Читать книгу Roy Blakeley's Go-As-You-Please Hike - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 5

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Pretty soon Pee-wee got used to going as we pleased because he said, “We can each have a banana split at Warner’s, I just figured it all out. Mr. Warner makes peachy ones.”

I said, “Figures?”

He said, “No, banana splits. Maybe I’ll just get a soda though and buy some candy with the other ten cents. I don’t know.”

I said, “Neither do I. But why worry? We won’t be in Catskill for many moments to come.”

“How can it be moments when it’s an hour’s hike from here to Catskill?” the kid wanted to know.

Dub and Doc started to laugh. Then I said, “That’s what happens when you don’t study geography. Anyone can tell you that many moments means an hour, maybe two or three. I should worry.”

The kid stopped in the middle of the road and looked at me. “No fooling,” he said. “I wish I could get there quicker. I’m awful thirsty. I ate fish for breakfast.”

“The poor fish,” said Doc.

I said, “I knew a fish once—it was a gold fish....”

“Is this another gold fish story?” the kid yelled.

I said, “Posilutely, no. It’s about a gold fish that found the water in his bowl getting very hot and he went up to the top and began swimming around like sixty so he’d cool off.”

Pee-wee looked at me very suspicious like but Dub said, “Yes, yes go on, Roy.”

So I said, “And he kept going around but he didn’t get cool. He was getting warmer and warmer and the water kept getting so hot that it began to boil and simmer until it all boiled away and the bowl was dry. Do you know what happened?”

“No, what?” the kid asked with his mouth and eyes open.

“The poor fish fried,” I said in a very sad voice.

“Do you expect me to believe that!” he screamed. “It’s another fairy story just like you always tell.”

I said, “You can ask my sister if that honestly didn’t happen. Maybe it’s the same fried fish that you ate this morning and it’s still trying to get into cold water. Stranger things have happened.”

The kid gave me a disgusted look. “Only a lunatic could think of such a thing,” he said. “Just the same, I’d like to get a drink.”

I said, “It pleases me.”

Doc said, “And me.”

Dub said, “The same here.”

Pee-wee stood looking across the field, then he smiled, sort of. Anyway it was a bright look and I always know that means he’s thinking. That doesn’t happen very often—only when he’s not eating and talking. He eats and talks about twenty-three hours and fifty minutes out of twenty-four.

I said, “Hip, hip and a couple of hurrahs! The kid is thinking. Maybe he has an idea.”

“For once you guessed something sensible,” he said. “I was thinking how one time a couple of years ago I took a hike with Tom Slade. We took a trail off this road down a little further and in about ten minutes we came to a spring that has dandy water. It’s a short cut to Catskill too. Shall we take it?”

I said, “Sure, if you’re sure it’s the right way. But if you’re not sure, why as sure as can be I’ll start a friendly feud with you. The scouts may have pure food laws but there’s no pure feud law that wouldn’t let me start a feud with you if you bring us out the wrong way.”

He glared at me. “When I go on hikes with you don’t we always come out right at the end?” he yelled.

I said, “‘We!’ You mean you do. We don’t even come out right in the middle of it. The last hike we were on with you we didn’t get as far as where we started from.”

“Are you pleased to take that trail I just told you about?” he screamed.

“Now you’re talking,” I said. “A scout is obedient and you didn’t forget that I’m a patrol leader in good standing only I don’t stand around long enough. Anyway, I’m pleased to go.”

Doc and Dub were also pleased so we started after Pee-wee. In about five minutes we came to a trail that ran off the road and through some woods. It was all overgrown with weeds and we could tell that no one had been through there in a long time. But we never worry about underbrush or overbrush with Pee-wee along. He always carries his axe on a hike. He does that to convince the world he’s a boy scout in case people won’t believe what he tells them.

After we were on the trail I said to him, “For the last time, are you sure this is the right trail to the spring?”

He said, “You make me sick. Don’t I remember a trail when I see it? I remember this one just as if it was yesterday and Tom and I walked through here to the spring. Then after we had a drink we went on to Catskill. Gee whiz, I don’t forget that, you can bet!”

“It’s not my bet,” I said. “It’s yours.”

So we went on and pretty soon the kid said, “Even if it wasn’t the right trail and it is, it shouldn’t bother scouts. Scouts aren’t supposed to get lost. Not for long anyway.”

“Goodnight!” I said. “It won’t be long now!”