EATS
So that's how Warde Hollister got to be a Silver-plated Fox. Already he
has four merit badges and he's crazy like the rest of us, only more so.
If he keeps on, maybe he'll be as crazy as I am because I wasn't so
crazy when I started.
And that shows how you never can tell what you may run into on a
bee-line hike. But when it comes to running into things just you wait
till you get to the next chapter.
Now from Warde Hollister's house we went straight for the river. There
aren't many houses down there and the land is low and we could see the
tree all the time. We had to climb over a couple of fences and over the
storage shed of the boat club, and we had to crawl under Benton's ice
house that stands on piles.
Then we came to the river. There are willow trees down there and we sat
under one of them to eat our lunch. We started a fire and I made some
flapjacks. Warde Hollister said that was the first time he had ever
eaten lunch out in the open like that and he said it was fine.
I said, "Have all you want, don't be bashful. They're nice and tender,
they're intended for tenderfeet."
He said, "Is that what I am?"
"You're not anything yet," I told him; "you have to pass some tests;
endurance tests and things like that. I'm going to introduce you to our
scoutmaster and he'll take care of you."
"Eating flapjacks is an endurance test," Pee-wee said.
Westy said, "Sure, if you can eat these you can do anything."
"Are some of those things hard?" Warde asked me. "I mean those tests,"
he said.
"They're not so hard as these flapjacks," Hunt Manners told him.
"Oh, is that so?" I said. "I notice hard things don't trouble _you_
much."
He said, "The pleasure is mine; flop me another one, will you?"
"They call these things stove-lids up at Temple Camp," Will Dawson told
Warde.
I said, "Yes, and you're a pretty good stove-lifter, all right."
"I bet you have a lot of fun, you fellows," Warde said, kind of
laughing.
"Sure," I told him, "we have so much fun that even the weeping willows
die crying from laughing so hard. If you had this patrol to look after
your hair would soon turn white. My teeth are white already from
worrying. We remind ourselves of balloons instead of foxes. We should
worry. You're in for it now and you can't help yourself. The worst is
yet to come. Don't you care, smile and look pleasant. You might have
done worse, you might have got into the Raven Patrol."
"What's the matter with the Raven Patrol?" the kid shouted, trying to
eat a flapjack and shout at the same time.
"One good thing about them," Westy said.
"What's that?" Hunt asked him.
"That's that they're not here," Westy said.
"The Raven Patrol will be--it'll be flourishing when the Silver Foxes
are all busted up!" the kid shouted.
"Sure," I told him, "but not until then. Wait till you see that bunch,"
I said to Warde. "They're dead and they don't know it."
"They died laughing at P. Harris," Westy said.
"You think you're so smart, don't you?" the kid shouted. "One of our
patrol is camp librarian at Temple Camp."
"They're all highbrows," Westy said. "They think Scott's Emulsion is by
Sir Walter Scott. They're all busy studying monotony in that patrol."
"Do you mean to tell me that--that--that Ravens----" the kid began
yelling.
"You see how ravens can go up in the air," I said to Warde. "Now you
know why they're called the Raving Ravens. They're all right as long as
you don't feed them meat. They think you can do good turns riding on a
merry-go-round."
"What's the second-hand scout?" Warde wanted to know.
"Good night," I said, "don't make me laugh. You mean a second-_class_
scout. Of course there are slightly used scouts, 1915 models, but you
wouldn't call them exactly second-hand. First comes the tenderfoot, then
the second-class scout and then the first-class scout--and above that
are the Silver Foxes in a class by themselves."
"That's because they can't get anybody to go in the class with them,"
Pee-wee shouted.
Westy said, "Well, here we are talking about classes in vacation time.
In a minute we'll be talking about arithmetic. Let's talk of something
pleasant while we're eating."
I said, "Sure, let's talk of something pleasant. I didn't start talking
about the Ravens. The question is how are we going to follow a bee-line
across the river? I wish the equator went across the river and we could
walk on that."