Roy Blakeley's Funny-bone Hike

“Come on and help,” I said to Pee-wee.

“Suppose the fish jumps off the bridge,” he said. “Do you think I’m going to take any chances?”

“The strength of an Animal Cracker doesn’t count for much,” Garry said.

“Look out the fish doesn’t jump in the creek with you,” I told Pee-wee.

Well, we pushed and pushed and pushed and braced our feet and kept pushing for dear life, but we couldn’t budge that lever. Pee-wee held the fish tight under one arm and helped us but it wasn’t any use. We just couldn’t budge the lever.

“We’re marooned for fair,” Bert said.

“Boy Scouts Starve on Merry-go-round Island,” I said. “That would be a good heading for a newspaper article.”

“Merry-go-standstill you mean,” Hervey began laughing. “What do we care? It’s all in the game. Come ahead, give her one more push; follow your leader.”

“Do you call starving a game?” the kid fairly yelled at him. I had to laugh, he looked so funny standing there with the fish under his arm.

We tried some more but—no use. “The merry-go-round has stalled,” I said. “We’ve got Robinson Crusoe tearing his hair with jealousy.”

“We’re on a desert island in earnest,” Bert said. He was the last to give up.

“Don’t talk about desert, it reminds me of dessert,” I said.

“I’m not so much in earnest either,” Hervey began laughing. “Come on, follow your leader.” Then he started to jump up on the railing.

I said, “It’s a very good joke; he, he, ho, ho, and a couple of ha ha’s! But how about lunch? We can’t start a fire on this bridge without burning it up and besides we haven’t got any kindling.”

“The only way we can get off the bridge is to burn it up,” Hervey said. “The boy scout stood on the burning bridge——”

“Eating fish by the peck,” I said. “This is a new kind of a desert island—1921 model. We made it ourselves. But what care we? We have food. We care naught, quoth I.”

“What good is the food?” Pee-wee screamed. “You broke the bridge, that’s what you did! And now we’ve got to go hungry.”

“Go?” I said. “What do you mean by ‘go’? You mean we’ve got to stay here hungry. Our skeletons will be found on Merry-go-round Island——”

“Following their leader,” Hervey said.

“Along with the skeleton of a faithful fish,” Bert said. “That’s what happens to young boys when they go around too much.”

“That’s what happens when any one goes around with this bunch,” the kid shouted. “You’re so crazy that it’s catching; even the sign posts and bridges go crazy. The next time I go on a funny-bone hike I won’t go at all, but if I do I’ll bring my lunch you can bet.”

“What’ll we do next?” Hervey wanted to know.

I said, “Let’s have a feast, let’s feast our eyes on the fish. I can just kind of hear him sizzling over the fire.”

“You can’t eat sizzles,” the kid said, very disgusted like.

I said, “No, but you can think of them. Let’s all think how fine the fish would taste if we could only cook him. Do you remember how we moved a lunch wagon by the power of our appetites? Maybe we can move the bridge that way.”

“You make me tired,” Pee-wee yelled. “If you hadn’t started this crazy—look at the chocolate bars you made us throw away.”

“I’d like to have a look at them,” I said.

We all perched up on the railing of the bridge, Pee-wee holding the fish under one arm for fear it might flop off the bridge. Safety first. Sitting the way we did we were all facing the shore. There were woods there and dandy places to build a fire. There were twigs and things all around.

I said, “It would be fine over there. We could just get that piece of tin Pee-wee was telling us about and gather up some of those nice dry twigs and start a little fire and let the tin get red hot and then lay the fish on it——”

“Shut up!” the kid shouted.

“Only the trouble is we’re marooned on a desert island,” I said. “Anyway there’s one thing I like and that is adventure. I was always crazy to starve on a desert island.”

“You don’t have to tell us you’re crazy,” Pee-wee said.

“We followed you back to the sign post,” I told him, “and you promised to cook us a fish. Let’s see you do it. A scout’s honor is to be trusted, he’s supposed to keep his word—scout law number forty-eleven.”

“How about diving?” Hervey asked. “It’s the only way to get into the water; there isn’t any way to climb down off this thing; the underneath part of it is way inside.”

“Where did you expect it to be? Up in the air?” I asked him. “The underneath part is usually underneath.”

“Not always,” Bert said.

“Well, anyway,” I said, “I’m not going to risk my life diving into water that I don’t know anything about. Suppose I should break my skull; what good would a fish dinner be to me?”

“That’s a good argument,” Garry said.

“It’s a peach of an argument,” I told him.

“It’s what Pee-wee calls logic. Gee whiz, but I’m hungry.”

“Same here,” Bert said.

“Same here,” Garry said.

“Same here,” Hervey said.

“Same here,” Warde said.

“I’m as hungry as the whole five of you put together,” our young hero said. “I heard a story that a man can go forty days without food, but you can’t get me to swallow that.”

“It’s about the only thing that you wouldn’t swallow,” I told him. “I’m so hungry I’d swallow any argument I ever heard; I’d swallow any kind of a story, especially a fish story.”

“There you go again,” Bert said; “what’s the good of reminding us about it?”

“I’d swallow a serial story,” I told him; “any kind of cereal, oatmeal, cream of wheat, or anything.”

So we just sat there looking across the creek into the woods, and swinging our legs, but we were too hungry to sing.

“Let’s look for a sail on the horizon,” Hervey said. “That’s always the way people do when they’re starving on desert drawbridges. This would make a good movie play.”

“You mean a good standing still play,” I said; “the trouble with this hike is there isn’t any action in it.”

“You mean there isn’t any food in it,” Pee-wee piped up.

“Don’t you care,” I told him, “there’s a desert island. What more do you want? And we’ve got plenty of food only we can’t cook it. That’s better than being able to cook it and not having any. We should worry.”

Now after that last chapter are supposed to come about ten chapters where we don’t do anything except just be hungry. But believe me, that’s enough. We just sat there swinging our legs from the railing of that desert island, scanning the horizon for a sail.

I said, “I wonder if there’s any treasure buried on this desert island. Maybe Captain Kidd secreted some Liberty Bonds here; maybe he hid some bars of gold.”

“I wish he had left some bars of chocolate here,” Warde said.

“Or some small change, chicken feed, or anything we could eat,” Garry put in. “I’d be glad to eat a bale of hay or shredded wheat or a whisk-broom or anything else like that.”

“They’re just about getting ready to cook supper at Temple Camp now,” Warde said; “Chocolate Drop^* is just about beginning to peel potatoes. Pretty soon he’ll be stirring up batter for cookies. I think they’re going to have strawberry jam and crullers to-night and—and cheese and—lemon pie. They’ll be having baked beans to-night, too, on account of it being Saturday. Oh boy, I can just see that nice slice of brown pork on top——”

“Will you keep still!” Pee-wee screamed.

“Sure,” said Hervey; “whatever it is, let’s do it. If we’re going to starve let’s get some fun out of it. I bet I can beat anybody starving.”

I said, “Pee-wee can beat you at that with both hands tied behind him, can’t you, Kid? Once I read about some men who were going to freeze to death in an ice cream freezer or somewhere; maybe it was up at the North Pole. So they wrote a note and stuck it up on a pole, maybe they stuck it on the North Pole, and they told what had become of them and how they had died a terrible death so that the world may be able to know about it. So let’s write a note and say that we starved here because we couldn’t cook a fish and that we hope our parents will take a lesson from us and not go round so much when they grow up. I was always wild, I used to ride on a runaway clotheshorse when I was a kid.”

“You’re a kid now,” our young hero shouted. “You think it’s funny, don’t you?”

“I know which is north and which is south,” I said, very sarcastic, “and anyway, I stay awake while I’m turning around. Do you think Cruson Robsoe got mad just because he was on a desert island? All he had was a footprint in the sand and we’ve got a fish—to look at. Isn’t he pretty? I bet there’s nice white meat inside of him, and a lot of bones. I wonder if he has a funny-bone? As long as we can’t get away from here let’s each tell our favorite dessert. I say let’s die bravely, like boy scouts, hungry to the end.”

All of a sudden, good night, Garry nearly fell off the railing; he was waving his hands and shouting, “A sail! A sail!”

“What kind of a sale?” Bert asked him. “A special sale or a cake sale or what? If it’s a cake sale lead me to it.”

Garry just kept shouting, “A sail! A sail! A sail on the horizon!”

“I don’t see any horizon,” I said. “Where is it?”

“Along there through the woods,” he said. “A sail! A sail! We are shaved!”

“What are you shouting about?” I said. “That isn’t a sail, it’s a Ford car! Hurrah! Hurrah! And a couple of hips!”

We all started shouting, “We are shaved! We are shaved! A Fraud car! A Fraud car on the horizon!” I guess the driver of that Ford car thought we were crazy.

“I hope he’ll stop before he runs into the creek,” Warde said.

The car was coming along the turnpike at the rate of about a half a million miles a year and I shouted, “Hey, mister, whoever you are, please stop before you get here; it was raining last night and the water is wet.”

“Stop your fooling,” the kid said.

I said, “Do you think I want that car to come plunging into the creek? Suppose that driver is blind.”

“She’s coming under full sail,” Garry said.

“Hurrah!” they all shouted.

“She’s missing in one cylinder,” Bert said. Then we all started shouting, “Saved! At last we are saved!”

Just then, good night, that Ford car turned off into a side road and we couldn’t see it any more.

“Now you see what you get for fooling,” the kid shot at me. “If we had shouted ‘help’ all together as loud as we could he’d have come straight along. You think it’s fun being imprisoned here with nothing to eat; you make me tired. Maybe you don’t know that not much traffic comes along this old turnpike; that’s why they don’t have any bridge-tender here.”

“They have tenderfoot bridge-tenders,” I said.

“Maybe no one else will come along all night,” Pee-wee said, “and then what are we going to do? Suppose a wagon or an auto should come along after dark and we didn’t see it coming; it would plunge to death and then I hope you’d be satisfied.”

“That’s right,” Warde said, kind of serious, “we haven’t even got a lantern to swing. How could we warn anybody?”

“We can’t even shout if we don’t get something to eat,” the kid said.

“Sure,” Bert said, “we’ll be so weak we won’t even be able to lift our voices.”

“We’re in a desperate predicament,” Pee-wee said, very dark and serious like. I guess he got those words out of the movies.

“Maybe we could tie a note to the fish and throw him in the water,” I said. “When someone catches him they’ll find out we’re in distress.”

“No you don’t,” the kid yelled, hanging onto the fish while I tried to take it away from him.

“If we could only send up a signal,” Warde said. “It’s all very well joking but if it gets dark it will be mighty bad with this bridge open and no one standing guard at the ends of the road.”

“There’ll be a tragedy,” the kid said.

Gee whiz, when I heard Warde speak that way I realized that it might be pretty dangerous there after dark. And I was a little scared about it because it seemed that no one came along that road very much and maybe it would be night before anyone came.

I said, “Well, if it gets toward night and no one comes either way I’ll take a chance and dive and swim to shore. One of you fellows will have to dive and swim to the other shore too.”

“I’ll do that,” Hervey sang out.

“But we’ll wait till it’s necessary,” I said.

Now maybe you think that because we are scouts we should have been able to get to shore easily enough, and if it were only a case of swimming that fish wouldn’t have anything on us. But we couldn’t get from that bridge into the water except by diving and diving is dangerous when you don’t know the water you’re diving into. Especially near a bridge it’s dangerous because there are apt to be piles sticking up under the surface of the water. So that’s why we have a rule never to dive unless we know about the place where we’re diving. But, gee whiz, if it’s a case of an auto plunging into the water or taking a chance myself, I’ll take the chance every time. And I know that Hervey Willetts would dive into the Hudson River from the top of the Woolworth Building if anybody dared him to do it.

“Anyway, let’s not lose our morale,” I said. “We’re here because we’re here. Scouts are supposed to be resourceful; let’s sit up on the railing again and think.”

“As soon as the sun goes down I’m going to dive,” Hervey said. “Do you see that big maple tree in the woods? As soon as I can’t count the leaves on that top branch any more I’m going to dive. I don’t know how deep it is or what’s under the water, but I’m going to stand guard down the road a ways. What do you say?”

“Are you asking me?” I asked him.

“I sure am,” he said; “you’re the only patrol leader here.”

I just said, “Well, if you want to know what I’m going to do I’ll tell you. I never broke up a game yet. I’m going to follow my leader wherever he goes. I’m going to take care of the other side of the road. I’m not going to ask where I’m headed for nobody knows. And I’m not going to weaken or flunk or suggest or oppose. And I’m not going to start to ask questions, or hint or propose. There are some scouts here that are not so stuck on this crazy game. But, believe me, it’s more of a game than I thought it was. You were the one that started it. No people are going to lose their lives on account of us. I’m going to follow my leader wherever he goes. So now you know.”

“Do you call me a quitter?” Pee-wee shouted in my face.

“Look out for the fish,” I said.

“I don’t care anything about the fish,” he yelled. “I’m not hungry. I’m in this funny-bone hike and I’ll follow Hervey Willetts if he—if he—if he—stands on his head on top of a bonfire—I will. So there!”

“He wouldn’t do such a thing, don’t worry,” I said. “He couldn’t keep still long enough. Pick up the fish before he flops off the desert island. Safety first, that’s our motto. Hey, Hervey?”

“That’s us,” Hervey said. “Let’s tell some riddles.”

So then we all sat on the railing of the desert island and sang Follow your leader, and Pee-wee joined in good and loud. He kept the fish under his arm. When it comes to a showdown Pee-wee is loyal. He can even be loyal to a fish.

Maybe we sat there for as much as an hour and Hervey was telling us about all the crazy things you can do on a Follow your leader hike. All of a sudden Garry shouted, “A sail! A sail! Another sail on the horizon!”

“Is it the same horizon?” I asked him.

“It’s a red sail,” he said.

“It’s a red cow, you mean,” I told him.

“We are saved!” they all started yelling again. “A cow! A cow! A red cow with white spots! She is coming to our rescue!”

“Maybe she’ll give us some malted milk,” Hervey said.

Oh boy, I had to laugh. There, away way down the road a cow was coming along, waddling from one side to the other and as she came nearer we could see how she was swishing her tail.

“She’s making about ten knots an hour,” Garry said; “she’s coming straight for us. She is bringing milk to the starving castaways. Watch and see if she turns into that side road.”

“She has passed it!” Bert yelled. “She is coming straight for us under full sail. Hold the fish up as a signal of distress. She is a hero, I mean a shero.”

It looked awful funny to see that old cow lumbering along, and every time she stopped to eat a leaf or something we thought she was going to turn into a side lane.

“There’s a little girl right behind her,” Bert said. “She’s carrying a big whip; she’s driving the cow.”

That little girl was about half as big as Pee-wee. She had on a big sunbonnet and a kind of a gingham apron and she came hiking along behind the cow with that great big whip over her shoulder. She looked awful little.

“Do you think I want to be rescued by her?” the kid shouted.

“I’d let a mosquito rescue me, I’m so hungry,” I said.

Pretty soon the little girl and the cow were right at the end of the road where the end of the bridge belonged. The cow didn’t seem surprised but the little girl did. The cow just started to eat grass as if she didn’t care whether she got across or not.

“Road closed on account of a desert island,” Bert called.

“You have to take a detour around through the Panama Canal,” Garry shouted. “Don’t be frightened, we won’t hurt you.”

I said, “Hey, little girl, would you be kind enough to go to the nearest house and tell the people that some boy scouts are starving on this bridge on account of it being open?”

“Why don’t you close it,” she asked us kind of just a little bit scared and surprised.

“Because it doesn’t work,” I said. “See, we’ll show you. It’s on a strike.”

So then we all started pushing the big lever and she began to laugh.

“Do you think it’s a joke?” Pee-wee shouted at her.

“You’rrre dunces,” she said, rolling her r’s awful funny. “Do you think you can push it arraound like a trreadmill churrrn?”

“I don’t know what a treadmill churn is,” I told her, “because I’ve never been marooned on one——”

“Don’t you even know how to make butterrr?” she said.

“We know how to eat it,” I said, “and that’s enough.”

“You’rrre trying to turrrn it raound,” she called. “It daon’t go all the way raound, it goes back. Lift that plug in the floorrr and put the leverrr in therrre and then push; it’ll go back the same way. It only goes half-way and back—Mr. Smarrrty.”

“G-o-o-d night!” I said. “I thought it was a merry-go-round.”

“Did you think you werrre ter th’ caounty fairrr?” she asked us.

She just stood there staring at us as if she thought we were escaped lunatics from Luna Park.

I said, “Pardon us, but we never studied drawing so we don’t know anything about drawbridges. Do you mean this thing in the floor that looks like the head of a bolt?”

“Right therrre at yourrr feet,” she said.

On the floor about three feet from the lever was a kind of a round iron plate that looked like the top of a big bolt. It was just a kind of a plug and it lifted out. All we had to do was to haul the lever out and put it in there and push. There was a kind of reverse gear that made the bridge go back. And all the while we had been pushing and pushing and trying to make that pesky old bridge keep going around like a merry-go-round. But that wasn’t the way it worked. The end of it that belonged at the north had to go back to the north; the bridge only went half-way around.

It wasn’t hard closing it again when we got it started. It moved back very slowly until the ends of it fitted the ends of the road. The little girl just stood there kind of disgusted with us. Pee-wee didn’t say a word.

As soon as the way was open the cow started across, the little girl after her. She looked back two or three times as if she didn’t know what to make of us. Once the cow looked back, kind of puzzled like; that’s the way it seemed to me.

“Rescued by a brave, heroic little girl,” I said, as we went tramping off into the road.

“Let’s be sure that we’re headed in the right direction,” Warde said. “After what happened I don’t trust myself at all. Is this the end of the bridge we got on at, or is it the other end?”

“It’s one end or the other,” I said.

“One end’s as good as the other if not better,” Hervey said. “Come on, follow your leader——”

“Have a heart,” I said; “wait a minute. Let me collect my senses. That’s north and that’s south, and the Hudson is over that way—east. This creek flows into the Hudson. All right, we’re supposed to go in the opposite direction from the direction that little girl is taking. We’re on the right end of the bridge.”

“Right,” Warde said.

“That means that the piece of tin that Pee-wee saw is across the bridge,” Bert said.

“I’ll go back and hunt for it,” said Pee-wee. “Here, hold the fish.”

“At last we’re going to have something to eat,” I said; “I’m so hungry I could eat the piece of tin and all.”

“You’re not going to tell them at camp that we were saved by a little girl, are you?” Pee-wee wanted to know.

“Yes, and I’m going to tell them that a cow laughed at us,” I said. “Hurry up, go and hunt up that piece of tin; I’m starving.”

You see how it was, we were at the north end of the bridge and our way was north. I’m telling you because everything was so mixed up on that crazy hike that maybe you don’t know where you’re at. This is chapter Seventeen and it’s called, “We Cook the Duck” but you can’t always go by names. Don’t get worried, if you lose your way just follow me.

After that terrible adventure the principal thing about us was that we were hungry; we were a kind of a walking famine. I don’t know if that fish shrunk, but anyway it didn’t look as big as it had looked before. I guess it was because our appetites were bigger.

Pee-wee started back across the bridge to hunt for the piece of tin he had seen in the woods, and the rest of us began gathering twigs and pieces of wood for a fire. Oh boy, but that fish looked good! He was dead by that time but he was good and fresh just the same. We ran a forked stick through his gills and hung him in the water where it was cool and sat around waiting for Pee-wee. We had everything all ready to start the fire.

Pretty soon along came our young hero with the piece of tin, tiptoeing across the bridge, very excited and mysterious.

I said, “What’s the matter now? Are we supposed to follow your lead when you do that? Wait till we have something to eat first.”

“Don’t talk about anything to eat,” he whispered; “we’re going to have a feast, we’re going to have a banquet, we’re going to have roast duck. Shh! Here, take this tin. Look over there in the marshes. See? Almost under the end of the bridge? Do you see that streak of white? Shh! That’s a duck. He’s caught in the branches of that—shh!”

We all tiptoed very softly about half-way across the bridge and leaned way over the railing at the place that he pointed out to us under the other end. There was an old fallen tree there and some of its branches were sticking out of the water. In among them was a duck. I guessed he must have been caught there. It seemed as if he didn’t see us or hear us, so I thought he must be caught there in some way because ducks are so suspicious.

“Mm-mmm!” I said. “I can just taste him.”

“Looks good to me,” Garry said.

“Talk low,” said Bert.

“Go back and wait, I’m going to get him,” the kid said. “I was the one to discover him.”

“I don’t care who gets him as long as I can eat him,” I said.

“We’ll roast him, hey?” the kid whispered. “Go back and wait.”

“Look out you don’t scare him away,” Warde said; “even if he’s caught there he might break loose. Go easy and stalk him.”

“You leave it to me,” the kid said. “You go back and have everything ready. Maybe you think just because Roy and Hervey can lead us in a lot of crazy stunts that they’re the only scouts here. But you have to thank me for roast duck, so you see?”

“You’re so smart you can even find a sign post——”

“Shh-h!” he said, starting off.

“If there’s any cranberry sauce down there bring it along, too,” I said.

He waved his hand behind him for us to keep still, and went tiptoeing back across the bridge. We went back to the place where we were going to make our fire. We could see him take off his khaki shirt (so he wouldn’t get it wet, I suppose) and hang it over the railing of the bridge. Pretty soon we could see him down below, across the creek, crawling over that fallen tree.

Warde said, “This will be a big feather in Pee-wee’s cap.”

“It will be a big helping on my plate you mean,” I said.

“What do you mean, plate?” Bert wanted to know.

“Look! What do you know about that? The little codger’s got him!” Garry shouted.

“Mm-rn!” I said. “We’ll fry the fish and eat him while we’re waiting for the duck to cook.”

“Let’s not bother with the fish,” I said: “Luck seems to be coming our way at last.

“Have you got him?” I shouted to Pee-wee as he climbed up over the railing at the other end of the bridge.

“Yop,” I heard him say.

“We’ll only have to clean the fish and scale him,” Warde said, “and it’ll be a nuisance. Let’s fry the duck instead. There’ll be plenty for all hands because that’s a good big one. Fish only makes you thirsty, anyway. I’m not so crazy about fish—not when there’s duck. Mmm!”

“We should worry about the fish,” I said, and I went over to the water and threw the fish into the water, stick and all. “He only brought us bad luck anyway,” I said.

“Sure,” Garry said; “give me duck any day. Look at the size of that one, will you?”

“I think it’s a goose,” Bert said.

“I think it’s a swan,” Hervey said.

“It’ll be much easier to eat a duck without any plates or knives or forks,” I said; “we should worry about fish. We can just take the duck’s legs and wings and—oh boy—we can just pick them dry.”

“Hurry up with the duck,” Hervey called to Pee-wee; “we’re not going to bother about the fish. Come on, we’re hungry.”

By that time Pee-wee was about half-way across the bridge. “It’s a decoy duck,” he panted out; “it’s—it’s—just made of wood——”

“What?” I shouted.

“What are you talking about?” Garry hollered at him.

“This is no time for joking,” Hervey said. “Hurry up.”

Pee-wee just came along with a kind of a shamefaced look, and I could see that the duck didn’t hang limp.

“It’s made of wood, it’s a decoy duck,” he said.

None of us spoke, we just looked at him.

“Here, take it and see for yourself,” he said to me.

I said, “Scout Harris, alias Raving Raven, alias Animal Cracker, you have done one good turn. You have brought your starving comrades a wooden duck just after they threw the fish into the creek. You have done your worst.”

“What are you talking about?” he yelled.

“It is true,” I told him; “the plot grows thicker. This is a funny-bone hike and nothing happens right. Sit down and starve with us. Here, give me the wooden duck. If we should catch a pig on this hike it would turn out to be pig iron. If we caught a cow it would turn out to be a cowslip. Don’t blame me, blame Hervey Willetts, he started it.”

All of a sudden, splash, Hervey was in the creek, swimming for dear life. We all stood on the shore watching him.

“A marathon race with a fish,” Bert shouted.

“Follow your leader,” I yelled at Hervey.

“Leave it to me,” Hervey spluttered, “I’ll get him.”

Down the creek we could see a stick bobbing. Pretty soon Hervey caught up with it and grabbed it.

“Hurrah!” we all shouted.

“I tell you what let’s do,” Pee-wee said.

“Animal Cracker,” I said, “a boy scout is supposed to be polite. He’s not supposed to kill a brother scout. But if you make any suggestions or promise us any more eats you’re going to die a horrible death.”

“Was I to blame because it was made of wood?” he shouted at me.

“I’ve tasted tougher ducks than that,” Warde said.

“Let bygones be bygones,” Garry said. “Thank goodness we’ve got our fish back. It was a narrow escape.”

“I’d like to know——” the kid began.

“You don’t need to know, it’s all right,” I said.

“You’re so smart——” he started again.

“We’re so smart,” I told him, “that we——”

“Will you let me speak?” he screamed.

“No, what is it?” I said.

“My shirt fell in the water and we haven’t got any matches,” he said. “So what good is the fish? I’ve been trying to tell you that for five minutes.”

I didn’t say anything, I just lay down on the ground. The rest of them did the same. “Follow your leader,” Garry groaned.

“This is too much,” I said; “let me die in peace.”

“What’s the matter?” Hervey asked, climbing out of the water with the precious fish.

“Oh nothing,” I said, “except Pee-wee’s shirt fell in the water over at the other end of the bridge and we haven’t got any matches. Don’t worry, they’ll find our bodies here; lie down, it’s all over. Pee-wee wins.”

So there we all lay sprawled on the ground, the kid sitting up watching us.

“We did our best to eat and live,” I said, “but the West Shore Railroad and turntables and sign posts and drawbridges and wooden ducks were too much for us. Come on, I’m going to die, follow your leader.”

“There’s a way to kindle a fire without a match,” the kid said.

“Yes, and it sounds nice in the handbook too. But did you ever try it?” I asked him. “Don’t talk to me. Tell my patrol that my last thoughts were of them. Tell Westy Martin he can have my dessert at dinner; tell him to think of me while he’s eating.”

All of a sudden somebody shouted, “A sail! A sail! A sail on the horizon!”

“Same old horizon,” I said. “What kind of a sale is it now?”

All of a sudden up jumped Pee-wee. “Good turns are like chickens,” he said.

“Don’t talk about chickens,” I told him; “have a heart.”

“They come home to roast,” he said.

“When we haven’t any matches?” I said. “That’s very kind of them. Can’t you let me die in peace?”

“It’s the Italian with the donkey,” he said; “the donkey we pulled off the railroad track with the gas engine, and he’s smoking a pipe——”

“Who? The donkey?” I asked him.

“The man,” Pee-wee said; “so he must have matches. Hurrah!”

We all sat up at once and stared up the road. And, oh boy, as sure as you live, there was that old scissors-grinding wagon coming toward us, and the donkey should have been arrested for speeding, because he was going about two inches a year. Up on the seat sat our Italian friend, smoking a pipe.

“Hey, Tony!” I shouted. “Have you got any matches or sandwiches, or sawdust or spaghetti or old scissors or pieces of leather or rye bread or peanuts or steel nuts or pie or anything else we can eat? We’re starving.”

“Hey, boss, how you do?” he shouted. He was smiling all over.

That man had a lot of lunch, pickles and bologna and a pail of spaghetti and bread and everything, and there was only one thing that we didn’t like about it, and that was that he had already eaten it about an hour before. So it didn’t do us much good. It only made us hungrier when he told us about it. He said, “Badda luck, hey, Boss? Spagett, ah, what d’you call it, nice. You lika, huh?”

Warde said, “We don’t like spaghetti that’s already passed into history.”

“We don’t like history, anyway,” I said. “But have you got any matches?”

The man said, “Hey, sure, boss, plenty de match.”

So he gave us some matches and about half a loaf of shiny looking bread that he had left from his own lunch and then he went along across the bridge. We asked him how business was and he said, “No biz.”

After that we got our fire started and we cooked our fish on the tin that Pee-wee had found and, yum yum, but that lunch tasted good. Maybe if you were ever a starving mariner shipwrecked on a desert island, you’ll know how that lunch tasted.

We were good and tired so we sprawled around in the woods near the creek and jollied each other, especially Pee-wee.

Warde said, “The next time anybody mentions a funny-bone hike to me——”

“What do you know about funny-bone hikes?” Hervey shot back. “You’ve only seen the beginning of one. What we’ve been doing up to now is just a demonstration.”

“Good night, have a heart,” I said.

Hervey just lay there on his back with one leg up in the air, catching that crazy hat of his on his foot and trying to kick it back on his face—honest, that fellow’s a scream. All the while he was singing:

I said, “Sure, maybe if we’re patient we’ll have some mishaps. While there’s life there’s hope.”

“Trust to Hervey,” Bert said.

Pee-wee said, “I could do without the mishaps if I had some more food.”

“When you’re hungry you’re supposed to eat a little at a time,” I told him. “Don’t you know when a man is starving they give him one spoonful of milk to begin with? You have to get used to eating.”

“I’m used to it already,” our young hero shouted.

Warde said, “You’d better look out; did you ever hear about the fish——”

“There isn’t any more fish,” I said.

“He was in a globe,” Warde said, “and the man that owned him took a spoonful of water out of the globe each day until that fish gradually learned to live on dry land.”

“What are you talking about?” Pee-wee screamed.

“I knew that fish personally,” Warde said; “and one day the man took him out for a walk and the fish fell into a pond and was drowned.”

“That’s nothing,” Hervey said. “I knew a snake that lived in the tropics where it was very hot and he came to New York on a visit, and he fell into a furnace and froze to death.”

“Do you expect me to believe that?” Pee-wee yelled.

“Sure,” Hervey said, “if I believe it you’ve got to believe it, because I’m your leader. From this time on we’re going to play the game right, if I’m going to be leader.”

“We have more fun doing things wrong,” I said.

“Sure,” he said, all the while kicking his hat; “the things may be wrong but we’re supposed to do them right.”

“Now I know you’re crazy,” Pee-wee said.

“Are you all willing to play the game right?” Hervey wanted to know.

“Anything you say,” I told him; “we’re prepared for the worst.”

“You needn’t think I’m going without supper and breakfast,” the kid said.

Hervey just lay there on his back putting his hat onto his foot and trying to kick it onto his head.

“Are we supposed to do that?” I asked him.

He said, “This is intermission, this is lunch hour. But when I jump up and say, ‘Scrhlmxmi’——”

“What?” Pee-wee yelled.

“It’s a Greek word, it means ‘we should worry,’” I said.

Hervey said, “I’ll tell you how it is if you want to play the game right. You’re supposed to follow your leader in everything. If he laughs, you must laugh; if he keeps still, you must keep still; if he has a headache, you must have a headache.”

“Do you think I’m going to have a headache just to please you?” Pee-wee shouted in his face. “How about toothaches, and—and—appendicitis—and——”

“Follow your leader,” Hervey said.

“Yes, and where will we be at supper-time?” the kid wanted to know.

“There’s another verse that goes with that game,” Hervey said. Then he began singing all the while trying to balance a stick on his nose while he was lying on the ground. Gee whiz, I had to laugh, he looked so funny. This was the song: