Читать книгу Uncle Sam's Outdoor Magic - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 7

Table of Contents

Bobby did hear things about his uncle, for he couldn’t help hearing them. People spoke kindly of his aunt and toward him they seemed even more pleasantly disposed than ever before; but for his uncle they had no word of praise or of regret.

Some spoke half-contemptuously of him as of a ne’er-do-well, making allowance for his inefficiency, while others hinted at matters he had been concerned in before Bobby’s time, and these made the boy uncomfortable and left him curious.

But all such talk aroused his indignation. He heard hints about some funds belonging to the fire company, of which Rafe Clausen had once been treasurer, and about some money which he hadn’t turned over to the people who published the farm journal. Sometimes he heard Rafe’s treatment of himself criticized—for every one seemed to know about it—and once in Bradley’s garage, which was the most enticing spot in the world to Bobby, he forgot Mr. Bronson’s advice and indignantly cited the memorable occasion when his uncle had given him a quarter.

“That’s all right, Bob,” they had said, but Bobby never entered Bradley’s garage again. The one quarter that his uncle had given him, three years back, was his sole answer to these aspersions, and he now treasured the memory of it as he had once treasured the quarter itself.

What he could never understand was that the people who were strongest in their dislike of his uncle were the very ones who seemed to like him most.

The days passed and Bridgeboro began to build itself up anew. For some days Bobby worked with the Scouts, who were organized for rescue work and had their tents near the Army headquarters, for Uncle Sam was lending a helping hand to the stricken towns along the river and was making his headquarters in Bridgeboro.

The tents with their telephones and complete equipment and the Stars and Stripes floating over them, the comings and goings of the officers, the privates on guard at the two banks and outside the wrecked buildings, and the Red Cross workers going about their work among the homeless and injured, formed a war-time picture to Bobby, and he seemed, after all, to be living in a world of adventure.

He had, too, a glimpse of Scout efficiency, and was proud to become a “tenderfoot” and take his oath to obey the good law which he had cited to Mr. Bronson, and which he had already obeyed with stubborn loyalty.

He was a universal favorite with all of Uncle Sam’s company, from the officers down, and liked them one and all; but he had no use for the engineers who had descended upon the neighborhood like a pest and who gave learned opinions on the cause of the catastrophe. Some of them were summoned by the Milton Water Company, and these said that the “unprecedented freshets” were responsible for the disaster and that it could not have been prevented. People said they were paid for saying so.

These men were in no sense connected with Uncle Sam, but their presence in the town was due to the catastrophe, and their suit-cases were carried to and from the makeshift hotel by the willing Scouts, whose watchword is “Service.”

“Cracky! I’ve got no use for engineers,” Bobby volunteered one evening, as he and half a dozen others sat in the Scout tent after a day of distributing provisions in town and up the river. “They call them civil engineers; but, gee! I don’t call that last one civil.”

“Civil don’t mean polite, you gump,” said Dory Bronson. “It means—sort of—not military.”

“I don’t care what it means,” said Bobby; “they’re all the time talking about collateral resistance and things like that—they get on my nerves.”

“You mean lateral resistance,” said Roy Blakely; “if you jump on a board and it don’t bust with you, that’s lateral resistance.”

“You get E plus,” said Will Bronson.

“I asked one of them what convergent pressure meant,” said Bobby, “and he went right on talking to Mr. Wallace. I bet he didn’t know himself.”

“Was that the one with the long black coat and the scowl—looked like a minister, sort of?”

“Yes,” said Bobby. “He said there’s too much fiction. But if we all read histories, I don’t see how that would prevent a flood.”

“You’re crazy,” said Westy; “he said friction.”

“Well, anyway, he’s an old grouch,” said Bobby.

“Men that are all the time figuring, they get kind of crusty,” Roy added.

“Colonel Wade, he used to fight the Indians out West,” said Bobby. “He was telling us about it last night. That’s the kind of life! That’s one good thing about the old times—the massacres. These engineers, you can’t understand what they’re talking about. You can bet your life if there’s any more of them to be rowed around the river I’m not going to do it. They kind of remind you of professors. I held a tape for one of them—the one with the whiskers—and, gee, I was scared of him! I like the Army men best.”

“Construction engineers aren’t so bad,” said Roy.

“They’re all the same,” said Bobby, disgustedly.

“There’s different kinds of civil engineers,” said Roy; “some of them aren’t so terribly civil.”

“They are all the same,” said Bobby. “I’ve got no use for any of them.”

At this point Colonel Wade’s aide appeared in the open doorway of the tent. “Which one of you boys will chug up to Milton in the launch to-morrow and bring down a gentleman—an engineer? He’s going to leave the train at Milton and come down the river so he can look things over.”

A dead silence prevailed for a moment.

“Bobby Cullen’s the one for that,” shouted Roy. “There’s your chance, Bob.”

“He loves engineers,” said Westy.

“Sure, he loves them like a rainy day,” added Dory.

“Engineer is his middle name,” put in Will.

“He’s coming up on the nine-fifteen,” said the aide, turning to Bobby. “He’ll want to look the dam over and then come down the river leisurely so as to inspect the banks for mattressing. Craig is his name.” He waited, evidently for an answer, and Bobby rose slowly.

“I’ll go,” he said, reluctantly, as he raised his left hand in the Scout salute.

When the soldier had gone a peal of malicious laughter rang out.

“I’m not going to do it,” mimicked Roy.

“No sooner said than stung,” said another.

“What in the dickens is mattressing?” laughed Will Bronson. “I’ve heard of springs up the river, but I never heard of mattresses there.”

“I don’t see what the Army’s got to do with it, anyway,” said another boy. “Anyway, you’ll have a swell time, Bob. Don’t forget to ask him about convergent pressure.”

“You fellows make me sick!” grunted Bobby.

“I bet he wears a plug-hat and gold spectacles,” laughed Roy. “He’ll look real sporty, I don’t think, coming down in the launch.”

“You can have a nice long talk about friction; oh, happy day!” taunted another boy.

“We must get Colonel Wade to tell us more about that massacre in the morning,” said Westy, “while Bob is up the line with old Highbrow—What’s-his-name?”

“Craig.”

“Professor Craig, LL.B., C.B.L., X.Y.Z.—”

“You give me a pain!” said Bobby.

“Crusty Craig,” taunted Roy. “Tag; you’re it, Bobby.”

“Gee! I’m easy, all right,” said Bobby, sullenly.

“Uncle Sam put one over on you, Bob.”

“It wasn’t Uncle Sam; it was you fellows.”

“Well, you know you’re a tenderfoot, Bob, and you’ve got to be initiated.”

“Tell Crusty Craig about the midnight ride of Paul Revere Cullen in Mr. Wentworth’s boat; he’ll be tickled to death.”

“I’ll tell him nothing.”

Just then the bugle sounded, and the boys adjourned to Uncle Sam’s tent A, where they stood in formation as the beautiful emblem, resplendent in the dying sunlight, was hauled down. And as Bobby thought of all it stood for, of the shot and shell that had whizzed about it, of the red Indians in their ambush who had watched it from afar, of the peril bravely faced for its sake, and of the adventure—above all, of the adventure which it spelled to those envied officers and their gallant men, the business of engineering—be it civil or uncivil—seemed more prosy and monotonous than ever, and he thought these sturdy men of action and adventure must regard the mathematical civilians, with their blue-print maps and frictions and convergent pressures with a sort of tolerant contempt.

“Not for mine!” he said to himself.