He was glad they did not know so they could not laugh at him....
After the Packard car, with its noisy load, had started for that fairy region where they had movie shows and things and where Scout Harris lived, Peter was beset by an awful problem.

He was not sleepy, he would not be sleepy for at least a year after what he had seen, and he intended to watch the car as it should be watched.

The question that puzzled him was whether he dared get into it or whether he had better sit on the old carriage step.

He finally compromised by sitting on the running board.

And there he sat till the owl stopped shrieking and the first pale herald of the dawn appeared in the sky.
And when the sun peaked over the top of Graveyard Hill and painted the tombstones below with its fresh new light and showed the gray frost of the autumn morning spread over the lonesome, bleak fields, and finally cast its cheery light upon the tiny, isolated home, it found Peter Piper, pioneer scout, of Piper's Crossroads, seated there upon the running board of Scoutmaster Ned's car, waiting for one more glimpse of those heroes.....