Now this is the way we planned it out. We decided that if we could get
the way cleared as far as the Sneezenbunker land it would be easy from
there, because the car would roll down the grade and maybe all the way
across Cat-tail Marsh. Then we’d have to think of some scheme to get it
to the river.
“We won’t cross our bridges till we come to them,” Westy said.
“We’re not going to take it across the river,” the kid shouted.
“Crossing bridges is an expression,” I told him. “It’s the same as
premises, only different.”
So the next thing we had to think of was how to get the car past
Slausen’s Auto Repair Shop, because repair shops can’t be moved like
lunch wagons. And strategy doesn’t go with men who keep garages.
So the next thing we did was to go and ask Mr. Slausen if he’d be
willing to let us take down a few boards from his ramshackle old
building just above where the tracks went through if we promised to put
them up again.
“Maybe my father’s going to get a flivver,” Pee-wee piped up, “and maybe
if I run it I’ll have a smash-up, and I’ll get you to fix it.”
But that didn’t go with Mr. Slausen. He said, very gruff like, “You kids
better go home and study your lessons and not be trying to move railroad
cars.”
I said, “Scouts always keep their word, Mr. Slausen, and if we say we’ll
put the boards back up again, we will.”
He said, “Well, I guess we won’t take down any boards, so you better run
along.” And then he started to talk to a man and didn’t pay any more
attention to us.
Just as we were going out Connie Bennett said, “Well, we’ll have to
think of another way, that’s all. It’s got to be did somehow.”
“Sure,” I said; “scouts can always think of a way.”
Mr. Slausen must have heard us, for he turned around and shouted after
us, very cross, “I want you youngsters to keep away from here.
Understand?”
Westy said, “Yes, sir.”
“I don’t know anything we can do,” Dorry Benton said to me as we were
going out.
“We’ll think of a way,” I said; “don’t worry.”
Now that’s all there was to our call on Mr. Slausen, and it wasn’t much,
and nobody said anything important enough to remember, but what we said
made a lot of trouble for us just the same. You’ll see.
“All we’d have to do would be to move his vulcanizing table,” Westy
said, “and we could run the car right through.”
“Well, we should worry,” I said. “We’ll move Tony’s Lunch Wagon,
vulcanizing table and all, and then we can think about the next step.”
“What do you mean, vulcanizing table?” Pee-wee shouted.
“The counter where he puts the inner tubes in doughnuts,” I told him.
So then, as long as it was Saturday and we couldn’t do any more that
day, we decided to go up to my house and send invitations to all the
troops in the different towns near Bridgeboro. Pee-wee wanted to go
around like Paul Revere and notify them all, but I said no, because I
knew he’d only end up in some candy store miles and miles from home.
This was the invitation we sent. It’s kind of crazy, but what did we
care, because in my patrol we’re all crazy anyway. We ought to be called
the Squirrels instead of the Silver Foxes, because we’re all nutty.
Scouts, Attention!
Shoulder your trusty appetites and march to Bridgeboro
on Saturday next, April 17th, to reënforce your brother
scouts of the 1st Bridgeboro troop in a daring enterprise.
Come hungry! Don’t eat on the way! Rally in Downing’s
lot near Bridgeboro Station at 10 A. M.
Ask not the reason why
Here’s but to do or die.
Hark to the battle-cry
_Failure or apple pie!_
Come, valiant comrades!
I guess when they got these invitations they thought we were all maniacs
from Maine, hey? What did _we_ care? Not in the least, quoth we.
After we got the invitations mailed we decided to forget the moving
problem and go to the moving pictures. After that we went to the station
and sat in the car a little while and talked. As long as we were so near
we thought we might as well go over to Bennett’s for cones, and as long
as we were in there for cones we thought we might as well get some
gumdrops. And as long as we were getting some gumdrops we thought we
might as well get some molasses taffy for our young hero so as to stop
him from talking. Believe me, that’s one thing I like. I don’t mean
talking, I mean molasses taffy. I’m stuck on it. So is the tissue paper
that comes around it. We got a nickel’s worth of lemondrops, too,
because yellow is our patrol color. We’re always thinking of our patrol,
that’s one good thing about us.