Читать книгу Roy Blakeley's Happy-go-lucky Hike - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 6

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Wig started singing, We don’t know where we’re going but we’re on our way. The other door kept rolling open and shut but it didn’t stay shut. There wasn’t anything in the car but the floor and we sat on it. I tried to make the one door stay open but it wouldn’t.

Vic said, “Let’s calmly consider what we better do. I think we’re going west and Little Valley is north.”

“I don’t see how we’re going to make it this way,” Wig said.

“I have an idea,” I told them, “maybe we’ll bunk into the passenger train and then we can get out. Things might be worse; as long as Little Valley stays where it is——”

“Instead of starting worrying you begin with a lot of nonsense,” Pee-wee shouted at me.

I said, “All right, let’s worry.”

So then Wig and Vic and I kind of held our hands to our foreheads and looked very anxious like. “Funny nothing happens,” Vic said, “let’s worry a little harder. If that doesn’t stop the train we’ll try some more singing.”

“That’s a very good idea,” I told him. “When I count three we’ll all worry. Think of a merry-go-round how it keeps going and never gets anywhere, and it even plays music so light and carefree. Look at the Volga boatmen rushing along in Russia—they haven’t got any freight train to carry them. We’re in luck.”

Vic said, “I always wanted to be a hobo when I grew up and now I’m one.”

“We ought to all thank Pee-wee,” I said.

“Sure, and Ring-ting-aling,” Vic said.

“Suppose the train men come in here and see us?” the kid spoke up, kind of scared.

“How are they going to get in?” I asked him. “When they can get in we can get out, only they have to ask me politely.”

“Suppose it keeps going all day!” the kid said.

“That’s no worse than you,” I told him. “Most of the time you keep going all day. You’re the one that started this good turn. I was peacefully mowing my lawn when you came around with your black spot around the dog’s eye and your big white house in Little Valley.”

“Sure, and his reward,” said Vic. “Don’t forget the reward.”

“I hope if we ever get there it will be five dollars,” I said. “That’ll be enough to buy us some eats. It looks now as if we’ll have to go by a detour through Chicago. Maybe somebody will get a reward for bringing us home. Maybe your father will give us a reward for keeping you away.”

All the while the freight train kept going kind of slow, but too fast for us to jump off. It made about as much noise as a couple of earthquakes. One time we went sliding across the floor, so I thought maybe it was going around a curve. All the time the one door kept rolling open and shut and making a big racket. The other one stayed shut. Wig said we better try to fix the one so it would stay open so we could jump out if the train stopped. I guess they fastened on the outside, those doors. There ought to be an egress, Wig said.

“A which?” I asked him. “Maybe Pee-wee’s got one with him, he carries so many things in his pockets.”

“A means of exit,” Wig said.

“You better look out, fooling with that door, or you’ll take a double header egress yourself,” I told him.

“I tell you what let’s do,” Vic said, “if it should bang shut and stay shut, then maybe we won’t know which one we came through....”

“As long as we know we’re in, what’s the difference?” I said. “Do we have to have any doors to tell us whether we’re on the inside or outside?”

He said, “Listen! This train is going along, isn’t it?”

“Oh how smart you are! How ever did you guess?” I said to him.

He said, “Listen, this train is going along. All right, we got in one side, didn’t we? That’s the side where the door is open. We were going to get out the other side where the door is shut.”

“Only we didn’t,” I said.

“We sure didn’t,” Wig said.

Vic said, “All right, when the train stops....”

“If it does,” I said.

“If it does,” Wig said.

“Will you shut up and listen!” Vic said. “If the train stops we want to get out on the same side as we were going to get out, don’t we? All right, let’s put a mark on the door, then we won’t have to walk all the way around the train.”

“Suppose that door doesn’t open,” I said. “Go ahead and put a mark on the door anyway if you want to. Here’s a piece of milk chocolate that I was going to eat, you can make a mark with that, and be sure to give it back to me. It may be years before I get anything more to eat.”

So he made a mark on the door we were supposed to go out through, and that was the door nearest to Little Valley. Maybe it was a good idea, as long as he didn’t use too much chocolate, because if we had to walk all the way around the train to get on that side, maybe we’d have to go through swamps and everything. Gee, you never know where those long freight trains end. That shows you how smart boys scouts are, always thinking ahead and everything. “Please give me back my chocolate,” I said. Gee, you’ve got to watch out with that bunch, they were all born during a famine.

After a little while the train slowed down and then it stopped and Pee-wee started. The dog started too, jumping and barking. “Oh, it’s stopped, it’s stopped!” Pee-wee yelled. “Now we can get off!”

“Look!” I said to him, “it’s stopped on a trestle. Do you think I’m going to get out and walk along on those crosspieces? No siree, safety first.”

So then we all sat on the edge of the car, in the doorway, looking away down into a lake or something or other, it was a lot of water. I said, “If we had a line we could catch some fish if we only had some bait.”

Wig said, “Sure and we could cook them in a pan if we only had a fire.”

Vic said, “Sure and we could start a fire if we only had a match to light the twigs with if we only had some twigs.”

So there we were with the train stopped and we couldn’t get off, because the trestle was only about as wide as the train, maybe a little wider, but do you think I was going to jump down and walk along that thing—nothing doing!

“If it wasn’t for that trestle we could hop down all right,” Vic said.

“If it wasn’t for that trestle you wouldn’t be here,” I told him. “There’s nothing we can do except to start singing.”

So then we started making up a lot of crazy stuff like this

We’re sitting in a car

And we don’t know where we are.

I’d jump if I was bold

But the water’s good and cold.

Then all of a sudden the train started up again.