Читать книгу Roy Blakeley. Lost, Strayed or Stolen - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 8

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Westy Martin (he’s in my patrol; he’s my special chum), he said, “The only way to do is to go to work systematically.”

“Sister what?” Pee-wee shouted.

“Systematically,” I told him; “that means without any help from our sisters. Now shut up.”

“How long is it going to take to move that car all the way from the station over to the river? That’s what I’d like to know,” he shouted.

“About forty-eight hours and three months,” I said. “If you’ll give Westy a chance to speak, maybe he’ll give us an idea.”

We were all walking back up to town after our inspection of the old sunken tracks, and I could see that Westy was kind of silent; I mean I could hear that he was silent; I mean—you know what I mean—I should worry. Maybe you can’t hear a fellow being silent. You can never hear Pee-wee being silent, that’s one sure thing.

Westy was frowning just as if it was the end of vacation, and I knew he was thinking some thinks.

Pretty soon he said, “The two hardest things are getting the car past Tony’s Lunch Wagon and past Slausen’s Auto Repair Shop. After that it will be clear sailing—I mean rolling. I say let’s have a big scout rally in Downing’s lot. Let’s have games and races and everything, and ask all the scout troops for miles and miles around, and everybody’ll have to be good and hungry.”

“That’s easy!” Pee-wee shouted.

“Sure,” Connie Bennett piped up. “We’ll have the East Bridgeboro Troop over because there’s a fat scout in that troop.”

“I know the one you mean,” Hunt Ward said. “He’s shaped like a ferry boat.”

I said, “Sure, and here’s our own dear Pee-wee; he’s a whole famine in himself. He wouldn’t dare to look Hoover in the face.”

“But what’s the idea?” Dorry wanted to know.

“You started an argument and you haven’t got any premises.”

“Some highbrow,” I told him.

“Sure, Downing’s lot is the premises,” our young hero piped up. “Premises is a place.”

“I’ve hiked all over but I’ve never been to that place,” I told him. “Can you get ice cream cones there?”

“Premises is the basis of an argument,” Westy said. “You choose your premises and stand on it.”

“A stepladder is good enough for me,” I said.

“Premises is real estate!” the kid fairly yelled. “Everybody knows that.”

“I don’t know it,” Punk Odell said, “and I’m everybody.”

“You mean you think you are,” Pee-wee shot back.

“Well,” I said, “what’s the difference whether it’s real estate or imitation estate? That isn’t finding out how we’re going to get the car past Tony’s, is it? Give Westy a chance to speak. Let’s have a large chunk of silence.”

That’s always the way it is with us. We never can decide anything because we all talk at once and we jump from one subject to another. Especially when Pee-wee’s along. Mr. Ellsworth (he’s our scoutmaster, he’s got a dandy dog), he says that silence is golden. But believe me, the Silver Foxes don’t bother about things that are golden. Speech is silver, and Pee-wee is Sterling.

Let’s see, where was I? Oh, I know. I was just starting to keep still so Westy could talk.

He said, “We’ll have a big rally and we’ll have signs up all around the field. All the scouts will have to be good and hungry.”

“That’s easy!” Pee-wee shouted.

Westy said, “We’ll have signs up all around saying A SCOUT IS HUNGRY, and things like that. We’ll have some poetry on big planks——”

“And when Tony sees all that,” Connie Bennett piped up, “and finds that we won’t go over and buy any eats from him, why, then he’ll move his wagon over to the lot and we’ll have a chance to move the car. It’s a bully idea if Pee-wee doesn’t weaken and spoil it all.”

“What are you talking about?” Pee-wee yelled. “I can go without anything to eat for—for an hour, if I have to!”

So we decided that we’d force Tony to move his lunch wagon by the force of our appetites. Maybe you’ve seen exhibitions of things that scouts can do by the power of deduction and all that, and how they can do things by united strength, and everybody admits they can make a lot of noise when they sing together. But I bet you never saw what they can do by concerted appetite—that means all being hungry at the same time.

You can move a house that way. Anyway, you can move a lunch wagon.