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
“All right, here we go back again,” I said as we all tumbled into a
couple of seats. Then I started to sing that crazy stuff about the Duke
of Yorkshire:
There was the Duke of Yorkshire,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up the hill,
And he marched them down again.
And when they’re up, they’re up,
And when they’re down, they’re down;
And when they’re only half-way up,
They’re neither up nor down.
“Alsen is a mighty nice place, what I saw of it,” Garry said. “I
couldn’t see it on account of the station. The happiest ten seconds of
my life were spent there.”
I said, “I wish I could have spent a nickel there.”
“Are you going to start for camp when we get to Catskill?” the kid
wanted to know. “I’m getting hungry.”
“I thought you didn’t have to eat for four years, that’s what you said,”
I told him.
“What are you talking about?” he yelled.
I said, “When we get back to Catskill you’re going to follow your
gallant leader in an east westerly direction till we come to the—North
Pole, I mean the clothespole, outside the cooking shack at Temple Camp.
We’re going to reach the pole like Doctor Cook didn’t do. When I hang my
patrol scarf on the clothespole outside the cooking shack that’s a sign
our journey is over. From the West Shore Line to the clothesline, that’s
our motto.”
“We’re starting,” Warde said.
“Get your dimes ready,” Garry said.
“I haven’t got anything smaller than a cent,” I told him.
“You mean you haven’t got any sense,” Pee-wee shot at me.
“I’m poor but dishonest,” I said.
Just then I heard the door at the other end of the car slam shut and a
brakeman came through shouting, “Albany the first stop, the first stop
is Albany.”
“G-o-o-d night!” I said. “The plot grows thicker.”
“It’s petrified,” Warde said.
“We’re lost, strayed or stolen,” Garry began laughing.
We all made a dash for the platform, but it was too late. We were foiled
again. The train was going at about forty-eleven miles an hour.
“Now what?” Pee-wee demanded, very dark and solemn like.
“Answered in the affirmative,” I said; “we don’t.”
“Don’t what?” he said.
“Don’t care,” Hervey spoke up. “We can do some stunts in the State
Capital. We can jump over the seats in the Senate. Albany is only about
thirty miles away.”
I said, “Posilutely; we can get back inside of four years and have a
couple of centuries to spare. Follow your leader wherever he goes. I may
jump over the governor’s head; they pass bills over his head. You learn
that in uncivil government.”
“The more we start for camp the farther we get from it,” the kid said.
“Correct the first time,” I said; “be thankful you’re not on a comet.”
“What are we going to do?” he wanted to know.
“Is it a riddle?” I asked him.
“No, it isn’t a riddle!” he shot back at me.
“Because if it is, it’s a good one,” I said. “It’s about the best one I
ever heard.”
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