It was now Spider’s turn.
“Everything Bennie said goes for me,” he began, “except this knock on the climate. It was raining when we left Portland, but Dr. Warren told us it would be clear when we got to Salem, and here’s the old sun coming out now. I want to say the Salem climate’s all right—like the Salem scouts. And Bennie forgot something, too. He’s always forgetting things. Once he forgot it was vacation, and tried to get into the schoolhouse. Now he’s forgotten to say to you fellows that when any of you come East, you just show up in Southmead, where we live, and we’ll try to be half as decent to you as you’ve been to us. And we hope you’ll all come.”
Loud cheers greeted this speech, and Bennie applauded harder than anybody.
“That last part goes, you bet,” he shouted. “I didn’t really forget it, though. I just got rattled.”
The meeting broke up with a scout cheer, and the boys heard the shouts and good-byes even after the cars had started down the road.
“Some swell feed!” said Bennie. “Pretty nice of ’em, eh, Spider? I guess they must like you pretty well, Uncle Bill, or they wouldn’t have done this for us.”
“I ran into them in their camp last summer, and got to know ’em,” the doctor answered. “Well, how do you like being an after-dinner orator?”
Bennie looked sober. “Tell you one thing,” he replied. “Next year in school I’m going in for debating, the way Spider does. I’m not going to feel such a boob on my feet again. Gee, I was scared pink.”
“I won’t let you forget that, Bennie,” said Spider. “We’ll make a Demosthenes of you yet.”
The cars were now racing southward up the Willamette valley, and traveling on the fine Pacific Highway, which stretches all the way from Portland to the California boundary.