“You’re crazy,” said Pee-wee, “a vista is when you see a long way up a narrow road, like. I can look both ways; back over the hill, too, I bet.”
“I’m going to take one more chance with Mrs. Spaghetti,” said Townsend. And raising his voice he asked again, simplifying the query, “Gas? Makadergas. Way far?”
The woman shrugged her shoulders again, “Wayerderfer Idner, makerderfergess Idner. Idner spiggedyamer.”
“Very well,” said Townsend, “if that’s the way you feel about it. It looks as if we’ll have to stay neighbors; we might as well be friends. Let’s push the car over to the side of the road, Kid. I don’t think much of this for a camping spot.”
They sat in the car for a few minutes discussing the situation while the goat looked on intently through the woven wire mattress. Abandoning, apparently, all vain hopes of eating the Ford, he had picked up his rusty tin can again, holding its crumpled rusty cover in his mouth while his gaze still lingered on the strangers.
“Gee whiz,” said Pee-wee, “I’ll eat anything that comes out of a can but I won’t eat a can.”
“Good for you,” said Townsend.
He seemed to think it pleasant enough sitting there and for a while appeared to be altogether oblivious to their predicament.
“Shall I shin up the gate?” Pee-wee asked again, finally.
Townsend glanced idly at the gate. “Might be a good idea,” he said. “Do you think you could do it?”