A FRIEND IN NEED
Now I'll tell you about tenderflops, because I'm the only one that goes
to Temple Camp who knows how to make them. I guess you know what a
tenderfoot is; it's a new scout. He's supposed to be tender, see? So a
tenderflop is a flip-flop that's named after a tenderfoot, because it's
supposed to be tender. There are no such things as tough scouts, so of
course, there can't be any such things as tough tenderflops. That's what
you call logic.
Now the way that you make tenderflops is with flour and salt and water
and cinnamon. You can use eggs if you want to, but you don't have to.
Once I tried peanut butter in them, but they weren't much good. If you
put a little maple syrup in, that makes them sweet. Once I made some at
home when Charlie Danforth was there and I put wintergreen in, and my
sister Marjorie said that was the reason he never came any more.
Cinnamon is better; safety first.
Now the way I usually do is, just when they're frying and beginning to
get kind of nice and toasted, sort of, I press my scout badge down on
them and that makes a kind of a trade mark on them. It says BE PREPARED.
That's our motto. It doesn't mean anything about the tenderflops.
* * * * *
In about an hour, back we came along the road with a big bag of flour
and a bag of salt and a couple of big jugs of maple syrup and some
cinnamon. We had on scout smiles, too.
"Down with profiteering," Connie shouted.
"Pee-wee forever!" I said. "Hurrah, for Hoover, Junior! Food will kill
the profiteers, don't taste it--I mean waste it."
We had to pay admission fees to get in, but what did _we_ care? We knew
the government was on our side, because wasn't the government arresting
profiteers?
Believe me, we had some triumphal march across the grounds to our car. I
had a bag of flour over my shoulder and my jacket was all white and my
face, too. I guess I looked like a clown. I should worry. The cinnamon
made the smallest bundle, but we had Westy carry it, because Pee-wee
likes cinnamon. Safety first. We had Pee-wee carry the glue, because if
he ate that, it would only stick his mouth shut. Believe _me_, we were
some parade.
There were a lot of automobiles parked outside the grounds by that time,
and the place was filled with people. The animals on the merry-go-round
were running away as fast as they could, and girls were screaming for
fear they'd fall off--you know how they always do. There were men
shouting for people to come and see their shows for a dime, ten cents,
and there were shooting galleries and everything. Sandwiches were thirty
cents and the bread on them was stale, because Wig bought one. There was
a brass band playing, too.
A lot of people were looking up at our car; I guess they were wondering
about it; and just as we were pushing through the crowd, a couple of the
head men came down off the platform and one of them said:
"What are you going to do with all that stuff, you boys?"
Westy said, "We're going to make cakes and sell them. We're going to do
it inside the car."
We all just laid down our bundles and stood around, kind of scared and
disappointed. But anyway, the people who were standing around saw that
we were scouts, and most all of them were smiling at us.
The man said, "Well, I guess you've got another guess. You just pack
that stuff in there, and go about your business if you don't want to get
into a heap of trouble. We'll look after this car."
I guess Westy was kind of flabbergasted, so I spoke up and said, "We've
got a right inside of our own car. We've got a right to cook in there if
we want to. What harm does that do? Haven't we got a right to try to
reduce the cost of living? If you want to start this car going, go ahead
and do it, but I tell you beforehand that the brakes don't work. And you
can keep off of our car, too."
The man said I was an impudent little some-thing-or-other, and he was
just starting to pick up the bag of flour when, good night, all of a
sudden a little man stepped out from the crowd. All I noticed about him
was that he had a cigar in his mouth and his hat was kind of on the
side. But, oh, boy, I heard his voice good and plain.
He said, "Look here, _you_. What's all this trouble about? You mustn't
think you can browbeat these boys, because you _can't_. See? I'm telling
you the law and you can take it or leave it just as you like. If you've
got any kick, go to the railroad. If you're not satisfied to wait until
this car goes away, start it going. You stand between those two tracks
or on the platform of that car, and you're on the property of the United
States Railroad Administration. I'm a lawyer and I'm telling you that.
It's you that happens to be here, not these boys. Here's a crowd of
people being fleeced--eating sandwiches that aren't fit to throw to a
dog and drinking red lemonade that would die of shock if it saw a lemon.
Twenty cents for a cup of coffee that they ought to pay me a dollar for
drinking! Now you boys just climb aboard and let's see what you can do.
You've got the American people in back of you. I've heard about you
scouts; now let's see what you can do. Get aboard and get busy. You're
here, because you're here----"
"That's just what we said," Pee-wee shouted.
"All right," the man said; "climb up and I'll take care of the legal end
of it. I'm for the Boy Scouts to the last ditch. I once tried a case
just like this. Let 'em talk to the car. Climb up and see what you can.
I don't believe you know how to boil water!"
He just sat down on the lowest step of the platform and stuck his hat on
the side of his head awfully funny, and lighted his cigar. Everybody
began laughing. The people were all on our side, that's one sure thing,
anyway.