THE QUITTER
Now pretty soon it’s going to start. The next morning we went in front
of Administration Shack and everybody was there laughing at us. I made a
kind of a speech. I said, “We, the big four, I mean the big three and a
half, on account of Pee-wee, do solemnly pledge our words that we will
go the way the wind blows till five o’clock to-night, because then we’ll
have to come home on account of supper. The solemn pledge only lasts
till five o’clock.”
One Scout said, “Why don’t you make it last for the rest of the season?
If you got back by Labor Day that would be all right. What’s your
hurry?”
I said, “We will be at camp-fire to-night with much scientific
information to impart about the winds because wherever they go, we’re
going to follow them with Scout Harris’ famous windmeter, patent not
applied for.”
So then I held up that crazy thing and the confetti all blew out
pointing into the woods up in back of the camp. That was west. The
cricket escaped out of the bottle--I guess he decided he didn’t want to
go. I dumped the lightning bug out, too. So then we started up into the
woods and every now and then we held up the windmeter to make sure we
were going right. Oh boy, we were having a peachy hike. It was like a
regular, sensible hike, even. Pretty soon I knew we were coming to
Bagley’s Green, that’s a village. You go through the woods about two
miles and then you come to the railroad cut and then Bagley’s Green.
Now I’ll tell you how it was. When we started out it was early in the
morning and there was a good breeze. You know how it is mornings. But by
the time we got to Bagley’s Green the breeze had died down. There’s a
kind of a little park sort of where the railroad station is and when we
got to that, there wasn’t any breeze at all.
I said, “A Scout’s honor is to be toasted or trusted or something or
other. We’ve got to stop here till the wind springs up. And anyway, I
just as soon take a rest. If the wind can take a rest, we can, too.
What’s fair for one is fair for all.”
So we all sat down on the grass in the middle of that place, we should
worry. It was a kind of a big lawn all around the station.
Dub said, “If the breeze started coming from the east we wouldn’t know
it on account of the station; the station would act like a windshield.”
I said, “Don’t worry, if we see it acting that way, we’ll know the wind
is around on the other side of it. We’ll appoint Pee-wee a committee to
watch how the station acts.”
Egg Sandwich said, “What are we going to do, just sit here?”
“Sure,” I said, “it’s according to rules. We’re governed by the wind. We
may have to stay here for hours.”
“How can we be governed by the wind when there isn’t any?” the kid
wanted to know.
“That’s easy,” I told him. “You might as well say how can we starve if
we haven’t got any food to be deprived of. Gee whiz, you’re in the third
grade and take up zoology and you don’t know that! I’ll have a game of
mumbly-peg with anybody,” I said.
Dub said, “This is a fine kind of a hike--two miles and then get
stalled.”
“Look at ships; don’t they get becalmed?” I said. “Come on, let’s have a
game of mumbly-peg.”
So then we all started playing mumbly-peg with Dub’s jack-knife. I said,
“Gee, this is a dandy hike; it’s the best hike I ever didn’t take; you
don’t get all tired out, that’s one thing.”
“It’s a hikeless hike,” Sandy said. Sometimes we called that fellow
Sandy, but that’s not saying anything against egg sandwiches.
“If we don’t think up some other kind of a hike, we’ll be stalled here
all night, maybe,” Pee-wee said. “Anyway, till five o’clock. Do you
think I want to sit here in the sun and play mumbly-peg all afternoon?
Geeeee whiz!”
“Don’t blame me, blame the wind,” I told him.
“How can I blame it when there isn’t any to blame?” he shouted.
“That’s a good argument,” I told him.
“I’m thinking about lunch-time more than I’m thinking about arguments,”
Pee-wee said. “What are we going to do at twelve o’clock?”
“We’ll eat our own words,” Sandy said, “and go any way we want to.”
“Sure, a couple of solemn vows will make a nice lunch,” I said. “What do
we care where we go? The wind is the quitter, not us, I should worry.” I
said, “We’ll stay here till twelve o’clock and if the breeze doesn’t
spring up by that time, we’ll go to the next village willynilly, that
means any way no matter what. Then, we’ll buy some eats.”
“If we had brought some with us like I wanted to do, we could eat them
now,” Pee-wee said. “That’s what we get for starting out not prepared
like Scouts are supposed not ever to do--now you see what we get.”
“I don’t see it,” Dub said.
“You mean what we don’t get,” I said. “Where do you suppose that breeze
went anyway? I’d just like to know where it went.”
“Maybe it went crazy like you,” Pee-wee shouted.
“I never thought of that,” I told him.
Jiminies, we were all sprawling on the grass talking a lot of nonsense
and kidding Pee-wee and taking each other’s hats off and pulling up
grass and throwing it in each other’s faces--a lot we cared about
hiking.
“Now you see how it is,” the Kid said to Dub and Sandy. “Do you blame
the Scouts over at camp that they won’t go on hikes with him--gee whiz,
they all had a taste of it. We always get stalled like this and just sit
around fooling and don’t do anything and he calls it a hike. Even he’ll
write all about it and a publisher will print it to show how crazy he is
and he’ll expect fellers to buy those books where he tells a lot of
crazy nonsense. This is the first summer you fellers ever saw him, but
he’s like this all the time, you ask Westy Martin in his own patrol.
He’s the only one of them that’s got any sense.”
I said, “Scout Harris, you will cease talking about my old college
chump, Westy Martin. I won’t hear another word against him. He can’t
help it if he has some sense--he’s more to be pitied than blamed. I
won’t hear a word against him--not even a punctuation mark. Anyway,
what’s the use of having sense? That’s one law I have no use for, the
law of gravity.”
Dub said, “Let’s tell riddles.”
“Sure,” I said, “that’s a good idea. Now the hike is really started. Why
doesn’t Santa Claus wear a scout suit? Give me any answer, I don’t care
what, and I’ll give you the question to it.”
“Why doesn’t Santa Claus wear a scout suit?” the kid shouted.
“Because there isn’t any Santa Claus,” I told him. “No sooner said than
stung. Open your mouth and I’ll shoot this grasshopper in it.”
By that time, Dub and Sandy were lying on their backs kicking their legs
and laughing so hard they couldn’t speak.
After a while, Dub said, “Here’s an answer, and you give me the question
to it.”
“Absotively, posolutely,” I told him.
He said, “The answer is _yes_.”
“The question is, is it?” I told him. “Any one else wants to ask an
answer?”
“I’ll ask one,” Sandy said. “_Yes, we have no marbles._”
“The question to that is, _Why don’t we make some marble cake?_” I said.
“The way you do it is to subtract the adverb from the combined total
with one to carry. Here comes a man.”
“You better stop your nonsense or he’ll think you’re crazy,” Pee-wee
said. “I bet he’s going to chase us away from here.”
“I wonder where _he_ blew in from,” Sandy said.
“_Blew in!_ That’s a good one!” Dub said. “There isn’t enough breeze to
blow any one to an ice cream soda.”
“Well, I’m going to go to one pretty soon whether I get blown to it or
not,” Pee-wee shouted.
By that time we were all sitting up brushing the grass off ourselves and
straightening up our hair kind of, on account of the man who was coming
toward us.
“I think something is going to happen,” Dub said.