“Did he tell you that himself?” I asked him.
“You make me tired,” he shouted.
Westy said, “Well, this isn’t getting us up the ridge, is it? What do you say we start?”
I said to the kid, “Are you sure that was real butter, or was it just butterine? The Island of Butterine, discovered by a frog scout of the Pollywog Patrol.”
“If we start jollying Pee-wee we’ll never get up the ridge,” one of the fellows said. So then we started.
Now from the desert island of Butterine (just under the cliff) to the ridge was maybe as much as a half a mile. For a little way the land was flat and open and then the ridge began. We would have to go up the side of the ridge. What I mean by a ridge is a long hill, oh, as much as several miles long. We knew a road ran along on the top of that ridge. For a little way we could see the big tree up there. Then, as we came closer to the ridge we couldn’t see it on account of the woods.
Now the next adventure we had was before we came to the base of the ridge. I told you there were open fields and the railroad ran north and south. Until we reached the tracks we could see the tree. Pretty soon after that we had to use our compass going up through the woods on the ridge.
All along in the fields beside that railroad track were big wooden signs telling people what they should buy. The country would look better if those big signs were not there. You know the kind of signs I mean—the kind you see when you’re riding in the train. One of them says everybody should want to make his home beautiful, so he should buy a certain kind of paint, because beauty is what counts. If the man that owns that sign is worrying so much about things being beautiful I should think he’d take that sign down.
One of these signs was very big and it happened to be right in our path. It says, “Brown’s hats are always on top.” Maybe that’s a joke, kind of. We crossed the tracks and then about a hundred feet farther was the sign. There was a man there who was just finishing doing some painting on it. He had a stepladder and a can of paint and things, and he had a camera, too.
“Maybe that’s Mr. Brown,” the kid said.