Читать книгу Roy Blakeley's Elastic Hike - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 4

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Now first I’ll tell you about our troop, only this story isn’t about the whole troop. Maybe you think Pee-wee is in my patrol, but he isn’t, many thanks. He’s the head of the Chipmunks. He’s the head chip. Only most of the time he follows me around.

He used to be one of the raving Ravens, then he started the Chipmunks. He began with four scouts and worked up until he had two. Then he got two brothers, then two more brothers, and he got Ben Maxwell and Ben stays in that patrol because he has to have something to laugh at. He’s more to be pitied than blamed.

There’s another patrol in our troop and that’s the Elks, Connie Bennett and that bunch. Stut Moran is in that patrol, he stutters; he goes scout pace with his tongue. But anyway that patrol isn’t in this story. The only ones in this story are Silver Foxes except Pee-wee, because we couldn’t get rid of him.

So now I’ll tell you about the Silver Foxes—no, first I’ll tell you about Pee-wee, because you’re going to see him a lot and you’re going to hear him too. The reason he isn’t any taller is because his feet touched the ground too soon and that stopped him from growing. The end of him bunked against the earth. But, anyway, it’s the other end of him that counts. To show you how much he knows he thinks superheterodyne is named after soup—his favorite soup is all kinds, especially tomato. That’s his patrol color on account of Chipmunks being red. I guess that’s why he likes the Silver Foxes so much, too, because Chipmunks are fond of nuts.

So now I’ll tell you about the Silver Foxes—that’s my patrol. We’re not solid silver. We’re hollow. That’s what the cook up at Temple Camp says. We’re good scouts, we’re very helpful, we like three helpings. I’m the leader, then comes Westy Martin, only he doesn’t come, he goes. He’s out West now. Then comes Dorry Benton and Huntley Manners and Will Dawson and the Warner twins and Warde Hollister.

We’re all crazier than each other. I like them all best. There are eight of us altogether, we remind ourselves of a Packard, because we’re a straight eight. If every scout was an automobile, Pee-wee would be a Ford. So now you know about all the scouts in this story. Now comes some conversation. I bet you like that best.

Warde Hollister and I were sitting on the railing of my porch when Pee-wee came up with Dinkey. We didn’t know what to do with ourselves because school was just closed—that’s one thing I like about school.

Pee-wee said, “I was telling Dinkey how maybe he could get into your patrol and he says he’d like to.”

I said to Dinkey, “Have you ever been a scout before and if so, why not?”

“That’s a crazy question,” Pee-wee said.

I said, “Well, then, let him give me an answer and I’ll give him the question to it; you can ask Warde.”

“Ask Warde what?” the kid shouted.

“Anything you want to, I don’t care,” I said.

“That’s perfectly true,” Warde said.

“Now you see what kind of a bunch they are,” the kid said to Dinkey. “The only one of them that has any sense went out to the Rocky Mountains. Gee whiz!”

I said to Dinkey, “Do you know the five-mile rule about the Silver Foxes?”

“I was telling him,” Pee-wee shouted.

I said to Dinkey, “Did you ever walk five miles multiplied by two?”

“Correct, be seated,” Warde told him.

I said to Dinkey, “Did you walk them all at once or one at a time?”

“Now you see how crazy they are!” the kid shouted. “What did I tell you?”

I said to Dinkey, “Before you can join the scouts you have to turn around every day and be scared.”

“He means do a good turn and be prepared!” the kid shouted, all excited. “You can’t believe half he says.”

“That’s not true,” I said. “You can believe more than a third of it. I’ll leave it to Warde. Turning around means the same as doing a turn. Anybody that ever studied polite government knows that.”

“What do you mean polite government?” the kid fairly yelled. Oh, boy, we had him started. Dinkey was laughing so hard he couldn’t talk.

I said, “Polite means the same as civil. Didn’t you ever hear of civil government? Wrong as usual. That shows how much the Chipmunks know about arithmetic.”

“Will you tell him about your five-mile rule or won’t you?” Pee-wee yelled at me. “Do you want him to join your patrol or not? You try to make a fool out of everybody.”

“Some of them are ready-made,” Warde said. Then I told Dinkey about our rule that we have in our patrol. That was what Pee-wee had been telling him, because Pee-wee’s middle name is minding every other patrol’s business.

We all sat in a row on the railing of my porch, the four of us. We were just kind of dangling our legs, because we didn’t have anything else to do. Usually that’s the way it is the first day after school closes. So you better take a good look at us sitting there, because we’re the four heroes of this story. Maybe you’d say three and a half heroes on account of Pee-wee being so small. Anyway, one lucky thing, you can’t take a picture of an appetite. If you could take a snapshot of Pee-wee’s appetite this book would have to be about as big as a dictionary.

Anyway, now I’m going to tell you about our five-mile rule—that’s a Silver Fox rule.