Читать книгу Roy Blakeley's Elastic Hike - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 7

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The next morning the four of us started out along the old turnpike. Usually when a tenderfoot goes on a new-member hike (that’s what we always call it) two or three Silver Foxes go along with him. This time Pee-wee went too on account of the members of his patrol being away or sick or something or other. Gee, he was all dressed up like a circus with his ax and his scout knife and his compass and his frying pan dangling from his scout belt. All he needed was four-wheel brakes and a muffler. He had his lunch in a brief-case that was hung over his shoulder.

I said, “You must be going to have a very brief lunch.”

“Or else they must be very big sandwiches,” Warde said.

The kid said, “I’ve got some strawberry shortcake.”

I said to Dinkey, “He calls it shortcake because he keeps it such a short time. He’s very fond of the holes in Swiss cheese too. He likes balloon tires because they remind him of homemade crullers. How many tongue sandwiches have you got, kid?”

“That’s all right how many I’ve got,” Pee-wee said. “I bet we’ll all be good and hungry when we get to the toll-gate.”

“We can eat before we get there,” I said. “I know a big rock along the road——”

“I don’t think Pee-wee would care to eat a rock,” Warde said.

“Don’t be too sure of that,” I said. “Maybe we could eat at the old bridge, where it isn’t.”

“That shows how much you stick to resolutions!” the kid shouted, all excited.

“He thinks we’re bottles of glue,” I said.

“Are you going to do it right or not?” the kid yelled.

“Absolutely, no, we are,” I shot back at him.

“You have a rule and you get a new member that’s a nice fellow and then you start doing not like you said, so what will he think——”

“Silver Foxes are not supposed to think,” Warde said.

“Wrong the first time,” I said. “They’re supposed to think about doing things, but not do them. What’s the difference between Pee-wee’s mouth and school?”

“The school is closed up,” Warde said. “Right the first time,” I told him. Oh, jiminy, you should have seen Dinkey Waters laughing.

All of a sudden Pee-wee exploded. He’s a two-syllable word meaning T.N.T. When he broadcasts he drowns out all the other stations.

I said, “Listen, Pee-wee is going to bread crust.”

“Are you going to do it or not?” the kid hollered at me. “We all came up here to your house with our lunches like you said and now are you going to make a fool out of Dinkey? Are we going to keep the pledge about hiking to the toll-gate and not eating our lunches till he’s a Silver Fox—till he cuts his initials there? Are we going to do it? Because if we’re not, I’m going home to get up in the tree and fix my aerial——”

“He’s always going up in the air,” Warde said.

I said, “Sprouts and scouts, this is serious. Shut up and listen to your patrol leader. All Chipmunks that are in on this keep still and listen too. I have in my pocket—here it is—a piece of sealing-wax given to me by a trained seal. I swapped with Doc Carson for a fountain pen. Every member and would-be and non-member and dismember and remember and December and everybody else connected with this exposition——”

“You mean expedition,” Pee-wee shouted.

“I don’t have to say what I mean,” I said. “I’m talking about what I’m saying, not what I’m meaning. Every member of this first aid or crusade or whatever you call it that wants to see Dinkey Waters made into a solid Silver Fox by carving his initials on the old toll-gate five miles from this spot will lay his lunch down on that porch chair.”

“Yes, and you’ll eat it,” shouted Pee-wee.

“Each one will lay his lunch down on that porch chair,” I said.

Pee-wee was the last one to do that. Gee, it was funny to see him lift the strap over his neck and put his brief-case down in the chair. Dinkey’s lunch was in a paper, so was Warde’s. Mine was in a flat box that I can put in my pocket. So then I lit a match and melted some sealing-wax on every package and I jabbed my scout pin down into the melted wax. On Pee-wee’s brief-case I dropped a whole big gob of melted wax just where the cover laid on the other part.

Then I said, “You think I can’t be sober. Sprouts, we are going to hike to the old toll-gate five miles from Bridgeboro. That’s a good stiff walk. Whenever we take in a new member we go on a fast for about two hours—that doesn’t mean minutes. No one is allowed to eat until the pilgrimage to the shrine is all finished and the new fellow’s initials are cut in the old toll-gate. Then the scout pilgrims can eat all they want, even more, I don’t care. As Westy Martin said when he became a Silver Fox, my only regret is that I have but four sandwiches and two bananas to eat for my patrol——”

“I was there!” Pee-wee shouted.

I said, “Yes, and you got one of the bananas; yes, we have no appetites. So now do you all solemnly pledge your scout honor to live up to the custom of the Silver Foxes and eat absolutely nothing, or even less than that maybe, until Dinkey Waters has carved his initials on the old toll-gate? Each one say I do.”

So then they all said it one after another good and loud, especially Pee-wee. He has a voice like the World War. Then after that we started out on our Silver Fox pilgrimage.