  Now I’m going to write until my sister begins playing the piano. Music and literature don’t mix, believe me. There are two cruises in this book, a big one and a little one. You can take your pick. The little one is full of mud and the big one is full of pep. Anyway you get your money’s worth, that’s one sure thing. This chapter is about the little cruise. But first I have to tell you about the house-boat, because it turned out to be our home sweet home for a couple of weeks. It didn’t only turn out, but it turned in and it turned sideways and every which way. But I’m not going to knock it. It got knocks enough going through the creek and up Bridgeboro River. It knocked into two bridges and goodness knows what all. But what cared we, yo ho? We cared nit—I mean naught. First Mr. Donnelle showed us through it and it was dandy, only in very poor shape. Its shape was square. But I wouldn’t laugh at it because we had a lot of fun on it. Inside it had two rooms and a little kitchen and the roof had a railing around it and there was lots of room there. There was lots of room on the deck too. And there was a kind of little guard-house, too, to put Pee-wee in if he didn’t behave. Some of the windows were broken, but I knew we could fix them easily. All we needed to do was eat some green apples and then we’d have plenty of panes. There were some lockers too, only one of them was locked and we couldn’t get into it. I guess the tramp didn’t take anything, because there was nothing missing. I guess all he took was a look around. There were some cushions piled on one of the lockers and they looked as if someone had been sleeping on them. Pee-wee said he could see the oil stove had been used by the smell—he’s got such sharp eyes that he can see a smell. I told him he had a classy eye because there was a pupil in it, and you ought to have seen Mr. Donnelle laugh. I guess he thought we were crazy. “Well we should worry about the tramp,” I said, “especially now that we have a boat like this. The next thing to do is to bring the whole troop and get her fixed up.” One thing was easy anyway. Just below Bridgeboro, where we live, there is a kind of a branch flowing into the Bridgeboro River. We always called it the creek. Now we found out from Mr. Donnelle that it started along up above Little Valley. Over there they call it Dutch Creek. He said that at high tide we could float the houseboat right down into Bridgeboro River and then wait for the up tide or else tow it up to Bridgeboro. Cracky, I could see it would be a cinch and I was glad because we fellows didn’t have money enough to have the boat carted by land. But, good night, this way was easy. The next morning I sent a birch bark call to all the fellows in our troop. I sent them each a little piece of birch bark by courier. Connie Bennett, he’s our courier. And that meant come to Special Meeting—W. S. W. S. means without scoutmaster. So pretty soon they began coming up to Camp Solitaire. That’s the name I gave the tent I have on our lawn. When they were all there, I told them about Mr. Donnelle and the houseboat, and we decided that we’d hike over to Little Valley and pile right in and get it ready instead of bringing it to Bridgeboro first. We decided that if we worked on it for about three days, it would be ready. So we all started to hike it along the road to Little Valley. We had an adventure before we got there, and I guess I’d better tell you about it. I made a map too, so you can see the way everything was. It’s about five miles to Little Valley by the road. Well, we were all hiking it along, sometimes going scout-pace and most of the time jollying Pee-wee, when all of a sudden I noticed a mark on a rock that I was sure was a scout mark. It was an arrow and it was marked with a piece of slate. Underneath the arrow was another mark like a pail, so I knew the sign meant that there was water in that direction. I didn’t know any scouts around our way that could be camping there, but whenever a scout sees a scout sign he usually likes to follow it up. So I told the fellows I was going to follow if there was any time. They said it was an old last year’s mark, but go ahead if I wanted to, and I told them I’d meet them at Little Valley later. So now comes the adventure. As soon as I left the fellows, I hit the trail into the woods just like you’ll see on the map I made. It wasn’t much of a trail and I guess a fellow couldn’t follow it if he wasn’t a scout. It was all thick woods like a jungle kind of, and I could see where branches had been broken by somebody that passed there. Pretty soon it began to get swampy and there wasn’t any more trail at all. As long as there’s any sign of a trail you can’t get me rattled, but cracky, I don’t like marshes. You can get lost in a marsh easier than in any other place. Pretty soon I was plodding around deeper than my knees and it gave me a strain every time I dragged my leg out of the swamp. Maybe you’ll wonder why I didn’t go back, but if you do, that’s because you don’t know much about marshes. All of a sudden I was right in the middle of it, as you might say, and there were no landmarks at all. Pretty soon I was in waist deep and then I was scared, you can bet. If there’s one thing that gets me scared it’s quicksand. As long as I could get my legs out I was all right, but when I began sinking as low as my waist and had to drag myself out by squirming and catching hold of bushes and things, then I lost my nerve—I have to admit it. I saw I was a fool ever to go into that pesky place, but it was too late and I knew that pretty soon I’d be in too deep to get out. Oh, jiminies, I was scared. Once, after I scrambled out I tried lying flat on the marsh with the reeds laid over sideways underneath me. But they didn’t hold me up and anyway I knew I couldn’t lie that way forever. I wondered how a scout had ever gone through here. Before I knew how to swim I came mighty near to getting drowned and I got lost in the woods, too, when I was a tenderfoot. But this was worse than anything I ever knew before. Once I sank down almost to my shoulders and I guess I would have been a goner, only my feet struck something hard and flat and I stood on that until I got rested a little. All the while I looked around to see if I could decide where the land might be a little harder, but I guess I must have been in the worst part of it. I decided that the safest thing I could do was to stand just where I was. I didn’t know what it was I was standing on, but anyway it didn’t seem to sink any, so I was kind of safe there, as you might say. But I knew I could never raise myself out of that place and I’d have to just stand there till I got so tired and hungry, that I’d drop down and be sucked into the marsh. So anyway, I’d have to die, I was sure of that, only I didn’t want to die any sooner than I had to. Two or three times I shouted as loud as I could, but I knew it wasn’t any use, because I was two or three miles away from any house. Even if anybody knew, I didn’t see how they could get to me and it was only by good luck that I wasn’t dead already on account of the hard thing I was standing on. Every once in a while bubbles would come up and I thought it was because that thing I was standing on was sinking lower. The marsh was just about even with my shoulders and I kept looking sideways at my shoulders all the time, so as to see if I was going down any and sometimes I thought I was. But I guess I wasn’t. The weeds stood up all around me so I couldn’t see, except up in the air and it was like being in a grave with just my head out. Gee, I thought about the fellows hiking it to Little Valley and beginning work on the house-boat and waiting for me to come, and I could just kind of hear them jollying Pee-wee, and oh, I wished I was there. I was wondering who the Silver Foxes would elect for their patrol leader and then I got to thinking how nobody, not even my mother and father, would ever know what became of me, because you can’t drag a marsh like you can a river. And it seemed kind of funny like, to die without anybody ever knowing what became of you. Pretty soon my legs began getting very tired like a fellow’s legs always do when he keeps standing in water. Only this was worse than water. I wondered how it would feel when my knees gave out and I sank down. Then I happened to think about having my hike-book with me. It was all wet and the pencil was wet too, but I held it up high out of the marsh and wrote this on one of the pages. After I wrote it I stuck it up high on one of the marsh weeds. This is where Roy Blakeley, patrol leader, Silver Fox Patrol, Bridgeboro Troop, B. S. A., was sucked down into the marsh, after he couldn’t stand up any more. I was standing on something that was hard and maybe you’ll find my body lying on that. In my desk is something I was going to give my mother for a birthday present. I send her a lot of love too. My father too. And I hope my Patrol gets along all right and that the troop has a lot of fun this summer. I hope somebody will find this. |
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