CHAPTER III

How Bennie Earned a Trip To Oregon

At dinner that night Bennie was so full of his adventure on Monument that he described it to his father and mother in minute detail.

“Good gracious, Bennie! don’t you ever _dare_ to do such a thing again!” his mother cried. “I don’t see what Mr. Rogers is thinking of to take the scouts up such a place,” she added to her husband.

“Guess Rogers knows his way around,” Mr. Capen answered. “A boy’s got to have a certain amount of excitement to keep him out of mischief.”

“Sure!” said Bennie. “You’ve said a mouthful!”

“Bennie!” his mother cut in sharply. “I won’t have you talking that way at my table, and to your own father.”

“Aw, Ma, it’s just slang—what’s the harm?”

“One harm is, that it doesn’t show proper respect for your father,” she answered.

“Sorry,” said Bennie. “Gee, I respect Pa all right. And say, Pa, can’t I go somewhere this summer vacation where there are _real_ mountains? Gee, I want to climb a _real_ mountain! Will you let me go out to Oregon and see Uncle Bill?”

Mr. Capen didn’t answer for a moment. Finally he laid down his knife and fork, looked sharply at his son, and replied, “Why should I?”

“Well, why shouldn’t you?” was all Bennie could think of at first. Then he added, “Uncle Bill said he’d take me on a trip in Oregon some time, if we’d come out there, and a feller ought to see his own country. Everybody says that—see America first. Guess it’s the best way there is to study geography and history and—and things.”

“H’m,” said his father slowly. Then again, “H’m. Well, young man, do you know what you are asking? Do you know what it costs to get to Oregon and back? It costs a lot of money, I can tell you, and if you went, your mother and I would have to stay at home while I earned it, so you’d have to travel alone.”

“Let him go across the continent alone?” exclaimed Mrs. Capen. “I guess not!”

“Oh, gosh, you’d think I was a baby,” Bennie protested.

“No, we don’t think you are a baby,” his father answered, “but we do think you are unreliable, and that you don’t do your school work faithfully, and you don’t do the things we ask you to do around the place. How about that dead apple tree you were going to cut up this week?”

“Oh, gee! I forgot it,” Bennie said.

“Exactly. You forgot it. You evidently forgot to study your history and your Latin, this week, too, I gather from what the principal told me to-day. Now, when you act this way, all I say is, why should I let you go to Oregon, or anywhere else? What have you done to show me that you’ll make real use of your opportunities? Your friend Bob Chandler, now, I’d trust. He’d keep his eyes open and learn a lot, because he learns every day at home.”

Bennie hung his head. Then he looked up at his father.

“Say, Pa, if I get good marks all the rest of the year, and if I come to the bank every Saturday morning and help you, and if I prune all the apple trees, may I go to Oregon?”

“How do you know your Uncle Billy wants you?” his mother demanded.

“I bet I can fix _that_ all right. Say, Pa, can I?”

“You get the good marks for a month, son, and work on the apple trees, and come to the bank—and at the end of the month we’ll see,” his father answered.

“Gee, that’s easy!” Bennie shouted.

After dinner he started to call up Spider and suggest going to the movies. He got as far as the telephone, in fact, and then hesitated. It was a hard fight for a minute, but he won out. Slowly he turned away from the ’phone, walked up to his own room, got out his textbooks, and began to study.

His father was watching him, from the library. When he had gone upstairs, Mr. Capen laughed.

“The boy’s gone to study,” he said to his wife. “It took a mountain to make him!”

During the next month Bennie had more than one battle with himself, and he didn’t always win out, either. But, on the whole, he did better than his father had ever dreamed he would. Spider helped him, too. Bennie had told nobody but Spider the reason for his reformation, and he had added a hope that maybe his uncle would suggest that he bring Spider along. Spider’s father owned the largest store in town, and Spider thought that if he promised to work in it spare hours that spring and the next winter, his father would let him go.

“’Sides,” Bennie said, “if you should go, Ma and Pa would let me, I bet, ’cause they think you’re what they call ‘responsible.’ So you just _got_ to help me stick at these old books.”

Spider was a natural student. He liked to study, and it came easy to him. So day after day he made Bennie come over to his house after supper, and studied with him. When Bennie tried to talk, he said, “Shut up!” After a couple of weeks, Bennie began to make the discovery that the only way to get a lesson learned, or any job done, is to go right ahead and do it. He set himself a regular hour every day to prune in the apple orchard, and he studied hard in the school periods, and in the evenings. At the end of the month, his father called him into the library.

“Well, son,” he said, “you’ve certainly bucked up. Your report card here doesn’t look natural. Neither does the orchard.”

“Can I write to Uncle Bill now?” Bennie grinned.

“Not yet,” said his father. “You’re doing fine, but this is only one month. I’ve got to see if you can keep the habit. If you do as well next month, you may write.”

“Easy,” said Bennie.

He didn’t really mean that “easy,” but as a matter of fact, it was much easier than it had been the first month. He _was_ getting the habit. Before the second month was over, Tom had called him “teacher’s pet,” and been knocked into a slushy snow-drift and had his neck stuffed with snow.

“I’ll teacher’s pet you!” Bennie laughed, finally letting him up.

At the end of the second month Mr. Capen told him he could write to his uncle, and if his uncle would let him come to Oregon and take him on one of his mountain trips, Bennie could go—“providing, of course, you pass all your examinations in June,” his father added. “It’s up to you.”

“I’ll pass all right!” Bennie said, joyfully. “And say, Pa, if Spider’s father’ll let him go, do you suppose Uncle Bill would mind if he went with me? Gee, it would be great to have old Spider along!”

“I’m sure Uncle Billy wouldn’t mind, and I know your mother would feel a lot easier about your going,” Mr. Capen said. “I’ll see Spider’s father today.”

“Golly, you’re some dad!” cried Bennie.

“Well, I feel I’ve got more of a son than I had two months ago,” said Mr. Capen.

Bennie hadn’t seen his Uncle Bill (a younger brother of his mother’s) for three or four years. He lived in Portland, Oregon, where he was a very successful doctor, and every summer he took a vacation in the mountains, to get himself fit for his winter grind. Bennie remembered him as a tall, strong, good-natured man, who always came to see Mrs. Capen on his rare trips East, and always talked to Bennie about what fun it would be to show him “a real country”—meaning Oregon. Bennie liked him, but it was hard, at that, to sit down in cold blood and invite yourself for a visit, and, still worse, to invite somebody else to go with you! Bennie began, and tore up, two or three letters before he got one that he thought would do. This is what he sent:

Dear Uncle Bill:

The last time you were East you pulled a lot of talk about showing me “a real country.” I guess you never thought I could get that far to see it, so you were safe. But I’ve been plugging hard this winter and got such high marks that Pa thought I was sick and Ma sent for the doctor, and he says I need a change or I’ll know too much. So I’m all ready to be shown that country of yours. And there’s a chum of mine here, an awful good scout, Bob Chandler (Spider, we call him), who doesn’t believe Oregon is so much, either, and he’d go along, too, if you asked him real polite. Besides, if he came, Ma would let me come. Ma thinks if I go alone a Pullman porter will think I’m a dress suitcase and pull me off the train at Omaha, or something. And I guess it’s kind of fresh my suggesting this about Spider’s going, but he’s an awful good scout, and he and I have been climbing Monument Mountain on a rope. Shall I bring my rope? It is 100 feet long, and we boiled it on the stove so it is soft. If we do come what clothes shall we bring?

Your loving nephew, Bennie.

P.S.—Mother and Father are both well and send their love.

B.

The chances are that before this letter was sent, Bennie’s mother had written to her brother. But if she did, Bennie didn’t know it. He mailed his letter, and counted the days it would take to reach Portland. In twice that time he ought to have an answer. At the end of the week he and Spider were haunting the post-office.

Then, one day, the answer came. Bennie tore it open, and this is what he read:

Dear Bennie:

I start for Crater Lake and the Sky Line Trail on July 1st, leaving Portland by motor. I am a plain, rough man, but I might be improved by your learned society, and our scenery would be honored by your inspection. By all means bring Spider. Spiders are very useful in camp, to cook the bacon in. You’d better come two or three days ahead of the start, so I can look over your outfit. Bring your scout axes, canteens, flannel shirts, khaki breeches, leggings, and things like that. Boots are the most important item—very heavy, and water-proof. You can get good ones here. Bring snow goggles if you have them. Save your rope. I have one, though it isn’t boiled like yours. I always fry my ropes. I’ll write to you later about trains, and more about your equipment. Tell your mother that she is going to have a nice, quiet summer.

Your humble uncle, William Warren.

Bennie read this letter aloud to Spider, and they both emitted a whoop of joy.

“Some bird, old Uncle Bill!” cried Bennie. “Always fries his ropes! I bet he’s got a real Alpine rope—braided and everything. Gee, I’ll bet we climb a real humdinger of a mountain. Maybe Mount Hood! Oh, boy!”

“Say, I’d work every afternoon in the store for the rest of my life, to climb old Hood!” said Spider. “Come on, let’s go look up how high Mount Hood is.”

“I’ve looked it up—it’s 11,225 feet,” said Bennie.

“And Monument is 1,600,” Spider reflected. “More’n 9,000 feet taller than Monument! Wow!”

“It’s going to be a long time till June,” said Bennie.