facing206PEE-WEE WAS SHOUTING ON THE ROOF OF THE CAR—"THEY'RE ALL RED HOT!"Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels. Page207
PEE-WEE WAS SHOUTING ON THE ROOF OF THE CAR—"THEY'RE ALL RED HOT!"Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels. Page207
"Sure, we'll stand on our heads," Wig said. "Anything to please you."
"Our hereditary rights!" the kid yelled.
"All right, get up and stand on the top of the car," I told him, "and shout. We'll do the rest."
We made a paper hat for the kid and tied a towel around his waist for an apron, because we wanted him to look like a chef. I gave him a saucepan from Westy's kit and told him to wave it around while he was talking, because I thought, kind of, it might make the people hungry.
Pretty soon we could hear him marching back and forth on the roof of the car, and shouting at the top of his lungs. Even before I got the stove hot there was a big crowd standing all around outside, laughing.
He kept shouting, "Here they are! They're all smoking hot! The celebrated Boy Scout tenderflops! Flopped by the only original Boy Scout flopper! They're one cent each! Eat one and you'll never eat another—I mean you'll never eat anything else! O-o-o-o-oh! They're all red hot! The kind we eat around the camp-fire! Only one cent! None genuine unless stamped BE PREPARED!The famous scout tenderflops! They melt in your mouth! They MELT in your MOUTH!"
"Good night!" I said to the fellows; "listen to him."
By that time I was frying them six at a clip, while Connie and Wig and Westy were passing them around on pieces of board and scooping in the money. All of a sudden I heard Pee-wee's voice; it seemed to be in the stove. I opened the lid and heard him calling down the stovepipe, "Send me some up here so I can be eating them; it'll make the people hungry."
"That's a good idea," Wig said; "let's all be eating them, and let's look kind of happy every time we take a bite. It pays to advertise."
We passed a saucepan full of them up to Pee-wee and charged them up to advertising. Westy said, "That's what you call overhead expense."
Believe me, that kid was some overhead expense, all right.
"You have to demonstrate," he shouted down.
"You're a pretty good demonstrator," a man called up to him.
I was laughing so hard I could hardly fry the cakes fast enough. There was a big crowd outside,just scrambling for them, and we had Westy's aluminum coffee-pot about half full of pennies. Up on the car, Pee-wee was strutting up and down, waving the saucepan with one arm and holding a cake in his other hand and shouting, "O—oh, to taste one! Just to TASTE one! Watch me eat one! Mm-mmm! They're one cent each! None genuine unless stamped BE PREPARED!Send up some more, you fellows!"
After a little while we stopped to rest, and we asked Mr. Pedro to come in and have lunch with us. In the afternoon we went around the grounds and had some rides on the merry-go-round and tried our luck throwing baseballs at a negro man. I won a Japanese doll. We found out that the price of sandwiches had gone down to ten cents. Waffles were selling two for a cent and going begging—that's what a man told us. He said crullers were off the market. The coffee-man wanted to buy tenderflops wholesale from us, but we wouldn't sell him any. Believe me, we had all the visitors at that place eating out of our hands—that's no joke either; it's true.
About four o'clock I mixed up all the stuff we had left. Already we had eight dollars and we had only spent about four. So we had over fourdollars' profit. It would have been bigger, except for the overhead expense. It costs a lot to advertise.
On toward evening the crowd was even bigger. That was because everybody was telling everybody else to see the Boy Scouts selling stamped cakes from their private car. We were a what-do-you-call-it—an institution.
All of a sudden came the grand climax. I was just laying the last tenderflops on the boards and trying to scrape enough stuff out of the pan to make just two or three more, when I saw a wagon stop right alongside the car. Oh, please excuse me a minute while I laugh!
Now we had seen that wagon most all afternoon, because a man was using it to cart sawdust from the ice-house and sprinkle it on the race-track. I suppose he did that on account of the races which were going to be at five o'clock.
Anyway, he got down from his wagon and came over to the platform and said, "Let's try a couple of them floperetts I'm hearin' so much about."
I said, "Is this your last load?"
He said yes, it was, and that after he got it sprinkled on the track, he was coming back for more floperetts—that was what he calledthem.
That man ate a whole board full and I called up to Pee-wee, "There isn't any more batter, so we're on the home stretch. Shout good and loud and tell them it's their last chance."
Just at that very minute I heard a locomotive whistle.
"Good night," I said; "I bet it's twenty-three for us."
"What's the difference?" Westy said; "there's no more batter, anyway, and I'm tired out."
"We have a coffee-pot full of money," I told him.
After I had fried the last tenderflop, I went outside to take a good rest. It was hot working over that stove. Up on the car, Pee-wee was stamping back and forth, waving the pan and screaming for all he was worth.
"Look!" I said to the fellows; "just take one look at him. Get your kodak, Westy."
"Only a few more left!" Pee-wee was yelling. "One cent while they last! None genuine——and so on, and so on.
By that time I could see a freight train backing in toward us. It was coming very slow and a couple of men from it were running ahead toopen the gates. It just crept along—hardly moved. There were men on top and one turning the brake handle.
One of them called out, "Watch your step there, you kid!"
"They're all smoking hot!" Pee-wee yelled, and never paid any attention to him.
"Brace your feet, Sonny," the man shouted.
Pee-wee didn't pay any attention, just kept marching up and down, waving the pan and yelling, "There are no more tenderflops to be flopped! Your last chance! Get a flop——"
And then, good morning sister Jane, there was just a little bunk and there was Pee-wee swinging the saucepan and trying to balance himself on one leg.
"Get—get a flop——" he was shouting.
And then, all of a sudden, around he went, and off the roof,kerflopinto the load of sawdust.
It was the end of a perfect day.
The sawdust was all wet on account of there being ice in that ice-house, and it stuck all over our young hero's clothes and face, so he looked as if he were covered with very coarse sandpaper.
We hauled him out and stood him up, saucepan and all. Even he had a tenderflop with a big bite out of it in one hand, and it was all covered with wet sawdust like some new kind of frosting. The crowd went crazy. I thought one of those trainmen would have a fit, he laughed so hard.
I said, "Never mind, Kid, you died for a good cause; only don't open your mouth, or you'll swallow about a quart of sawdust."
Oh, boy, it makes me laugh whenever I think of it. Westy had a headache from laughing. His mother said it was from eating tenderflops, butIwas the one that heard him laugh.
Anyway, that was the end of our adventures.
We cleaned our young hero up and brushed him off, but every time he spoke that night, he said he tasted sawdust.
The train people fixed our coupling and in about an hour we were rolling merrily out through the gates on the end of that long freight train. I guess it couldn't have been Number Twenty-three, because nothing happened. Anyway, I bet the profiteers were glad to get rid of us. Pee-wee said we "dealt them a mortal blow." Westy said we "felled them to the ground with a frying pan."
Anyway, we had twenty-seven dollars, counting what we made out of the movie show, and not counting the fifty that Mr. Temple had sent us. That wasn't so bad when you remember that we had only forty-two cents when we started.
Sometime that night we were left in the freight yards at Jersey City, but we were all too sleepy to notice anything. Anyway, what's the use of being awake when you're in Jersey City. Early in the morning, a Northern local picked us up, and pretty soon we were rattling along the shore of our own river. You can bet it looked good to us. At about half-past seven, we were left on the sidetrack near the Bridgeboro Station.
"All the commuters will be coming down for the seven fifty-two," Wig said "Let's get up on the roof and give them a Scout Sing."
It looked good, after that crazy trip, to see all the things that we knew so well. There was Bennett's candy store, and there was the Royal Movie Theatre just around the corner. Pretty soon people began straggling along for the seven fifty-two, and a lot of them stood about, gaping at our car with its sign.
Buffalo 398 Mls.—BREWSTER'S CENTER—N. Y. 30 Mls.
Buffalo 398 Mls.—BREWSTER'S CENTER—N. Y. 30 Mls.
So we all got up on the roof and sat there in a row, singing. People down below waved to us and Connie's father shouted hello to us, but we got to singing so loud, we couldn't hear all the things that people said. Everybody down there knew us, and we knew they knew we were crazy, so we didn't care.
"All together!" Wig said.
"Go!" Connie shouted.
"We started out to wander,We never meant to roam;We went, because we went,And now we're home, we're home.We're going to go to school, oh, joy!But we're not in a hurry;We've got twenty-seven dollars and a railroad car;WE SHOULD WORRY!"
"We started out to wander,We never meant to roam;We went, because we went,And now we're home, we're home.We're going to go to school, oh, joy!But we're not in a hurry;We've got twenty-seven dollars and a railroad car;WE SHOULD WORRY!"
THE END
Transcriber's noteThe following changes have been made to the text:Page 156: "Just as we go our feet" changed to "Just as wegotour feet".Page 206: "him. "it's as clear" changed to "him. "It'sas clear".
The following changes have been made to the text:
Page 156: "Just as we go our feet" changed to "Just as wegotour feet".
Page 206: "him. "it's as clear" changed to "him. "It'sas clear".