There are four ways to hike from Temple Camp to Catskill and each one is better than the other. But the best way is through Leeds because you pass Merrill’s farm and there’s an apple tree that sticks out over the stone wall. But anyway it was too early for apples. You go up the hill in back of the camp till you get to the road, then you turn left and go till you come to a cross-road with a sign that says TEMPLE CAMP COMMUNITY and an arrow pointing toward the camp. That’s where you turn left again and you go till you come to a noise—it’s a waterfall. At night you have to listen for that noise so as to know where to cut across fields. Then you come to the main road and that takes you to Catskill. If you go to Catskill most always you’ll see Scouts from Temple Camp there. If you don’t see them anywhere else look in Benny’s, that’s where you get hot dogs.
Dub was going down on the three-ten train so Chocolate Drop gave us our dinner early because we wanted to have plenty of time to take it easy. The way the Handbook says you should do is to set a nice easy pace. It says about hiking that you should never walk over anything that you can walk around. And you should never step on anything if you can step over it because you have to lift the weight of your body. And besides that, the Silver Fox Patrol has a rule that you must never walk more than one mile at a time, then you don’t get tired.
While we were moping along—you know how we go, just kind of fooling and everything—Sandy said, “The Handbook is crazy. If you should never walk over anything that you can walk around how can anybody expect to get anywhere? Suppose we come to a block and start walking around the block. Where would we get to, I’d like to know?”
I said, “That’s a dandy argument.”
“Do you mean the Handbook doesn’t know what it’s talking about?” Pee-wee shot out. “I know where it says that.”
“Sure, it’s crazy,” I said. “It says about hiking that you shouldn’t step on anything, but over it. How are you going to hike if you can’t step on the ground? I’ll leave it to Dub.”
Dub was just laughing. He said, “This is sure some bunch to hike with.”
“I’m glad you like us,” I told him. “We aim to please. One thing, we have plenty of sense only we don’t take it around with us while hiking. Walk briskly, throw the chest out but look out where you throw it, take deep breaths, also take apples if you can find any.”
Pee-wee said, “We ought to have asked Bobby Easton to come with us because he’s kind of in our crowd on account of me giving him the chance to get the Gold Life Saving Medal. He’s got his hundred dollars too, now, and I bet he’d treat to ice cream. He says he’s going to buy a canoe for the races on Labor Day and I told him I’d fix it for him so he could keep it in one of the lockers.”
“You’ll get killed one of these days fixing something,” Sandy told him.