THIRTY-FOUR CENTS
We left him standing near the tree and started rowing through the
outlet. The right name of the outlet is Dawson’s Creek, but we always
call it the outlet. By that time it was late in the afternoon, and Warde
said if we were going to hike around the way the girls had said we ought
to telephone to camp.
I said, “We can telephone when we get to Brookside.”
“Well, let’s not forget to do it,” Brent said.
“What about that tin box at the bottom of the lake?” Hervey asked.
“I thought so,” Brent said, kind of laughing. “Forget it. Nobody knows
where it is. Maybe it isn’t.
“The fellow said it had money in it,” Hervey said. “It’s not drawing any
interest down there.”
Brent said, “Well, it’s not supposed to be attracting any interest up
here either, so forget it. There are nuts all over the country hunting
for Captain Kidd’s treasure.”
“I’d like to dive for that,” Hervey said.
“Oh, I suppose you would,” Warde told him. “You know there’s no diving
allowed away from the springboard. I’ll tell you where the tin box is if
you want to know; it’s in your head.”
“It’s in the sharpy’s head too,” I said.
Brent said, “Well, there’s plenty of room there for it. Let it stay
there.”
“He said something about a map,” Hervey went on.
“It’s going to be a nice moonlight night,” Brent said.
“How do you suppose he knows about that?” Hervey asked.
“How do we know?” I said. “I suppose he heard some talk somewhere.”
“Maybe he knows more than he said,” piped up Pee-wee; “it’s kind of
mysterious. Maybe he’s a confederate of somebody, maybe. Maybe he had a
partner hiding. I bet he knows a lot.”
“Sure,” I said, “partners is his middle name.”
“Knows a lot is good,” said Brent laughing.
“I’d like to make a try for that,” Hervey said. “It would be some
stunt.”
“Are we going to take the first road to the left?” Brent asked. “Or are
we going to call it off and go back to camp?”
“Answered in the affirmative,” I shouted. After that nothing more was
said about the accident and the tin box. I guess we all saw that Brent
wanted us to drop the subject.
Hervey was busy trying to swing up into the branches of trees as we
passed through the outlet, so I guess he wasn’t thinking much about that
business either. It’s nice and dim in the outlet because the trees reach
all the way across it and in some places you can’t even see the sky. Two
or three times we had to backwater so as to take Hervey in again where
he was hanging from some tree or other. Once he hung upside down by his
feet. One place we saw a muskrat swimming across.
Now when you row through the outlet after a while you come to a road
that branches away from the outlet to the left. That goes through
Brookside. So we drew the boat up there (that’s where the girls told us
to leave it) and started following that road. If it hadn’t been for our
trying to have some fun with Pee-wee when we got to Brookside, I guess
maybe this story would be nothing but nonsense from beginning to end.
But it turned out to be something else beside nonsense—you’ll see.
In Brookside Warde said, “We’ll ’phone to camp here and get it off our
minds.”
I said, “Sure, tell them not to expect us till they see us; maybe not
even then.”
“And I’ll get a soda at the same time,” Pee-wee said. “I’ll treat one
fellow to soda because I’ve only got a quarter and a nickel and four
pennies.”
I said, “After paying for two sodas you’ll look like a sharpy.”
“Do you mean to tell me I don’t treat girls?” he shouted. “Lots of times
I treat girls! Sharpies never treat girls, that’s how you know them.”
I said, “Oh, you’re a reckless little spender. The slot machines will
land you in the poorhouse some day.”
“High-step Harris,” Brent said.
“That’s better than the one-step,” I said.
Hervey said, “We can’t ’phone here anyway, the ’phone is on the
right-hand side of the road. There are only two stores, and one’s a feed
store——”
“What kind of feed?” Pee-wee shouted.
“Oats,” Brent said. “Wild oats, the kind you sow, running wild with
thirty-four cents in your pocket. I suppose you’ll squander it on the
first flapper you meet.”
“I’ll squander it right here in the drug store,” the kid shouted. “And
you needn’t go around telling people I don’t treat girls either.”
“Oh, far be it from it,” I said; “only last week a girl told me you were
a treat.”
We were just heading over to the drug store where the soda fountain and
the ’phone booth were when Hervey said, “Keep to the left.” So just for
the fun of it, to keep Pee-wee from getting a soda we followed along
after Hervey.
Brent said, “Honest, fellows, I think we ought to ’phone to camp.”
“Duty is duty,” Hervey said, awful funny; “keep to the left;
“When you go on a hike just you mind what I say,
The right way to go is the opposite way.
Don’t bother with drug stores but follow this song,
If you turn to the right, then you’re sure to go wrong.”
Brent just kind of laughed and followed along after Hervey. I had to
laugh, too, to hear him shouting about duty. I guess we all knew that we
ought to ’phone to camp. And I guess we all knew Hervey didn’t want us
to ’phone to camp. I guess he thought they’d only tell us to come home
if we ’phoned. He wasn’t hunting for trouble, that fellow.
But anyway it was so funny to see Pee-wee following along after us with
a terrible scowl on his face, and looking over at the drug store, that
we just couldn’t help hiking right along.
“A scout’s honor,” Hervey said.
Gee whiz, I had to laugh at him.