Читать книгу Four Afoot: Being the Adventures of the Big Four on the Highway - Barbour Ralph Henry - Страница 2

“On to Jericho!”

Dan Speede took the car steps at a bound and was out on the station platform looking eagerly about him before the other three boys had struggled through the car door. Swinging his pack to his shoulders, he waved an imaginary sword about his head and struck an attitude in which his right hand pointed determinedly toward the country road.

“Forward, brave comrades!” he shouted.

The brave comrades, tumbling down the steps, cheered enthusiastically, while the occupants of the car in which the quartet had traveled from Long Island City looked wonderingly out upon them. But as the present conduct of the boys was only on a par with what had gone before, the passengers soon settled back into their seats, and the train puffed on its way. Tom Ferris waved gayly to the occupants of the passing windows and then followed the others along the platform. The station was a small one, and save for a farmer who was loading empty milk cans into a wagon far down the track, there was no one in sight.

“Which way do we go?” asked Nelson Tilford.

For answer Bob Hethington produced his “Sectional Road Map of Long Island, Showing the Good Roads, with Description of Scenery, Routes, etc.,” and spread it out against the side of the station.

“Here we are,” he said. “Locust Park. And here’s our road.”

“That’s all right,” answered Nelson, following the other’s finger. “I see the road on your old map, but where is it on the landscape?”

“Why, down there somewhere. It crosses the track just beyond the station.”

“Certainly, but you don’t happen to see it anywhere, do you?” asked Dan.

Bob had to acknowledge that he didn’t.

“Come on; we’ll ask Mr. Farmer down here,” said Tom.

So they went on down the track to the little platform from which the milk was loaded on to the cars and hailed the farmer.

“Good morning,” said Dan. “Which is the road to Jericho, please?”

The farmer paused in his task and looked them over speculatively. Finally,

“Want to go to Jericho, do you?” he asked.

“Yes,” answered Dan.

“Are you in a hurry?”

“Why – no, I don’t suppose so. Why?”

“’Cause there’s a train in about an hour that’ll take you to Hicksville, and it’s about two miles from there by the road.”

“But we just got off the train,” objected Nelson.

“So I seen,” was the calm response. “Why didn’t you stay on? Didn’t you have no money?”

“Yes, but we wanted to walk,” answered Bob. “Which way do we go?”

“Want to walk, eh? Well, you won’t have no trouble, I guess. Pretty fair walkers, are you?”

“Bully!” answered Dan.

“Fond of exercise, I guess?”

“Love it!”

“That so? Well, there’s lots of good walkin’ around here; the roads is full of it.”

“Oh, come on,” said Tom impatiently. “He’s plumb crazy!”

“Hold on,” interposed the farmer. “I’m tellin’ you just as fast as I know how, ain’t I?”

“Maybe,” answered Dan politely, “but you see we sort of want to get to Jericho before Sunday. And as it’s already Monday morning – ”

“Thought you said you weren’t in no hurry,” objected the farmer.

“Well, if you call that being in a hurry,” Dan replied, “I guess we lied to you. If you happen to have any idea where the Jericho road is – ”

“Well, I’d oughter, seems to me. I live on it. Are you all going?”

“Every last one of us,” answered Nelson.

“Tell him how old we are and the family history and let’s get on,” suggested Dan sotto voce.

“Well, there’s four of you, eh?”

“I think so.” Bob made pretense of counting the assembly with much difficulty. “Stand still, Tom, till I count you. Yes, sir, that’s right; there are four of us.”

“Well, two of you could sit on the seat with me and two of you could kind of hang out behind, I guess.”

“Oh, much obliged,” said Bob. “But really we’d rather walk. We’re taking a walking trip down the island.”

“You don’t say! Well, you go back there about a half a mile and you’ll find a road crossing the track. You take that until you fetch the country road going to your right. Keep along that and it’s about nine miles to Jericho.”

“Thanks,” said Dan.

“You’re welcome. That’s the best way if you’re real fond of walking.”

“Oh,” said Bob suspiciously. “And supposing we aren’t?”

“Then you’d better go the shorter way and save about two miles,” answered the farmer gravely.

“Which way’s that?”

“Right down the track here for a quarter of a mile till you come to a road going to the left. Take that for half a mile and then turn to your right on the country road.”

“Thanks again,” said Bob. “You’ve had a whole lot of fun with us, haven’t you?”

“Well, you’re sort of amusin’,” answered the farmer with a twinkle in his eye. “But I been more entertained at the circus.”

Bob smiled in spite of himself, and the others grinned also; all save Tom.

“B-b-b-blamed old ha-ha-hayseed!” growled Tom. “Hope he ch-ch-ch-chokes!”

The four took their way down the track, Bob highly pleased to find the truthfulness of his map established; although Dan declared that a map that would lie nearly a quarter of a mile couldn’t be fairly called truthful. When they had gone a hundred yards or so the farmer hailed them.

“What is it?” shouted Bob.

“Got friends in Jericho, have you?” called the farmer.

“No,” answered Bob, adding “confound you” under his breath.

“Going to take dinner there, be you?”

“I guess so. Why?”

“Well, you go to William Hooper’s place about a mile t’other side of the village, and say Abner Wade sent you. He’ll look after you, William will.”

“Thank you,” called Bob.

“He seems to be a decent chap after all,” said Nelson.

“The only trouble with him is that he’s like Dan,” answered Bob. “He’s got an overdeveloped sense of humor.”

They tramped on, and presently found the road that crossed the railway. Turning into this they struck due north; at least that’s what Tom declared after consulting the compass which he carried in his pocket. Bob looked at his watch.

“Nine-fifteen,” he announced. “We’ve got lots of time. Seven miles in three hours is too easy.”

“If that old codger told us the right way,” amended Tom.

“He did, because the map shows it,” responded Bob.

“Don’t talk to us about that old map,” said Dan. “It’s an awful liar, Bob.”

And while they are quarreling good-naturedly about it let us have a look at them.

The boy walking ahead, swinging that stick he has cut from a willow tree, is Nelson Tilford. Nelson – sometimes “Nels” to his friends – lives in Boston within sight of the golden dome and is a student at Hillton Academy; and next year he expects, if all goes well, to be a freshman at Erskine College. That apparent slimness is a bit misleading, for the muscles under the gray flannel suit are hard as iron, and what Nelson lacks in breadth and stature is quite made up in strength and agility. In the same way the quiet, thoughtful expression on his face doesn’t tell all the truth. Nelson is a good student, fond of books and inclined to think matters out for himself, but at the same time he is fond of sports and has been known to get into mischief.

Next to him walks Tom – familiarly “Tommy” – Ferris; residence, Chicago; age, fourteen years – almost fifteen now. Tom is inclined toward stoutness, has light hair and gray eyes, is at once good-natured and lazy, and has a positive talent for getting into trouble. Tommy expresses himself clearly until he becomes excited; then he stutters ludicrously. Tommy is also a Hillton boy, but is one class behind Nelson, a fact which troubles him a good deal, since he wants very much to go up to college with his friend.

The big, broad-shouldered boy with the red hair and rollicking blue eyes is Dan Speede. Dan, who hails from New York, is fifteen years old. Whereas Tom spends a good deal of his time getting into trouble himself, Dan is tireless in his efforts to get others into trouble; and he usually succeeds. For the rest, he is fond of fun, afraid of nothing, and hasn’t an ounce of meanness in him. Dan is in his senior year at St. Eustace Academy, and he, too, has his heart set on Erskine College.

The last boy of the four – and the eldest – is Bob Hethington, of Portland, Maine. Bob is sixteen – nearly seventeen – and is big, quiet-appearing, and unexcitable. He has curly black hair and eyes and is distinctly good-looking. Bob, too, is booked for Erskine.

Perhaps you have met these boys before, when, at Camp Chicora, last summer, they gained the title of the Big Four. If so, you are undoubtedly wondering how it happens that we find them on this bright morning in early September swinging along a country road on Long Island. Well, it was all Dan’s fault. Dan took it into his head to get sick in early summer. As he had never been sick before to amount to anything, he thought he might as well do the thing right. So he had typhoid fever. That was in June, just after school closed, and he spent the succeeding two months at home. He didn’t have a good time, and even when the doctor declared him well, Dan felt, as he himself expressed it, like a last summer’s straw hat. So there was a family council. Dan’s mother said Dan ought to stay out of school and go abroad. Dan said, “Nonsense.” So the matter was left to the physician. He said what Dan needed was outdoor exercise, plenty of fresh air, and all that.

“Let him get into an old suit of clothes,” said the doctor, “and take a walking trip.” (You see, the doctor was a bit old-fashioned.) “Nothing like walking; sea trips and sanitariums aren’t half as good. He needn’t hurry; just let him wander around country for two or three weeks; that’ll set him up, you see if it doesn’t.”

Dan liked the idea, but the thought of wandering around the country alone didn’t appeal to him. “If I could only get Nelson or Bob or Tommy to go along,” he said.

“Perhaps you can,” said his father.

So three letters were written and dispatched and soon three answers came. Nelson was glad to go, Bob was equally willing, and Tom was “tickled to death.” Bob and Nelson had been at Camp Chicora most of the summer, while Tom had spent his vacation at one of the Michigan lake resorts. The last week in August there was a jolly gathering of the clans at Dan’s house, a happy reunion, and an excited discussion of ways and means. Mr. Speede engineered affairs, and by the fourth day of September all was ready. There had been much discussion as to where they should go. Nelson recommended his own State, Bob thought Pennsylvania about right, and Tom favored the Adirondacks. It was Dan’s father who thought of Long Island.

“In the first place,” he pointed out, “it’s right at our back door, and you won’t have to waste a day in getting there; and as you’ve got only three weeks at the most before school begins, that’s worth considering. Then, too, if anything should happen to you, I could get you here in a few hours. Long Island isn’t the biggest stretch of country in the world, but there’s over a hundred miles of it as to length, and I guess you can keep busy. Besides, the towns are near together and you’ll be able to find good sleeping accommodations; and I’d rather Dan didn’t do too much sleeping out of doors just at first.”

So the map of Long Island was produced and studied, and the more they studied it the better they liked it. It was unknown territory to them all, for even Dan’s knowledge of the place was limited to Coney Island, and the names of places – names which amused Tommy vastly – and the evident abundance of good roads won the day.

“Me for Long Island!” declared Nelson.

“Same here,” said Tommy. “I want to go to Jericho.”

“And I want to go to Yaphank,” declared Bob.

“And Skookwams Neck for mine!” cried Dan.

So they started to lay out a route. They laid out six. The first left out Lake Ronkonkoma, and Tommy declared he just had to see Lake Ronkonkoma. The second omitted Ketcaboneck, and Bob said he couldn’t go back home without having seen Ketcaboneck. The third slighted Aquebogue, and Nelson refused to go unless that charming place was on the route. And so it went, with much laughter, until finally Mr. Speede advised them to settle only on a place to start from, take the map with them, and decide their itinerary as they went along. That pleased even Tommy.

“I shall visit Quogue if I have to go alone,” he said.

What to take with them was a question which occasioned almost as much discussion. Tommy had brought his trunk and wanted to take most of its contents along. In the end Mr. Speede’s counsel prevailed and each boy limited his luggage to the barest necessities. Light rubber ponchos – squares with a hole cut in the middle which could be slipped over the head when it rained – were purchased, and these were to be used as knapsacks, the other articles being rolled up inside. The other articles included a towel, bathing trunks, brush and comb, toothbrush, extra shoe laces, a light-weight flannel shirt, three pairs of stockings, and handkerchiefs. Each boy carried a collapsible drinking cup in his pocket, Bob took charge of the map, and Tom was the proud possessor of a compass. Tom also carried a folding camera, having at length been prevailed upon to leave a choice library of fiction, a single-barreled shotgun, and two suits of clothing behind him.

Old clothes, stout shoes, cloth caps, and light flannel shirts with collars was the general attire. And so clothed, each with his pack in hand, the four said good-by to Mr. and Mrs. Speede on Monday morning, took car to the ferry, crossed the river, and boarded an early train for Locust Park, at which point their journey on foot was to begin. And so we find them, Dan a trifle pale of face but as merry and happy as any, trudging along the road toward Jericho, each prepared for a good time and eager for adventures.

And adventures were awaiting them.