ed
under a veritable mountain of miscellaneous paraphernalia and out of
the pile projected a long bar with a device on the end of it which
glinted red and green in the sunshine.

"It looks like a weather-vane," said Billy.

"There's something printed on it," said Roly.

"It says _STOP_," said the boy they called Nuts.

"It says _GO_" said the boy they called Brownie.

"I think," said Townsend, scrutinizing the approaching transport in his
funny way, "I think, I _think_, it's a traffic sign. You don't see any
automobiles in the canoe, do you?"

"There's something sticking out on the left side," said Billy; "I think
it's a Ford. I hope the island isn't going to be overrun by motorists."

"It's not a Ford, it's a dishpan," said Brownie.

"They're the same thing," said Townsend. "What is that on the duffel
bag--a license plate?"

Suddenly the voice of the discoverer floated across the expanse of
sun-flickered water. "We're going to have hunter's stew for supper and
I'm going to make it and my mother says I can stay all through Easter
vacation and I got a lot of things out of our attic. Do you like
bananas? I've got a whole bunch and I've got a lot of new ideas--dandy
ones! I know how to fry them! I know how to slice them and fry them!"

"I'd like to try some fried ideas," said Townsend. "I don't think I
ever ate them sliced before."

It may be said that Pee-wee's ideas, whether fried or baked or boiled
or roasted, were usually underdone and required to be put back into the
oven.

Be that as it may, he soon proceeded to unload these, as well as the
interesting junk which he had gathered, the most surprising object of
which was the dilapidated revolving traffic sign lately discarded by
the Bridgeboro police department in favor of a lighthouse or silent
cop, so called.

This acquisition was the pride of Pee-wee's life; its heavy metal stand
had long since gone the way of all junk and it could not stand
unsupported. As Pee-wee plunged it heroically in the earth and stood
holding it with one hand he looked not unlike Columbus planting the
flaunting emblem of Ferdinand and Isabella on the shore of San
Salvador, except that this tableau of the well known historical episode
was somewhat marred by the fact of his holding a half eaten banana in
his other hand. But his new friends stared with all the amazement
shown by the natives upon the landing of that other great discoverer.
Only a specific inventory ca