“I don’t care what we strike as long as we don’t strike our colors,” I told him. “Suppose three fellows walk together, and three others behind them, and Pee-wee and I will walk ahead because I’m the leader and he’s the standard bearer. Fall in.”
“Into what?” the kid wanted to know.
“Into line,” I said. “You walk ahead with me and do as I tell you. You’re going to be courier and envoy and a lot of things. You’re my official body-guard. You’re my staff. Only don’t break your other garter. Don’t give the enemy any advantage.”
So that was the way we fixed it. I marched ahead, with Pee-wee at my side holding the standard. He was a kind of a martial band, too, on account of his aluminum cooking set rattling and jingling in the phonograph horn. He looked very severe. I guess the women and children will never forget when he passed through poor, defenseless Bridgeboro. They’re laughing yet. Talk about poor Belgium!
I marched along beside my official staff. I guess you know what I look like. You can see me on the cover of this book. That laugh is caused by Pee-wee. You can only see it, but oh, boy, you ought to hear it. Behind us came Westy and Dorry and Hunt Manners marching together, and behind them were Will Dawson and the Warner twins marching together. The expeditionary forces!
Behind us, after we got into town, all the kids followed along to see what it was all about, so pretty soon we had a crowd of about a couple of dozen all around us, yelling and hooting. And all the grown up people stopped and stared and then began to laugh. All the while Pee-wee looked straight ahead and his face was very severe.
We had two things to go by, the tree away off there on the ridge, and Pee-wee’s compass. I carried that compass to help us in places where we couldn’t see the tree. All we had to do was to go straight west.
The best way to hike a straight course with a compass is to get a very thin stick that’s perfectly straight. A knitting needle is good only you must be sure not to use a steel one. You lay that across your compass. If you’re going west you lay it across the east and west points. It’s best to lay the compass down on something when you do that. Then you get a bead on the direction of the stick and pick out something that it points at. Then you hike straight for that thing. But there’s no fun hiking a bee-line unless you’re fair and square with yourself. If you go just a little bit out of your way to avoid something and try to make yourself think you’re going straight, that’s no fun. Because, one thing, you can’t jolly a compass.