Читать книгу Roy Blakeley's Go-As-You-Please Hike - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 3

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This is a hike that didn’t start out to be a hike. It just sort of happened, accidentally on purpose. That’s what I liked about it—it didn’t have any purpose but lots of nice accidents happened so I called it the go-as-you-please hike. We went as we pleased until Pee-wee came along and then we had to go as he pleased, so that’s how the accidents happened.

Anyway, I’ll write it for you if my fountain pen doesn’t break down in the middle of the story. The only thing holding it up (I mean my pen) is an elastic band. Everything will be fine as long as I remember not to forget that it will bust if I start chewing on it.

Pee-wee’s to blame for this sad condition of my precious pen. He’s to blame for everything whether he is or not. I don’t know who else to blame things on except myself and that won’t do because I get enough blame at home.

This time, though, the kid is really to blame because by mistake he almost let a famous horse chew up my pen into two parts while he was feeding it some hay. He used it to stir up some catnip in the hay and it got mixed up somehow so the horse found it before Pee-wee did.

Then we discovered some ink running out of the horse’s mouth and just in time I rescued my pen from the jaws of death. So now you’ll hear the story—it’s a long, hilarious tale. Pretty near as long as the horse’s.

Anyway, when I think of it now my pen didn’t do so bad. All I had to buy for it was the elastic band. We weren’t as lucky as that. We means Doc Carson, he’s in my patrol, and Pee-wee Harris, he’s a patrol by himself but on the quiet he’s supposed to be leader of the Chipmunk Patrol in our troop. He’s a leader in name only—one word from him and the kids do as they please. And last but not least, as they say in Siam, was Dub Smedley—he’s a nice feller and I’ll tell you more about him later.

As I said before we weren’t so lucky. I had to buy a new scout suit and hat and so did Doc Carson. Dub lost his shoes somewhere and Pee-wee—oh boy, he was lucky that he didn’t have to buy a new face and a few new bones. The only thing he had when he got back to camp was his voice and he didn’t have all of that because it was reduced to a whisper on account of him having to coax the horse for four hours straight.

Every time I think of it I have to laugh. My sister says she’s tired of hearing it and seeing it so I told her I could laugh just as loud up my sleeve. Jiminy, she ought to be glad I’m alive after that hike and am able to laugh. Another thing, I have to make up for the time I lost in those awful, dangerous moments when I was too scared to snicker.

I won’t begin from the beginning—I’m going to begin in the middle of it. That’s where Pee-wee came in. He always makes a good loud start so you’ll hear him before if not sooner. That depends on whether you skip any paragraphs. Pee-wee won’t care. The quicker you hear him the better he’ll like it.

One nice, sunny summer morning, Doc Carson and I were about a quarter of a mile from Temple Camp. It was sometime between July and September—I don’t mean Temple Camp, I mean the nice, sunny summer morning.

Temple Camp is in the Catskill mountains. It stays there all year round but we don’t. We just spend our summers there and all our money. We should worry about money as long as Pee-wee goes on our hikes.

Anyway, the reason I can’t tell you what time of the morning it was is because I always make a vow when I get to camp to never think of time. The only way I can tell the hour is by my stomach and the “eats” bell. Otherwise I don’t bother clocks as long as they don’t bother me.

I’m getting near the middle now so Doc and I were hiking from camp and we were glad to get away from the noisy bunch. We’d rather hear our own noise where it’s nice and quiet.

We were going along slow and easy and could hear ourselves talk fine. We didn’t know what we were going to do in Catskill—we weren’t even sure we were going there. But that doesn’t matter any to me. I can always think of something.

So while I was thinking about it, Doc and I heard a terrible noise that sounded like thunder and an earthquake all together. We looked up at the sky and all around at the mountains and down at our feet but everything was all right.

We started on and then we heard the noise again nearer and louder than before. So we turned around quick and looked back up the road. That’s where the noise was coming from.

We discovered the noise was Pee-wee. He was a little way behind and was running like anything to catch up to us. Every once in a while he yelled “WAIT!” Just as loud as that.

I told you you’d hear him in a minute. So now you can stop if you want peace and quiet because from now on we can’t get rid of Pee-wee. That means each chapter will be louder and crazier than the one before. It’s up to you.