. "Because it's past time for refreshments anyway and the tide won't carry me off for more than two hours and everybody'll be going home then and the ice cream is starting to melt, the lemon ice is getting all soft, so will it be all right to start eating the chicken salad and the sandwiches and things? I only kind of sort of tested them so far."

Warde Hollister stopped up his ears in an agony of torture while a dozen famishing boys flopped this way and that in attitudes of suffering despair.

"Yes, it will be all right," called poor Minerva in a kind of desperation. "It's the only thing, you might as well." She seemed resigned if not reconciled. "You might as well eat the ice cream anyway, it will only melt."

"And the chicken salad?" called the merciless hero, "and the sandwiches, too?"

"_Oh, this is too much_," moaned Connie Bennett.

"It isn't so much as you might think," shouted Pee-wee.

"He must be hollow from head to foot," said Margaret.

"Yes, eat everything," wailed Minerva in the final spirit of utter resignation.

"Yum--yum," called Pee-wee. "Oh, boy, it's good."

And still the man in the moon winked down, and smiled his merry scout smile upon Scout Harris.