He’d come wandering into camp late for supper twirling that funny cap of his on the end of a stick and singing, and the trustees or Uncle Jeb or maybe his scoutmaster who would be all ready with a good calling-down would just kind of smile and say nothing. The stormy petrel, they called him that too. Gee whiz, nobody could help liking that fellow. He was an odd number, I’ll say that.
“All right, Hervey,” Westy called kind of good-natured like. Westy never breaks any camp rules, but just the same he likes Hervey. “Go on, give us a song.”
So then Hervey started singing that crazy song that got us into so much trouble that summer. We couldn’t hear the end of it, because pretty soon we were at the landing and everybody was crowding there to meet us. Anyhow this is the way it started:
“When you go on a hike just you mind what I say,
The right way to go is the opposite way.
If you come to a cross-road don’t make a mistake,
Choose a road and the other’s the one you should take.
Don’t bother with sign boards but follow this song,
If you start on the right road you’re sure to go wrong.
You can go on your feet, you can go on a bike,