CHAPTER XXVIWE SEE A HOUSE
So then Willie Cook cooked his meat and potatoes and as long as he was a tenderfoot and didn’t know much about scouting we showed him how scouts eat. We let him keep one potato and about an ounce of meat to take back to camp for evidence to show to the raving Ravens. After that we felt pretty good so we sprawled around and rested a while.
Scout Cook said, “Are you going straight back to camp?”
“Not straight,” Hervey said, “but we’re on our way there. If it’s where it was this morning, we’re going to go to it. I suppose it was there when you left, wasn’t it?”
“It’s usually there,” Bert said.
“Don’t pay any attention to them,” Pee-wee said to his new member; “they’ve been acting like that all day. They’ve been going around and around and around like a chicken with its head off. Hervey Willetts and Roy Blakeley are the worst of the lot.”
“Sure, we’re each worse than the other if not more so,” I said. “The question is, where do we go from here?”
“We go straight west to Temple Camp,” Pee-wee shouted; “we’re not going to, what d’you call it, deviate.”
“Call it whatever you want, I don’t care,” I said.
“And we’re going to go pretty soon, too,” the kid said; “we’re going to go while the column of smoke from the cooking shack is still going up. We can’t see the sun any more; we haven’t got anything to follow but the smoke.”
“Wrong the first time,” I said. “We’ve got Hervey Willetts to follow. I’d rather follow him than the sun; the sun always goes to the same place; he goes every which way. There’s no pep to the sun. Is there, Scout Cook?”
I guess the poor little kid thought we were a pack of lunatics. He didn’t know what to say.
“What time did you leave camp?” I asked him.
He said, “About one o’clock; just after the bus came with a lot of new scouts. There’s a big troop coming to-night and Uncle Jeb has got to send them to Bear Mountain Camp because there aren’t any more tents or cabins to put them in. I’d rather stay at Temple Camp, wouldn’t you?”
“The only place I like to stay at is nowhere,” Hervey said; “and I don’t care to stay very long even there. Why didn’t the bunch in Administration Shack let that troop know before they started, I wonder?”
“The troop sent a telegram,” Willie Cook said.
“What do you say we hike to Bear Mountain to-night?” Hervey said.
“Are there bears there?” Willie wanted to know.
I said, “No, they call it Bear Mountain because all the scouts go round in their bare feet up there. Give me Temple Camp every time; there’s only one thing I don’t like about it, and that is going home from it.”
“If you like it so much it’s a wonder you don’t go there,” Pee-wee shouted. “You’ve been going there all day and none of us are there yet. Pretty soon the smoke will die down and then what? You know yourself you can’t trust signboards or anything up here. We know that column of smoke is in the west because that’s where the sun went down and we know that Temple Camp is the only place that sends up a big column of smoke like that. Are you going to stop your nonsense and follow it or not?”
“We don’t need the smoke,” Warde said. “See that roof right in line with the smoke? All we have to do is to follow the roof——”
“We’ll climb over it,” Hervey said.
“Let the smoke die down. What do we care?” Garry said. “The roof won’t die down; that’s a sure beacon.”
All of a sudden Hervey jumped up. “Follow your leader,” he said.
So off we started with little Willie Cook coming along behind and trying to keep up with us while we sang:
Don’t ask where you’re headed for nobody knows,Just keep your eyes open and follow your nose;Be careful, don’t trip and go stubbing your toes,But follow your leader wherever he goes.
Don’t ask where you’re headed for nobody knows,Just keep your eyes open and follow your nose;Be careful, don’t trip and go stubbing your toes,But follow your leader wherever he goes.
Don’t ask where you’re headed for nobody knows,
Just keep your eyes open and follow your nose;
Be careful, don’t trip and go stubbing your toes,
But follow your leader wherever he goes.
CHAPTER XXVIIWE LOSE OUR BEARINGS
The kid shouted, “Are you going straight to camp or not? Are there going to be any more detours?”
“Not exactly detours,” Hervey said; “just a few small scallops to vary the monotony. We’re on our way home. We’re following the smoke and we’re headed straight for the cooking shack; follow your leader. The way I figure it out we ought to land on the stove.”
“We ought to land in the zink,” Garry said.
“The zink would do just as well, follow your leader,” Hervey said. “I’m aiming straight for the dishpan full of cookies. Have courage, follow your leader wherever he goes, don’t weaken or flunk or suggest or oppose——”
Gee whiz, I can’t tell you of all the crazy things that fellow did, singing all the while. He swung into trees and went round and round them till we were all dizzy and didn’t know what we were singing. He kept going in and out around two trees till he had us all staggering and singing:
Don’t ask where you’re opposed,But follow your nose wherever supposed;N’ snows n’ suppose wherever goes.
Don’t ask where you’re opposed,But follow your nose wherever supposed;N’ snows n’ suppose wherever goes.
Don’t ask where you’re opposed,
But follow your nose wherever supposed;
N’ snows n’ suppose wherever goes.
“Wait a minute!” I shouted. “Where’s that roof? I don’t see it.”
“It’s still there,” Hervey said. “Don’t start to whrrrever yr leader suppose in the toes when it starts to suppose.”
“Be careful don’t stub and go flunking your nose,” Pee-wee shouted.
“N’ flow—flow—yr—flunked—wrvr—goes,” poor little Willie Cook sang.
“Have a heart,” I said.
“Do you see the roof?” Garry asked.
I just sank down to the ground. “I see forty-eleven roofs and eighty-nine col-ol-ol-ums of smoke—oke,” I told him.
“We’re get—tet—ing there,” Hervey said.
We all just sprawled on the ground for about ten minutes, dead to the world.
“Sure, we’re nearly there,” I said.
After a little while Scout Harris sat up and set up a howl.
“What’s the matter now?” I asked him.
“The smoke! The smoke!” he shouted. “It isn’t in line with the roof any more! Look!”
I sat up and looked.
“Temple Camp has moved away or something,” he yelled.
I said, “That’s very funny, the smoke must be blowing.”
“You’re crazy,” he said, all excited. “You can see the chimney even, and the roof isn’t in line with it!”
I said, “All right, don’t call me crazy, call the smoke crazy. I didn’t do it, did I?”
“Just the same that’s mighty funny,” Warde said.
“Sure,” I said; “if it wasn’t funny it wouldn’t be here.”
“Don’t get rattled,” Hervey said, “we’rehere; we’re just where we were. Don’t lose your morale.”
“I lost my potatoes,” Willie Cook piped up.
“Pee-wee’s eating one of them,” I said.
There sat Scout Harris, with black all around his mouth, munching a roasted potato and staring off to the west with eyes as big as saucers.
I have to admit it was funny. When we had first seen that roof it was between us and the smoke from camp, maybe half-way. It seemed as if it might be on the road at the western edge of the woods.
Across that road were more woods and in those farther woods was the camp. Now the smoke was rising to theleftof the roof. It might have been partly on account of the smoke blowing and partly on account of our being dizzy, that’s what I thought.
So I said, “We should worry. I’ve been to Temple Camp every summer for several years and it’s always stayed in the same place. It’s not like we are. All we’ve lost are our bearings and one potato. That roof is in a bee-line with Temple Camp. When we get to the road where the house is I know the way to camp all right without any smoke beacons. There’s a trail through the farther woods. Let the smoke die. What do we care? The boy scouts will live forever. Let’s take a good rest and sort of get sobered up so we’re not seeing things and then let’s make a bee-line for that house. If Hervey will lead us to that house I’ll lead the party to camp from there.”
“Come on, follow your leader,” Hervey said. And with that he rolled over and laid his head on his arm. All the rest of us did the same and pretty soon we were fast asleep. No wonder.
CHAPTER XXVIIIWE ARE DEAD TO THE WORLD
Now in this chapter we are all asleep so nothing happens. If anything happened I don’t know about it. Anyway I’m not to blame for what the landscape does. I never had any use for geography, anyway; I never trusted it. And I’ll never trust it again as long as it lives.
So that’s why this chapter is so short, because we’re all asleep.
CHAPTER XXIXWE WAKE UP
Now there’s going to be something doing again because we woke up. While we were asleep the smoke from the cooking shack died. I guess they were all through cooking supper at camp. The sun had gone down too. The part of the sky where it had gone down was all bright—red kind of. So we knew that was the west.
The roof we had seen wasn’t in line with it, but you can’t exactly say a thing is in line with a bright part of the sky. The column of smoke had been right behind that little roof, maybe two miles from it, so we decided to use that roof for a beacon. That would take us to the road and from there I knew the trail through the other woods.
I have to admit we were all about ready to go home by then. We were all pretty tired after that crazy day. If they would have to send a new troop away on account of there not being accommodations, that would mean the bus would go down to Catskill again and I wanted to get to camp in time to send a letter home. I didn’t like to think about a troop being sent away but it served them right for not writing beforehand. Every tent and every cabin was crowded that summer.
I said to Hervey, “If you want to be the leader all right, but from now on we’re going straight for camp. I admit you’re too much for the rest of us. You ought to live in a volcano or a cyclone or something like that. I’m good and tired. See if you can make a bee-line to that little roof and then we’ll know we’re going straight for camp.”
“And when you get to camp stop there,” Warde said.
“I hope he bunks into the pavilion, that’ll be the only thing to stop him,” Garry said.
“This time, it’s positively guaranteed,” Hervey said; “I’m going straight west till I bunk right into that house.”
“Keep your eye on the roof,” Bert said, “because that’s the only way we can besurewe’re going right.”
“Ready,go”Hervey said.
That time we kept going straight ahead without any nonsense—right straight for that roof.
“I’d like to have a picture of our travels to-day,” Warde said.
“It would look like the trail of a snake with blind staggers,” I told him. “After to-day I’m going to have some sense.”
“Not if you follow Hervey Willetts,” Warde said.
Hervey said, “I know a better game; it’s called the flip-flop sprint. Did you ever try the razzle-dazzle roam? You have to keep going east while you keep your west eye shut. The hole-in-the-ground hop is a good one too. When shall we try it?”
“We’ll try it day after yesterday,” I said; “think of the west and keep your eye on that roof.”
“Absolutely, positively,” Hervey said; “we couldn’t go wrong now if we tried.”
“Don’t try,” Pee-wee shouted.
“Be sure that the right way is always the best,” I said. “I don’t care what that song of yours says.”
Pretty soon we got to where the woods were not so thick and we could see the road ahead. We couldn’t exactly see it because it was sort of in a hollow but we could see the hollow, and by that time we could see the rest of the house, or most of it.
“We’ll cut right through the woods in back of it,” Warde said.
I said, “Thank goodness, we’ll be home in fifteen minutes.”
“Follow me and you can’t go wrong,” Hervey said. “I’m aiming straight for my place at the mess-board.”
“Don’t aim for mine,” Pee-wee shouted at him. Then Hervey began singing:
Some scouts prefer to hike around,We don’t,And cover miles and miles of ground,we don’t.And roam and roam and roam and roam,And roam some more and roam and roam;And nevernevergo back home,we don’t.
Some scouts prefer to hike around,We don’t,And cover miles and miles of ground,we don’t.And roam and roam and roam and roam,And roam some more and roam and roam;And nevernevergo back home,we don’t.
Some scouts prefer to hike around,
We don’t,
And cover miles and miles of ground,
we don’t.
And roam and roam and roam and roam,
And roam some more and roam and roam;
And nevernevergo back home,
we don’t.
“Look!” Pee-wee yelled at the top of his voice. “The smoke! Look! It’s way off there!”
We all looked andg-o-o-d night, there was the column of smoke away, way to the north of us, and there, as sure as I’m sitting here writing, was that little house right straight ahead of us, about fifty yards off.
“The plot grows thicker!” I said, just leaning limp against a tree. “We’ve been going farther and farther away from camp all the time. Chocolate Drop must be burning up refuse. Where are we at, anyway?”
“The world is upside down!” Garry said.
“It’s inside out,” Bert shouted.
“That house right in front of us was in direct line with camp,” Warde said.
“The Catskill Mountains are crazy!” Pee-wee shouted. “Remember the way they did with Rip Van Winkle? Everything is crazy! Where are we at? The nearer we get the farther we go. This country is haunted.”
“Search me,” I said. “The sun must have set in the east, that’s the only wayIcan explain it. That house there wasin a bee-line with the camp when we started. I’ll leave it to Hervey.”
“Don’t leave it to him,” Pee-wee shouted; “you’ll only make it worse. Do you think I want to land on the moon?”
CHAPTER XXXWE FIGURE IT OUT
I said, “Let’s sit down and think it over and figure it out by geometry; let’s not get excited. Three things were in a bee-line, the cooking shack and the house and we ourselves. Deny it if you can. The smoke died and we hiked straight for the house. Didn’t we? Now here we are almost at the house and the smoke is there again, and it’s the same chimney and it’s way out north of us and we’ve been hiking southwest. What’s the answer?”
“It’s all because Hervey Willetts is leading us,” Pee-wee shouted. “If that fellow started to go across the street he’d end at—at—at South Africa—he would.”
“Are we going to get lost again?” little Willie Cook piped up.
“Again?” I said. “Excuse me while I laugh. We’ve got the babes in the woods beaten twenty-eleven ways. I wish we had a compass.”
“I wouldn’t believe one if you had it,” Pee-wee shouted.
“Let’s hustle and follow the smoke while it’s still going up,” Warde said.
“It’s dying down!” Pee-wee shouted.
“Let it die,” I said. “I’m going to find out what happened. If the earth is off its axis we ought to know it.”
“We’ll have to hike to the North Pole,” Hervey said.
“Oh sure, start off,” I told him; “we’ll follow you.”
“I want to know how a bee-line got bent,” Bert said.
“I never knew Temple Camp to do such a thing before as long as I’ve known it,” I said. “I’m surprised at Temple Camp. I don’t understand it. It’s trying to escape us.”
“We’ll foil it yet,” Hervey said. “When it comes to hide-and-seek that’s my middle name. I intend to go to Temple Camp now just for spite. We’ll each go in a different direction and surround it and close in on it. What do you say?”
“Suppose we start east again?” I said. “Maybe that’ll take us there because Temple Camp is north. We’ll make a flank move.”
Pee-wee said, very dark and determined like, “I’m going to follow that chimney. The rest of you can go where you want to.”
“First let’s go to the house and get a drink of water,” Warde said.
So then we went on till we came to the road, andg-o-o-d night, there we stood on the edge of the embankment, staring.
“Well—what—do—you—know—about—that?” one of the fellows just blurted out.
“I knew it all the time,” I said; “that house is not to be trusted. I’ll never trust another house as long as I live, I don’t care if it’s a Sunday School even. I wouldn’t trust a public school.”
The rest of them were laughing so hard they just couldn’t speak. There in the road just below us was a great big wagon with a kind of a trestle on it. And on that wagon was a little house. There were four horses hitched to the wagon and a funny looking man was driving them. He wasn’t driving them exactly because they were standing still. One of the wheels of the wagon was ditched alongside the road. That house had been pulled quite a long way south along the road while we were asleep. Take my advice and never use a house for a beacon.
I called, “Hey, mister, where are you going with the house?”
We all sat on the high bank and looked at it. The horses were straining and trying to pull the wagon out. The house was so wide it filled up the whole road.
“It’s a portable garage,” Warde said.
I said, “Hey, mister, is that a portable garage?” The man called back, “No, can’t you see it’s a load of hay?”
“No sooner said than stung,” I said.
“Maybe you don’t know we’ve been following that house,” I said.
The man said, “Well, if you follow it you’re not likely to get far.”
Hervey said, “Oh we don’t care, we’d just as soon be here as anywhere. It’s all the same to us.”
“We’re glad you didn’t get any farther with it,” Warde said. “We’ve been trying to go west by following the roof of that thing while it was going south.”
The man said, “I’m sorry if I led you astray. I seem to have reached the end of my journey.”
“You’re lucky,” I said. “We’ve been going around and around like the mainspring of a watch all day.”
The man said, kind of laughing, “You seem to be wound up.”
“Sure, we go for eight days,” Garry said. “What are you going to do with the garage?”
“Well, I’m going to sell it for a chicken-coop if you must know,” the man said. “Pretty soon you’ll know as much as I do, won’t you?”
“Where did you come from?” Pee-wee shouted down.
“I came from Ireland,” the man said.
“I mean to-day,” Pee-wee called back.
The man said, “Oh, to-day I came from Gooseberry Centre.”
“I don’t blame you,” Hervey said; “I was there the other day. If I were a garage I wouldn’t stay there; not if I were a portable one.”
“The land I had was sold over my head,” the man said.
“You mean under your feet,” Pee-wee shouted.
The man just looked up kind of laughing and he said, “Well, since you seem to be so smart and clever maybe you can think of a way to get me out of this hole.”
“Sure we can,” Hervey said. “Where do you want to go?”
I called, “Just say where you want to go and he’ll take you somewhere else.”
“Anyway,” Pee-wee shouted, “do you claim that chickens are as important as boy scouts?” Gee whiz, I didn’t know what he was driving at.
CHAPTER XXXIWE MAKE A BARGAIN
The man said, “I should have kept out of that rut; now I’m in a nice pickle.”
“Don’t you care,” I said, “we’ve been getting into the wrong places all day and we’re happy.”
“Pickles aren’t so bad,” Pee-wee shouted; “I wouldn’t mind being in a whole barrel of pickles. We’ll help you out, only if you’re not charging too much for that garage we’d like to buy it if you’ll cart it to Temple Camp. We’ll give you more than the chickens will give you. There’s a troop up at camp that haven’t got any accommodations and they’ll be coming along in the jitney bus pretty soon. Hey, mister, will you sell us the garage? We’ll give you fourteen cents deposit on it right now.”
“Sure,” I said, “you can take a mortgage for the rest; good idea. Pee-wee, you’re a brick.”
“It’s an inspiration,” Pee-wee said; “we’ll wind our funny-bone hike up with a crazy good turn, hey? We’ll furnish accommodations. Troops don’t have to go to houses because the houses come to them. Everything is the other way round. While they’re on their way back to Catskill Landing they’ll meet a house and we’ll put them in it and send them back to camp.”
“Good idea,” Hervey shouted; “accommodations delivered while you wait; take your house home with you. Let’s all climb up on the top of it.”
“Wait a minute,” Warde said, “this man thinks we’re crazy. Do you mean what you say? If you do I’ll talk to him.”
“We mean a good deal more than what we say,” I said; “that’s a good suggestion of Pee-wee’s and I say let’s follow it. No troop shall leave Temple Camp on account of a house. If they come along the road they shall not pass. We’ll put them in the house and send them back. We defy everything and everybody. What do we care about the housing shortage?”
Warde said, “Well then, keep still a minute and let me talk to the man.” He has a lot of sense, Warde has, I’m glad I’m not him.
He said, “Hey, mister, we’re boy scouts and we belong at Temple Camp that’s over there in the woods near Black Lake. This road goes around through Hink’s Junction and around through Pine Hollow to the camp. We were going to take the short cut through the woods but we followed this house instead. So now we think we’d like to buy it and we’ll take it to Temple Camp.”
“We’ll take turns carrying it,” Garry said.
Warde said, “Will you keep still so he’ll know we’re in earnest?”
“It’s a business proposition,” Pee-wee said; “shut up and let Warde talk.”
Then Warde said, just as if he really meant it, he said, “We’d like to buy this portable garage if you’ll sell it to us and take it to Temple Camp. We’ll get you out of the ditch all right when the jitney bus comes along. How much do you want for it?”
The man said he was carting it to Pine Hollow because a farmer there said he would buy it. But he said if we really meant that we wanted it he’d sell it for fifty dollars. He said we’d have to pay him ten dollars more for hauling because Temple Camp was farther than Pine Hollow.
“The house will have a good home as long as it lives,” Bert said. “There are plenty of fresh milk and eggs and everything at Temple Camp.” The man said he guessed there were plenty of fresh scouts there too, if the rest of them were like us. He said he didn’t care much about the garage anyway and he was only taking it away because the land where he lived had been sold and nobody wanted it in Gooseberry Centre.
I said, “Maybe they don’t know there are such things as automobiles.”
So then we got serious and we told him that we’d like to have that garage at camp because when we went on hikes we always brought back souvenirs and anyway because there was a cabin shortage there. We told him that we’d take up a collection when we got there and that if we didn’t get enough money that way we’d give a grand show and charge admission and that he could stay at camp till we gave him the money.
He said, “Will I have to go to the show?”
“Not unless you want to,” I told him.
So then he began asking questions about Temple Camp and he said he liked scouts because they were lively and he didn’t care who he sold the house to only he was afraid on account of it blocking up the road. He said he had more interest in scouts than in chickens because once a scout had done him a good turn, but he never knew a chicken to do a kind act.
So we made the bargain with him and he kept laughing all the time, and he said he’d like to go and see Temple Camp, only what was worrying him most was that he was blocking up the road.
“You leave that to us,” Pee-wee said.
I said, “Don’t worry about that; the road is as much to blame as the house is. If we can’t get the house out of the way we’ll get the road out of the way, but anyway we’ll get the house to camp. All we have to do is to wait for the jitney bus to come along and we know Darby Curren and he’ll pull you out all right. We used a gas engine to move a donkey to-day. I guess we ought to be able to move a house with one.”
CHAPTER XXXIIWE BECOME BANDITS
That’s always the way it is with Pee-wee. All of a sudden he springs a big idea. Mr. Ellsworth (he’s our scoutmaster) says Pee-wee’s good turns are planned on a large scale. They’re masterpieces, that’s what Mr. Ellsworth says. And this one I’m telling you about was especially good because it was kind of crazy.
Hervey said, “That’s just what we want, a good climax for this funny-bone hike. We’ll wind up in a blaze of glory.”
“The end of a perfect day,” Bert said.
The man said he guessed we must have had a lot of fun.
“We’ve got a lot left, too,” I told him; “we’ve got enough to last a couple of weeks. We never knew when we started out how many dandy misfortunes there are. I bet we had more fun starving than anybody else ever did.” Then I said; “Hey, mister, what’s your name?”
He said his name was Goobenhoff but he wouldn’t tell us his front name because we couldn’t pronounce it.
I said, “Tell it to us without pronouncing it.”
He said, “When you go on a hike it’s good to have a destination.”
Hervey said, “Sure it is, because then we know where not to go. We never start out without taking a destination with us.”
After a little while the jitney bus came along from the other direction and we all set up a shout. Darby Curren was driving it and scouts were sticking their heads out of the windows. Gee whiz, maybe what we were going to do was crazy, but when I saw the faces of those fellows I said, “Crazy things are all right; as long as a thing is a good turn it doesn’t matter.”
Gee, I didn’t blame the Camp Committee because they couldn’t help the camp being crowded, and troops are supposed to fix it up about their cabins a long time ahead, but just the same it seemed funny as long as scouts are all brothers that those fellows should have to go to another camp, becausebelieve me, there’s only one place and that is Temple Camp. I guess you know yourselves what fun we have there.
I said to the fellows, “This funny-bone hike is going to end in something worth while or else the whole day is lost.”
“Let it be lost,” Hervey said; “there’s a lot of fun being lost.”
I said, “Pee-wee, this is your job, go to it.” The kid stepped right out into the middle of the road, very brave and daring. All the while he was pulling up his stocking; it was awful funny to see him. Mr. Goobenhoff just laughed and laughed. I guess he was having a lot of fun too.
Pee-wee held up his hand like a traffic cop and shouted, “Stop! In the name of the funny-bone hikers of the Boy Scouts of America,stop!Wait a second till I fix my garter.”
Darby shouted, “Hello, Scout Harris; what’s the matter with your face?”
“It’s supposed to be invincible,” the kid shouted. “Stop where you are!”
“Your mouth is all black,” Darby said.
“I was eating a roasted potato,” Pee-wee said. “Who have you got in that bus?”
“Is this a hold-up?” Darby wanted to know. “I haven’t got anything with me but a cheese sandwich.”
“Give it to me,” the kid shouted.
“Give it to me,” Garry said.
By that time Mr. Goobenhoff was laughing so hard he just shook, and Darby was laughing too. In a couple of seconds about seven or eight scouts came pell-mell out of the bus to see what all the fuss was about. There was a man with them, he was their scoutmaster, and he was smiling and looking kind of surprised.
I guess it must have seemed funny when they saw that garage and saw us standing there in the road. We were all kind of dirty and shabby after our adventures and Hervey Willetts had on that funny hat he always wears with holes cut in it and advertising buttons all over it. It was cocked away over on the side of his head and he was balancing a stick on his nose.
Pee-wee shouted at him, “Take that stick down. Don’t you know how bandits act? You’re supposed to look savage.”
I gave one look at poor little Willie Cook trying to look savage, and then I doubled up. Pee-wee had black all around his mouth and he was swinging his belt-axe; he looked awful funny.
He stood right in front of the bus and shouted, “Who are you and why? We captured a portable garage! Do you think we can’t capture a jitney bus? Nobody can pass this spot. We’re here to do a good turn whether you want us to or not. We’re wild and savage, we live on fish and milk chocolate and we were starving on a desert drawbridge. Hold up your hands and make the scout salute. To-night you sleep at Temple Camp. Has anybody got a piece of string? My garter’s busted.”
CHAPTER XXXIIIWE WIN
That scoutmaster said, kind of smiling, “We think we’re scouts and we’re glad to make you the salute. What can we do for you?”
“Where are you going?” Pee-wee shouted.
The man said, “Why, if you must know, we’re going to catch a train for Bear Mountain. They’re crowded up at the camp. We might have stayed till morning, but the sooner we’re settled the better.”
“You’re settled already,” Pee-wee shouted; “I settled you! We’re the funny-bone bandits and we own the Catskill Mountains. Do you see this little house? It’s a garage. It’s going to Temple Camp and you’re going back with it. You’re going to bunk in it. We’re going to pull it out of this ditch and take it to Temple Camp. That’s the kind of good turns we do up here!”
The man said, “You’re very kind but——”
“Don’t talk about catching trains,” I said. “We’ve been catching trains to-day and see what it’s brought us to. Take my advice and don’t get on a train. A portable garage is better. We used to be regular scouts like you, with uniforms and clean faces and everything, before we got on a railroad train. We belong at Temple Camp and we’re going back there and so is this little shack and so are you.”
The scoutmaster said, “You’re very kind but——”
“There isn’t anybutabout it,” I told him. “If you think we’re going to have anybody interfering with our good turns you’re mistaken. You didn’t know the woods were infested with wild scouts, did you? So now get out of the way while Darby Curren pulls us out of the ditch, and then do what we tell you. All you’ve seen so far are the tame scouts up at camp; we’re the wild, outlaw scouts. This is Hervey Willetts, the human squirrel—I’m the nut. We run Temple Camp, don’t worry, leave it to us. The road to Temple Camp is a one way street and don’t you forget it! So get out of the way, you’re blocking the traffic.”
Gee whiz, I guess they didn’t know what to think. The scoutmaster just looked around smiling, and all his little troop were staring and laughing. I could see they wanted to go back.
The scoutmaster said, “I hardly know what to think about this.”
“Don’t think about it,” Pee-wee said, “just do it.”
“Do the way we do,” Hervey said; “don’t go to the place you started out to go to; go the other way. Do the thing you didn’t expect to do, then you’ll have more fun. That’s what a funny-bone hike is. Get mixed up accidentally on purpose. Just keep going, any old way. One place is as good as another, only Temple Camp is better than all of them. Come ahead back, you just leave it to us. We’ll get the truck out of the ditch and we’ll start a parade to Temple Camp and I’ll go first and tell them all about it. We had a lot of fun to-day just on account of a song. So now will you join a parade with us and follow your leader? Listen.
“Don’t ask where you’re headed for nobody knows,Just keep your eyes open and follow your nose;Be careful, don’t trip and go stubbing your toes,But follow your leader wherever he goes.”
“Don’t ask where you’re headed for nobody knows,Just keep your eyes open and follow your nose;Be careful, don’t trip and go stubbing your toes,But follow your leader wherever he goes.”
“Don’t ask where you’re headed for nobody knows,
Just keep your eyes open and follow your nose;
Be careful, don’t trip and go stubbing your toes,
But follow your leader wherever he goes.”
Oh boy, you should have seen those fellows look at Hervey; they just stood there laughing and staring and kind of clustering around him. That’s always the way it is, fellows fall for him right away.
“Are there any more verses to that song?” one of them wanted to know.
“Sure,” Hervey said, “we’ve been singing them all day, and we’d like to go marching into camp with this outfit singing them, too. We want the craziest part to come last.”
“Let’s do it,” one of those fellows said.
“I want to go back,” said another.
The scoutmaster, he looked kind of as if he couldn’t make up his mind.
Then Warde said, kind of sober like, “There isn’t anything to prevent. They haven’t got even a tent left at camp and that’s the only reason they can’t have you stay. Do you think we don’t know what we’re talking about when we say it would be all right? The camp people will say it was a good turn, so why should you prevent us from doing it? We’d like to end the day up with a good turn, because it’s been a kind of a funny day and we’ve been away from camp ever since morning. It’ll make a kind of a good ending if you’ll only help us out.”
“The end of a crazy day,” I said.
The scoutmaster just said, “You don’t forget your good turns when you’re crazy, do you?”
“Crazy good turns,” I said. “What’s the difference?”
“No difference,” the scoutmaster said.
“It’s all a part of the game,” Warde said; “good turns and all. We jumble everything all up together.”
“That’s a good way,” the scoutmaster said.
Gee, those scouts just kept looking at their scoutmaster, waiting, anxious like. And all the while Hervey, with his hat on the side of his head, sat straddling the peak of the garage, humming:
Don’t start to go back if it freezes or snows,Don’t weaken or flunk or suggest or oppose;Your job is to follow and not to suppose.
Don’t start to go back if it freezes or snows,Don’t weaken or flunk or suggest or oppose;Your job is to follow and not to suppose.
Don’t start to go back if it freezes or snows,
Don’t weaken or flunk or suggest or oppose;
Your job is to follow and not to suppose.
He said that last line good and loud.
Then, all of a sudden, that scoutmaster said, “Well, scouts, I wish everyone were crazy in the same way you are. If our job is to follow and not to suppose, lead on, and we’ll follow. We’ll take a chance and follow our leader——”
“That’s me,” said Hervey Willetts, and down he came, sliding off the slanting roof of the garage.
Oh boy, you should have seen those new scouts look at him.
CHAPTER XXXIVWE START THE PARADE
“Let’s form a parade with the garage for a float,” Bert shouted; “Hervey will lead the way, next will come the funny-bone division with all the veterans, next will come the portable garage with Willie Cook sitting on top, and behind that will march the new troop.”
“Only remember that the garage can’t climb up trees,” I said to Hervey.
“You leave it to me,” Hervey said.
“And Darby Curren and the scoutmaster and Mr. Goobenhoff can sit on the driver’s seat,” Warde said.
The scoutmaster said, “Well, as long as we’ve all joined hands in this doubtful enterprise and agreed to stand and fall together, we may as well know each other. My name is Warren and these scouts form the First Troop of Columbus. Columbus is proud of her scouts.”
“Columbus was a man,” Pee-wee shouted.
“He discovered Columbus Avenue,” I said. “He used to hang out in Columbus Circle near Central Park.”
“Don’t you believe him, he’s crazy,” Pee-wee shouted.
“You’re all wrong,” Garry piped up, “Columbus was named after Christopher Street, he was named after the Christopher Street Ferry. These fellows with me don’t know anything about history.”
“We make a specialty of geography,” I said.
“And law,” Pee-wee shouted. “I know a lot about laws. I know a fellow that lives in Columbus, his name is Smith. Did you ever hear of him? Once I passed Columbus.”
“Columbus was lucky,” I said.
“I had lunch there,” Pee-wee shouted.
“He has lunch everywhere,” I said. “Wherever he goes there’s a food shortage the next day.”
“Well what are we going to do?” Warde said. “Are we going to jolly Pee-wee or start a parade?”
“Answered in the affirmative,” I said.
By that time all those fellows were laughing and Darby Curren said to them, “These boys are the moving spirits of camp, they are; especially that Willetts youngster.”
“Sure, we always keep moving,” I said. “Every day is moving day with us. I hope you’ll like us when you don’t know us so well.”
“We like you already,” one of those Columbus scouts piped up.
“You mean you like lunatics?” Pee-wee shouted at them.
Mr. Warren said, “Oh yes, we like lunatics. Suppose we get started as long as we’re in for it. I’m a little anxious to know our fate. We’re trusting to you boys. I’ll feel a little shaky till——”
“That’s because you drink milk shakes,” Garry said. “Don’t you worry, you’re going to have a roof over your heads and everything will be all right.”
“It’s more fun on top of the roof,” Hervey said.
Mr. Warren said, “Are you scouts all one patrol?”
I said, “No, I’ll tell you how it is. We belong to different patrols but we go around together and they call us the Vagabond Patrol. We’re insane, but we’re harmless. See? My patrol is the Silver Fox Patrol and Warde, that’s this fellow, he’s in my patrol. Bert Winton is in a troop from out west and Pee-wee Harris is in the Raven Patrol; that’s in my troop, and this little fellow belongs in that patrol, too. He’s more to be pitied than blamed. That other fellow, Garry, he comes from down the Hudson and that fellow with a crazy hat, that’s Hervey Willetts, he belongs in a troop from somewhere or other, I should worry. He’s an Eagle Scout, that fellow is. Maybe you wouldn’t think so to look at him. He drinks nut sundaes and he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s the one that put the fun in funny-bone. He’s a regular Cook’s Tours in himself.”
Mr. Goobenhoff winked at Mr. Warren and they both winked at Darby Curren and then Mr. Goobenhoff said, “Well if I’m to get this garage off my hands we’d better be about it. How far is it to Temple Camp by the road?”
“We have to go all the way around Crampton’s Hollow,” I said, “but usually we don’t bother with roads because most of them go to places.”
So then we fixed a rope from the end of the shaft to the front of the jitney bus and Darby put his shift into reverse, and the four horses strained as the jitney backed up and pretty soon we were ready to start.
Gee whiz, if you want to go on down to Catskill Landing in that empty bus with Darby Curren, go ahead, I can’t stop you. But if you want to join the parade all right. I guess you know by this time that wherever we go something happens. It isn’t our fault, it’s the fault of the things. So then we started off along the road.
Some procession!