WE WAIT FOR THE BOAT
Now this is the chapter where we’re all so hungry. It’s dedicated to
Hoover. The name of it was “The Famine” only I decided to use another
name. But believe me, in this chapter we’re hungrier than war-torn
Europe. All that morning we had been marching around the country singing
those crazy rhymes and we were having so much fun that we didn’t realize
it was past dinner-time. All we had had was one bite of chocolate each
except the two bites that Pee-wee took. Seven bites isn’t much for six
scouts.
Pretty soon we came out into the turnpike and then we knew the way back
to camp. It was a pretty long hike but we knew the way. All we had to do
was to follow the turnpike south till we came to the blackberry road and
that would take us into the road to camp.
I said, “I hope the camp is still there.”
Warde said, “If we get back in time for supper we’ll be lucky.”
“How about lunch?” Pee-wee wanted to know.
“Nothing about it,” I said; “it just isn’t.”
“Do you think I’m going to walk ten miles with nothing to eat?” he shot
back. “You call this a funny-bone hike, it’s a famine hike, that’s what
it is. They’ll find our skeletons some day marching around through these
woods——”
“Following our leader,” I said.
“That’ll be a funny-bone parade,” Garry said.
“It’ll be a bone parade all right,” I told him.
“Maybe we’ll strike a farmhouse,” Bert said.
Hervey said, “I know a better idea than that. What time is it?”
“Two o’clock,” I told him.
He said, “Good, I thought it was later. Do you like fish?”
“How many fish?” Pee-wee wanted to know.
“Oh just about,” Hervey said.
“If you’re asking me,” I told him, “I could even eat some fish-hooks I’m
so hungry. I could eat a whole school of fish.”
“I could eat a whole university of them,” Garry said.
“Do you like them fried?” Hervey asked us.
“_M-m-m-mm_,” I said; “I can just hear them sizzling now. Lead me to
them.”
He said, “We’ll have to wait for them. Let’s hang out on the bridge and
pretty soon the fishing boat will come along; it always comes up from
the Hudson about this time. I know the men on that boat, I’ve been out
fishing with them. They’ll give us a couple of fish and we can cook
them. You leave it to me, I’ll fix it.”
“What kind of fish do they catch?” Pee-wee wanted to know.
“Smoked herring and salt codfish and canned salmon,” I told him, “and
whales.”
“I could eat a whole whale,” he said.
“Sometimes they catch fish-balls,” Hervey said.
“Fish-balls or footballs or baseballs or masquerade balls, I don’t care,
I could eat anything,” I said.
So then Hervey led the way along the turnpike till we came to the bridge
across the creek. That creek is pretty wide and it empties into the
Hudson. We were feeling all cheered-up on account of the chance of
getting something to eat and we marched along shouting:
Don’t quit or complain at the stunts that he shows,
Don’t ask to go home if it rains or it snows;
Don’t start to ask questions, or hint, or propose,
But follow your leader wherever he goes.
Then Hervey started shouting:
We’re going to have our wish,
We’re going to get some fish.
Then Pee-wee began yelling:
I’m so hungry that I’m pale,
And I’d like to eat a whale.
Gee whiz, just as I told you, we were all crazy, especially Hervey
Willetts; he was even crazier than I was and I was the craziest one
there next to Bert and Warde and Garry. But one thing I’ll say for
Hervey, he knows every place for miles around Temple Camp, and he knows
everybody too, farmers and all.
In about five minutes we came to the bridge that the turnpike goes over.
That bridge is a drawbridge and the creek under it is wide and deep and
you can catch fish there only for one thing and that is that there
aren’t any. There’s a big lever to turn the bridge around with.
“Let’s turn it around,” Hervey said.
“We’ve had enough turning around,” the kid shouted. “I’m not going to
follow my leader any more till he starts eating fish.”
“Oh very well,” Hervey said, “I was just going to give you a free ride.”
“A free seat is good enough for me,” the kid said.
“I second the motion,” Warde said.
“There isn’t going to be any motion,” I said, quoth I. “This is going to
be a case of sitting still.”
“Follow your leader,” Hervey said.
“What are you going to do? Stand on your head on the railing?” I asked
him.
He just vaulted up onto the railing of the bridge and we all did the
same and sat there swinging our legs and waiting for the fishing boat
and singing those rhymes and changing them around. Pretty soon we were
all shouting:
Don’t fall in the creek for the water’s quite wet,
But think of the fish that we’re soon going to get;
Mm-m