Roy Blakeley's Funny-bone Hike

As the train started all the passengers looked out of the windows laughing at us and waving their hands. Anyway we were more powerful than that train because a donkey could stop it and we could move him off the track, so it could get started, and that proves how smart boy scouts are even when they don’t know where they’re at.

“I’d like to know where we are,” Warde said.

“We’re in the Catskill Mountains,” I told him.

“You might as well say we’re in the universe,” Pee-wee said. “What good does that do us?”

“You mean to tell me it isn’t good to be in the universe?” I asked him.

“It’s one of the best places I know of,” Garry said.

“Sure it is,” I told him. “Anybody who isn’t satisfied with the universe——”

“You’re crazy!” Pee-wee yelled.

“Follow your leader,” I said. “Follow your leader wherever he goes.”

“Follow your nose,” Bert said.

“No wonder he goes up in the air so often if he follows that,” Garry said.

“Do you think I’m going to go marching around the country for the rest of my life?” the kid piped up.

“Don’t quit or complain at the stunts that he shows,” I said. “You want to go somewhere, don’t you? Well, I promise to lead you somewhere. That’s just where you want to go. What more can you ask?”

I kept marching in and out among the trees, touching some and not touching others, the other fellows after me. Pretty soon I hit into the road that crossed the track. We were about a quarter of a mile from the track then. I kept along that road, sometimes walking on the stone wall and sometimes going zigzag in the road. I knew we were going west and I was pretty sure that Temple Camp was southwest, but I didn’t know how far. I thought that pretty soon we would come to a crossroad and that there would be a sign there.

Pretty soon we did come to one and there was a sign there, all right. I was glad of that because the road we were on had made so many turns I didn’t know for certain which direction we were going in. Besides, the sky was all cloudy so I couldn’t tell anything by the sun.

“There’s a sign post!” one of the fellows shouted.

“Saved!” another fellow yelled.

I didn’t strain my eyes to see what was on the signboard, but as soon as I saw it I began passing in and out among the trees along the road, grabbing each tree and going around it. All the while we were singing those crazy rhymes. So that way I came to the sign post and grabbed hold of it and around I went, only, good night, the post went round with my hand.

“There’s a good turn,” I shouted.

“Now you didn’t do a thing but make the plot thicker,” Pee-wee yelled at me at the top of his voice. “Now you’ve got everything mixed up.”

“I changed the whole map of the Catskills,” I said. “That’s nothing; see how the map of Europe is changed. I don’t think much of a signboard that changes its mind.”

“I don’t think much of a scout that changes a signboard,” Pee-wee shouted.

We all stood there staring at the sign. On the top of that post were two boards crossways to each other and on each board two directions were printed with arrows pointing. On one board was printed COXSACKIE 8 M., with an arrow pointing one way, and ATHENS 5 M., with an arrow pointing the opposite way. On the other board was printed CAIRO 9 M., with an arrow pointing one way, and CLAYVILLE 7 M., with an arrow pointing the other way, and underneath that board was a little board with TEMPLE CAMP printed on it. I guess scouts put that there.

But a lot of good that sign did us because all we knew was that Temple Camp was in the same direction as Clayville and we didn’t know which direction Clayville was in.

“Follow your leader and you don’t know where you’re at,” Pee-wee said, very disgusted like.

“Wrong the first time,” I said. “The poem says follow your nose. Would you rather believe the guide post than that beautiful poem? The poem never changes but the guide post moves around. We know where we’re at, we’re right here; deny it if you dare. We’re smarter than the guide post.”

“You’re about as smart as a lunatic,” the kid shouted. “If you hadn’t touched that we’d know which way to go. Now where is Temple Camp?”

“That’s easy,” I told him; “it’s where it always was.”

“You mean you’re like you always were,” he said; “you’re crazy.”

“Let’s move it around again,” Hervey said, “and we’ll say the first verse and let go the post just as we finish. Then let’s go the way it says.”

“Good idea,” Warde said; “let’s all agree that we’ll go whichever way the Temple Camp arrow points.”

“There are four directions,” Pee-wee said. “We’ll stand just one chance in four of going the right way.”

“There are only two directions,” I said; “right and wrong. Deny it who can. So we stand a fifty-fifty chance of going right. Anybody that knows anything about arithmetic can tell that. Come on, follow your leader wherever he goes.”

I grabbed hold of the sign post and started walking around with the rest of them after me singing, “Follow your leader wherever he goes.” Some merry-go-round! We sang the first verse and I stopped short when we got to the word goes.

“Come on,” I said, “Temple Camp is right over that way. Follow your leader.”

“Trust to luck,” Hervey said; “if it’s wrong, so much the better. Let the guide post worry. They had no right to put a pinwheel here for a guide post.”

“Just what I say,” I told him.

“How about others coming along?” Warde wanted to know. That fellow makes me tired, he’s all the time using sense.

“Now what have you got to say?” Pee-wee yelled. “A scout is supposed to be helpful.”

“Sure, he’s supposed to help himself to all the cake he wants, like you,” I said.

Warde said, “As long as we’ve had all the fun we want here, let’s set the post right before we go.”

“We haven’t had all the fun we want,” Hervey said.

“Sure we haven’t,” I put in. “We haven’t begun to have any yet.”

“I care more about dinner than I do about fun,” Pee-wee said.

“Do you mean dinner isn’t fun?” Garry asked him.

“I’m just as crazy as you are,” Bert said to me, “but we might as well go crazy in the right direction if we can only find out what that is.”

“Carried by a large minority,” I said; “the board of directors is appointed to find out the direction, so we can go crazy in that direction.” Warde said, “The trouble is that other people that pass here are not so crazy as we are and they’d like to know which way is which. Some people are peculiar.”

“Some people are worse than peculiar,” the Animal Cracker shouted.

“The compliment is returned with thanks and not many of them, and we wish ourselves many happy returns of the way. If anybody knows the way this merry-go-round of a sign post is supposed to stand let him now speak or else forever after hold his peace.”

“Piece of what?” Pee-wee shouted.

“Piece of pie,” I said; “that’s what you usually hold, isn’t it?”

Warde just went up to the sign post kind of smiling and turned it around till he got it just where he wanted it.

“What’s the idea?” I asked him.

He said, “Well, there are a couple of ideas.” I said, “I didn’t know we could scare up as many as that among the whole lot of us.”

“Maybe I’m wrong,” Warde said, “but I think that the side of the post with dried mud on it should face the road. That mud was spattered by wagons and autos. And I think the side that isn’t sunbaked faced the woods where it’s damp and shady. And I think the board where the paint is faded is the one that faced the sun. And so I think that Cairo is over there, and Athens over there and Temple Camp over there. See?”

“Hip, hip, and a couple of hurrahs!” Hervey Willetts said. “That means we can cut through these woods and come out at the end of the old railroad branch. There’s a big apple tree over there, I fell out of it once. It’s all woods over there and we stand a pretty good chance of getting lost again.”

“What kind of apples are they?” Pee-wee wanted to know.

“Baked apples,” I told him.

So then I started off with the rest of them after me, singing Follow your leader wherever he goes.

“There ought to be plenty of apples on that branch,” I said, as I went along.

“What branch?” the kid wanted to know.

“The old railroad branch,” I told him. “Don’t you know that apples grow on a branch?”

I guess none of us knew anything about that old branch but Hervey Willetts. That fellow knows about the funniest things and places. He can take you to old shacks in the woods and all places like that. He knows all the farmers for miles around camp. He knows where you can get dandy buttermilk. And he knows where you can get killed by quicksand and a lot of other peachy places. He says that’s the kind of sand he likes because it’s quick. He believes in action, that fellow.

I said, “As long as you know where we’re going suppose you be leader for a little while.”

“I’ll be leader,” Pee-wee shouted.

“Let Hervey be leader,” they all said.

So I fell behind and I was glad to get rid of the job of leading for a little while. But, oh boy, it was some job following! That fellow swung up into trees and turned somersaults over stone walls and hopped on one leg over big rocks—good night, we didn’t have any rest.

“You wanted ginger,” he said.

“Sure, but we didn’t want cayenne pepper,” I told him. “Have a heart.”

Gee whiz, that fellow didn’t miss anything, trees, rocks, fences, and all the while he kept singing:

I can’t tell you about all the crazy things that fellow did. It looked awful funny to see the rest of us following, especially Pee-wee with a scowl all over his face. I guessed Hervey knew where he was going all right because no matter what he did he always came back to a trail.

Pretty soon we came to the old railroad branch. A long time ago that used to go to some mines. We followed the old tracks through the woods. Hervey walked on one of the rails and we all tried to keep on it, but it was hard balancing ourselves he went so fast.

I guess maybe we went a half mile that way and then we saw ahead of us a funny kind of a car on the track. It wasn’t meant to carry people, it was meant to carry iron ore, I guess. It was about as long as a very young trolley car. A long iron bar, a funny kind of a coupling I guess it was, stuck out from it. It was all open, like a great big scuttle, kind of. There were piles of stones and earth and old holes all caved in nearby. Those were the old iron mines, Hervey said.

“Gee whiz,” I told him, “I’ve been to Temple Camp every summer and I never saw this place before. Christopher Columbus hasn’t got anything on you.”

“Follow your leader wherever he goes,” he said, and over the end of the car he went and, kerflop, down inside, all the rest of us after him. There was straw inside.

That fellow couldn’t sit down long. In about ten seconds up he jumped and shouted, “Follow your leader.”

I was so tired I could have just lain in that little car till Christmas, but I got up and so did the others, all except Pee-wee.

“Come on, follow your leader,” I said.

“Not much,” he said; “I’m going to lie here and take a rest. I’ve had enough funny-bone hiking. If you think I’m going to follow you all over the Catskill Mountains without any dinner, you’re mistaken. I know the way home from here, it’s easy. Go ahead and march into the Hudson River if you want to for all I care.”

“Which way do we go from here?” Hervey asked him.

“We follow the tracks straight along,” the kid said. “That will bring us to the turnpike and all we have to do is to go through Leeds. There, you think you’re so smart.”

“Righto,” Hervey said; “just climb out of the other end of the car and keep going, right along the track.”

“Smart kid,” I said.

“Do you think I’m going to be turning somersaults all the way home?” he wanted to know. “The next time I join a parade it won’t be with a lot of monkeys.”

“Those somersaults were all good turns,” Bert said.

“This place is good enough for me,” Pee-wee shot back at him.

So we left him there sprawled out on the straw and followed Hervey in and out of old holes, kind of like caves, and all around and over piles of earth and everything till pretty soon he stopped and said, panting good and hard, “What do you say to a plot?”

“I take them three times a day and before retiring,” I said. “What kind of a plot? A grass-plot?”

“Let’s have some fun with Pee-wee,” he said. “Did you hear him say he knows the way home from here? He thinks all he has to do is to climb out the other end of the car and keep going along the track to the turnpike.”

“Well, isn’t that right?” Warde asked.

“Sure it’s right,” Hervey said; “only it depends on where the other end of the car is. See? That car’s on a turntable if anybody should ask you.”

“If it were a dinner table it would interest Pee-wee more,” I said.

“I noticed there was a kind of platform under it with grass growing through the cracks,” Warde said.

“Come on, let’s see if he’s asleep and we’ll turn it around,” Hervey said. “The woods look the same no matter which way you go. Follow your leader.”

He started tiptoeing over to the tracks holding his finger against his lips and we all did just the same. I had to laugh, it seemed so funny. He kept singing, Follow your leader, in a whisper.

That fellow ought to be in my patrol, he’s so crazy.

There was Pee-wee, sprawled on the straw inside the little car, sound asleep. The funny-bone hike had been too much for him, I guess. Hervey got a stick and pushed with it against the rail right near the edge of the turntable. We had to all get sticks and push before we could budge it.

It squeaked as it went around, the part underneath was so rusty. We brought it to one full turn so that the car stood with the long coupling at the opposite side from where it had been before. We thought we might as well let Pee-wee sleep a little longer so we went to a tree that Hervey knew about and got some apples. Then we went back and sat in a line on the edge of the car with our feet hanging inside and started eating apples. After a little while we began singing, Follow your leader, and that woke Pee-wee up.

He opened one eye, then he stretched his arm, then opened the other eye and sat up, staring.

“Wheredgerget thabbles?” he wanted to know, rubbing his eyes.

I said, “Here, catch this and eat it.” Then I said, “Scout Harris of the raving Raven patrol, alias the Animal Cracker, you have been elected by an unanimous majority to lead the funny-bone hike. What say you? Yes or yes? Do you know the way to Temple Camp?”

“A fool knows the way to Temple Camp,” he said, very disgusted like.

“And you claim you’re a fool?” Warde asked him.

“I claim you’re a lot of lunatics,” Pee-wee said, sitting there and yawning and trying to eat an apple at the same time.

“It’s your turn to lead,” Garry said. “Our career of glory is over and we want to go home.”

“I’m tired of this crazy stuff and I don’t believe anybody here knows the way to camp,” Bert said.

“This branch crosses the turnpike,” Pee-wee said. “Don’t you know the little wooden bridge where the tracks cross the road?”

“Oh yes, the dear little wooden place,” I said; “how well I remember it!”

“You turn left on the turnpike and go through Leeds,” the kid said.

“Ah, but suppose the turnpike shouldn’t be there any more?” Garry said. “Some strange things have happened since we started in a north southerly direction from Catskill.”

“That’s because you had crazy leaders,” Pee-wee shot back. “If you’re sensible and want to go back to camp I’ll show you the way.”

“Oh we’re sensible,” I said.

“You’re the worst of the lot,” he shouted.

Hervey said, “My idea is, just like I said, to follow the track right along the same way we were going and that will bring us out at the turnpike.”

“If the turnpike hasn’t been turned around,” I said.

“We’ll be careful not to touch it with our hands when we get there,” Garry said.

“I’ll lead you,” Pee-wee said; “it’s easy from here; I could do it with my eyes closed.”

“If you’ll keep your mouth closed I’ll be satisfied,” I told him.

“But it isn’t going to be any funny-bone hike,” he said; “I’ll tell you that.”

“It’ll be a backbone hike—straight,” I said. “There’s no place like home.”

“Home is all right, it’s a good place to start from,” Hervey said.

“Well, then, take us home; I’m ready,” Bert spoke up. “I don’t want any more funny-bone hikes wished on me. Wish-bones are good enough, I’m hungry.”

So Pee-wee climbed over the end of the car, and started along and we all followed.

“Follow your leader wherever he goes,” I said.

“He’s going straight home,” Pee-wee said.

“Are you sure you got out of the right end of the car?” Hervey asked him.

Pee-wee was still kind of half-asleep, and he stopped and looked around. “Sure, we got in at the end where the coupling is,” he said. “Come on, follow me.”

“You can’t fool Scout Harris,” I said; “not even with a couple of cups of couplings. Forward march, follow your leader!” And we started singing:

Pee-wee marched on ahead like a little soldier, munching an apple.

He marched along the tracks for about half a mile, through the woods. As he went along I remembered what Uncle Jeb said, that the woods look different when you’re going in the opposite direction from which you came. He said the way a tree looks depends on where you stand. And it’s the same with hills and everything. So that’s why the woods only look familiar when you’re going the same way that you went before. That’s the reason for blazing trails.

Uncle Jeb says a person looks different front and back and it’s the same with woods. Pee-wee marched along back the same way we had come, very bold and sure.

After a while he said, “I don’t know why we don’t come to the turnpike.”

“Maybe it’s because it isn’t here,” I said.

“Are you sure you’re going the right way?” Bert asked him.

“Sure I’m sure,” he said; “only it’s longer than I thought it was.”

“Maybe it got stretched,” I said.

Pee-wee just kept trudging along and he said, “Maybe it seems long because we’re kind of played out.”

“Oh, we don’t care as long as you get us home,” Garry said.

“We trust you implicitly,” Warde told him.

“You’re our guiding light,” Garry said.

Pee-wee just trudged on.

Pretty soon he said, “As long as you’re all so tired, maybe I can find—I think I know a short cut.”

“Take us the way the raven flies,” I said; “the shorter the quicker.”

“I can see a road over there through the trees,” he said. “That goes into the turnpike. It’ll be easier walking on the road.”

“As long as you know you’re going the right way,” I said.

“Sure I’m going the right way,” he said; “what’s the use of getting scared. We’ll be home in twenty minutes.”

“That’ll be nice,” Garry said.

“Won’t I be glad!” said Bert.

“Just you follow me,” Pee-wee said.

“We’re following,” I told him. “We’re following our leader wherever he goes. We know the animal cracker knows the woods. Have another apple?”

Next he left the tracks and cut over to the left where we could see a road through the trees. He hit into the road and hiked along.

“Sure you’re right?” Bert asked him.

“Do you think I don’t know the way?” the kid said, very disgusted.

“Don’t start to ask questions, or hint, or propose,” I said.

Pretty soon he came to a crossroad and g-o-o-d night magnolia! Right there, staring us in the face was the fickle signboard that I had turned around. Oh boy, you should have seen Pee-wee. The apple he was eating fell out of his hand and he just stood there staring. He couldn’t even speak.

“Don’t ask where you’re headed for nobody knows,” Hervey said.

I said, “Have no fear, our gallant leader is with us. Raving ravens do not get rattled. Trust to Scout Harris. He knows the way. Follow your leader.”

Maybe that signboard had been a pinwheel, but there it was at the very same spot where it had been before.

Warde said, “That’s one good thing about scouts, they always come back.”

I said, “Pee-wee led us the right way, only in the wrong direction.”

“Just as you said,” Garry put in, “the turnpike has disappeared. That’s why I never liked turnpikes, they’re so fickle.”

“There’s something wrong here!” the kid shouted.

“Sure,” I said, “it isn’t your fault, it’s the turnpike’s.”

“I started in the right direction,” Pee-wee shouted, “and I kept going in the right direction, you can’t deny it. I’d like to know how we got here?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” I said.

“I suppose we just walked here,” Bert said; “we followed our leader.”

Hervey started singing:

“Anyway, I’m sure I started in the right direction,” the kid said; “I don’t care what anybody says.”

I said, “Sure, if the right direction changes its mind that isn’t your fault. Come on, let’s go back. It’s long past dinner-time.”

“Let Warde be leader,” Hervey said; “he’s the only one here who has any sense.”

So we started following Warde back along the trail till we came to the railroad tracks and along those to the little iron ore car.

Hervey said, “The best way to find out which way to go is to spin the car around and call the coupling the arrow-head and go whichever way that points.”

“You’re crazy,” Pee-wee shouted. “Will you talk sense and let’s start for camp? We’ve been starting for camp all morning.”

“That’s the right way to do,” I told him; “have a lot of different starts and if you can’t use one you can use another. Didn’t you ever hear of having two strings to your bow? A scout should never try to go anywhere without having two or three extra starts.”

Just then Hervey and Bert and Garry started moving the turntable around and, good night, you should have seen Pee-wee stare. All of a sudden he went up like a sky rocket.

“Now I know what you did!” he yelled. “You turned this around while I was asleep—you can’t deny it. You made the right direction the wrong one!”

I said, “The right direction is just as much right now as it ever was. You can’t blame us.”

“You’re all crazy!” he screamed. “Are we going to go home to camp and get something to eat or not? Do you think I’m going to starve?”

“Not while you’re conscious,” I said. “Would you like to lead the way foodward or shall we elect another leader? What say we all? Shall Pee-wee lead us to the promised land or not? Answer, not. You’re rejected by a large plurality.”

“Let Garry try it,” Hervey said. “Warde’s all right only he has too much sense.”

So that time we started in the right direction, following the old tracks toward the turnpike, with Garry leading us. We kept singing Follow your leader just the same as before.

Now this is the chapter where we’re all so hungry. It’s dedicated to Hoover. The name of it was “The Famine” only I decided to use another name. But believe me, in this chapter we’re hungrier than war-torn Europe. All that morning we had been marching around the country singing those crazy rhymes and we were having so much fun that we didn’t realize it was past dinner-time. All we had had was one bite of chocolate each except the two bites that Pee-wee took. Seven bites isn’t much for six scouts.

Pretty soon we came out into the turnpike and then we knew the way back to camp. It was a pretty long hike but we knew the way. All we had to do was to follow the turnpike south till we came to the blackberry road and that would take us into the road to camp.

I said, “I hope the camp is still there.”

Warde said, “If we get back in time for supper we’ll be lucky.”

“How about lunch?” Pee-wee wanted to know.

“Nothing about it,” I said; “it just isn’t.”

“Do you think I’m going to walk ten miles with nothing to eat?” he shot back. “You call this a funny-bone hike, it’s a famine hike, that’s what it is. They’ll find our skeletons some day marching around through these woods——”

“Following our leader,” I said.

“That’ll be a funny-bone parade,” Garry said.

“It’ll be a bone parade all right,” I told him.

“Maybe we’ll strike a farmhouse,” Bert said.

Hervey said, “I know a better idea than that. What time is it?”

“Two o’clock,” I told him.

He said, “Good, I thought it was later. Do you like fish?”

“How many fish?” Pee-wee wanted to know.

“Oh just about,” Hervey said.

“If you’re asking me,” I told him, “I could even eat some fish-hooks I’m so hungry. I could eat a whole school of fish.”

“I could eat a whole university of them,” Garry said.

“Do you like them fried?” Hervey asked us.

“M-m-m-mm,” I said; “I can just hear them sizzling now. Lead me to them.”

He said, “We’ll have to wait for them. Let’s hang out on the bridge and pretty soon the fishing boat will come along; it always comes up from the Hudson about this time. I know the men on that boat, I’ve been out fishing with them. They’ll give us a couple of fish and we can cook them. You leave it to me, I’ll fix it.”

“What kind of fish do they catch?” Pee-wee wanted to know.

“Smoked herring and salt codfish and canned salmon,” I told him, “and whales.”

“I could eat a whole whale,” he said.

“Sometimes they catch fish-balls,” Hervey said.

“Fish-balls or footballs or baseballs or masquerade balls, I don’t care, I could eat anything,” I said.

So then Hervey led the way along the turnpike till we came to the bridge across the creek. That creek is pretty wide and it empties into the Hudson. We were feeling all cheered-up on account of the chance of getting something to eat and we marched along shouting:

Then Hervey started shouting:

Then Pee-wee began yelling:

Gee whiz, just as I told you, we were all crazy, especially Hervey Willetts; he was even crazier than I was and I was the craziest one there next to Bert and Warde and Garry. But one thing I’ll say for Hervey, he knows every place for miles around Temple Camp, and he knows everybody too, farmers and all.

In about five minutes we came to the bridge that the turnpike goes over. That bridge is a drawbridge and the creek under it is wide and deep and you can catch fish there only for one thing and that is that there aren’t any. There’s a big lever to turn the bridge around with.

“Let’s turn it around,” Hervey said.

“We’ve had enough turning around,” the kid shouted. “I’m not going to follow my leader any more till he starts eating fish.”

“Oh very well,” Hervey said, “I was just going to give you a free ride.”

“A free seat is good enough for me,” the kid said.

“I second the motion,” Warde said.

“There isn’t going to be any motion,” I said, quoth I. “This is going to be a case of sitting still.”

“Follow your leader,” Hervey said.

“What are you going to do? Stand on your head on the railing?” I asked him.

He just vaulted up onto the railing of the bridge and we all did the same and sat there swinging our legs and waiting for the fishing boat and singing those rhymes and changing them around. Pretty soon we were all shouting:

After about six weeks and ten years the fishing boat came chugging up the creek. Anyway it seemed as long as that before it came. The chugging of that engine sounded good.

“Now for the eats,” Garry said.

Hervey said, “They’ll have a lot of perch and some bass and maybe some soft-shell crabs.”

“Isn’t there anything in this creek?” the kid wanted to know.

“Nothing except water,” Hervey told him. “Anyway we haven’t got any fishline, have we? Thank goodness we’ve got some matches, we can start a fire.”

“We’ll fry them brown, hey?” Pee-wee said, all excited.

“Any color will suit me,” I told him.

“They won’t be any color at all when we get through with them,” Bert said.

By that time the boat was quite near and we could see a couple of baskets of fish in the cockpit, and there were two men. Oh boy, how I longed to eat them, I mean the fish. Pretty soon one of the men shouted for us to open the bridge, so they could pass.

I called, “Hey, mister, will you give us a couple of fish? We’re perched up here waiting for some perch.”

He laughed and said sure, but that we should open the bridge. Now the way to open that bridge was to walk around pushing a big iron handle like a crowbar only longer. It was kind of like a windlass. I guess one man could do it all right but it took three of us to get the bridge started. It wasn’t a very big bridge but I’m not saying anything about that because we’re not so big either except our appetites and maybe one reason we couldn’t push so well was because we were hungry.

Garry said, “I guess when the creek is nearly empty boats can go under this bridge all right.”

I said, “Don’t talk about being empty; I’m so full of emptiness it’s flowing over. Get your hands on this thing and push. If anything should go wrong now we’ll have to eat the Animal Cracker.”

So then we all started pushing the long iron handle—it was a lever, that’s what it was. All the while the boat was standing about twenty feet away from the bridge and one man was keeping her bow upstream with a big oar while the other man was kind of fumbling in one of the baskets picking out a nice big fish. Pretty soon he held one up all wet and dripping and, oh boy, it looked good. I guess it was nearly a foot long. He shouted, “How will that one do?”

“Mm-m-mm!” I said. “Lead me to it.”

“I know where there’s an old piece of tin in the woods,” Pee-wee said, all the while pushing the big lever for all he was worth; “a scout is observant.”

“I could eat a sheet of galvanized iron,” I told him. “A little salt and pepper and I could eat a piece of railroad track.”

“I mean to cook the fish on,” the kid said; “you’re crazy. Don’t you know how to fry a fish? I’m going to be the one to cook it because I’ve got the matches.”

“Hang on to them,” I said; “things are beginning to look better. Keep pushing; think of fried fish and keep pushing.”

Pee-wee began thinking harder and pushing harder; I could just see him thinking. And with one hand he felt in his pocket to make sure the matches were all safe. He carries matches in a box like a cylinder that shaving soap comes in.

It was kind of hard getting the bridge started but once it was started it kept moving slowly around. The reason you can move a bridge around like that is because it’s well balanced. But, gee whiz, I’m glad I’m not so well balanced because I wouldn’t have so much fun. Underneath the floor of the bridge were rollers on a track that went around in a circle. So pretty soon we had turned the bridge so that it was lengthways to the creek instead of across the creek and there was a passageway on either side of it where boats could pass.

“Marooned on a desert drawbridge,” Bert said.

“Poor, starving natives,” I said.

Garry said, “It’s like being on an island.”

“A merry-go-round, you mean,” Pee-wee said.

“Let’s call it Merry-go-round Island,” Hervey sang out.

Just then the boat came chugging very slowly along one side of the bridge and one of the men handed me the fish.

I said, “Many thanks and more of them, mister, you saved our lives.”

“Don’t let it slide out of your hands,” he said; “look out, it’s slippery.”

“If you let it slip out of your hands you’ll go in after it,” Pee-wee shouted.

Believe me, I kept tight hold of that fish. It was a dandy fish, it was big enough for about six people to have all they wanted.

The man said, “That will keep you quiet for a while; be sure to scrape all the scales off and clean him out good.”

“You leave that to us,” I told him, “we’re boy scouts. Cooking fish is our middle name. There’s only one thing we do better than cooking fish and that is eating them. We can eat them till the cows come home and sometimes the cows stay out all night where we live. Believe me, I never had much use for Henry Hudson in the history books, but I’m glad he discovered the Hudson River as well as the Hudson Boulevard.”

“That’s in Jersey City,” Pee-wee shouted. “Do you think that’s named after Henry Hudson?”

“It’s named after the Hudson automobile,” Garry said.

“Sure it is,” I told him, “just the same as the Hudson River is named after the Hudson River Day Line; you learn that in the fourth grade; here, take this fish while I help turn the merry-go-round around, around, around. Then we’ll eat.”

The boat went chugging up the creek, the men laughing and waving their hands at us. Pee-wee sat down on the floor of the bridge hugging the fish as if it were his long lost brother. The rest of us started pushing the lever.

But, oh boy, it didn’t push.