When they emerged from their orgy they endeavored to crank and then to spank3 their motor without success. The familiar expedient4 of turning the oxens’ tails failing to give a spark they proceeded to the judicious5 use of bits of hay held temptingly before the beasts, which were evidently not hungry. At last an auto1 on its way home from the parade effected a successful surprise attack from the rear, and the oxen being thus started were too lazy to stop again.
Pee-wee ate three plates of ice cream.
The weather was now lowering as Simon, wise in such things, had predicted it would be. The sky was overcast6 again and there was a returning thickness and dulness to the atmosphere. There was no rain, nor even drizzle7, but so thick was the mist that many autoists had their lights on and the lights seemed actually to pierce the muggy8 air. The atmosphere had an odor to it as of stale, cold smoke. The smoke which arose from the chimney of the Commercial Hotel was not clear and well defined but seemed to merge2 in the heavy, early dusk.
“It’s goin’ ter be thick as butter,” said Simon. “The old man seed this comin’ from yesterday ony he didn’t say nuthin’ along on account uv the parade. The Milky9 Way’s goin’ ter fall down, that’s what he calls it. We’d better get a start.”
“Gee whiz, we can find the road, can’t we?” said Pee-wee, not in the least concerned. “Do you think I’m scared of a fog?”
“It’s autos we might meet that I’m thinkin’ of,” said Simon. “They ain’t goin’ ter jump over us; leastways I never see one do that. They can’t see ten feet ahead of ’em in the fog. I’m scared of them autos n’ I admit it. We haven’t got any light.” Autos were still strange and fearful things to poor Simon.
“We can make a noise,” Pee-wee said; “noises are as good as lights; look at fog-horns. Do you know how to make a noise without anything to make a noise with, if you’re starving in the woods?”
“No, it isn’t a riddle; you can’t make noises with a riddle,” Pee-wee said disdainfully. “You have to use a tin can and a piece of cord.”
“Where do you get the tin can if you haven’t got anything?” Simon asked, with his crude, rural, logic11.
“That shows how much you know!” Pee-wee said with blighting12 scorn. “Every scout13 that goes camping in the woods has a can of beans or something.”
“If he has a can of beans he isn’t starving,” Simon observed.
“Maybe he had it but he hasn’t got it any more,” Pee-wee fairly sreamed, loud enough to pierce the densest14 fog. “He couldn’t eat the can, could he? Anyway, I’ve got an inspiration. Do you know what that is?”
“Is it something to make a noise with?”
“It’s something that tells you about something to make a noise with. It’s something that comes into your brain all of a sudden. I can hold a stick against one of the wheels and it’ll make a noise on account of the spokes15 knocking against it; just like when you pull a stick along a fence. The faster we go the louder it will be. It’s kind of what you call self-adjusting.”
Simon tried this and was so impressed with the riotous16 din17 that he abandoned his sensible intention of buying a holiday horn which he might have procured18 at any store on that gala day. “It makes a racket sure enough,” he admitted.
“I know all the different kinds of noises,” Pee-wee announced. “I can make every kind of a noise. I’ve got a list of all the different kinds of rackets in my scout book. I can use my shirt for a megaphone. Do you know how?”
“What’s a megaphone?” Simon asked.
“Do you know what a magnifying glass is?”
“To make things bigger?”
“Sure, and a megaphone is like a magnifying glass only different; it makes your voice bigger. I can make a hoop19 out of willow20 and that’s for the big end of the megaphone and then I can fix my shirt to it, all around it like a net that you catch fish with and I can do that with a shoestring21 and I can pull the shirt to a small opening so it’s just like a funnel22 and that’s a megaphone. You know my voice, don’t you?”
Simon acknowledged his acquaintance with Pee-wee’s noise.
“You know how loud it is?”
Simon knew.
“Well, I can make it fifteen times as loud and without anything I can shout so they can hear me across Black Lake and that’s a mile wide, and fifteen times a mile is fifteen miles.”
Simon was speechless at the miraculous24 power of the scouts25. A shirt megaphone loomed26 up in his simple mind as more wonderful than a phonograph or a telephone. He was for going home along the familiar lower road, as it was called, thereby27 avoiding the precipice28 near which the upper road ran, but he was so deeply impressed with Pee-wee’s scoutlore that he consented to follow the hill road.
“A fog is always thicker down in a valley,” Pee-wee informed his companion; “that’s because there’s water in valleys. That’s why we’d better go by the hill road.”
“It goes right sheer down from the road in places,” Simon said doubtfully, “and we could never pass a rig on that road. I wouldn’t drive a horse there to-night, not the old man’s horse, leastways. But oxen are different.”
“Sure they’re different,” Pee-wee agreed as if he had had a long experience with them. “And we won’t get in the mud, either, up on the hill road.”
“After the first couple of miles or so it isn’t so bad,” Simon conceded. So they decided29 in favor of the upper road.
These two roads ran parallel, speaking generally. The route by the hill road was a little shorter and had that advantage. For a part of the way it ran close to the brow of a cliff, and had that very decided disadvantage. In places the descent was almost precipitous.
The first couple of miles out of Snailsdale Manor30 the road ran along a narrow shelf about fifty feet above the lowland. Here the wall was sheer both below and above. On the right arose the rugged31 side of a mountain, on the left nothing but a ramshackle fence separated the road from the ledge23. Then a point was reached where this precipitous wall eased off into a descent of about forty-five degrees, and then farther along, the natural embankment petered out altogether and from that point the road was safe and fairly wide.
The lower road, over which the boys had travelled earlier in the day, ran through an area as flat as a pancake. It was a tract32 of lowland between the hills. Here the fog must have been very thick that afternoon. In places the mud was always thick enough to make travel difficult. As stated, these two roads ran a parallel course, roughly speaking, and were from a mile to two miles apart. The area below was sparsely33 populated by a colony of small Italian farmers who lived in shanties34. The neighborhood was called Venice, or Venus, as pronounced by Mr. Goodale.
Our travelers had to choose between these two routes on that dull, murky35, late afternoon, when the whole world seemed fading away in thickening fog. Of course, if Pee-wee could have applied36 his customary policy he would have returned from the scene of his Waterloo by both roads. But that being impossible, the pair weighed the dangers and advantages one against another, and started home along the upper road. But as it happened Pee-wee used a number of roads in his operations and would have used still more if there had been any.
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1
auto
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| n.(=automobile)(口语)汽车 | |
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merge
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| v.(使)结合，(使)合并，(使)合为一体 | |
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spank
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| v.打，拍打(在屁股上) | |
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expedient
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| adj.有用的，有利的；n.紧急的办法，权宜之计 | |
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judicious
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| adj.明智的，明断的，能作出明智决定的 | |
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overcast
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| adj.阴天的，阴暗的，愁闷的；v.遮盖，（使）变暗，包边缝；n.覆盖，阴天 | |
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drizzle
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| v.下毛毛雨；n.毛毛雨，蒙蒙细雨 | |
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muggy
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| adj.闷热的；adv.（天气）闷热而潮湿地；n.（天气）闷热而潮湿 | |
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milky
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| adj.牛奶的，多奶的；乳白色的 | |
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riddle
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| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
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logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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blighting
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| 使凋萎( blight的现在分词 )； 使颓丧； 损害； 妨害 | |
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13
scout
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| n.童子军，侦察员；v.侦察，搜索 | |
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densest
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| 密集的( dense的最高级 )； 密度大的； 愚笨的； （信息量大得）难理解的 | |
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15
spokes
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| n.（车轮的）辐条( spoke的名词复数 )；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 | |
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16
riotous
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| adj.骚乱的；狂欢的 | |
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din
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| n.喧闹声，嘈杂声 | |
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procured
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的过去式和过去分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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hoop
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| n.（篮球）篮圈，篮 | |
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willow
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| n.柳树 | |
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shoestring
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| n.小额资本；adj.小本经营的 | |
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funnel
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| n.漏斗；烟囱；v.汇集 | |
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ledge
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| n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁 | |
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miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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scouts
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| 侦察员[机，舰]( scout的名词复数 )； 童子军； 搜索； 童子军成员 | |
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26
loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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27
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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precipice
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| n.悬崖，危急的处境 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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manor
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| n.庄园，领地 | |
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rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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tract
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| n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林) | |
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sparsely
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| adv.稀疏地；稀少地；不足地；贫乏地 | |
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34
shanties
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| n.简陋的小木屋( shanty的名词复数 )；铁皮棚屋；船工号子；船歌 | |
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35
murky
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| adj.黑暗的，朦胧的；adv.阴暗地，混浊地；n.阴暗；昏暗 | |
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36
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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