“I’m going to make a ticket office out of this grocery box. You take this pack of cigar coupons and write O. K. W. Harris, per H. on the back of each one. And you,” he said, turning to Hop-toad Willie, “take the cardboard out of that other box and take this trail sign marker and print Positively no Trespassing in good big letters on it. Make them good and black.”
“Shall I say under penalty of the law?” Willie asked.
“No, but be sure to say Positively; you’d better say Absolutely positively by my orders. Underneath that you better put Definitely.”
“Shall I put ‘violators will be reported’?”
“No, because I don’t know how to spell violators. Anyway put Unconditionally and make a hand pointing to it.”
The following accurate reproduction of this sign is from a photograph taken with Dorry Benton’s stalking kodak:
This authoritive warning was supplemented by others which read This is our private float. We’ve got the use of this float. Private property. Remember Rule 7. On the grocery box in which a sort of pigeon-hole had been hacked out was printed Buy tickets here to cross this float, 5¢, no war tax.
Before the settlers turned in for the night the trees on both sides of the cove were decorated with warnings and announcements. The float itself looked like a miniature amusement enterprise with its grocery box ticket office, festooned with a couple of scout scarfs. It stood upon the provision keg ready for business. Behind it stood the ramshackle camp stool for the accommodation of the ticket agent. Across the float a black line had been drawn with the marker connecting the two loose ends of trail, an idea borrowed from the unfathomable wilderness of the New York subway. Close to it were the words Follow black line.
But this was not all. Upon the boards were sketched crude representations of slices of pie, of saucers with arctic mountains of ice cream (wisely labelled), and other loaded saucers labelled fruit pudding, rice pudding and the like, intended to influence hesitating and penurious scouts. Across the tent was printed Hundreds of helpings for a nickel! Tickets accepted at messboards! Here’s your chance! Start a run on the First National Cooking Shack! Place your nickel where it will bring results!