“We won’t cross our bridges till we come to them,” Westy said.
“We’re not going to take it across the river,” the kid shouted.
“Crossing bridges is an expression,” I told him. “It’s the same as premises, only different.”
So the next thing we had to think of was how to get the car past Slausen’s Auto Repair Shop, because repair shops can’t be moved like lunch wagons. And strategy doesn’t go with men who keep garages.
So the next thing we did was to go and ask Mr. Slausen if he’d be willing to let us take down a few boards from his ramshackle old building just above where the tracks went through if we promised to put them up again.
“Maybe my father’s going to get a flivver,” Pee-wee piped up, “and maybe if I run it I’ll have a smash-up, and I’ll get you to fix it.”
But that didn’t go with Mr. Slausen. He said, very gruff like, “You kids better go home and study your lessons and not be trying to move railroad cars.”
I said, “Scouts always keep their word, Mr. Slausen, and if we say we’ll put the boards back up again, we will.”
He said, “Well, I guess we won’t take down any boards, so you better run along.” And then he started to talk to a man and didn’t pay any more attention to us.
Just as we were going out Connie Bennett said, “Well, we’ll have to think of another way, that’s all. It’s got to be did somehow.”