Indulging these disconsolate spring musings, Pee-wee sank down in his chair again, a frowning, dreamy figure, and floated out of the library and away from all the sordid environments of Bridgeboro toward a desert island situated in the south-eastern part of the seventeenth century.  It was a long, long way off and he had to cross the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to get to it.  He was no longer a pioneer scout now, nor a scout at all, but a doughty explorer about to set foot for the first time on soil that white man had never trod before.

He sank farther down in his chair as he voyaged afar.  He was soon out of sight of land and almost out of sight of the few readers in that drowsy old library.  He continued to sink lower and lower in his chair as if he had sprung a leak.  Only his round, curly head was above the table.  The island which he reached was a delectable spot, an earthly Paradise, with trees laden with fruit which came down like summer showers when he shook the trees.  He wandered about on the enchanted shores, and ate so much fruit that oddly he felt that he was himself a tree and that some one was trying to shake fruit out of him. . . .  He sat up with a start and found himself confronting the smiling countenance of Miss Warden, the librarian, who had been shaking him not unkindly.

“Where have you been?” she asked, laughing.

“To a desert island,” said Pee-wee.

He roused himself and wandered out into the balmy air and down toward the river, a lonesome little figure.  A broad field bordered the stream and crossing this he approached the old car which was the troops’ headquarters.  But before he reached it he was aware of something which caused him to rub his eyes and stare.  As sure as he lived, there in front of him was the seventeenth century, F. O. B. Bridgeboro, with all appurtenances and accessories.  He stood gaping at a little island out in the middle of the stream, which had no more business there than Pee-wee had had to be dozing in the library.

Pee-wee stood stark still in the middle of the field and rubbed his eyes to make sure that he was awake.  There was not the slightest doubt that what he saw was very real.  The river at that point was quite wide and its opposite shore was bordered with sparse woodland.

Pee-wee had bathed and fished and canoed in this neighborhood almost as long as he could remember and he was perfectly certain that there had never been an island there.  He knew an island when he saw one and nothing was more certain than that this one was a stranger in the neighborhood.

Yet it seemed to be perfectly at home out there in the middle of the stream, just as if it had been born there and had grown up there.  There was nothing fugitive looking about it at all.  In the true spirit of the twentieth century, which is all for time saving and convenience, it had voyaged to Pee-wee, thereby saving him the time and perils of an extended cruise.  It had, as one might say, been delivered at his door.