Roy Blakeley's Silver Fox Patrol

While I was sitting on a rock down in our field eating a banana, I had a dandy thought, and I was going to begin this story by telling you about it, only now I forget what it was.

Anyway, Mr. Ellsworth says it’s best to begin a story with conversation. He says conversations are even better than bananas to begin with. But, gee whiz, I like bananas. If I began with conversation that means I have to begin it with Pee-wee Harris, because he always does the talking in our troop. He can even talk and eat a banana at the same time.

He said, “Do you mean to tell me a railroad car can’t have a dark past?”

“Sure,” I told him; “maybe it went through a tunnel. Anyway, it’s got a dark enough present with one kerosene lamp in it.”

“I didn’t mean that kind of darkness,” he said; “I mean the kind that secrets are. You know what a dark secret is, don’t you?”

“It’s one that’s all black,” little Alfred McCord said.

“Sure,” I said; “they’re all colors. My sister’s keeping one that’s a kind of pale lavender.”

Pee-wee said, “You’re crazy; black is the only color for secrets. Look at that pirate in the movie play. Didn’t it say he kept the dark secret about where the treasure was for years and years?”

“He kept it so long it faded,” I told him. “Dark secrets are all right for old sailing ships, Kid, but when it comes to railroad cars—nix.”

The three of us were sitting on the rock, looking at the old railroad car that had just been moved down to the field for us. Mr. Temple got that old car for us, so we could use it for a troop-room. The men had an awful job moving it from the siding at Bridgeboro Station. They ran it down to the river on movable tracks and brought it up on one of the barges. Getting it off into the field was the worst part. They had to leave it right close to the river. Jimmies, we didn’t mind that; the nearer the better, that’s what I said.

One of the men that moved that car said it was an old timer. Anyway, it wasn’t much good for a car any more, because the springs and the brakes and the couplings were all rusted away, and the roof leaked, only we fixed it with tar paper. Inside there was an old stove in the corner with a clumsy old high pipe railing around it. The windows were awful small and the plush seats were all old-fashioned and worn out. Up above the windows were old-fashioned wire cage things to put baggage in. The doors at the ends were round at the top and the little windows were that way, too. But, anyway, that old car would make one dandy meeting-place, that was one thing sure.

All the rest of the fellows had gone home to supper, and Skinny and Pee-wee and I were just sitting there looking at the car and thinking how we’d have a flag flying on it, and what color we’d paint it when we got money enough. We were thinking about the different things we’d bring down and put in it.

I said, “I wonder how old it is? It’s a ramshackle old pile of junk, but that makes it all the better, for a scout meeting-place.” Because maybe you don’t know it, but scouts don’t like things to be too civilized, like.

“Maybe it has romance,” Pee-wee said.

He got that word out of the movie play that had the old pirate ship in it. There was something in that play about the old ship being a monument of romance. I had to laugh, because it seemed so funny to talk that way about an old ramshackle railroad car.

“I mean adventures,” he said.

“Oh, sure,” I told him; “that car reminds me of an old Spanish Galleon, it’s so different. Maybe some buccaneers used to have their den in it, hey? When I look at that car it reminds me of King Arthur and all those old fellows. You’ve got romances and adventures and things on the brain since you’ve been going down to the Lyric. What’s puzzling me is how we’re going to fix lockers in it for our stuff, and where we’re going to hang our pictures.”

Just then little Alf piped up in that funny way he has and said, “My mother doesn’t believe in adventures.”

“Well,” I said “she’ll never pull much of a stroke with Scout Harris then.”

“They always end by somebody getting dead,” he said.

“Just the same,” Pee-wee shouted, “I bet that old car is fifty years old. I bet if it could talk it would have a tale to tell——”

“A which?” I said.

“How do we know where it has been?” he kept up. “Why can’t a railroad car have a-what-do-you-call it—a romantic past, just the same as a ship or an old house where—maybe where George Washington used to stay? How do we know?”

“Maybe it’s the very car that George Washington crossed the Delaware in,” I said, just to jolly him along.

“How about an old Indian stage coach?” he piped up.

“Kid,” I said; “old sailing ships and wrecks and Indian stage coaches are one thing, and wheelbarrows and bicycles and lawn mowers and sewing machines and railroad cars are another thing. You see pictures of shipwrecks, but you never see pictures of old railroad cars. You should worry. Come on inside and let’s measure for the lockers and then let’s go home; I’m tired out.”

Inside that car there was a funny kind of a smell like there always is in railroad cars. It was kind of like dust and kind of like plush and kind of like smoke. The floor was awful smooth and shiny, just from so many people walking on it for years and years and years. All the woodwork was walnut and that was a sign of the car being old. A lot of the seats were broken and there was one place where two close together were broken. So we had decided to take them away and build our lockers there.

I had told the fellows in the troop that I would measure for the lockers before I went home, so now I began doing that with the little six-inch rule that I always carry. All of a sudden it slipped out of my hand and fell down between the frame and the plush part of one of those seats.

“Butter fingers!” Pee-wee said; “I’ll get it for you.”

I said, “I guess your fingers are smaller than mine, even if you have a bigger tongue than I have.”

“My fingers are smaller than his,” little Alf said; “I’ll get it for you.”

Gee whiz, his fingers were little enough, and skinny enough, that was sure, because the poor little codger lived down in the slums and I guess he never had much to eat or much fun either, until he got in with us. That’s one thing we’re strong on—eats. Especially desserts.

But our young hero (that’s Pee-wee), brushed us both aside with one hand, while he was digging down between the wood and the plush with the other.

“Got a hairpin?” he shouted.

“What do you think I am? A Camp-fire Girl?” I asked him. “Here, will a lead pencil do?”

He began poking around in there with the lead pencil and pretty soon he managed to lift up the corner of my little steel rule and drew it out with his fingers.

“Bully for you,” I told him.

“There’s something else down in there,” he said. “Wait till I get it. It feels like a paper.”

I said, “Don’t bother; probably it’s a time table.”

“Maybe it’s somebody’s commutation ticket,” he said.