A STUMBLING BLOCK

Little we thought that inside of an hour we’d be on the road to fame. I don’t mean that we turned to the right or left to get into the road. We just kind of bunked into fame. That hike was only seven miles long but in one way it went all the way out to the Pacific coast. Maybe it’s in China by this time for all I know.

While we were going down the hill to get into Bridgeboro, Pee-wee said, “We ought to look kind of invincible, like conquerors.”

I said, “Well, as long as you’re the official junk wagon you might as well carry the standard.”

“The what?” he wanted to know.

“The standard,” I said; “that’s Latin for banner. Didn’t you ever hear of the Standard Oil Company?”

So we gave him the banner, and oh, boy, that kid did look funny, holding it up. He was scowling as if he thought he could frighten buildings out of the way. The stuff he had inside of his patented megaphone kept rattling and he sounded like a junk dealers’ convention as he tramped along.

We decided that it would be best to go into regular formation so as to look more invincible and scare the civilized civilians in Bridgeboro.

“We’ll strike terror, hey?” the kid said.

“I hope we strike a restaurant,” Hunt Manners spoke up.

“I don’t care what we strike as long as we don’t strike our colors,” I told him. “Suppose three fellows walk together, and three others behind them, and Pee-wee and I will walk ahead because I’m the leader and he’s the standard bearer. Fall in.”

“Into what?” the kid wanted to know.

“Into line,” I said. “You walk ahead with me and do as I tell you. You’re going to be courier and envoy and a lot of things. You’re my official body-guard. You’re my staff. Only don’t break your other garter. Don’t give the enemy any advantage.”

So that was the way we fixed it. I marched ahead, with Pee-wee at my side holding the standard. He was a kind of a martial band, too, on account of his aluminum cooking set rattling and jingling in the phonograph horn. He looked very severe. I guess the women and children will never forget when he passed through poor, defenseless Bridgeboro. They’re laughing yet. Talk about poor Belgium!

I marched along beside my official staff. I guess you know what I look like. You can see me on the cover of this book. That laugh is caused by Pee-wee. You can only see it, but oh, boy, you ought to hear it. Behind us came Westy and Dorry and Hunt Manners marching together, and behind them were Will Dawson and the Warner twins marching together. The expeditionary forces!

Behind us, after we got into town, all the kids followed along to see what it was all about, so pretty soon we had a crowd of about a couple of dozen all around us, yelling and hooting. And all the grown up people stopped and stared and then began to laugh. All the while Pee-wee looked straight ahead and his face was very severe.

We had two things to go by, the tree away off there on the ridge, and Pee-wee’s compass. I carried that compass to help us in places where we couldn’t see the tree. All we had to do was to go straight west.

The best way to hike a straight course with a compass is to get a very thin stick that’s perfectly straight. A knitting needle is good only you must be sure not to use a steel one. You lay that across your compass. If you’re going west you lay it across the east and west points. It’s best to lay the compass down on something when you do that. Then you get a bead on the direction of the stick and pick out something that it points at. Then you hike straight for that thing. But there’s no fun hiking a bee-line unless you’re fair and square with yourself. If you go just a little bit out of your way to avoid something and try to make yourself think you’re going straight, that’s no fun. Because, one thing, you can’t jolly a compass.

Now it was easy following that tree until we got down into town. Even then it was easy for a little distance on account of Central Avenue running east and west. We had good luck because our hike straight west down the hill took us right plunk into Central Avenue.

At the beginning of Central Avenue, where it kind of peters out at the foot of our hill, we stopped to make sure it went straight west. Because with a nice, long, straight street like that it’s easy to fool yourself and say it goes straight west when it doesn’t, quite. But Central Avenue did, because away down beyond the other end of it, and away across the river we could see that big tree up on the ridge. Central Avenue doesn’t go all the way through town but we saw that as far as it did go it went straight west. We made good and sure. Because a bee-line hike is no good unless you’re strict about it.

After we had gone a couple of blocks we couldn’t see the tree any more on account of being right in the thick part of town. But we checked our course up with the compass on every corner and everybody crowded around laughing at us, and we had all the kids at our heels.

After we had gone about five blocks on Central Avenue we came to the place where it ends. It bunks right into another street that goes across it. Right across the street from the end of Central Avenue is a big house. There it was staring us right in the face. And right on the porch, plunk in front of the front door was a big fat man, staring us right in the face.

“Foiled!” I said.

“The bee-line goes right through the front door,” Westy said. “That’s just our luck. That’s the kind of a house that has a hall going right through it. The bee-line goes right through that hall and in back is Monument Park.”

“Right through the hall?” I said. “What good does that do us? It goes right through the man!”

“Now’s the time for strategy,” Pee-wee said.

I said, “Don’t break your garter now, whatever you do, or all is lost.”

“We’ve got to have a conference,” he said.

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