Читать книгу Roy Blakeley on the Mohawk Trail - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 4

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Harry said he wanted five people to go because he was going to take lots of pictures of the car in all the different places it went to. Then he said he was going to get up a pamphlet telling about the endurance run and have all the pictures in the pamphlet. He said boys are good in pictures and anyway he wanted scouts along, because he knows they’re not afraid of adventures and they like to camp outdoors. When it comes to adventures we eat them alive—we’re crazy about eats.

He said if he had three scouts along in their scout suits that would make the pictures snappy and maybe I could cook the meals in places where we camped—he said that would be another endurance test for the rest of them. “The pleasure is mine,” that’s what I told him. I said, “We’ll have one picture of us all sitting around eating hunkerjunk stew while the engine keeps on running.”

Then I said, “Who do you want me to ask?”

He said, “I don’t care, you can ask two scouts. Brent Gaylong is coming to go with us.”

“Good night!” I said. “Now I know things are going to happen.”

The reason I said that was because I know all about Brent Gaylong. He’s a big fellow—he’s about twenty-one, I guess, and he’s awful funny—crazy like. Even a weeping willow tree would have to laugh at that fellow. When you see his picture you’ll say he looks like a professor—he looks as if he’s good in arithmetic. But, gee whiz, I don’t want to say anything against him because he’s a scream.

He’s tall and skinny and he’s got spectacles and he’s awful funny and lanky the way he walks. He’s all the time wanting to be a hero, that’s what he says. He’ll do anything you want him to do and he’ll go anywhere. Most of all he wants to escape from prison with a rope, that’s what he’s always saying. Harry Donnelle likes him a lot. They’re both crazier than each other.

So those are the two grown-up fellows that went. As soon as school closed, Hervey Willetts was coming to stay at my house till time to go to Temple Camp. He lives in Massachusetts. I guess you know him. He doesn’t care where he goes as long as he goes. Only he hates to come back. He’s all the time thinking up crazy things to do so I knew he’d like to go on the endurance run.

I said to Harry, “Do you care who else I ask?”

He said, “No, only ask a kid that doesn’t take up too much room in the back seat—not Hunt Manners, he’s too fat, so is his brother.” He said, “We don’t want any manners on this trip.”

I asked him, “How about Pee-wee? He doesn’t take up much room, but he talks a lot. He’s got a dandy tent and cooking set, that’s one good thing. And besides that he always looks funny in a picture because he’s always eating—no, he has plenty of bananas.”

“We’re not advertising food, we’re advertising a car,” Harry said. “Go ahead and ask him if you want to, I don’t care.”

So then I asked Pee-wee. Gee whiz, if you don’t know him you must be deaf, dumb and blind. Even you must be dead. He’s in the Raven Patrol but most of the time he’s out of it—lucky for them. He’s a model scout. I guess you know what a model is—it’s a small sample. He’d be all right if he wore his voice bobbed. But anyway, he’s got a kind face—not saying what kind. When he scowls you’d think it was the World War starting.

He’s bounded on the north by his hat, on the south by his shoes, on the west by his belt ax, and on the east by a pocketful of cookies. He rises in the morning, takes a north southerly course and flows into the pantry. If every boy was a state he’d be Rhode Island. He’s got a sister, but she can’t help it.

He said, “Sure, I’ll go; even without you asking me I’d go. When are we going to start? Where are we going to go to?”

“Answered in the affirmative,” I told him. “We’re going to make a grand rush into the New England states and go every which way; we’re going to start going east and keep going.”

“We’ll bunk into the Atlantic Ocean,” he said; “you’re crazy.”

“What are you kicking about?” I demanded, very haughty. “What’s the matter with the Atlantic Ocean? It’s as good as any other ocean. It’s my favorite ocean. I’d just as soon bunk into it as the Pacific Ocean. Maybe we’ll turn north before we get to it and continue going south through all the New England states—Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and North Dakota. We don’t care which way we go as long as we don’t stop.”

“That shows the whole thing is crazy,” he yelled. “How are we going to eat? I’m not going to go.”

“That’s the first good turn you’ve done to-day,” I told him.