Now that chapter was about law and this one is about geography, kind of.
Maybe I’ll have one about civil government, too. I bet you’ll skip that
one, hey? Anyway, I’m glad we don’t have uncivil government in school,
because I guess that’s worse. There’s a civil engineer in our town and
he’s not so civil. A scout has to be civil, that’s another law.
I guess before I tell you any geography, I’ll tell you some history.
That’s my favorite study—history. I got nine points in that last term.
A couple of years ago, Mr. Temple, he’s rich, he owns a lot of
railroads—a couple of years ago he gave us an old railroad car to use
for a scout headquarters. That car used to stand on a side up at
Brewster’s Centre, and it was used for a station until the railroad
built a new station.
Then Mr. Temple told the railroad people to bring it down to Bridgeboro,
where we live, but instead of doing that they took it ’way out west by
mistake. Anyway, we were glad because we happened to be in it. I said,
“I don’t care how far it takes us as long as it doesn’t roll down the
Pacific slope and dump us in the ocean.”
We had a lot of fun riding around the country in that car, because the
railroad made a lot of dandy mistakes, and it was pretty nearly a week
before we came rolling merrily, merrily on we go, into Bridgeboro. _Good
night_, that was some ride. That shows you never can tell, because
everybody said they never thought that old car had enough spirit to
break loose and go tearing around the country. It had a kind of a fit,
that’s what Westy Martin said; he’s in my patrol. The reason all that
happened was because there was some kind of a mistake on a way-bill.
That way-bill did us a good turn, all right.
So after we got back home all safe and sound, that old car stood on the
tracks down at the Bridgeboro station and all the commuters were
laughing at it. A lot we cared, because even people laughed at
Christopher Columbus when he got home.
So now I’m going to leave that old car standing on the tracks at
Bridgeboro station, because I have to go downstairs to supper. Oh, boy,
I hope the six thirty-four express doesn’t come along and bump into it
while I’m eating. I bet you’re all nervous and excited, hey?