TO THE POINT
The next morning after breakfast Hervey said to me—he just came
sauntering up kind of, and he said to me, “Did you ever notice when you
look away up a railroad track how the two rails come together away far
off?”
“Is it a hike?” I asked him.
“No, but didn’t you ever notice?” he said. “You stand between the two
tracks and look _away_ off as far as you can see and the two rails get
nearer and nearer together till they make a point?”
“I see the point,” I told him.
“That’s where I often wanted to take a hike to,” he said. “There must be
a lot of railroad accidents at that place. Wouldn’t you like to hike
there and look around?”
“Oh, absolutely,” I told him; “I’m just as crazy as you are. If we get
to the place we ought to name it some point or other.”
Hervey said, “That’s what I was thinking of. Don’t you suppose all the
places that have names ending with _point_ happened to get their names
that way? West Point and Greenpoint——”
“Sure, and pencil point and pen-point and all those places,” I told him.
“Shall we get Pee-wee?” he said.
“_Good night!_” I shouted. “If we spring that on Pee-wee he’ll drop
dead; he’ll drop so dead that he’ll even be dead and buried.”
“It’s a good kind of a hike,” said Hervey, “because it takes you a long
way.”
“Oh, positively,” I told him; “it takes you even further than that. How
did you ever think of it?”
He said, “Well, after the big fuss last night I went to bed.”
“You expect me to believe that?” I asked him.
“And I thought of it while I was lying in bed,” he said. “If we could
follow the West Shore tracks till we get to the point where they come
together we would probably find a lot of wrecks and skeletons and things
piled up, and maybe a lot of gold. Let’s start along the West Shore
tracks this afternoon and make a solemn vow that we won’t turn back till
we reach the point.”
“That ought to be quite a stroll,” I said. “We’ll stop in Albany for
supper, hey?”
Hervey said, “I had an inspiration.”
“You’d better look out,” I told him; “Pee-wee has all those
copyrighted.”
“This is what I mean,” he said. “Last night while I was lying in bed, I
was wondering what kind of a hike we could take that the management
wouldn’t object to. See? They’re going to be very particular now. So I
thought if we went and told one of the trustees that we’re going to take
a little—you know, just a little stroll.”
“A ramble,” I said.
“Just to the place where the West Shore tracks come together up the
line, why there won’t be any objection because they can see themselves
just where that is. It doesn’t look to me to be more than a mile away.
We’ll promise to turn back as soon as we get there. Hey?”
“Oh, the very minute we get there,” I said. Then he said, “All right,
come on, let’s get Brent and Pee-wee.”
When we found Brent he said very solemn-like that he thought it was a
good idea because when you hike it’s always good to have a destination
even if you don’t use it.
“Sure, they come in handy,” I told him. “And patent, adjustable
destinations are the best kind. Look at Columbus how he started for Asia
and bunked into the West Indies—he should worry. We’re like him only
different.”
So then we waited for Pee-wee. He always takes longer at breakfast than
anybody else, because he has three helpings of oatmeal. By the time he
finishes they have the boards all cleared. Pretty soon he came out.
Brent and Hervey and I were sitting on the lowest step of the pavilion
porch waiting for him. Brent looked at him very solemn over his
spectacles and said:
“Sir Harris, we’re organizing an enterprise to go on a dangerous
exploring expedition. Warde is going stalking so he can’t join us. Would
you care to join your comrades of yesterday in a most interesting quest?
We’re going straight to the point.”
“What point?” Pee-wee wanted to know.
“Ah, that’s the question,” Brent said.
“What d’you mean, the question?” the kid shouted.
“The point in the railroad tracks,” Brent said. “We think it’s about a
mile or two off, but we can’t say. You’ve noticed how the West Shore
tracks come together away up the line—to a point? Do you realize what
that means? The terrible danger to trains at that spot? When a train
reaches a place where the two rails come together, what happens to the
train? It’s terrible even to think of. We’re going to follow the West
Shore tracks north till we come to that spot and then write a report
about it. We’re going to see if we can’t have it remedied. It’s our duty
as boy scouts to save life. Will you join us?”
“Now I know you’re all crazy!” Pee-wee shouted.
“We knew that yesterday,” I told him.
“No wonder Warde won’t go,” he said; “anyway, he’s got a _little_ sense
since yesterday. Gee whiz, any one that doesn’t know there’s no end to a
circle——”
“Now we know,” I said, “but we had to find out. Now we know it’s not
safe to go around much. So we’ve decided to go straight after this,
haven’t we, Brent?”
“Always,” Brent said; “we’ve learned our lesson.”
Pee-wee shouted, “Yes, and I’ve learned mine too, and I’m not going to
go.”
“Can we depend on that?” Brent said. “I heard a cow was run over at that
spot the other day and the neighborhood is filled with chipped beef.
Would that interest you?”
“Are we going to be back for supper?” Pee-wee wanted to know.
“Yes and no,” Brent said.
“Do you call that an answer?” the kid shouted.
“It’s two answers,” Brent said. “What more do you want?”
“If you weren’t such crazy, insane lunatics,” Pee-wee shouted, “you’d
know that the reason the tracks kind of go together is because on
account of perspective.”
I said, “Tell us all about that. Is it the climate?”
“No, it isn’t the climate,” he shouted. “They don’t really do it and
that’s the cause of it. The nearer you get to it the further away it is
because it isn’t anyway, only it seems so—gee whiz.”
Brent said, “There may be some truth in that. We’ll go and see. I never
heard that explanation before. If the thing moves away as we approach,
We’ll just have to head it off and catch it. Maybe it would be better if
we take a roundabout, circuitous course and approach it from beyond.”
“It wouldn’t even be there then,” Pee-wee said, all excited; “you
wouldn’t see it.”
Brent said, “This makes our expedition all the more interesting. Sir
Harris has thrown a new light on the subject. If a thing goes away it
must go somewhere. It can’t go nowhere—that’s logic. Nowhere is not a
place.”
“Why isn’t it?” I said. “It’s got a name, hasn’t it?”
“If it wasn’t it couldn’t have a name,” Hervey said. “If _Somewhere_ is
a place, _Nowhere_ is a place. All I know is the West Shore tracks come
to a point away up the line and they ought to be separated. I’m going to
hike up there this afternoon. Those who are afraid to go can go anyway
for all I care.”
“I’ll go,” Pee-wee said, “because I like to go hiking, but I don’t
subscribe to it kind of.”
“He thinks it’s a magazine,” I said.
“I mean that crazy nonsense,” he shouted.
“Oh, that?” I said. “That isn’t such crazy nonsense; it’s very sensible
nonsense. We’re going now to ask Mr. Apthorpe for permission to go on
our tour of investigation.”
“The first thing you know you’ll get in trouble,” Pee-wee said, “making
fools out of the trustees like that. The first thing you know we’ll all
get sent home on account of Hervey Willetts—getting fresh with trustees
like that.”
“Was Christopher Columbus afraid to ask Queen Isabella if he could go
and discover Columbus, Ohio?” Brent asked him. “We fear not trustees.
Look at the horizon! Somebody discovered it or we wouldn’t know it’s
there. Yet it moves away. That’s because nobody has ever been smart
enough to stalk it. How do you suppose the milkman would ever have
discovered the Milky Way or the iceman discovered Iceland if they’d been
afraid of trustees?”
“You’d better look out,” Pee-wee said, kind of very dark and mysterious.
“The first thing you know we’ll get sent home on account of all this
crazy stuff.”
All the while he was following us toward Administration Shack—that’s
where Mr. Apthorpe is in the mornings because he opens the mail. The kid
wanted to go but he was kind of scared like. Especially he was scared
because Mr. Apthorpe is very cross-looking and dignified. We were all
laughing the way Pee-wee came along after us, kind of hesitating.
But anyway, I guess Mr. Apthorpe knew about us being crazy—the whole
camp knows that by this time. It’s getting so up there that if you just
mention the word hike everybody starts laughing. Anyway nobody ever gets
mad at Brent, not even the trustees. And they only get mad at Hervey to
his face—behind his back they have to laugh at him, scoutmasters and
all. We should worry about being scared of trustees—they’re not as bad
as principals anyway. And mathematic teachers.
So then we—_g-o-o-d night_, there goes the dinner gong, I’ve got to go
downstairs to supper. First I have to wash my hands—so long, I’ll see
you later. Anyway, that’s the end of this story—thank goodness, I bet
that’s what you’ll say. Anyway, I should worry because the next story is
worse than this—you’ll see. It tells all about that crazy hike to West
Shore Point, that’s what we called it.
So if you thought this was the last hike story that’s where you got
left. You can’t lose us, boy!