Only, gee whiz, I don’t like it to rain in vacation.
CHAPTER XXXIX
WELCOME HOME
Now this chapter goes from the bottom of that mountain to the top of a pineapple soda in Bennett’s. That’s in Bridgeboro where I live.
The first house we came to along the road we got the farmer up and told him about the fire on the east side of Eagle’s Nest, and how we got away from it. He asked us if it was very bad.
“Jiminetty!” I said, “I don’t know how bad it is, but I hope the eagles up there have their nests insured.”
Harry asked him if he had a telephone and he said, “No.”
“We probably couldn’t get a number if you did,” Harry said; “the telephone company reminds me of Rip Van Winkle; they seem to have gone to sleep at the switch-board for twenty years. Have you got a flivver?”
We kind of knew he had, because they raise flivvers on all the farms up that way. But he was a regular farmer—he had a Packard, 1776 model. And, believe me, we packed that Packard, and in ten minutes we were rolling over the road that runs around the mountain, headed for Haverstraw.
Harry kept talking to the girls; it was awful funny to hear him. Those other two fellows didn’t have a chance at all. Gee, I was glad of it, because what right did that fellow have to say I was just a kid? That girl that helped us, said we were just wonderful. Cracky, I wouldn’t say that we’re so smart, but when there’s a fire we don’t stand wringing our hands as if they were a fire bell.
When we came into Haverstraw, we found the streets full of people, everybody watching the fire on the mountain. We could see the east side of Eagle’s Nest and the fire, just as plain as if it were all on a movie screen. It seemed kind of funny, because while we were up there we never thought about how it would look from the village. The fire was right up on the top of the mountain now, with little patches in other places, and we could see a great big burned space. I guess that was the very part we had passed through on our way up.