“Well, what are you grunting about, then, tell us?” demanded Step Hen, who was himself limping a little, because of a pebble that had managed to work into his shoe despite the protecting legging, and hurt his foot before he bothered getting it out.
“Why, you see,” began Bumpus naïvely, “it’s started to rain at last, that’s all!”
CHAPTER IX.
ANY PORT IN A STORM.
“Hurrah for Bumpus, who’s made a first discovery!” exclaimed Giraffe, pretending to show great enthusiasm by waving his campaign hat about his head.
“Well, I don’t see that it’s anything to laugh at,” Smithy was heard to remark, with a lugubrious expression on his face; “if it comes down on us while we’re on the tramp, and without any sort of protection, we’ll soon be all mussed up, and in a nice pickle. I’d be considerably better pleased to have Bumpus discover the sun peeping out at us before setting.”
“What can’t be cured must be endured, you know, Smithy,” Thad told the former dandy of the troop, who was every now and then showing traces of his old faults, though he had been cured of numerous shortcomings. “If it rains we’ll have to get our rubber ponchos over our shoulders, and then look for a place to spend the night. Things are never so bad but what you’ll find they could be worse.”
That indeed was the whole secret of Thad’s success, and the cheerful spirit he invariably displayed when up against difficulties; and every boy who makes up his mind to look at his troubles in the same hopeful spirit will surely profit from such a course. Things are never at their worst, though we may temporarily think so. The few drops that came down did not last and as the scouts continued to push along the river road they kept their eyes on the watch for some valley farm, where they might possibly find shelter against the coming storm.
It began to look as though they must have struck a portion of the country where, for some unknown reason, farms were few and far between, which is not often the case along the picturesque Susquehanna, since most of the land is under some kind of cultivation.
Thad even began to fear that as the evening was now close at hand they might be compelled to abandon their hope of finding a house, and use the little time remaining in building some sort of rude shelter.
The idea did not appeal very strongly to him, because he knew that if a heavy downpour came upon them it might last for twenty-four hours; and such a primitive camp would prove a dismal refuge indeed, with no fire to cheer them, and dripping trees all around, not to speak of a rapidly rising river.