The late afternoon sun was glinting up the river and bathing the patched roof of their old ramshackle railroad car in flickering tints of gold, as they made their way across the field to their quaint headquarters down by the shore in Bridgeboro. The tide was full, the unsightly mud banks hidden; it seemed as if their beloved familiar river had donned its best array to meet them. It rippled against the grassy shore in a kind of song of welcome. The birds were busy in the neighboring willow tree, and a fish flopped out of the glittering water as if to remind them that some of the pleasures of vacation time were left to them.
“Hello, old car!” said El Sawyer of the Ravens, as he tossed the duffel bag through a broken window. “I hope we have enough in the treasury to get that window put in.”
“We should worry,” said Roy.
“There’s a lot of fun not having any money,” said Pee-wee.
“We ought to have plenty of fun then,” said Westy. “This old car has got the County Poorhouse turning green with envy.”
“They have a lot of fun in the poorhouse, they whittle things with sticks,” Pee-wee said. “If you always have fun no matter what, that shows you’re an optomotrist.”
“You mean an optimist,” Doc Carson said.
“Let’s leave our stuff here and go home,” said Connie. “Then we can start in to-morrow.”
“Off with the new love, on with the old,” said Artie.
“There’s no place like this old car,” said Westy.