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
Now that’s just the way it was—the way I told you. That’s the nearest I
ever came to a ghost in my life. When the bell swung up sideways it
swung toward the west. Warde explained just how it was. So if you don’t
believe me you can ask him. There was a voice somewhere that we could
hardly hear. But when the bell swung up it caught the voice _inside it_
and when it swung down it threw the voice down; it kind of brought the
voice down and dropped it out. And because the bell was hollow and made
of metal it made the voice louder and stronger.
That’s the only way I can tell you, but it’s true and echoes like that
are called reflex echoes, only I guess nobody heard of a reflex echo
exactly like that before. In echoes like that you hear the echo when you
can’t really hear the voice. When that bell was hanging the sound waves
(that’s what you call them) struck the outside slanting part of the bell
and were reflected _up_. But when the bell swung it caught the sound
inside it and just sort of tumbled it out on us.
So if you ever go to Old Corners you’ll see a sign on that old church
that we put there and it says ECHO CHIMES. Then it tells you just
exactly where to go in the woods in order to make an echo like the one
that scared us so. Maybe you wonder how we found out just where to go in
the woods. So that’s what I’m going to tell you in the next chapter.
Because it was a real voice away off somewhere in the woods that was
calling for help. The funny part of it was that we heard the reflex echo
but we didn’t hear the voice. I bet you’ll say I’m smart when you read
all this but, gee whiz, I guess you’d call it reflex smartness because I
got it all from Warde Hollister.
CHAPTER XXIV
WE DROP DEAD-ALMOST
We crossed the road and hit into the woods going straight west. We knew
which way to go because it was when the bell swung up that we got the
echo, and because it swung toward the setting sun.
Every little while one of us had to climb a tree to see where the sun
was. Lucky for us Temple Camp was in that direction, and beside the sun
we had the smoke from the cooking shack to guide us. We took turns
climbing the trees.
We didn’t play Follow Your Leader because our minds were on rescuing
that person who was calling for help.
“I’m glad Temple Camp is in the same direction,” Warde said, “because
I’m good and hungry.”
“I’m going to eat dinner and supper all in one when we get back,”
Pee-wee said.
“I could eat hardtack or upholstery tacks or carpet tacks or gilt-headed
tacks, I’m so hungry,” I said.
“I’d like to have—one—big—chunk—of chocolate cake,” said Garry.
“I’d eat a cake of soap,” I said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account