TAKING IT EASY
And he just sat there, swinging his legs and laughing. It was as good as
a circus to see him.
"Go ahead, run," he said; "it won't do you any good. Sink this car in
the lake if you want to. That'll just mean a longer time in jail. We
should worry. You thought a boy scout didn't know how to hit back,
didn't you? Let's see you start the machine. You're a couple of circus
clowns, that's what you are. You ought to be a pair of villains in the
movies. Head hurt much, Roy?"
"Not so bad now," I told him.
Gee whiz, those fellows didn't wait long. Before Westy was finished
speaking they were off the car and headed into the woods. That was the
last we saw of them, then.
"Did you ever hear of a thief stopping to have his picture taken?" Westy
asked.
"If they'd have only stayed a little longer, we could have got them in
the movie camera and we could have a play called _The Robbers'
Regret_," Pee-wee piped up, "or, _The Missing Spark Plugs_."
"Oh, they're not missing," Westy said; "they're just hiding, disguised
as an oil can. Waste not, want not, hey?"
Do you know what that fellow had done--all while we were in the car? Talk
about a scout being quick! He had got the snapshots while those two
fellows were on the platform. Then he had hid the camera in the bushes.
But he wanted to make sure that they wouldn't find the plugs, so he put
them into an oil can that he had found under the hood of the machine and
tied a piece of wire to the can. He tied the other end of the wire to
the root of a bush on the shore. And all that he did while the fellows
were in the car. What do you know about that?
So now he just fished them up and cleaned them out and put them back
where they belonged. Then we all sat in the Pierce-Arrow waiting to see
what would happen next. Right in front of us was that old car with the
sign all along its side.
Buffalo 398 Mls.--BREWSTER'S CENTER--N. Y. 30 Mls.
Pretty soon we got to singing, and for a little while everybody was
singing something different from everybody else, but after a few minutes
we got settled down to this:
"There was the Brewster's Centre car,
That traveled here and there;
It had a lot of adventures, too,
And we don't have to pay any fare.
And when it's here, it's here,
And when it's there, it's there;
And when it isn't any place,
Why then it's everywhere.
And if it isn't on the ground,
You'll find it up in the air;
And if it goes to the moon or Mars,
A plaguey lot we care!"
"You can talk about tents and log cabins and house-boats and things,"
Connie said; "but I'm for that old car. It's stood by _us_."
"Stood!" I said. "Good night, it hasn't stood very long anywhere; not
since we had it."
"It's full of pep," Connie said.
"Always on the go," I told him; "it's different from other cars. It
reminds me of Pee-wee. I wonder where we'll go next."
"Sure, I wonder what's the next step in our itinerary," Connie said.
Boy, but that fellow is some high brow.
"Our whaterary?" I asked him.
"Anyway, it's nice sitting here," Wig said.
"I wonder who it belongs to?" Pee-wee said. "I bet it belongs to a rich
millionaire."
"Yes, or a poor one," Connie said. "There's only one thing I don't like
about this Pierce-Arrow, and that's that I don't own it. Otherwise, it's
all right."
"There's one thing _I_ don't like about it," I said.
"You're crazy!" Pee-wee shouted. "What don't you like about a
Pierce-Arrow?"
"One great objection," I said.
"You must be crazy," he yelled. "You can bet I haven't got any
objections to a Pierce-Arrow."
"That's because you're not as honest as I am," I said.
"Who? Me?" he hollered.
"The only thing I have against this machine is that it's stolen," I
said. "I'm funny that way."
"You make me sick," Pee-wee said.
"I'd feel the same way about a flivver," I said.
"If you took a flivver, that wouldn't be stealing," Connie said; "it
would be shoplifting."
"Sure, or pickpocketing," Wig said.
"Do you know the only way to tell if a man has a Ford?" I asked Pee-wee.
"Search him. Look how the sun is going down."
The Brewster's Centre sign was all bright on account of the sun setting.
It was getting dark and kind of cold and it made me homesick, sort of.
It seemed funny to see that car standing there across that strange road,
with the lake on one side and the thick woods on the other. The woods
were beginning to look dark and gloomy, and the arm of the lake was all
steel color. I was glad on account of that sign, because it seemed
friendly, like. That's one thing about an automobile, it doesn't seem
friendly, like. But boats do. And the old car did, that was one sure
thing.
Mostly scouts don't care much about railroads, because they like the
water and they like to hike. But anyway, that old car was friendly.
Especially it seemed friendly on account of the sun going down and the
day beginning to die and it getting cold. You can talk about boats and
motorcycles and tents and leaf shelters and all those things, but
anyway, none of them were as good as that old car. And don't you
forget, either, that it was Westy that saved it for us. If it hadn't
been for him, it would have been in the lake.
He's one real scout, Westy is.