But this seemed a Utopian vision for Abner lived seven miles away and had hip disease and lived in a wheel-chair.
Peter had a rich uncle who lived in New York and took care of a building and got, oh as much as thirty dollars a week.

The next time this rich uncle came to visit he was going to ask him if he had seen any real scouts with khaki suits and jack-knives dangling from their belts and axes hanging on their hips.
Peter experimented with the axe in the woodshed but it was so long that the handle dragged on the ground and he could sit on it.

He had likewise pinned a Harding and Coolidge button on his sleeve and pretended it was a signalling badge.

_A signalling badge!_ He did not tell his mother what he was pretending for she would not understand.

Out in the small barn he had presented himself with this, with much scout ceremony, and he had actually trembled when he told himself (in a man's voice) to "step forward and receive this token...." The car in which Scout Harris was being carried reached the lake and still Peter Piper poured over his scout handbook by the dim, oily smelling lamp, up in that little room.