THE LAST HIKE
So that’s the way he did, we all hiked down to Catskill to see Dub off.
The Scouts that went were the Big Four and Will Dawson. All my patrol
wanted to go but I wouldn’t let them because I was going to do just the
way Dub wanted. I told Pee-wee we were all going to be good and crazy,
so as to make Dub feel good. The kid said, “I knew it before you told
me.”
I told him, “If you want to stay behind the pleasure is ours. We’ll be
able to have fifty-two more ice cream cones each.”
There are four ways to hike from Temple Camp to Catskill and each one is
better than the other. But the best way is through Leeds because you
pass Merrill’s farm and there’s an apple tree that sticks out over the
stone wall. But anyway it was too early for apples. You go up the hill
in back of the camp till you get to the road, then you turn left and go
till you come to a cross-road with a sign that says TEMPLE CAMP
COMMUNITY and an arrow pointing toward the camp. That’s where you turn
left again and you go till you come to a noise--it’s a waterfall. At
night you have to listen for that noise so as to know where to cut
across fields. Then you come to the main road and that takes you to
Catskill. If you go to Catskill most always you’ll see Scouts from
Temple Camp there. If you don’t see them anywhere else look in Benny’s,
that’s where you get hot dogs.
Dub was going down on the three-ten train so Chocolate Drop gave us our
dinner early because we wanted to have plenty of time to take it easy.
The way the Handbook says you should do is to set a nice easy pace. It
says about hiking that you should never walk over anything that you can
walk around. And you should never step on anything if you can step over
it because you have to lift the weight of your body. And besides that,
the Silver Fox Patrol has a rule that you must never walk more than one
mile at a time, then you don’t get tired.
While we were moping along--you know how we go, just kind of fooling and
everything--Sandy said, “The Handbook is crazy. If you should never walk
over anything that you can walk around how can anybody expect to get
anywhere? Suppose we come to a block and start walking around the block.
Where would we get to, I’d like to know?”
I said, “That’s a dandy argument.”
“Do you mean the Handbook doesn’t know what it’s talking about?” Pee-wee
shot out. “I know where it says that.”
“Sure, it’s crazy,” I said. “It says about hiking that you shouldn’t
step on anything, but over it. How are you going to hike if you can’t
step on the ground? I’ll leave it to Dub.”
Dub was just laughing. He said, “This is sure some bunch to hike with.”
“I’m glad you like us,” I told him. “We aim to please. One thing, we
have plenty of sense only we don’t take it around with us while hiking.
Walk briskly, throw the chest out but look out where you throw it, take
deep breaths, also take apples if you can find any.”
Pee-wee said, “We ought to have asked Bobby Easton to come with us
because he’s kind of in our crowd on account of me giving him the chance
to get the Gold Life Saving Medal. He’s got his hundred dollars too,
now, and I bet he’d treat to ice cream. He says he’s going to buy a
canoe for the races on Labor Day and I told him I’d fix it for him so he
could keep it in one of the lockers.”
“You’ll get killed one of these days fixing something,” Sandy told him.
“Sure, in the end he’ll have to get his jaw fixed,” I said.
Dub said, “I don’t think his jaw will ever need to be fixed, it seems to
be in pretty good shape.”
“Did you see Bobby’s Gold Medal?” the kid piped up. “It’s a new kind of
a one, it’s got all filigree around it, and it says FOR LIFE SAVING. I
had to be a witness to prove I got saved. I had to prove it that I’m
alive.”
“You don’t have to prove that,” I said.
Sandy said, “I’m going to get a new kind of award started. It’s going to
be made out of fourteen carat gold----”
“Fourteen carrots are nothing for Pee-wee,” I said. “If I was making a
medal for him I’d have fourteen carrots, nineteen turnips, a lot of
mashed potatoes and three helpings of blackberry pudding. I’d have the
medal in the shape of a pancake, hey Dub?”
Sandy said, “My new medal would be all studded with diamonds and it
would be given to any Scout who failed to save Pee-wee’s life.”
“That’s a fine idea,” I said.
“If it wasn’t for me Bobby Easton wouldn’t have that medal or the
hundred dollars either,” Pee-wee shouted. “He’s going to save fifty
dollars of it for when he comes up next summer and the two of us are
going to build a cabin and there ain’t going to be any Silver Foxes
allowed to come to it.”
“The pleasure is ours,” I told him.
“A Gold Medal Scout has to kind of live by himself kind of away from
other fellows,” the kid said.
“I wish you were one then,” I told him. “The further off the better. The
North Pole would be a good place, you could get plenty of pineapple ice
up there.”
“Did you see the bulletin-board to-day?” the kid piped up.
“No, did you fix that?” I asked him.
He said, “There’s an announcement that I wrote that to-morrow night
there’s going to be a show that I’m going to give in the Pavilion, it’s
two cents to get in. It’s going to be an exhibition of beetles and
caterpillars and special kinds of spiders, and there are going to be
some lizards too, and I’m going to give a lecture about them.”
“Now at last I realize how lucky I am,” Dub said.
“Be thankful there’s a place called Jersey City,” I told him.
Maybe I never told you that Pee-wee has a Bronx Park zoo in a cigar box.
I didn’t want him to keep talking about what the Scouts would be doing
at camp all summer, because I was thinking about Dub, so I said, “Come
on, let’s play _Follow Your Leader_, only we have to keep going in the
right direction. The idea is to advance by easy stages, merrily,
merrily, toward Catskill Landing. We’ve got to be there by ten-three.”
“You mean three-ten!” Pee-wee shouted.
“It’s the same only different,” I told him.
“We have to be there in time to get sodas before the train comes,” the
kid said. “Didn’t you say you were going to treat us all on account of
Dub?”
“Come on,” I said, “follow your leader.”