up through the woods on the
ridge.

All along in the fields beside that railroad track were big wooden signs
telling people what they should buy. The country would look better if
those big signs were not there. You know the kind of signs I mean--the
kind you see when you're riding in the train. One of them says everybody
should want to make his home beautiful, so he should buy a certain kind
of paint, because beauty is what counts. If the man that owns that sign
is worrying so much about things being beautiful I should think he'd
take that sign down.

One of these signs was very big and it happened to be right in our path.
It says, "Brown's hats are always on top." Maybe that's a joke, kind of.
We crossed the tracks and then about a hundred feet farther was the
sign. There was a man there who was just finishing doing some painting
on it. He had a stepladder and a can of paint and things, and he had a
camera, too.

"Maybe that's Mr. Brown," the kid said.

"More likely it's Mr. Hat," I said.

Then I said, "Hey, mister, we're on a bee-line hike and we'd like to go
right under that sign if you don't mind."

He said, "Under or over, suit yourselves. The world belongs to the boy
scouts."

"Let's climb up the ladder and go over," Westy said.

I said, "No sooner said than stung. Over the top for us."

The man laughed; he was a good-natured man. So we all climbed up on the
ladder, one after another, and while we were waiting for the man to
carry it around to the back of the sign we all sat in a row on top.
Right underneath us were painted the words "Always on top." I made a
picture of that sign with all of us sitting on the top of it. The one in
the middle is Pee-wee.

[Illustration: ALWAYS ON TOP

BROWN'S HATS]

Pretty soon the man began laughing and he called up, "That's very good,
all sit just where you are a minute. That puts a dash of pep into the
ad. Scouts always on top, eh?"

"What's he going to do?" Pee-wee said.

"He's going to take a picture of the ad with us in it," Westy said.

I guess we must have looked pretty funny from down below; anyway the man
kept laughing. The way Pee-wee sat there was enough to make any one
laugh. He looked as if he thought he was famous already.

The man called, "Just sit naturally and laugh."

"That's easy," I told him; "laughing is our middle name."

"All right," he called.

Then he got behind his camera and held out his hand for us to keep
still.

"What are y