I guess it was about five o’clock then; anyway it must have been after four because we were getting hungry. It’s strenuous work catching bandits. The tree up on the ridge was all kind of red. The sky was bright over there and it looked fine. That’s the time I like best, when the sun begins to get red. I was wondering if we could see my house when we got up on the ridge.
Pretty soon we climbed over the old amusement park fence and then we just had to cut straight across fields till we came to Little Valley. Before we got there all the windows in the houses looked as if there were lights shining inside of them. That was a sign the sun was beginning to go down. When the windows look bright like that in August you’ll know it’s after five o’clock. In Bridgeboro at six o’clock some of the houses in Little Valley look as if they were on fire. We got fooled that way once. We went all the way there by the road and there wasn’t any building burning down at all. Gee whiz, we were mad!
Little Valley isn’t so big. The fellows over there come to Bridgeboro High School. There’s a one-patrol troop there. Harry Donnelle lives there too. He told us whenever we came to Little Valley to be quiet so as not to wake the people up. He says that place ought to be called Rip Van Winkleberg. But anyway, I don’t see how you can wake a town up if it’s dead. The only thing that’s quick about Little Valley is some quicksand near the creek. But they’ve got a good ball field there for the Bridgeboro team to beat them on. Anyway, I’m not so stuck on baseball. Me for stalking and tracking and all that.
Now when we got to Little Valley we marched in formation just the same as we did in Bridgeboro, two rows of three fellows each. I marched ahead with my official staff and we let Warde Hollister go ahead of us all with the cardboard standard because he didn’t have any scout suit. I bet Little Valley felt like Belgium when it saw us coming.
We had to go across one lawn, but a lady told us it was all right. Pee-wee started to give her a lecture about the scouts but I grabbed him by the collar and made him come along. He rattled like an old junk wagon. The lady said he looked like Don Quixote. I don’t know much about that fellow, but if I ever meet him I’m going to apologize to him for what she said.
Next we came to Main Street, named after the water main. By that time we had a crowd of kids at our heels again and everybody was staring at us. I hope they liked us. A man let us go through his store and climb over the back fence and then we came out on the village green.
There’s a band-stand on that village green and a whole crowd of kids climbed up into it so as to see us. Pee-wee looked mighty proud. A lot of grown people were standing around too, staring at us and laughing. I guess they thought our big sign looked pretty funny.
One man said, “Is the civilian population going to be spared?”
I said, “The civilized population is going to be spared, but if there are any ice cream cones in this berg they’re going to die a horrible death. Plant our banner in the village green,” I said to Warde, “and all gather around your gallant leader.”