href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@44172@[email protected]#chXXXVII" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">XXXVII—That Mysterious Paper Again

XXXVIII—The Only Way

ROY BLAKELEY’S MOTOR CARAVAN

CHAPTER I—SOME EXPEDITION!

Gee whiz, whenever I see that fellow Harry Domicile, I know there’s going to be a lot of fun. Just the same as I can always tell if we’re going to have mince turnovers for dessert. That’s one thing I’m crazy about—mince turnovers. I can tell when I go through the kitchen if we’re going to have them, because our cook has a kind of a look on her face. I can eat five of those things at a sitting, but that isn’t saying how many I can eat standing up. Pee-wee Harris can eat seven, even while he’s talking at the same time. Anyway, that hasn’t got anything to do with Harry Donnelle.

Maybe you’re wondering why I named this chapter “Some Expedition.” If it was about Pee-wee Harris, I’d name it “Some Exhibition,” because that kid is a regular circus. So now I guess I’ll tell you.

One afternoon I was sitting on the railing of our porch taking a rest after mowing the lawn. I was thinking how it would be a good idea if they had lawn mowers that run by gas engines. We’ve got a great big lawn at our house. At Doc Carson’s house they have a little bit of a lawn—he’s lucky. Gee whiz, you could cut that lawn with a safety razor.

All of a sudden I saw Harry Donnelle coming up the street. I guess maybe you know who he is, because we had some adventures with him in other stories. He’s a big fellow, I guess he’s about twenty-five. He was a lieutenant in the war. My sister likes him a lot only she said I mustn’t say so in a story. I should worry about her. He comes up to our house a lot. Believe me, that fellow’s middle name is adventure. He says all his ancestors were crazy about adventures. He says he wouldn’t have any ancestors unless they were. He says that’s why he picked them out. Gee williger, you ought to hear him jollying Pee-wee. He told Pee-wee that once he lived in obscurity and Pee-wee wanted to know where that was. Can you beat that? Harry told him it was in Oregon. Good night!

So as soon as I saw that fellow coming up across the lawn, I kind of knew there was going to be something doing. Because only a few days before that he had told me that maybe he would want my patrol to help him in a daring exploit. Oh, boy, those are my favorite outdoor sports—daring exploits. I eat them alive.

He said, “Hello, kid, I went fishing with Jake Holden last night and we got into a school of perch.”

I said, “Don’t talk about school; this is vacation.”

He had a bundle with some perch in it and he said they were for supper. So I took them into the kitchen and while I was in there I ate some icing off a cake. If I had my way cakes would be all icing, but our cook says you have to have a foundation to put the icing on. Me for the roof.

When I went back Harry said, “I suppose you kids will be starting for that old dump up in the Catskills pretty soon.” He meant Temple Camp. I said, “We take our departure in two weeks.”

He said, “Take your which?”

I said, “Our departure; don’t you know what that is?”

“Well,” he said, kind of puzzled like, “I guess I’ll have to pike around and get some assistance somewhere else. I’ve got a little job on hand that I thought might interest you and your patrol. Ever hear of the Junkum Corporation, automobile dealers? They have the agency for the Kluck car. They’re down in New York. It wasn’t anything much; just a little hop, skip, and a jump out west, and back again.”

“In junk cars—I mean Kluck cars?” I blurted out.

“Mostly junk,” he said; “but of course, as long as your plans are made——”

“Never you mind about our plans,” I told him; “tell me all about it.” Because, gee, I was all excited.

He said, “Well, there isn’t much to it; just a little gypsy and caravan stuff, as you might say. My sister’s husband’s brother, Mr. Junkum, is tearing his hair out and lying awake nights, because he can’t get cars here from the west. He says the customers are standing on line and all that sort of thing and that everything is clogged up at the other end, the railroads are all tied up in a knot, the freight is piled up as high as the Woolworth building and nothing short of a good dose of dynamite will loosen up the freight congestion out west. If it was a matter of Ford cars he could get them through by parcel post, but with these big six cylinder Klucks it’s a different proposition. He’s got three touring cars and a big motor van waiting for shipment out in Klucksville, Missouri, and if he can’t make deliveries in a couple of weeks or so his customers are going to cancel. Poor guy, I’m sorry for him.”

That’s just the way Harry talks. He said, “One of those cars, the big enclosed van, is for Jolly and Kidder’s big store in New York.”

“That’s where I bought my last scout suit, at Jolly and Kidder’s,” I told him.

Then he said, “Junkum wanted me to see if I couldn’t round up two or three fellows and bang out to Klucksville and bring the cars home under their own power. I told him the roads were punk and he said it’s punk to have your business canceled, so there you are.”

“Oh, bibbie,” I said, “we’d love to do that only we can’t run cars on account of not being old enough.”

Then he said, “I rounded up Tom Slade and he agreed to die for the cause—said his vacation was at my disposal. He drove a motor truck in France and he’s a bug on good turns. Rossie Bent has promised to run one of the touring cars, I’m going to run the van myself and that leaves one touring car. I tried to get Brent Gaylong on the long distance ’phone up at Newburgh to-day, but he wasn’t home—out grouching around, I suppose. His mother said she’d have him call me up or wire me. All I want now is a commissary department and I got a kind of a hunch that maybe you kids could camp in the van and cook for the crowd and make yourselves generally useful. The way I figure it out by the road map there’ll be long stretches of road where we won’t bunk into any towns. I figured on taking Pee-wee along as a kind of a mascot; you know those little fancy jim-cracks they put on radiator caps in autos? I thought he could be one of those, as you might say, and bring us good luck. He’d be a whole commissary department in himself, I suppose, considering the way he eats. But if you can’t you can’t, and that’s all there is about it.”

“What do you mean, we can’t?” I shouted at him. “You make me tired! Do you suppose Temple Camp is going to run away just because my patrol is a couple of weeks late getting there? You bet your life we’ll go. If you try to sneak off without us, we’ll come after you. We’re coming back in that motor van, so that’s settled. I should worry about Temple Camp.”

He just sat there on the railing alongside of me, laughing.

He said, “I thought it would hit you.”

“Hit me!” I told him. “Believe me, it gave me a knockout blow.”

He said he’d stay to supper so as to talk my mother and father into it, because they don’t care anything about making long trips in motor vans and things like that, and maybe they’d say I’d better not go.

But, believe me, Harry Domicile knows how to handle mothers and fathers all right, especially mothers. So don’t you worry, just leave it to him.

The worst is yet to come.

II—WHO WE ALL ARE

What do you think my father said? He said he wished he was young enough