CHAPTER X—MINERVA SKYBROW TAKES COMMAND
“Hurrah for Joan of Arc!” one scout began shouting.
“What do we care?” Pee-wee managed to blurt out.
“We care a good deal,” Westy said. “Our glorious leader is all right on the field of battle, but when it comes to planning a strategical move——”
“We can’t go on eating for nearly three hours,” a scout from the East Bridgeboro troop said. “We’ve got to get home sometime.”
Minerva Skybrow (that was her name), she just looked at us and she said, “Oh, doubtless you’ll think of a way; scouts are so smart. They’re so resourceful.”
One of the other girls said, “Yes, and they can do anything with their appetites, you know.”
“Up to a certain point,” Westy said.
“Upstrn put in—vncble,” Pee-wee blurted. “Bth not insrmtble——”
I said, “Don’t try to manage a cup of coffee, a sandwich and a piece of pie and the word insurmountable at the same time. It can’t be did.”
“I—cnsrmntble cern pnt——”
“Shut up,” I said; “this is no time for words; this is a time for actions.”
Gee whiz, I saw we were in a tight place and there was that girl just standing there staring at us through her big glasses. I bet she was just the kind of a girl that likes algebra. There were the old rusty railroad tracks clear at last right across the field as far as Slausen’s. And there was Tony’s Lunch Wagon a couple of hundred feet away from where it always stood. We knew he’d move it right back to its old place again as soon as there wasn’t anything more doing in the field, because on account of his regular trade there, and besides there was a little flight of wooden steps built over there which just fitted in front of the door. And all his boards and things were there besides. There was a kind of a bulletin board there, too, with all the eats and things marked up on it. Jimmies, if he had been able to talk English maybe we could have argued with him, but we couldn’t get anything into his head, not even with a crowbar.
Everybody knows that scouts have good appetites, and I can prove it by the cook up at Temple Camp, but gee williger, no scout can go on eating for over two hours; even Pee-wee couldn’t. I saw the terrible mistake I had made. It was a military blunder.
I said to Tony, “How soon you go back?”
“Sooner no more de biz,” he said.
“I’ll have one more sandwich,” said Westy.
“Can you make it two for the sake of the cause?” I asked him.
“Give me another plate of chowder,” Connie Bennett said. “You don’t hear a train in the distance, do you?”
One of the girls said, “Oh, mercy, it won’t be here till five o’clock. We’ll stay and let you know when it comes. Because, you know we really have nothing to do. We can’t run and jump and play ball, you know. We’re only girls, aren’t we, Minerva?”
I said, “Well, there’s only one thing for us to do. We’ve got to hold the fort——”
“Can we hold the food? That’s the question,” some fellows shouted.
“Absypostvly,” Pee-wee blurted out. “Hip, hip——”
“Shut up,” I told him. “There’s only one thing for us to do and that is to work in platoons. Scouts will go into the wagon four at a time and eat at the counter. Nothing must be eaten except at the counter. As they come out they’ll be relieved by others. Don’t eat too fast. The train will be here in two hours. We can hold out. There is nothing else to do. The lunch wagon must be held. Somebody go over to the station and find out if the milk train is on time. Keep busy. Chowder is recommended, but scouts must use their judgment. On to victory. We can eat forever!”
“Make th wrld safe fr dmcrcy!” Pee-wee yelled.
“Forever!” a lot of them shouted.
“What’s two hours?”
“We can eat forever! Hurrah!”
Just then one of those Little Valley scouts came running back from the station. “The milk train is an hour and a half late!” he said.
“Oh, isn’t that just too exasperating?” said Minerva Skybrow.