he time I like best, when
the sun begins to get red. I was wondering if we could see my house when
we got up on the ridge.

Pretty soon we climbed over the old amusement park fence and then we
just had to cut straight across fields till we came to Little Valley.
Before we got there all the windows in the houses looked as if there
were lights shining inside of them. That was a sign the sun was
beginning to go down. When the windows look bright like that in August
you'll know it's after five o'clock. In Bridgeboro at six o'clock some
of the houses in Little Valley look as if they were on fire. We got
fooled that way once. We went all the way there by the road and there
wasn't any building burning down at all. Gee whiz, we were mad!

Little Valley isn't so big. The fellows over there come to Bridgeboro
High School. There's a one-patrol troop there. Harry Donnelle lives
there too. He told us whenever we came to Little Valley to be quiet so
as not to wake the people up. He says that place ought to be called Rip
Van Winkleberg. But anyway, I don't see how you can wake a town up if
it's dead. The only thing that's quick about Little Valley is some
quicksand near the creek. But they've got a good ball field there for
the Bridgeboro team to beat them on. Anyway, I'm not so stuck on
baseball. Me for stalking and tracking and all that.

Now when we got to Little Valley we marched in formation just the same
as we did in Bridgeboro, two rows of three fellows each. I marched ahead
with my official staff and we let Warde Hollister go ahead of us all
with the cardboard standard because he didn't have any scout suit. I bet
Little Valley felt like Belgium when it saw us coming.

We had to go across one lawn, but a lady told us it was all right.
Pee-wee started to give her a lecture about the scouts but I grabbed him
by the collar and made him come along. He rattled like an old junk
wagon. The lady said he looked like Don Quixote. I don't know much about
that fellow, but if I ever meet him I'm going to apologize to him for
what she said.

Next we came to Main Street, named after the water main. By that time we
had a crowd of kids at our heels again and everybody was staring at us.
I hope they liked us. A man let us go through his store and climb over
the back fence and then we came out on the village green.

There's a band-stand on that village green and a whole crowd of kids
climbed up into it so as to see us. Pee-wee looked mighty