Four Afloat: Being the Adventures of the Big Four on the WaterBarbour, Ralph Henry
General
Four Afloat: Being the Adventures of the Big Four on the Water
Barbour, Ralph Henry
Boats and boating -- Juvenile fiction; Friendship -- Juvenile fiction
“You shut up! I’m telling this. And so then everything was all right
until they got to looking the map over very carefully and found that
they had missed one of the principal thoroughfares, a fine, wide
boulevard running from one side of the town to the other. Well, they
were in a fix then, for they had to have another name and they’d used
all the names up, as far as they could see. The Mayor of the town was a
widower and for a while it looked as though he’d have to get married
again so they could name the boulevard after his wife. But he didn’t
like the idea of it; said he’d resign from office first; and about that
time the City Treasurer remembered that his youngest boy had a guinea
pig for a pet. They said that was fine, and they took a vote on it and
decided to name the boulevard after the guinea pig. Well, the City
Treasurer didn’t remember what his boy called the pig and so they sent
for the boy. And when he came the Mayor asked him what he called his
guinea pig. ‘Piggy,’ said the boy. ‘But that will never do,’ said the
Mayor, ‘haven’t you a better name than that?’ ‘His name’s Piggy,’ said
the boy. Well, they argued with him and argued with him, and pleaded and
pleaded, the Mayor and all the Council, but it didn’t do any good. And
the City Treasurer told the boy he’d take him home and give him a
whipping if he didn’t change the guinea pig’s name. But it didn’t do any
good, for the boy said the guinea pig’s name was ‘Piggy,’ always had
been ‘Piggy’ and couldn’t be anything else. So if you go out there now
you’ll find that the finest street in the city is called Piggy
Boulevard.”
“That’s a likely yarn!” laughed Bob.
“Well, that’s the way it was told to me,” answered Dan gravely.
“Where did you say the place is?” asked Tom.
“Oh, out in Illinois somewhere; near Chicago, I think.”
“More likely it was right in your own State,” Tom retorted warmly.
“Now, don’t you two get to scrapping about your old villages,” said Bob.
“Neither one of them is worth living in. Why don’t you live in Portland?
Then you won’t feel ashamed of your town.”
“Huh!” jeered Tom. “Portland! S’pose I did live there and some one asked
me what place I was from. ‘Portland,’ I’d say. ‘Oh! Maine or Oregon?’
they’d ask. No, sir, I don’t want a city I have to explain. There’s only
one Chicago.”
“That’s one good feature of it,” said Dan.
“Is that su-su-so?” began Tom pugnaciously. But Nelson intervened.
“You’re wrong about Portland, Tommy,” he said. “They wouldn’t ask you
‘Maine or Oregon’; they’d say ‘Cement or salmon?’”
“We don’t make Portland cement in my town,” said Bob disgustedly.
“Of course they don’t,” Dan agreed. “Portland is famous only as having
been the birthplace of Henry Longworth Wadsfellow and of Robert Wade
Hethington.”
“There’s another life-saving station, Tommy,” said Nelson. “What’s its
name?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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