"Wait till the train goes by," I said. "I"d like Mr. Cow to see us, or whatever his name is."
Then Westy began singing:
"Oh, boy scouts they were nine They were sitting on a sign."
Then Dorry started,
"They do not fear a cop, They always are on top."
And then I sung out,
"They ought to cross the flats, But they"re advertising hats."
Then Pee-wee started yelling,
"Oh, Mr. Bull, Your ad is full Of scouts and bull."
"We ought to get a dollar an hour for this," Warde said.
I said, "Aren"t you satisfied? Haven"t we made you famous? Right away you want to pa.s.s the plate."
"You mean the hat," Westy said.
"This is the Brown"s Hat Patrol," Will said. "They"re superst.i.tious, they believe in signs."
"Listen, here comes the train," somebody said.
"Sit up and look pretty," Dorry shouted.
"We"ve got all the signs on Broadway beaten," Hunt said.
"Sure," I said, "this is a live sign, full of pep. All sit up straight when the train pa.s.ses. Remember Mr. Wild Bull is in there. Maybe he"ll give us a job on a sign up on top of a building in New York. I"d like to be an electric sign, wouldn"t you?"
"I"d rather be a sign of spring," Westy said.
"You"ll be pushed over backwards if you crack another one like that," I told him.
"Look at Pee-wee," Dorry said.
I had to laugh at the kid. There he sat right in the middle, straight upright, with his hand up making the full scout salute as the train came along. He looked like a little radiator ornament for an automobile. I guess he felt very proud being part of an ad.
As the train went past all the pa.s.sengers looked out of the windows, laughing. The more they laughed the straighter Pee-wee sat. All of a sudden, _good night_, over he went backwards, kerflop, into the marshy land just underneath the sign. All the people in the train howled.
He came up the ladder, with mud and gra.s.s all over him, just in time for the people in the last two cars to get a look at him. They just screamed. They even came out on the back platform of the last car, cheering him and laughing at him.
"I--I bet I sold as many as a hundred hats doing that," he said.
I said, "Good night, was that a part of the ad? You look more like an ad for bathing suits than for hats."
He climbed back into his place pulling the wet gra.s.s from his face and clothes.
"That"s the time you weren"t on top," I said. "I hope Mr. Wild Bull didn"t see you."
"Here comes a man across the field," Dorry said.
I looked around behind me and saw a man with a great big straw hat and a shirt like a checker-board coming across the field. It seemed as if he was all shirt and hat and suspenders.
"I think there"s going to be something doing," Westy said. "I can feel it in the air."
"Thank goodness, we"re on top," I said.
CHAPTER x.x.xV
LOGIC
The man came around in front of the sign and looked up and said, "Well, now, what do you youngsters think you"re doing here?"
I said, "Well, we"re not so sure but we _think_ we"re sitting here."
He said, "Anybody give you permission to come on this land?"
Westy said, "No, but we know lots of people cross here and we thought it was all right. We always heard this was a short-cut to Addison."
Then he asked us if we were going to Addison.
Westy said, "No, but it"s just the same crossing your land in one place as another. You can"t blame us for thinking it was all right."
The man said, "Well, "tain"t right, by no manner o" means. You"re trespa.s.sin", that"s what you"re doing."
Dorry said, "We"re sorry."
The man said, "Well, so"m I, because I"m goin" to make an example of you, that"s what I"m goin" to do. I"m goin" to learn you a lesson."
I said, "No lessons, this is vacation."
He said, "Haow?"
Westy said, "We"re sorry, we can"t do any more than say that. We thought it was all right. I don"t see what harm we do."
"Well, you"ll find out," the man said, good and cross.
All of a sudden Pee-wee shouted down at him, "Anyway, we"re not on your land, we"re on this sign. Has the sign got a right here?"
The man said, "Well, you youngsters, the people that pay me to let this sign stand here don"t pay me to let you climb all over it. Now you come down off there, every one of you, and we"ll see what"s what. We"ll see what the jedge has to say."