e said. "Suppose we want to--to--shout
for a----"

"House to get out of the way?" I said.

"You never can tell when we may want to use it," he said.

"I'm sorry I didn't bring my mother's sewing machine along," Dorry said.

"We don't need that with this kid along," I said. "We'll have enough
stitches in our sides from laughing."

"We ought to have some mothers and sweethearts and things to weep when
we start off," the kid said.

I said, "I don't believe I've got any sweethearts around the house just
at present, but wait a minute and I'll see."

"Tell them to bring some handkerchiefs," Westy said.

"And a couple of buckets of tears," Hunt Manners piped up.

I went inside and called to my mother and my sister Marjorie and asked
them if they could come out on the porch and weep. My mother said she
was very busy but she'd come and weep for about a minute. _When they
came out they were crying--from laughing so hard._

Then I delivered a speech. I said to my mother and sister, "You're
supposed to keep on weeping and wringing your hands while I make a
farewell speech. Don't you know the way the wives and sweethearts did
when the Pilgrim Fathers started away?"

Then I said:

"Scouts of the Silver Fox Patrol and also the raving Raven that we have
wished on us, there must be no good turns on this hike. We're going the
same way the crow flies, only different. The first time we have to turn
to right or left we will have to admit we're beaten, and come home.
We'll have to turn back like somebody or other who started for some
place once upon a time in the third grade history--an explorer. The
battle cry is 'ONWARD.' If we do any good turns they'll have to be up
and down, not to right or left. Anybody that wants to stay home can do
it. At five o'clock this afternoon we intend to plant the Silver Fox
emblem under that big poplar tree on west ridge. We'll start a fire
there so all the world can see. That fire will mean triumph. It will
mean we went in a bee-line. If we have to push Little Valley out of the
way we'll do it--it isn't so big. We'll cross the valley----"

My mother said, "You'd better wear your rubbers."

I said, "Do you think Christopher Columbus and Henry Hudson wore
rubbers? At five o'clock this afternoon you look over to west ridge and
see what you see. We intend to go straight--it says in the handbook a
scout lives straight--but we can beat that, we can _go_ straight. We are
going to go in a bee-line f