Читать книгу Roy Blakeley on the Mohawk Trail - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 9

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Brent said, “If we keep going north I think we’ll bump into the Mohawk Trail. Doesn’t it start at North Adams? I think it starts at North Adams and runs east through part of Massachusetts; there’s about fifty miles of it. How would you like to hit the Mohawk Trail?”

“Oh, boy, that’s what I wouldn’t like to do anything but,” I told him. “But I’d like to go over the Mohawk Trail in the daylight; we wouldn’t see anything driving there at night.”

Brent said, “All right, we’ll just keep driving around and around and around until daylight. Then we’ll wake the bunch up and shoot into North Adams and hit the old trail.”

“Hot dog!” I shouted.

Then all of a sudden, quick, Pee-wee came up for air. If you want to wake that kid up, Say it with Eats. Gee whiz, he’d eat the Mohawk Trail and ask for more. It was awful funny to see him sitting up on the seat rubbing his eyes half-awake and shaking this way and that while the car went along about thirty miles an hour; Brent’s a good driver, he should worry.

“Time t’eat,” he gaped. “Breakf’s?”

I said, “There are only two things you wouldn’t eat for breakfast, and one is lunch and the other is supper. It’s the middle of the night and we’re driving around and around and around and we goest whither—what do we care. At daylight we’re going to hit it for the Mohawk Trail.”

All the while we kept riding along—I guess Brent turned into every road he saw. He was laughing, I suppose on account of the way Pee-wee was sitting on the middle of the back seat bobbing this way and that, half-awake.

“The Mohawk Trail—trail is where the Indians went,” he stammered.

“Sure, it’s named after Indian pudding,” I told him.

“It used to be in my geography,” he said.

“It’s probably there yet,” Brent laughed at him. “Did you have a good nap?”

“Do you know where you’re going?” Pee-wee shouted.

“Absolutely,” Brent said; “we’re going every which way and we hope to get there. There’s no use heading for North Adams till daylight. When the sun comes up we’ll know where the east is—not that I care. It doesn’t make any difference where anything is; you usually find it in the last place you look for it.”

“Why look anywhere else?” I said.

“That shows you’re both crazy,” Pee-wee said, looking all around, still kind of half-asleep like. “Where’s the trailer?”

“Right in back,” Brent said, very easy like.

“No, it isn’t,” Pee-wee shouted.

Brent and I both looked in back and, good night, the Happy Home Trailer wasn’t there!

“You say it doesn’t make any difference where anything is,” Pee-wee shouted. “I bet you won’t find that in the last place you look for it—you’re so smart!”

Brent stopped the car and we got out and saw that the Happy Home Trailer had slipped her moorings, that’s what Brent said. That trailer had a shaft that fixed onto the spare tire rack and I suppose the clasp, or whatever it was, came loose or joggled off or something.

“Don’t stop the engine,” I said to Brent. “Remember this is a continuous run.”

We all stood back of the car just staring at each other.

“Well—what—do—you—know—about—that?” I said. “Some happy home!”

“You can never trust a happy home,” Brent said. “As Babe Ruth said to President Coolidge, ‘There’s no base like home.’ Only where is it? Do you suppose they’re still sleeping?”

“That pair, Harry and Hervey?” I said. “Sure, you couldn’t wake them up with an earthquake. I don’t know anything about Mr. Ginger Snap.”

“What would happen?” I asked Brent, kind of serious. “When the shaft separated from the car it would fall to the ground on account of there being only two wheels. Maybe that would wake them up, hey?”

He sort of shook his head and said, “I don’t think so. If the jolting over the roads didn’t wake them I doubt if breaking loose would. Anyway, there’s a wooden leg dangling under the shaft so the trailer will stand even when it’s alone. What worries me is the blamed thing may be standing plunk in the middle of the road with those fellows sound asleep.”

“What road?” Pee-wee said. “You’ve been driving around every which way, like you said, in and out through every road you came to—old country roads and all. Now how do we know where to look for them? And maybe they’ll get smashed into, maybe. One thing, anyway, it’s good you’ve got a scout with you because I’ve got resourcefulness.”

“Explain all that,” Brent said to him.

“This is a new car and it’s got new tires and we can trace our way back by the marks in the road. We can tell those marks from other marks because we’ve got new balloon tires with kind of curlycue designs on them, kind of like crullers.”

Gee whiz, Brent and I had to laugh.

“Saved by a cruller!” I shouted. “We’ll find them yet.”