Anyway, I should worry about grown people, because we have plenty of fun.

Oh, boy, didn’t I sleep that night!  When I got up I made up my mind that I’d go to Jake Holden’s shanty, just for the fun of it, and find out why he didn’t come and tell my family that I was dead.  Because, if I was dead, he sure ought to have come and told them.  Of course, I knew I wasn’t dead, but anyway, how did he know that?  After breakfast I did my good turn—­I turned my sister Ruth’s bed around for her so as it faced the bay window.  I was going to turn it twice and tall it two good turns, but she said that wouldn’t be fair—­that that wouldn’t be two good turns.  I said it would be just as fair as Pee-wee turning the ice-cream freezer till the cream was all frozen and then saying he did a hundred good turns.  Then she threw a tennis ball at me, but it missed me.  That’s one thing about girls, they can’t throw a ball.  They can’t whistle, either.

Now comes another adventure.  After breakfast I went to Marshtown (that’s a few houses down near the river) to Jake Holden’s shanty.

It’s a funny kind of a place made out of barrel staves and part of a boat all jumbled up together, and it looks kind of like a chicken coop.  He lives all alone and kind of camps out.  He’s a nice man, you can bet, only you have to get on the right side of him.  If you can’t get on the right side of him the safest place is behind him.  He catches fish and crabs and goes around town selling them.

He taught me how to cook.

When I got to his shanty I saw it was locked up and he wasn’t anywhere around.  I guess he event down the bay crabbing.  Anyway, I ran as fast as I could to Marshtown landing to see if he had gone yet, but there wasn’t any sign of his boat there.  Maybe you think I wasn’t disappointed.  Anyway, I began looking around like a scout is supposed to do, to see if there were any signs to show me whether he’d be back soon, because maybe he only went up to the club landing for gasoline.  But there weren’t any signs and he didn’t show up.

Now, if I hadn’t been a scout I would have gone home and played tennis or followed the shore up to the club landing and waited for the troop to come and go to work on the houseboat.  But instead of that, I kept looking around and pretty soon what do you think I saw?  I saw a footprint.  Some Robinson Crusoe, hey?

It was a funny kind of a footprint.  It wasn’t Jake’s, I knew that, because he always wore fisherman’s boots.  It was in the soft earth near the landing and I could see it plain.  I guess maybe it was made by a good shoe, because it was pointed, but it was all worn out, that was one sure thing, because there was a place that was made by a stocking or a bare foot, where there wasn’t any sole at all.

Maybe you don’t know much about deduction, but that’s one thing scouts learn about, and I tried to make out what it meant, but it had me guessing.  Because the shoe was pointed and had the remains of a rubber heel—­I could tell that by the big screw holes.  And that meant good shoes.  And I thought it was funny anybody who could wear good shoes would let them wear out like that.