did. Some parade!

Down at the foot of the hill were a couple of girls sitting in a Ford and they started laughing at us. One of them said, “What are you holding your ears for? You look too silly!”

“To go slow down the hill,” I said. “There’s a sign up there that says we should use our ears.”

“It means _gears_,” she said. “Somebody scratched out the G. You’re too ridiculous!”

“How did we know that?” Will asked her. “We’re Boy Scouts and we obey the law. When we see a sign we obey it.”

She said, “Well, Mr. Show-off, since you’re so obedient, there’s a sign right across the road there that says STOP.”

“Then we have to stop,” I told her. “Boy Scouts are supposed to obey the law.”

It was one of those things that had STOP and GO printed on it but I guess the cop was never there except on Sundays. Anyway I don’t see why they have that village there on week days. Nobody ever goes through it except on Sundays. If they stood it off the road it would be out of the way.

“Follow your leader,” I said. So then I sat down alongside the road and the other four fellows did just the same. We all sat in a row. We were right opposite the car with the girls.

One of the girls said to the other one, “Did you ever see anything so _absurd_?”

Sandy said, “Go ahead, laugh. We’re not ashamed to obey the law. The sign says stop.”

The girl said, “It isn’t for pedestrians, _silly_!”

“Will you let her call you that?” I said to Pee-wee.

“Do you call us pedestrians?” he shouted.

“I call you lunatics,” she said.

“Right the first time,” I told her. “And you needn’t make fun of us because we won’t go. I’ve seen lots of Fords that won’t go, and I don’t mean maybe, perhaps.”

“He thinks pedestrian is an epithet,” one of the girls said. “Did you ever know anything so _perfectly crushing_?”

“Sure, didn’t you ever see a stone-crusher?” I said.

She said, “I’d just like to know how long you’re going to stay there.”

“We’re going to stay here till it says GO,” I told her.

She said, “You must have _oceans_ of time to spare.”

“Sure,” I said, “do you want some of it?”

Sandy called over to them and said, “Will you please tell us how much time we’ve got?”

One of the girls said, “I hope you have more time than you have brains. I don’t even know where you’re going. What town do you want?”

“What ones have you got?” I asked her.

“She’s handing out towns,” Will said.

“And I’ll tell you another thing,” she said, “It was one of the boys from that big camp who mutilated that sign, and he wears a funny hat.”

“Hervey Willetts,” I whispered to Will.

“And he’d better not show himself here again,” she said. “That’s all _I’ve_ got to say.”

I said, “Hey girls, will you please have somebody come and turn this sign around so we can continue on our way? We have to catch a West Shore train at Catskill Landing and it leaves at ten-three.”

“Well then, you’ve missed it already,” one of them said.

“He means three ten,” Pee-wee shouted.

“Well you can just sit there and starve,” one of the girls said. Then they started off in the Ford.

I said, “I think this is serious. Maybe that sign won’t be turned around till next Sunday. By that time the train will probably have gone.”

“We’d better consider what we’re going to do,” Will said.

So then we started making poetry--it wasn’t so good. I said,

“Beyond we cannot roam, And Dub he can’t go home.”

Sandy said,

“We’d like to hike some maw But we cannot break the law.”

Will Dawson said,

“The sign up there says STOP, And we’re waiting for the cop.”

“Let’s start all over again,” I said. “As long as ten-three doesn’t come till night we might as well take it easy. Maybe the cop will come here in his sleep to-night. It’s nice and comfortable sitting here.”

All of a sudden Pee-wee opened up. He said, “You’ll keep saying ten-three so much that you’ll really get to think so and we’ll no fooling miss the train for Dub and we won’t be able to get any ice creams--if we keep fooling like this.”

I said, “That’s quite a good argument.”

Pee-wee said, “You’ll live to regret it with all your fooling and wasting time here like this.” He was thinking about not having time for ice cream.

After we had a good rest I grabbed the apple that Pee-wee was eating and I threw it at the word STOP and the thing turned around to the word GO. “That shows you how much resourcefulness a Silver Fox has,” I told them. “If I hadn’t thought about that we might have sat here till next Sunday. That was my idea.”

“It was _my_ apple!” Pee-wee shouted.

“Follow your leader,” I said.