Gee whiz, when I looked at him sitting there on that grocery box with his face all grimy and his hair cropped and that striped suit on him, I just had to laugh. I have to admit he’s awful funny, that fellow is.
I said, “Well, one thing, it’s mighty lucky I know how to drive a car and I can get us out of this village. And another thing, it’s mighty lucky we’re still just where the village begins; if we weren’t we’d be surrounded. If we can get past the Post Office, we’re safe.”
So then Pee-wee and I tore down the signs we had outside the van about going all the way from Klucksville to New York, because people would wonder at fellows our age doing that when there was no big fellow with us. Safety first, that’s what I said.
“If they think we’re only going as far as Grumpy’s Cross-roads,” I said, “I guess nobody’ll be suspicious.”
Pee-wee said, “Yes, but how about Jolly & Kidder’s name, and New York printed all over the sides of the van?”
“A scout is resourceful,” I told him; “let’s tear down the canvas from inside and be quick about it.”
Now inside that van was lined with canvas to keep things from getting scratched, I guess. Brent said it was a padded cell. So we took that down and tacked it up outside on both sides so that all the printing was covered. After we did that we closed the doors of the van and locked the padlock and Pee-wee took the key. Brent called out to us that we should take a lesson by his terrible example. Then we could hear him kind of muttering, “I will escape; I will foil you all yet.” Honest, he’s crazy, that fellow is.
Pee-wee and I sat down on the back step for about half a minute to make up our minds what we should say if any one stopped us and asked us questions. “Anyway,” he said, “that canvas on the sides will make people suspicious with no printing on it.”
I said, “Well, we’re not going to print any lies on it, anyway.”
He said, “We don’t have to print lies. Truth is stranger than fiction—that’s what it said in a movie play I saw.”