“If you can only be sure there are no rats around, I believe I’d enjoy sleeping in a hay mow,” Davy told them.
“I’ve never had the experience,” remarked Smithy with a shrug of his shoulders, and a grimace; “and I must confess I don’t hanker much for it. Bad enough to have to roll up in your own blanket any old time; but spiders and hornets and all that horrible set are to be found in haylofts, they tell me. I’m more afraid of them than an alligator or a wild bull. A gypsy once told me I would die from poison bites, and ever since I’ve had to be mighty careful.”
Of course the rest of the scouts had to laugh to hear Smithy confess that he believed in the prophecy of a gypsy, or any other fake fortune-teller.
“I wouldn’t lie awake a minute,” ventured Step Hen, “if a dozen gypsies told me I was going to break my neck falling out of bed. Fact is, I’m built so contrary that like as not I’d hunt up the highest bed I could find to sleep on. I do everything on Friday I can think of; and when the thirteenth of the month comes around I’m always looking out to see how I can tempt fate. Ain’t an ounce of superstition in my whole body, I guess. Fortune-tellers! Bah! you ought to have been a girl, Smithy.”
“Oh! well, I didn’t say I believed I’d die by poison, did I?” demanded the other adroitly; “I’m only explaining that I don’t mean to let the silly prophecy come true by taking hazards that are quite unnecessary.”
“Seems to me we’ve been walking like hot cakes ever since we said good-by to Smikes and Jake,” observed Bumpus, who was puffing a little from his exertions; “and Thad, would you mind if we took a little breathing spell about now? Just see how inviting this pile of old fence rails looks alongside the road. I hope you say yes, Thad, because I want to get fit to keep on the go till dark comes along.”
“No objections to favoring you, Bumpus,” Thad told him; “and if looks count for anything I rather think all the rest of us will be glad of a chance to rest up a little. So drop down, and take things easy, boys. I’ll give you ten minutes here.”
“Look sharp before you sit down!” warned Smithy, who had disengaged his blanket, as though meaning to use it for a soft cushion—time was when he invariably brushed a board or other intended resting-place with his handkerchief before sitting down; but the other scouts had long ago laughed him out of this habit, which jarred upon their nerves as hardly consistent with rough-and-ready scout life.
Giraffe had a most remarkable pair of eyes. He often discovered things that no one else had any suspicion existed. On this account, as well as the fact that he was able to see further and more accurately than his chums, he was sometimes designated as “Old Eagle Eye,” and the employment of that name invariably gave him more or less pleasure, since it proclaimed his superiority in the line of observation.
Giraffe was also a great hand for practical jokes. When some idea flashed into his mind he often gave little heed to the possible result, but immediately felt impelled to put his scheme into practice, with the sole idea of creating a laugh, of course with another scout as the victim.