WE MOVE HEAVEN AND EARTH
You can bet we didn’t lose much time getting off the train. “Follow your
leader,” I said.
Garry said, “We’re in luck; we’re only about six or seven miles north of
Catskill.”
“You don’t call that luck, do you?” Hervey said. “Just when I was
counting on a nice trip to Albany.”
“I suppose you’d like to make a mistake and get on an ocean steamer,” I
told him.
“Mistakes?” the kid shouted. “You’re the one that made mistakes famous.”
“Sure,” I said, “and you’re the one that put the wise crack in animal
crackers.”
“The last syllable of a doughnut is named after you,” Pee-wee shouted.
“Always thinking about doughnuts,” I said. “Look on the track, there’s a
friend of yours.” Right plunk across the track, about a couple of
hundred feet ahead of the train was a donkey hitched to a funny kind of
a wagon that was all machinery inside.
“I guess it goes by clockwork,” I said.
“It looks as if it doesn’t go at all,” Bert said.
“It did us a good turn anyway,” I said; “it made the train stop.”
Gee whiz, we had to laugh. The man that owned that outfit was an Italian
and he was yelling Italian at the donkey and trying to make him start. I
guess the donkey didn’t understand Italian.
[Illustration: “I GUESS THE DONKEY DIDN’T UNDERSTAND ITALIAN.”]
A lot of people got out of the train and stood around watching and the
engineer sat in his window looking as if he were very mad at the donkey.
But anyway the donkey didn’t care. When we got close enough we could see
that the wagon had emery wheels in it for grinding knives and scissors
and scythes and things like that and they went by a gas engine.
The man was shouting, “Hey! Whater de mat? You go! Hey, whater de mat?”
I said, “We ought to have someone who can translate Italian. Suppose you
shout at him, Pee-wee; if that doesn’t start him nothing will.”
The man kept jerking the donkey’s bit, all excited, and shouting, “Hey
you, giddup, whater de mat?”
Two or three passengers started pulling and jerking the donkey, and one
tried to push him, but it didn’t do any good. I felt mighty grateful to
that donkey. Anyway he had a will of his own, that’s one sure thing.
About a half a dozen passengers kept tugging at him but it didn’t do any
good. He just braced his legs and let them pull.
I said, “Maybe if we hold some grass in front of him he’ll follow it.”
But that didn’t work; I guess he wasn’t hungry.
Pretty soon Warde said, “I’ve got an idea; let’s move him with the gas
engine. That engine’s about six horse power; it ought to be stronger
than one donkey power.”
“It’s an insulation!” Pee-wee shouted.
“You mean an inspiration,” I told him.
“Hey, giddup; hey you,” the Italian kept shouting, all the time hitting
the donkey with the whip.
I said, “Nix on that, it doesn’t do any good. What’s the use of licking
a donkey when you’ve got a gas engine to move him with? You leave it to
us, we’ll move him.”
The man said, “Mova de donk; hey boss, mova de donk!”
“Sure,” I said, “we’ll move him; we go to the movies and we know all
about moving. Have you got some rope?”
I don’t know where the rope came from; maybe it came from the train and
maybe it came from the wagon. Anyway we fastened it through one of the
holes in the fly-wheel and wound it a couple of times round the shaft.
Then we dragged the rope over to a tree on the edge of the woods, behind
the wagon and tied it there. Everybody was laughing and the Italian was
shouting, “Hey, maka de gas, boss! Pulla de donk!”
We told him to start the engine and let it run very slowly. Goodnight!
Laugh? First there was a kind of straining and creaking, but we knew the
engine was fixed solid because it was bolted right through a heavy
engine bed to the floor of the wagon. The rope was so tight it looked as
if it would snap. Pretty soon the donkey began to feel the pulling
because he braced his hind legs; he looked awful funny.
“I bet on the donkey,” somebody shouted.
“I bet on the gas engine,” somebody else put in.
Everybody was laughing and the Italian was all excited, waving his whip
in the air and running about shouting, “Hey, giva de gas! Pulla de
donk!”
All of a sudden the donkey gave way and back he went after the wagon. He
kept trying to brace himself but it wasn’t any use; the little engine
went ck, ck, ck, ck, ck, ck, shaking and trembling, and back went the
donkey after the wagon, till the whole outfit was off the track.
“He followed his leader all right,” Bert Winton shouted.
“Come on,” I said, “we have no time to be wasting here, let’s thank the
donkey for the good turn he did us and then see if we can find out where
we’re at. We’re probably somewhere.”
“Sure if we’re somewhere we ought to be able to get somewhere else,”
Garry said.
“We don’t know which way to go,” Pee-wee said.
“We’ll go every which way,” I said, “and then we’ll be sure to strike
the right way. One direction is just as good as another if not better.
Come on, follow your leader.”
So off we marched into the woods singing:
Don’t ask where you’re headed for nobody knows,
Just keep your eyes open and follow your nose;
Be careful, don’t trip and go stubbing your toes,
But follow your leader wherever he goes.
As the train started all the passengers looked out of the windows
laughing at us and waving their hands. Anyway we were more powerful than
that train because a donkey could stop it and we could move him off the
track, so it could get started, and that proves how smart boy scouts are
even when they don’t know where they’re at.