Читать книгу Roy Blakeley's Wild Goose Chase - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 7

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I said, “This is easy, all we have to do is change the name of it to the Marine Hike or Kidnapped by Indians. I bet a lot of fellers will buy it. I told you this was going to be serious.”

Pee-wee said, very grouchy, he said, “You were the one that was leading the way and you couldn’t even see a great big sign.”

“It wasn’t a scout sign,” I said. “I only go by scout signs. We’re here because we’re here—deny it if you dare. This is the celebrated Wrong Way Hike or Boy Scouts on a Ferry Boat.”

“Yes and how about Claverack?” the kid grouched. “Geeeee whiz!”

I said, “My idea about it is that it’ll stay right there and we’ll have to go to it. We’ll have to approach it from the north. One point of the compass is the same as another, only different. A good turn is a good turn no matter how you go to it.”

“Absolutely, positively,” Warde said.

“How far is that grove?” Will asked the girl.

She said, “It’s miles and miles up the river, and you can blame yourselves.”

I said, “Do you blame me because it’s miles and miles? Did we put it there?”

By that time there were a whole lot of girls around us, all laughing. Gee it was some picnic, I guess there were fifty of them. There were two or three grown up ones too, and they were all he-he-ing at us.

“Such a mistake to make!” one of them said.

I said, “That’s nothing, we’ve made better ones than that.”

“Look at your brother and your cousins, they didn’t even show up at all,” Will said.

Another one of them started up, “Oh goodness me, they couldn’t even look where they were going. And they claim to be boy scouts. Oh I could just die laughing.”

Warde said, “All right, Miss Sapolio, rub it in.”

“It’s because we’re kind of wild and primitive and we don’t know anything about ferry boats,” the kid started shouting. “Gee whiz, we were thinking about something very important, that’s why, and you needn’t think you’re so smart laughing because anyway we didn’t miss the boat, even we didn’t miss it by making a mistake, and it’s better to catch it by mistake than to miss it accidentally by not getting to it.”

I said, “You must excuse our little friend, he’s missing on two cylinders.”

“Shift into second, kid,” Warde said to him; “that was a fine argument. It’s better to catch a boat when you hadn’t ought to, than to miss it accidentally on purpose——”

“Now you can see they’re crazy!” the kid yelled. “That’s the way they are all the time. Now we’re never going to get home—all the time I knew it!”

“I know it too,” I said; “that shows how much boy scouts know. The Boy Scout movement spreads all over, it doesn’t make any difference where you go. We can go home by the way of California, what do we care?”

One of the girls was laughing and she said, “Well, I hope you have good appetites.”

I said, “Sure, we always carry them with us for an emergency. Our little mascot carries two so in case he gets lost they’ll last him several days. He’s a real scout, he knows all about the birds of the sea and the fish of the fields—he’s so wild he won’t even pick tame flowers. That’s why we go on wild goose chases, we’re so wild.”

All the time the boat was going up the river and all the girls were talking to us. Anyway, we were having a dandy sail.

I said, “Do you know how we can get to Claverack from that grove?”

One of them said, “You’ll have to walk all the way back; it’s miles and miles. But, one thing, you’ll be on the right side of the river when you land. You can have lunch with us in the grove and then you can hike back unless you want to wait and come back on the boat with us. Isn’t it just too absurd? You can spend the whole day with us if you really want to.”

Warde said, “We’re glad of it, we have a ride part of the way. We thought we’d have to hike all the way to Claverack.”

Pee-wee piped up, “Do you call it getting a ride part way when all the time we’re going the wrong way? Geeee whiz, do you call that logic? We’re sailing way, way up the river and it goes north, and all the time we want to go east! Do you call that having a ride part way?”

Oh boy, all the girls were laughing at him. One of them said, “Oh I think he’s just too dear.”

“You couldn’t get him any cheaper,” Will said. “Already he’s marked down, that’s why he’s so short; he’d be dear at any price. He’s the pet of Temple Camp.”

I said, “As long as we’re on the boat we’ll stay to lunch up at that grove and then we’ll hike southeast to Claverack; we’re going to call on a poor boy that broke his collar button.”

They said that was fine, and they were going to have chicken sandwiches and olives and sponge cake and everything. And they were going to cook waffles and hot dogs, mm-yum, yum!

Warde said, “Hey, camp scouting girls, Pee-wee is so dumb he thinks sponge cake is made out of sponges, I’ll leave it to these fellers.”

I said, “Sure, you’d be surprised how ignorant he is, he even thinks pie is named after pioneer, I’ll leave it to Warde. His favorite pie is all kinds especially apple. Even once he went fishing for fishballs. He’s a model scout—model means small sample, I can prove it by the dictionary. We keep him at Temple Camp to do his family a good turn. But you want to look out for him, he’s a terrible sheik. He wins a smile from every girl, most always they laugh out loud. He’s got more members outside of his patrol than any other scout in America. The girls all fall for him and we have to stand for him.”

“Don’t you mind them,” one of the girls said to him, very nice and affectionate like. “They’re just boobies.”

“Do you think I don’t know it?” Pee-wee shouted. “They said they were going to go on a serious hike to call on a sick feller and now they’re making fools of themselves before a lot of girls—showing off. Gee whiz, they were going to go and do a kind act and then they land on a ferry boat——”

“Look at Columbus,” I said; “did he know where he was going? He thought he was going to India and he bumped into Columbus Circle, I’ll leave it to my scout comrades. Even we’re doing as much as Henry Hudson did, we’re sailing up the Hudson River, and still he’s kicking.”

“Even it may be years before we get back now,” Pee-wee said.

“Follow us and you can’t go right,” I told him. “Every which way, that’s our motto. Scouts aren’t supposed to carry anything they don’t need, not even directions—we should worry.”

The girl that was named Margaret was laughing and she put her arm around him and said, “Don’t you mind them, they’re just too silly. And they can’t lead you wrong now because they’ve got to stay on the boat till it lands.”

“Gee whiz, they make me sick,” Pee-wee grouched.