Читать книгу Roy Blakeley's Go-As-You-Please Hike - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 4

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Even when he was almost up to us he kept on shouting for us to wait. I called to him, “Don’t worry, we’ll wait. We’ll have to wait on account of the noise you’re making!”

And that was true because the noise was terrible and we were afraid that the birds all around would think the end of the world had come. They wouldn’t know it was only Pee-wee. So to do them a good turn Doc and I had to stop.

The kid ran up to us all out of breath. He said, “Where are you going?”

I said, “Somewhere in Catskill.”

“Where?” he wanted to know.

“How do I know till we get there!” I said.

“Are you going to hike all the way or catch the bus when it comes along?”

I said, “We’ll have nothing to do with the bus. We’re busted. What money we have we’re going to save for adventure. This is a go-as-we-please hike. We’re pleased to go anywhere.”

He said, “It’s lucky I saw you fellers and caught up to you.”

I said, “Yes, you’re lucky. We’re not. What did you do, go without your breakfast to catch up to us?”

“No, I didn’t,” he said. “I only saw you and Doc a few minutes ago. You don’t think I followed you on purpose, do you? I had to go to Catskill today on account of something important and I couldn’t find you and nobody else would go with me.”

“I don’t blame them,” I said.

“Who?” the kid said.

I said, “Nobody else.”

He said, “You’re so smart you won’t say so after I tell you something. You’ll be glad, because after I left camp and was walking along I was thinking it would be nice if I met a few fellers I liked. Then I happened to look up and saw you way ahead and I said to myself, ‘Now I’ll have company.’”

“Goodnight!” I said. “We’ll live to rue the time you looked up. You get the company and we get the nuisance.”

He scowled. “You wouldn’t say I was a nuisance if you knew how I intended to treat you and if you knew that you’d say I was good enough to hike to Catskill with,” he said all in one breath.

I said, “Ah-a! It’s a dark, black secret.”

Doc said, “It sounds more like a midnight blue to me.”

So I said, “All right, kid. Get it off your mind. Tell us the sad story.”

“It’s not sad, it’s something to be glad about!” he said. “You know how all last summer and the summer before that at Warner’s Drug Store they gave out tickets with everything we bought?”

I said, “Sure. And you got the tickets away from everybody in camp because you were saving them.”

“And from everyone in Catskill,” Doc added.

“I didn’t take them!” the kid shouted. “I asked everybody if they weren’t going to save them to give them to me.”

“They had to give them to you or you would have pestered them to death,” said Doc. “That’s the way you got a couple of dozen out of me.”

Pee-wee said, “If I didn’t ask, you’d have thrown them away. So would everyone else.”

I said, “Well, now that you have the tickets what are you going to do with them?”

“I have a hundred dollars worth,” he said sort of triumphant like. “That means I can have a dollar’s worth of anything free in that drug store. Today’s the last day to cash in the tickets.”

I said, “G-o-o-d night magnolia! You ought to treat everybody you got tickets from. Talk about getting something for nothing!”

“I’m asking you to let me hike with you so I can treat you, what more do you want?” he screamed. “Isn’t that fair enough if I treat you fellers? Gee whiz, you can’t ask everybody in camp on a dollar’s worth!”

“Not the way you eat,” said Doc.

“He’d starve to death on a dollar’s worth,” I said.

“Shall we start?” he wanted to know.

I said, “Wait a minute, here’s someone else coming along you’ll have to ask. That gives us twenty-five cents apiece.”

Doc said, “If we stand here talking much longer we’ll be lucky to get an almond out of an almond bar.”

Pee-wee said, “That’s your fault. You fellers should have said right away that you wanted me to hike with you. How did I know?”

I said, “We didn’t say we wanted you along but we can’t have your tickets without having you. In other words, we love you for your tickets alone.”

The kid smiled then. He said, “Didn’t I tell you you’d be glad you waited for me?”

By that time we could see it was Dub Smedley hiking down alone. He comes from Jersey City but it’s no fault of his—he’s a nice fellow, Dub is. He has freckles. Anyway, he likes nonsense so I was glad to see it was him.

I said, “You’re just in time to join our hike, Dub. We’re going as we please. But first the kid’s going to treat us to a dollar’s worth of anything free. One of us ought to buy a sponge so we can sponge up what’s left in the bottom of the dishes. We may need it before we get back. You can never tell with Pee-wee.”

Dub laughed and he said, “I’m game for anything. It pleases me if it pleases you and everybody else and if it doesn’t why it does just the same.

“Do you know what you’re talking about?” Pee-wee wanted to know.

I said, “You’re not supposed to know what you’re talking about on a hike with me. Dub’s been initiated.”

The kid said, “He’s crazy then too, but who’s going to be leader?”

I said, “No one. We’re all leaders but we must all be pleased to go wherever we go.”

“Gee whiz, that’s no kind of a hike,” the kid said. “I won’t have anything to say, I bet.”

“You will unless you get lockjaw or something,” Doc said. He’s always thinking about diseases and medicines, Doc is.

I said, “Chipskunk, are you pleased to go wherever we go or do you want to quit?”

Oh, boy, he was mad. “Did you ever hear me say I’d quit?” he yelled. “Did you?”

“If everyone’s pleased, hike on!” I said.

“Aye,” said Doc.

“Aye,” said Dub.

I said, “Good! We’re carried by a large minority. Everyone’s pleased.”

“Well, I’m not,” the kid grumbled.

Just the same he walked on.