CHAPTER XXI.
SEEIN' THINGS Stop-blue-car-five-o-seven-nine-two-eagle-on-front.
Out of the solemn darkness, someone, somewhere, had called to Peter Piper of Piper's Crossroads; had stolen like a silent ghost to his little window and bidden him watch.
Far away that arresting voice may have been, away off in the big world, and none could say how far or near, or where or how it spoke, calling in the endless wilderness of night.

But it spoke to Peter Piper, of Piper's Crossroads, to Peter Piper, pioneer scout.
And Peter Piper, with the aid of the only scout companion that he had, read it and was _prepared_, as it is the way of a scout to be.
He did not dare to hope that he was being drawn into the actual circle of scouting; he would not know how to act among those natty strangers.
Wonderful as they were, with their pathfinding and all that, they could hardly penetrate to his humble, sequestered little home.

Peter Piper of Piper's Crossroads was not going to allow himself to dream any extravagantly impossible dreams.

The nickel flashlight and a correspondence with some unknown "brother," that was as far as his hopes carried.
He had still a lingering and persistent feeling that this whole amazing business was unreal; that he had been dreaming it or at least reading a meaning where there was none.

He knew that he could see trees and the stars in Hawley's pond when there were none there.