Mr. Van Schlessenhoff laughed so hard that he said he guessed it would be all right for us to go ahead if we could navigate the car, because maybe he would leave that field right there and not put it in the market after all.
So you can see how all this crazy stuff was started by Pee-wee. He set the ball rolling—I mean the car. And oh, boy——
CHAPTER IV—WE TRY DIPLOMACY
I made a map. It isn’t much good and it doesn’t show all the streets in our town, but it shows the streets that old track crosses. On Main Street, almost opposite the station, is Bennett’s. I put that in because I thought maybe you’d like to know where it is. It hasn’t got anything to do with our adventures in this story, but it’s in the story a lot, just the same.
When that old track was new I guess there wasn’t any Willow Place; I guess Main Street didn’t amount to much either. There wasn’t any building where Slausen’s is, that’s sure. And Tony’s Lunch Wagon wasn’t there, that’s sure. They didn’t have any big grammar school in Bridgeboro then. Those were the happy days.
Now the first night after we got home after our wild ride, we had a troop meeting to see if we could think up any way to get our car from the station over to Van Schlessenhoff’s field. Because what’s the use of having a home if you haven’t got any place to put it? Be it never so humble, you’ve got to have a place to put your home.
We had that meeting right in the car near the station. Pee-wee said that he’d be a committee to go out and look at the tracks. All he wanted was a chance to go over to Bennett’s.
I said, “This is no time for ice cream cones with the transportation problem staring us in the face. It’s bad enough to be put out of your home, but to have your home put out, that’s worse. You don’t suppose the railroad is going to leave this car here, do you?”
“We’ll be convicted,” Pee-wee shouted. He meant evicted.