WE REACH THE FICKLE GUIDE POST
“I’d like to know where we are,” Warde said.
“We’re in the Catskill Mountains,” I told him.
“You might as well say we’re in the universe,” Pee-wee said. “What good
does that do us?”
“You mean to tell me it isn’t good to be in the universe?” I asked him.
“It’s one of the best places I know of,” Garry said.
“Sure it is,” I told him. “Anybody who isn’t satisfied with the
universe——”
“You’re crazy!” Pee-wee yelled.
“Follow your leader,” I said. “Follow your leader wherever he goes.”
“Follow your nose,” Bert said.
“No wonder he goes up in the air so often if he follows that,” Garry
said.
“Do you think I’m going to go marching around the country for the rest
of my life?” the kid piped up.
“Don’t quit or complain at the stunts that he shows,” I said. “You want
to go somewhere, don’t you? Well, I promise to lead you somewhere.
That’s just where you want to go. What more can you ask?”
I kept marching in and out among the trees, touching some and not
touching others, the other fellows after me. Pretty soon I hit into the
road that crossed the track. We were about a quarter of a mile from the
track then. I kept along that road, sometimes walking on the stone wall
and sometimes going zigzag in the road. I knew we were going west and I
was pretty sure that Temple Camp was southwest, but I didn’t know how
far. I thought that pretty soon we would come to a crossroad and that
there would be a sign there.
Pretty soon we did come to one and there was a sign there, all right. I
was glad of that because the road we were on had made so many turns I
didn’t know for certain which direction we were going in. Besides, the
sky was all cloudy so I couldn’t tell anything by the sun.
“There’s a sign post!” one of the fellows shouted.
“Saved!” another fellow yelled.
I didn’t strain my eyes to see what was on the signboard, but as soon as
I saw it I began passing in and out among the trees along the road,
grabbing each tree and going around it. All the while we were singing
those crazy rhymes. So that way I came to the sign post and grabbed hold
of it and around I went, only, good night, the post went round with my
hand.
“There’s a good turn,” I shouted.
“Now you didn’t do a thing but make the plot thicker,” Pee-wee yelled at
me at the top of his voice. “Now you’ve got everything mixed up.”
“I changed the whole map of the Catskills,” I said. “That’s nothing; see
how the map of Europe is changed. I don’t think much of a signboard that
changes its mind.”
“I don’t think much of a scout that changes a signboard,” Pee-wee
shouted.
We all stood there staring at the sign. On the top of that post were two
boards crossways to each other and on each board two directions were
printed with arrows pointing. On one board was printed _COXSACKIE 8 M._,
with an arrow pointing one way, and _ATHENS 5 M._, with an arrow
pointing the opposite way. On the other board was printed _CAIRO 9 M._,
with an arrow pointing one way, and _CLAYVILLE 7 M._, with an arrow
pointing the other way, and underneath that board was a little board
with _TEMPLE CAMP_ printed on it. I guess scouts put that there.
But a lot of good that sign did us because all we knew was that Temple
Camp was in the same direction as Clayville and we didn’t know which
direction Clayville was in.
“Follow your leader and you don’t know where you’re at,” Pee-wee said,
very disgusted like.
“Wrong the first time,” I said. “The poem says follow your nose. Would
you rather believe the guide post than that beautiful poem? The poem
never changes but the guide post moves around. We know where we’re at,
we’re right here; deny it if you dare. We’re smarter than the guide
post.”
“You’re about as smart as a lunatic,” the kid shouted. “If you hadn’t
touched that we’d know which way to go. _Now_ where is Temple Camp?”
“That’s easy,” I told him; “it’s where it always was.”
“You mean _you’re_ like you always were,” he said; “you’re crazy.”
“Let’s move it around again,” Hervey said, “and we’ll say the first
verse and let go the post just as we finish. Then let’s go the way it
says.”
“Good idea,” Warde said; “let’s all agree that we’ll go whichever way
the Temple Camp arrow points.”
“There are four directions,” Pee-wee said. “We’ll stand just one chance
in four of going the right way.”
“There are only two directions,” I said; “right and wrong. Deny it who
can. So we stand a fifty-fifty chance of going right. Anybody that knows
anything about arithmetic can tell that. Come on, follow your leader
wherever he goes.”
I grabbed hold of the sign post and started walking around with the rest
of them after me singing, “Follow your leader wherever he goes.” Some
merry-go-round! We sang the first verse and I stopped short when we got
to the word _goes_.
“Come on,” I said, “Temple Camp is right over that way. Follow your
leader.”
“Trust to luck,” Hervey said; “if it’s wrong, so much the better. Let
the guide post worry. They had no right to put a pinwheel here for a
guide post.”
“Just what _I_ say,” I told him.
“How about others coming along?” Warde wanted to know. That fellow makes
me tired, he’s all the time using sense.
“Now what have you got to say?” Pee-wee yelled. “A scout is supposed to
be helpful.”
“Sure, he’s supposed to help himself to all the cake he wants, like
you,” I said.
Warde said, “As long as we’ve had all the fun we want here, let’s set
the post right before we go.”
“We haven’t had all the fun we want,” Hervey said.
“Sure we haven’t,” I put in. “We haven’t begun to have any yet.”
“I care more about dinner than I do about fun,” Pee-wee said.
“Do you mean dinner isn’t fun?” Garry asked him.
“I’m just as crazy as you are,” Bert said to me, “but we might as well
go crazy in the right direction if we can only find out what that is.”
“Carried by a large minority,” I said; “the board of directors is
appointed to find out the direction, so we can go crazy in that
direction.” Warde said, “The trouble is that other people that pass here
are not so crazy as we are and they’d like to know which way is which.
Some people are peculiar.”
“Some people are worse than peculiar,” the Animal Cracker shouted.
“The compliment is returned with thanks and not many of them, and we
wish ourselves many happy returns of the way. If anybody knows the way
this merry-go-round of a sign post is supposed to stand let him now
speak or else forever after hold his peace.”
“Piece of what?” Pee-wee shouted.
“Piece of pie,” I said; “that’s what you usually hold, isn’t it?”
Warde just went up to the sign post kind of smiling and turned it around
till he got it just where he wanted it.
“What’s the idea?” I asked him.
He said, “Well, there are a couple of ideas.” I said, “I didn’t know we
could scare up as many as that among the whole lot of us.”
“Maybe I’m wrong,” Warde said, “but I think that the side of the post
with dried mud on it should face the road. That mud was spattered by
wagons and autos. And I think the side that isn’t sunbaked faced the
woods where it’s damp and shady. And I think the board where the paint
is faded is the one that faced the sun. And so I think that Cairo is
over _there_, and Athens over _there_ and Temple Camp over _there_.
See?”
“Hip, hip, and a couple of hurrahs!” Hervey Willetts said. “That means
we can cut through these woods and come out at the end of the old
railroad branch. There’s a big apple tree over there, I fell out of it
once. It’s all woods over there and we stand a pretty good chance of
getting lost again.”
“What kind of apples are they?” Pee-wee wanted to know.
“Baked apples,” I told him.
So then I started off with the rest of them after me, singing _Follow
your leader wherever he goes_.