e kid wanted to know.

"Into line," I said. "You walk ahead with me and do as I tell you.
You're going to be courier and envoy and a lot of things. You're my
official body-guard. You're my staff. Only don't break your other
garter. Don't give the enemy any advantage."

So that was the way we fixed it. I marched ahead, with Pee-wee at my
side holding the standard. He was a kind of a martial band, too, on
account of his aluminum cooking set rattling and jingling in the
phonograph horn. He looked very severe. I guess the women and children
will never forget when he passed through poor, defenseless Bridgeboro.
They're laughing yet. Talk about poor Belgium!

I marched along beside my official staff. I guess you know what I look
like. You can see me on the cover of this book. That laugh is caused by
Pee-wee. You can only see it, but oh, boy, you ought to _hear_ it.
Behind us came Westy and Dorry and Hunt Manners marching together, and
behind them were Will Dawson and the Warner twins marching together. The
expeditionary forces!

Behind us, after we got into town, all the kids followed along to see
what it was all about, so pretty soon we had a crowd of about a couple
of dozen all around us, yelling and hooting. And all the grown up people
stopped and stared and then began to laugh. All the while Pee-wee looked
straight ahead and his face was very severe.

We had two things to go by, the tree away off there on the ridge, and
Pee-wee's compass. I carried that compass to help us in places where we
couldn't see the tree. All we had to do was to go straight west.

The best way to hike a straight course with a compass is to get a very
thin stick that's perfectly straight. A knitting needle is good only you
must be sure not to use a steel one. You lay that across your compass.
If you're going west you lay it across the east and west points. It's
best to lay the compass down on something when you do that. Then you get
a bead on the direction of the stick and pick out something that it
points at. Then you hike straight for that thing. But there's no fun
hiking a bee-line unless you're fair and square with yourself. If you go
just a little bit out of your way to avoid something and try to make
yourself think you're going straight, that's no fun. Because, one thing,
you can't jolly a compass.

Now it was easy following that tree until we got down into town. Even
then it was easy for a little distance on account of Central Avenue