Part 1 (1/2)
The Hickory Ridge Boy Scouts: Under Canvas.
by Alan Douglas.
CHAPTER I
OUT FOR Sh.e.l.l-BARKS
”TOBY, we must be half-way there now; don't you think so?”
”Guess you're right about that, Mr. Scout Master; as near as I can calculate.”
”Glad to hear you say so, Toby, because, excuse me for saying it, but until I hear something that sounds like business I'm all up in the air.
I've known you to fool your trusting scout comrades before this.”
”There you go, George Robbins, suspicious as ever. No wonder they call you Doubting George. You never will believe anything till you see it with your own eyes, and then you often wonder whether you're awake or dreaming. Now, I told Elmer here, our a.s.sistant Scout Master, about my plan, and he took my word for it.”
”That's all right, Toby, but unfortunately I was born different; I'm not so trusting, and things are mighty deceptive in this world, sometimes.”
A fourth boy of the party in the big wagon broke into the conversation at this point, by laughing hoa.r.s.ely, and going on to remark, with a decided lisp:
”I bet you were, George; and I can thee you looking up at the doctor and thaying the very first thing: 'The moon _ain't_ made of green cheeth; and I won't b'lieve it till you prove the thame to me, tho there!'”
”Hold on, Ted Burgoyne, don't fall all over yourself about my shortcomings; I'm not the only pebble on the beach when it comes to that; there are others. But to return to the subject. Toby, here are three of us burning up with curiosity to know where you're piloting this sh.e.l.l-bark hickory nut-gathering expedition. You let it out to Elmer in the start, but the rest of us don't know a thing about it. You promised to open up when we'd got far enough along the road so there wouldn't be any turning back. And there was something said about half-way; so now's your chance.”
”I can see you all looking my way,” remarked the fifth boy in khaki, with a peculiar little drawl, quite musical, to his voice, that stamped him of Southern birth; ”and to hurry things up I move to make the request unanimous.”
”There, you heard what Chatz Maxfield said, Toby; take the cover off, and tell us where this wonderful bonanza lies. You promised that we'd get every sack we're carrying along filled to the brim with dandy chestnuts, hickories, and black walnuts. Why all this mystery? It looks mighty suspicious to me--excuse me for saying it.”
These five lads, st.u.r.dy looking chaps all of them, belonged to the Hickory Ridge Troop of Boy Scouts, Elmer, Ted, Toby and Chatz to the Wolf Patrol, and George to the Beaver. The troop was in a flouris.h.i.+ng condition, since both patrols had their full quota of eight members, and a third one, called the Eagle, was almost complete.
Elmer Chenowith had long been leader of the Wolf Patrol, and being a full fledged first-cla.s.s scout he had quite some time back secured from Scout Headquarters his certificate enabling him to act as a.s.sistant Scout Master in the absence of the young man, Mr. Roderic Garrabrant, who usually fulfilled the duties of that important office.
These bright, wideawake lads, with others of their chums, had seen considerable in the way of excitement during the preceding summer. Some of their adventures and victories have already been placed before the readers of this Series of scout books in preceding volumes, so that an extended introduction to Elmer and his four comrades is hardly necessary here. What has been said has only been for the benefit of such readers as are making their acquaintance for the first time.
It was on a Sat.u.r.day morning in Fall that they were driving over the road some four miles away from the home town. A sharp frost on the preceding night was just the thing to make nutting a success, for it helped open the burrs on the chestnut trees, as well as caused the hickory nuts and black walnuts to drop.
Just before Thanksgiving holidays boys may be expected to develop a feverish longing for an outing of some sort. It had struck these scouts in full force when Toby Jones confided to them that he knew a place where almost unlimited amounts of splendid nuts were to be gathered with very little trouble, only he declined to reveal his secret until they were well on the road.
The consequence was that he had three boys guessing for the balance of the week; and plaguing the life out of him in the endeavor to coax him to tell. But Toby was nothing if not stubborn, and he only shut those jaws of his tighter, and waved the tempters away with the remark that some people called him a clam because he knew how to keep his lips closed.
Toby was himself driving the big strong horse between the shafts of the wagon. The conveyance belonged to his father, and it sometimes took all of Toby's strength to hold the frisky animal in.
Toby's middle name was Ellsworth, given to him because his grandfather had in the Civil War been connected with a regiment of Zouaves under the famous colonel whose death at Alexandria, Virginia, occurred just about the time hostilities opened between the North and the South.
Toby was a strange boy in many ways. He cherished a burning desire to become a celebrated aeronaut, and by means of some wonderful invention that would turn the world upside-down make the name of Jones famous. As yet, however, Toby had only succeeded in patching up several supposed-to-be flying machines, which had managed to give him a few rough tumbles, though luckily not any broken bones. His chums never knew what he would spring on them next, for he was constantly grappling with puzzling questions connected with the science of aviation, and deploring the fact that there was always something magnificent just ahead of him that seemed to be eluding his eager clutch like a will-o'-the-wisp in the swamp.
Ted Burgoyne had the misfortune to possess a hare-lip, which made him lisp. He was not so st.u.r.dy in build as some of his mates, but as smart as they make them, and with a decided leaning for the profession of a doctor. Indeed, such was the extent of his knowledge of surgery and medicine that he often went by the name of ”Doctor Ted.” And having had occasion to perform certain necessary operations along the line of setting broken limbs, and bandaging severed arteries, his work had been commended by several professional M.D.'s as marvelous.