Читать книгу Roy Blakeley. Lost, Strayed or Stolen - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 10

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Now nothing happened the next week except going to school, and, gee whiz, there’s no adventure in that. The best thing about school is Saturday because there isn’t any. You can talk about Good Friday, but good Saturdays are good enough for me. Anyway, it’s funny how great men always get born on holidays, like Washington and Lincoln. That’s the thing I like best about those men—their birthdays. That’s one thing I’m thankful for about Thanksgiving, too; it always comes on a holiday. But one thing I hate, and that is hop-toads.

So now that school is over for the week I’ll tell you about the big rally. Wasn’t that a quick week? Believe me, when I’m writing stories I take a hop, skip and a jump from one Saturday to another. Except in vacation.

That rally was a big success. By ten o’clock on Saturday morning there were seven troops, not counting our own, in Downing’s lot ready to do or die. One came from East Bridgeboro, two came from Ennistown, one came from Northvale, one came from Little Valley, and two came from Sloan Hollow. There were seven troops and nineteen patrols. We have three patrols, so that makes twenty-two. There were a hundred and seventy-nine appetites altogether.

They all wanted to know what was the big idea, so I got up on a grocery box and made a speech. General Blakeley inspiring his troops. Oh, boy!

I said, “Scouts, that old railroad car over near the station belongs to us. It’s our trooproom. It has to be moved on this old track down to the river. Tony Giovettioegleirotti, who keeps that lunch wagon, has defied us. We bought twenty-four frankfurters from him and he wouldn’t move his wagon. So what are we going to do about it?”

“Foil him!” Pee-wee shouted.

“We haven’t got any tinfoil,” someone else hollered.

“Listen,” I said; “everybody keep still. We’re going to have games and scout pace races and things, but nothing to eat. Every scout has to promise that no matter how hungry he is, he won’t go over and buy anything from Tony. I’m going to appoint a committee to go over there and keep smacking their lips, but——”

“I’ll be on that committee!” Pee-wee shouted.

“You’ll be on the ground if you don’t keep still!” I told him. “You fellows are supposed to go over there in small detachments, kind of, and hang around, and jingle the money in your pockets, and act as if you were hungry——”

“I can act that way!” Pee-wee shouted.

“Sure, just act natural,” I told him. “You’ve had practice enough being hungry.”

“What’s the big idea?” somebody called out.

“The big idea is to mobilize all our appetites,” I said. “When Tony sees this whole bunch of scouts—a hundred and seventy-nine appetites—and finds out that none of us is going to go over there and buy a single sandwich from him; when he finds that we spurn his pie, what will he do? He’ll move his wagon over here. That’s high strategy. It’s so high you have to use a stepladder to get up to it. The scout appetite, when it acts in, what d’you call it, unison can move anything!”

“Sure it can!” they all yelled.

“But how are you going to move the car?” some scout or other wanted to know.

“You leave that to me,” I told him. “What you’re supposed to do is to get the way cleared. You’re supposed to re—what d’you call it?—reconnoiter around Tony’s and read the bill of fare that’s pasted on the door, and jingle your money and kind of maybe smack your lips and look like the poor starving children in Europe. But don’t buy anything! If you were to buy anything, even a single cheese sandwich, you’d be—you’d be Benedict Arnold——”

“Did he eat cheese sandwiches?” one of the crowd wanted to know.

“He was a traitor!” I shouted at him. “I don’t know what he used to eat. Shut up.”

“He was in favor of Switzerland, he ate Swiss cheese sandwiches,” Brick Warner yelled.

“Will you shut up?” I hollered.

“It says in my History he swallowed his pride and wrote to Washington——”

“Some appetite!” one of those fellows from East Bridgeboro yelled.

“Now I don’t know what I was talking about,” I said.

“You never did,” a scout shouted at me.

I said, “Will you listen? If you all act in the right way and Tony finds that you’re not going to buy anything from him, he’ll move his wagon over here. Let him know you won’t buy anything except on scout territory. See? He’ll come across, you wait and see. All we have to do is hold out. The afternoon milk——”

“We don’t want any milk,” they all began screaming. “What do you think this is? A baby show?”

“I’m talking about a train,” I shot back at them; “a milk train. Didn’t you ever hear of a milk train?”

“I never knew milk came from a milk train,” Hunt Manners shouted.

“I thought it came from the milkman,” another fellow called.

I said, “Oh, sure, it comes from the Milky Way, just the same as germs come from Germany. You’re all so bright you ought to have dimmers.”

“Dinners——” Pee-wee yelled.

“There you go again,” I told him. “No, not dinners—dimmers! Listen, will you? The afternoon milk train gets here——”

“To-morrow morning,” a kid from Little Valley yelled.

“It isn’t as slow as they are in Little Valley,” I said; “it’ll be here at about four-sixty——”

“Five o’clock,” a scout piped up.

“Right the first time,” I said. “How did you guess?”

“What about it?” a lot of scouts wanted to know.

“This about it,” I said; “if the tracks are clear by that time Mr. Jenson, who is engineer on that train, is going to push the car——”

“He must be a strong man,” somebody shouted.

“Oh, sure,” I told him; “he’s so strong he wasn’t even born on a weak day. Now will you keep still a minute? He’s going to push the car with the locomotive over to this field while the train is being——”

“While it’s being milked,” another kid hollered.

Honest, that crowd was so crazy that a crazy quilt would turn green with envy, I said.

“Please listen and then everybody can talk at once. Your job is to inveigle——”

“What do you mean, inveigle?” somebody hooted.

“Keep still,” I said; “inveigle is Latin for luring; you know what that is, don’t you? Your job is to get that lunch wagon over to this field by fair means or rainy means or any old means——”

“He doesn’t know what he means,” somebody yelled.

“And I’ll do the rest,” I told them. “Only you have to have the tracks clear by five o’clock this afternoon.”

“How are you going to get the car past that old garage?” somebody wanted to know.

“That’s another story,” I said. “You should worry about how we’re going to do that. We’ll find a way. Scouts are resourceful. There’s more than one way to kill a cat——”

“Scouts are supposed to be kind to animals,” one fellow shouted.

“I’m not talking about a real cat,” I said; “that’s just an expression. I’m talking about Mr. Slaus——”

Good night! Just then while I was talking I happened to look over to Slausen’s and there was Mr. Slausen standing in the back doorway watching us and listening. Gee whiz, I guess he heard everything I said. Anyway, I should worry, because I didn’t say anything that I was ashamed of. But just the same he had an awful funny look on his face.