gh dot. That's one thing I'm
crazy about--maps. But I hate geography--geography and cough mixture.
But I'm crazy about apple dumplings.

Anyway, you'll have to take my word for it that Brewster's Centre is
four or five stations above Bridgeboro. There isn't any man named
Brewster. He went out West about fifty years ago. I guess he forgot to
take his centre with him. Anyway, it's up there. I guess nobody wants
it.

There are about a dozen people up in Brewster's Centre who go to the
city; gee, you can't blame them. So the railroad put an old passenger
car on a side track up there and boarded up the under part so you
couldn't see the wheels, just the same as on a lunch wagon. They
partitioned off part of the inside of it for a ticket office and made a
window in the boards, and the rest of the car was a waiting-room. There
was a stove in the corner. It was like the Pennsylvania Station in New
York, only different. They used the same old sign that used to be on the
regular station and it looked funny sprawling all over the side of that
car. It said:

Buffalo 398 Mls.--BREWSTER'S CENTER--N. Y. 30 Mls.

You'd think that Brewster's Centre was the centre of the whole earth.
Anyhow it showed two different ways of getting away from there. It's a
wonder it didn't tell how far it is from Brewster's Centre to Paris. I
guess the moon is about 'steen billion miles from Brewster's Centre. But
one thing, there's a place where you get dandy ice-cream cones up there.

That's all there is to this chapter. It isn't much of a chapter, hey?
But it's big enough for Brewster's Centre. It's a kind of a prologue
chapter. It's like Brewster's Centre, because nothing happens in it. The
only thing that ever happened up there was the fire, and that happened
three or four years ago. You can't even smell the smoke in this chapter.
But just you wait and see what happens.

CHAPTER II

THE HOUSING PROBLEM

Now comes a _lapse of three years_--I got that out of the movies. Maybe
if you've read all about our adventures you'll remember how my patrol,
the Silver Foxes, hiked home from Temple Camp last summer. Believe me,
that was some hike. The other two patrols came home later by boat. They
said they had more fun without us. I should worry about _them_.

The second night after we were all home I started around to the church
to troop meeting and I met Pee-wee Harris coming scout pace down through
Terrace Street. He's one of the raving R