Читать книгу Roy Blakeley's Tangled Trail - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 7

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So that was about all that happened that night, only that crazy song that Hervey sang when we first saw him, and Brent Gaylong marching ahead of us out of the eats pavilion is what put it into our heads to have a crazy hike like the Bee-line hike, only crazier.

My sister said it ought to be called light fiction on account of Brent carrying the lamp, and my father said it ought to be a serial story on account of there being a lot of oatmeal in it, but anyway, the right name of it is The Lunatic Hike or Boy Scouts on the Other Road. Only you’re not supposed to use the right name because everything in this story is wrong and you’re supposed to use the wrong name and that is The Left-handed Hike or Where Are We At? Because the wrong name is the right name and it’s affectionately dedicated to five cents’ worth of peanuts on account of all the characters in it being nuts.

When Hervey came out of the water he went up to dry himself at camp-fire. Everybody said it was too bad he fell into the water, and Mr. Alton (he’s one of the trustees) said that the window shutter of the cooking shack wasn’t a very good place to be sitting watching the sunset. Gee whiz, you never know just what that man means when he says something.

Brent said, “Accidents will happen.”

“Anyway the rest of the apple sauce was saved from a horrible death,” I said.

Now kind of on account of what happened that night, Hervey and Brent and Pee-wee and Warde Hollister and I sat together at camp-fire. We kind of made a little group by ourselves back from the crowd. It was darker back there, and we liked it better. That’s the way with Hervey, he always sprawls around away from the crowd.

I said, “I tell you a good kind of a hike—a spook hike; with Brent going ahead carrying the lamp. A hike in the pitch dark.”

“This isn’t Hallowe’en,” Warde said. “What was that stuff you were singing, Hervey, when we came across the lake to-night a little while before your——”

“Your mishap,” Brent said.

“That’s the word—mishap,” I said. “You took the word out of my mouth.”

“He didn’t take it out of your mouth at all,” Pee-wee said. “You just think it’s smart to say that.”

“No one could ever take anything out of your mouth, that’s one sure thing,” I told him. “What was that you were singing?” I asked Hervey.

“It goes with a hike,” Hervey said.

“Let it go,” Warde said. “You won’t catch me going.”

“Or me either,” our young hero piped up. “Not with Hervey Willetts. Not if it’s one of those follow-your-leader hikes.”

“This is different,” Hervey said. “The song explains it. It’s simple, all you have to do is turn to the left. Don’t pay any attention to the roads on the right, but turn into every road that goes to the left. And you’re sure to get there.”

“Where?” the kid hollered.

“Anywhere,” I said. “Can’t you understand plain English?”

“Anywhere isn’t a place,” the kid shouted.

“That shows how much you know about geography,” I told him. “It’s the best place in the world. You’re so dumb you think that a plot in a story is where the grass grows. You don’t even know where a place is. Proceed with the singing,” I said to Hervey.

“And get it over with,” Warde said.

So then Hervey sang that crazy song again, lying on his back and kicking that crazy hat of his from one foot to the other. Here it is because, gee whiz, I’ll never forget it:

“When you go on a hike just you mind what I say,

The right way to go is the opposite way.

If you come to a cross-road don’t make a mistake,

Choose a road, and the other’s the one you should take.

Don’t bother with sign boards but follow this song,

If you start on the right road you’re sure to go wrong.

You can go on your feet, you can go on a bike,

But the right way is wrong when you start on a hike.”

Brent said in that funny, drawly way he has, “I rather like that song. It hasn’t any object.”

“It hasn’t any subject or predicate either,” I said. “All the injunctions are qualified by the propositions.”

“You mean conjunctions and prepositions,” Pee-wee yelled. “That shows how much you know about grammar.”

“It’s the geography of the song that I like,” Brent said. “I’d like to go there.”

“Where?” the kid asked.

“To the left,” Brent said. “I’ve heard there’s a lot of fun there.” He was lying on his back looking right up into the sky, and his hands were clasped behind his head. He seemed awful funny—sober like.

“Well, you can bet I’m not going there,” Pee-wee said.

“Well, that’s one good thing about the place anyway,” I told him. “If what you say is true there ought to be a lot of fun there.”

“If what did I say is true?” the kid shouted.

“That you’re not going there,” I said.

“How can I not go to a place when I don’t know where it is?” he yelled.

“That’s the right question to the answer,” I said. “I say, we five start to-morrow morning. It won’t take us long because if we don’t know where we’re going we ought to be back by some time or other.”

“Oh, long before that,” said Brent.

“You’re all crazy!” Pee-wee yelled.

“Now you’re talking sense,” I said.