WE FORM A RESOLVE
We all started shouting, “We are shaved! We are shaved! A Fraud car! A
Fraud car on the horizon!” I guess the driver of that Ford car thought
we were crazy.
“I hope he’ll stop before he runs into the creek,” Warde said.
The car was coming along the turnpike at the rate of about a half a
million miles a year and I shouted, “Hey, mister, whoever you are,
please stop before you get here; it was raining last night and the water
is wet.”
“Stop your fooling,” the kid said.
I said, “Do you think I want that car to come plunging into the creek?
Suppose that driver is blind.”
“She’s coming under full sail,” Garry said.
“Hurrah!” they all shouted.
“She’s missing in one cylinder,” Bert said. Then we all started
shouting, “Saved! At last we are saved!”
Just then, _good night_, that Ford car turned off into a side road and
we couldn’t see it any more.
“Now you see what you get for fooling,” the kid shot at me. “If we had
shouted ‘help’ all together as loud as we could he’d have come straight
along. You think it’s fun being imprisoned here with nothing to eat; you
make me tired. Maybe you don’t know that not much traffic comes along
this old turnpike; that’s why they don’t have any bridge-tender here.”
“They have tenderfoot bridge-tenders,” I said.
“Maybe no one else will come along all night,” Pee-wee said, “and then
what are we going to do? Suppose a wagon or an auto should come along
after dark and we didn’t see it coming; it would plunge to death and
then I hope you’d be satisfied.”
“That’s right,” Warde said, kind of serious, “we haven’t even got a
lantern to swing. How could we warn anybody?”
“We can’t even shout if we don’t get something to eat,” the kid said.
“Sure,” Bert said, “we’ll be so weak we won’t even be able to lift our
voices.”
“We’re in a desperate predicament,” Pee-wee said, very dark and serious
like. I guess he got those words out of the movies.
“Maybe we could tie a note to the fish and throw him in the water,” I
said. “When someone catches him they’ll find out we’re in distress.”
“No you don’t,” the kid yelled, hanging onto the fish while I tried to
take it away from him.
“If we could only send up a signal,” Warde said. “It’s all very well
joking but if it gets dark it will be mighty bad with this bridge open
and no one standing guard at the ends of the road.”
“There’ll be a tragedy,” the kid said.
Gee whiz, when I heard Warde speak that way I realized that it might be
pretty dangerous there after dark. And I was a little scared about it
because it seemed that no one came along that road very much and maybe
it would be night before anyone came.
I said, “Well, if it gets toward night and no one comes either way I’ll
take a chance and dive and swim to shore. One of you fellows will have
to dive and swim to the other shore too.”
“I’ll do that,” Hervey sang out.
“But we’ll wait till it’s necessary,” I said.
Now maybe you think that because we are scouts we should have been able
to get to shore easily enough, and if it were only a case of swimming
that fish wouldn’t have anything on us. But we couldn’t get from that
bridge into the water except by diving and diving is dangerous when you
don’t know the water you’re diving into. Especially near a bridge it’s
dangerous because there are apt to be piles sticking up under the
surface of the water. So that’s why we have a rule never to dive unless
we know about the place where we’re diving. But, gee whiz, if it’s a
case of an auto plunging into the water or taking a chance myself, I’ll
take the chance every time. And I know that Hervey Willetts would dive
into the Hudson River from the top of the Woolworth Building if anybody
dared him to do it.
“Anyway, let’s not lose our morale,” I said. “We’re here because we’re
here. Scouts are supposed to be resourceful; let’s sit up on the railing
again and think.”
“As soon as the sun goes down I’m going to dive,” Hervey said. “Do you
see that big maple tree in the woods? As soon as I can’t count the
leaves on that top branch any more I’m going to dive. I don’t know how
deep it is or what’s under the water, but I’m going to stand guard down
the road a ways. What do you say?”
“Are you asking me?” I asked him.
“I sure am,” he said; “you’re the only patrol leader here.”
I just said, “Well, if you want to know what I’m going to do I’ll tell
you. I never broke up a game yet. I’m going to follow my leader wherever
he goes. I’m going to take care of the other side of the road. I’m not
going to ask where I’m headed for nobody knows. And I’m not going to
weaken or flunk or suggest or oppose. And I’m not going to start to ask
questions, or hint or propose. There are some scouts here that are not
so stuck on this crazy game. But, believe me, it’s more of a game than I
thought it was. You were the one that started it. No people are going to
lose their lives on account of us. I’m going to follow my leader
wherever he goes. So now you know.”
“Do you call me a quitter?” Pee-wee shouted in my face.
“Look out for the fish,” I said.
“I don’t care anything about the fish,” he yelled. “I’m not hungry. I’m
in this funny-bone hike and I’ll follow Hervey Willetts if he—if he—if
he—stands on his head on top of a bonfire—I will. So there!”
“He wouldn’t do such a thing, don’t worry,” I said. “He couldn’t keep
still long enough. Pick up the fish before he flops off the desert
island. Safety first, that’s our motto. Hey, Hervey?”
“That’s us,” Hervey said. “Let’s tell some riddles.”