CHAPTER XVIII

THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD

Nearer and nearer we rolled, all the while yanking for dear life on the wheel. All of a sudden I had a thought.

"Run through to the back platform and if the wheel there is loose, tighten up that one, too. Quick!" I said.

Connie and Westy ran pell-mell through the car and I heard the jangling of the chain there and I could hear Connie say, "Quick! Pull hard--_harder_!"

Then, after a few seconds the car began slowing down.

"Pull with all your might," I said to the fellows with me; "you fellows, too," I called out; "she's letting up; pull--_hard_!"

The car kept slowing down.

"_Yank! Hard!_" Connie called through to us, "and hold on. Brace your feet."

The car moved slower, slower; then stopped.

"Kick the ratchet-pin in--hurry up!" somebody said, and I pushed it into place with my foot.

"All right, let go."

The car was standing right square across the road, but anyway, that was better than being in the water. Any port in a storm, hey?

I guess our nerves were all pretty much unstrung, anyway, I know my hands were good and sore.

"I thought we were goners," Westy said; "this is a nice place to stop.

It's good they don't have any traffic cops here."

"I should worry where we stop," I said; "it's better than the lake. We stopped here because we stopped here. I never knew that Brewster's Centre had so much pep in it. This old station will go up in the air next. What do you say we get an anchor?"

"Where are we?" Pee-wee piped up.

"We're _here_, that's all I can tell you," I said.

"If you want to know where _here_ is, look in the geography."

"We're neither here nor there," Westy said; "look at my hands, they're all blisters."

"Where do we go from here?" Connie wanted to know.

"I guess we take a southwesterly course and flow into the sink," I told him.

"Brewster's Centre ran away from home," Wig said. "Lost, strayed or stolen. We don't know where we are; we're in the middle of the road.

Just like we said before, we're here, because we're here."

We all sat down on the steps of the platform and Wig started singing:

"Oh, there was the Duke of Yorkshire, He had ten thousand men; He marched them up the hill, And he marched them down again.

And when they're up, they're up, And when they're down, they're down; And when they're only half way up, They're neither up nor down."

Pretty soon, while we were sitting there, we all started to make up words to the same tune, and after a while this is what we got to singing:

"Oh, there was young Pee-wee Harris (Cook), That ran a movie show.

He loosed the brake of a station-car, To see where he would go.

And when he'd roll, he'd roll, And when he'd stop, he'd stop.

And he stopped right in the middle of the road, Where there wasn't any traffic cop."

"Suppose an automobile should come along," Connie said.

"That's a very good idea," I told him; "suppose one should."

Westy was sitting up on the top step and he said, "Oh, Sister Anne, Sister Anne, I think I can see one scooting along through the woods, the other side of the lake."

"Let it scoot," I said; "the only way it can get past here is to do a couple of double flops like Pee-wee's omelet."

"It can't get around on account of the woods," Pee-wee said.

"Right the first time, as usual," I told him. "_Over the top_ is the only way. I hope it's a high-grade car, because a low-grade car could never get over such a high place."

"We had a narrow escape," Wig said

"If the machine doesn't stop, we'll stop it," Connie put in.

"Sure," I said, "we have a good argument."

"Brewster's Centre is getting to be a famous name," Westy said.

Connie said, "Sure, we're getting to be known in all the highways and byways--especially the highways. What do you say we give a movie show right here?"

"Vetoed," I told him.

We sat on the platform steps talking and jollying each other; what did we care? Be it ever so much in the wrong place, there's no place like home. Maybe you've read stories about boys running away from home for adventures, but our home was a good sport, it went with us. It had a good name, too, Brewster's Centre. Because it was right plunk in the center of the road.

Pretty soon Westy shouted, "Here comes the car. See it? You can see it right through the trees. It's green and red."

"It'll be black and blue if it tries to get past here," Wig said.

It was a great big touring car and its bright bra.s.s lights and tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs were all shiny on account of the sun setting and shining right on them.

It came rolling along, about fifty miles an hour, out from the woods, and then even faster as it hit it up along the straight road. Oh, boy, didn't it just eat up the miles!

I guess it must have been getting over the ground at about sixty per, when it began slowing down and stopped about a dozen yards from our car.

Oh, bibbie, that was some peachy machine.

There were two young fellows in it, and I could see that they were pretty tough looking. Both of them wore sweaters and one had on one of those peaked caps like tough fellows in the movies always wear. They waited just a minute and spoke to each other very excited like. Then they both looked around, back along the road.