Automobile travel -- Juvenile fiction; Boy Scouts of America -- Juvenile fiction
And, _good night, Sister Anne_, excuse me while I laugh! What do you
think we saw when we got inside that place? About a couple of hundred
feet away was a merry-go-round, and riding around on it were our young
hero and those other four fellows, and they were all holding on to the
brass rods with one hand and eating frankfurters with the other.
“I got the brass ring! I got the brass ring!” Pee-wee shouted. “I get an
extra ridel I’m promoted from the Infantry, I’m in the Cavalry! We’re
making a desperate cavalry charge!”
Can you beat that kid?
CHAPTER XXXV—PEACE WITH INDEMNITY
I said, “We should worry about the cavalry; the only thing that this
cavalry can surround is the organ on the merry-go-round.”
“I can surround a frankfurter,” Pee-wee shouted. Believe me, he could.
Harry said, “The cavalry will dismount; you’re all court-martialed and
ordered to be shot at sunrise in the shooting gallery. Fall in line.”
Jiminies, I had to laugh to see that bunch trotting along after the
autos, all the while munching frankfurters. I guess we were the craziest
looking parade that ever was; but you can have a lot of fun being crazy,
that’s one thing sure. All the people stopped what they were doing and
followed after us. Most of the things that they were doing were eating.
I wouldn’t stop doing that for anybody, I wouldn’t.
All around were veterans in old blue coats and they were sitting in
groups talking; they were talking about Gettysburg and Richmond, and
General Grant, and things like that. One of them was talking about Sugar
Loaf Mountain and Pee-wee kind of slowed up so as he could listen. I
guess he thought it was some kind of candy, hey? Harry looked around and
shouted, “Attention!” And the kid jumped about a foot in the air.
Pretty soon we came to a little tent and there was a sign on it that
said, “_Administration Tent_.”
Pee-wee shouted, “Go on, till we come to the commissary tent.”
I shouted back to him, “You’re a whole commissary in yourself. You’re a
nice looking sight to demand a surrender. The first thing you want to
seize is a wash basin!”
Sitting in front of that tent were several veterans and one of them was
kind of cross and severe looking and he had a bald head. His head was so
bald that I guess he didn’t know where to stop washing his face. You
couldn’t even tell where his face was unless he put his hat on. He
looked as if he was used to bossing people around. Anyway, I knew he was
a Union soldier, because he had a telegram in his hand and it said
_Western Union_ on it.
We all stopped right in front of the tent and Harry got down and made a
salute; it was awful funny. He said, “Major Grumpy, I believe?”
“That is my name, sir,” the old man said, very stern, kind of like a
school principal.
Harry said, “I am Lieutenant Donnelle and these are my allied forces. We
come here under the protection of a white—eh, a white popcorn bar. Hold
up the popcorn bar, Private Harris.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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