Roy Blakeley's Funny-bone HikeFitzhugh, Percy Keese
General
Roy Blakeley's Funny-bone Hike
Fitzhugh, Percy Keese
Boy Scouts of America -- Juvenile fiction; Camping -- Juvenile fiction
Warde said, “We don’t like spaghetti that’s already passed into
history.”
“We don’t like history, anyway,” I said. “But have you got any matches?”
The man said, “Hey, sure, boss, plenty de match.”
So he gave us some matches and about half a loaf of shiny looking bread
that he had left from his own lunch and then he went along across the
bridge. We asked him how business was and he said, “No biz.”
After that we got our fire started and we cooked our fish on the tin
that Pee-wee had found and, yum yum, but that lunch tasted good. Maybe
if you were ever a starving mariner shipwrecked on a desert island,
you’ll know how that lunch tasted.
We were good and tired so we sprawled around in the woods near the creek
and jollied each other, especially Pee-wee.
Warde said, “The next time anybody mentions a funny-bone hike to me——”
“What do you know about funny-bone hikes?” Hervey shot back. “You’ve
only seen the beginning of one. What we’ve been doing up to now is just
a demonstration.”
“Good night, have a heart,” I said.
Hervey just lay there on his back with one leg up in the air, catching
that crazy hat of his on his foot and trying to kick it back on his
face—honest, that fellow’s a scream. All the while he was singing:
The land is very funny,
And the water’s very wet,
We’ve been everywhere,
But up in the air;
And we haven’t done anything yet.
I said, “Sure, maybe if we’re patient we’ll have some mishaps. While
there’s life there’s hope.”
“Trust to Hervey,” Bert said.
Pee-wee said, “I could do without the mishaps if I had some more food.”
“When you’re hungry you’re supposed to eat a little at a time,” I told
him. “Don’t you know when a man is starving they give him one spoonful
of milk to begin with? You have to get used to eating.”
“I’m used to it already,” our young hero shouted.
Warde said, “You’d better look out; did you ever hear about the
fish——”
“There isn’t any more fish,” I said.
“He was in a globe,” Warde said, “and the man that owned him took a
spoonful of water out of the globe each day until that fish gradually
learned to live on dry land.”
“What are you talking about?” Pee-wee screamed.
“I knew that fish personally,” Warde said; “and one day the man took him
out for a walk and the fish fell into a pond and was drowned.”
“That’s nothing,” Hervey said. “I knew a snake that lived in the tropics
where it was very hot and he came to New York on a visit, and he fell
into a furnace and froze to death.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?” Pee-wee yelled.
“Sure,” Hervey said, “if I believe it you’ve got to believe it, because
I’m your leader. From this time on we’re going to play the game right,
if I’m going to be leader.”
“We have more fun doing things wrong,” I said.
“Sure,” he said, all the while kicking his hat; “the things may be wrong
but we’re supposed to do them right.”
“Now I know you’re crazy,” Pee-wee said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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