after about six weeks and ten years the fishing boat came chugging up the creek. anyway it seemed as long as that before it came. the chugging of that engine sounded good.
“now for the eats,” garry said.
hervey said, “they’ll have a lot of perch and some bass and maybe some soft-shell crabs.”
“isn’t there anything in this creek?” the kid wanted to know.
“nothing except water,” hervey told him. “anyway we haven’t got any fishline, have we? thank goodness we’ve got some matches, we can start a fire.”
“we’ll fry them brown, hey?” pee-wee said, all excited.
“any color will suit me,” i told him.
“they won’t be any color at all when we get through with them,” bert said.
by that time the boat was quite near and we could see a couple of baskets of fish in the cockpit, and there were two men. oh boy, how i longed to eat them, i mean the fish. pretty soon one of the men shouted for us to open the bridge, so they could pass.
i called, “hey, mister, will you give us a couple of fish? we’re perched up here waiting for some perch.”
he laughed and said sure, but that we should open the bridge. now the way to open that bridge was to walk around pushing a big iron handle like a crowbar only longer. it was kind of like a windlass. i guess one man could do it all right but it took three of us to get the bridge started. it wasn’t a very big bridge but i’m not saying anything about that because we’re not so big either except our appetites and maybe one reason we couldn’t push so well was because we were hungry.
garry said, “i guess when the creek is nearly empty boats can go under this bridge all right.”
i said, “don’t talk about being empty; i’m so full of emptiness it’s flowing over. get your hands on this thing and push. if anything should go wrong now we’ll have to eat the animal cracker.”
so then we all started pushing the long iron handle—it was a lever, that’s what it was. all the while the boat was standing about twenty feet away from the bridge and one man was keeping her bow upstream with a big oar while the other man was kind of fumbling in one of the baskets picking out a nice big fish. pretty soon he held one up all wet and dripping and, oh boy, it looked good. i guess it was nearly a foot long. he shouted, “how will that one do?”
“mm-m-mm!” i said. “lead me to it.”
“i know where there’s an old piece of tin in the woods,” pee-wee said, all the while pushing the big lever for all he was worth; “a scout is observant.”
“i could eat a sheet of galvanized iron,” i told him. “a little salt and pepper and i could eat a piece of railroad track.”
“i mean to cook the fish on,” the kid said; “you’re crazy. don’t you know how to fry a fish? i’m going to be the one to cook it because i’ve got the matches.”
“hang on to them,” i said; “things are beginning to look better. keep pushing; think of fried fish and keep pushing.”
pee-wee began thinking harder and pushing harder; i could just see him thinking. and with one hand he felt in his pocket to make sure the matches were all safe. he carries matches in a box like a cylinder that shaving soap comes in.
it was kind of hard getting the bridge started but once it was started it kept moving slowly around. the reason you can move a bridge around like that is because it’s well balanced. but, gee whiz, i’m glad i’m not so well balanced because i wouldn’t have so much fun. underneath the floor of the bridge were rollers on a track that went around in a circle. so pretty soon we had turned the bridge so that it was lengthways to the creek instead of across the creek and there was a passageway on either side of it where boats could pass.
“marooned on a desert drawbridge,” bert said.
“poor, starving natives,” i said.
garry said, “it’s like being on an island.”
“a merry-go-round, you mean,” pee-wee said.
“let’s call it merry-go-round island,” hervey sang out.
just then the boat came chugging very slowly along one side of the bridge and one of the men handed me the fish.
i said, “many thanks and more of them, mister, you saved our lives.”
“don’t let it slide out of your hands,” he said; “look out, it’s slippery.”
“if you let it slip out of your hands you’ll go in after it,” pee-wee shouted.
believe me, i kept tight hold of that fish. it was a dandy fish, it was big enough for about six people to have all they wanted.
the man said, “that will keep you quiet for a while; be sure to scrape all the scales off and clean him out good.”
“you leave that to us,” i told him, “we’re boy scouts. cooking fish is our middle name. there’s only one thing we do better than cooking fish and that is eating them. we can eat them till the cows come home and sometimes the cows stay out all night where we live. believe me, i never had much use for henry hudson in the history books, but i’m glad he discovered the hudson river as well as the hudson boulevard.”
“that’s in jersey city,” pee-wee shouted. “do you think that’s named after henry hudson?”
“it’s named after the hudson automobile,” garry said.
“sure it is,” i told him, “just the same as the hudson river is named after the hudson river day line; you learn that in the fourth grade; here, take this fish while i help turn the merry-go-round around, around, around. then we’ll eat.”
the boat went chugging up the creek, the men laughing and waving their hands at us. pee-wee sat down on the floor of the bridge hugging the fish as if it were his long lost brother. the rest of us started pushing the lever.
but, oh boy, it didn’t push.
