Roy Blakeley's Tangled Trail

CHAPTER I

GREETINGS

Hello, everybody, this is the first story I wrote in a long time, only I haven’t written it yet. I mean when it’s all written it will be the first one I wrote in a long time.

That’s because my fountain pen got broken on account of stirring coffee with it in camp. Pee-wee Harris said that needn’t make any difference because a scout is supposed to be able to write with a charred stick whittled to a point.

He says that’s the way pioneers wrote. He thinks the word pioneer comes from the word pie. He says that’s the way he writes. No wonder his stories are such black mysteries, that’s what my sister says. He says scouts are supposed to write on birch bark. But believe me, paper is good enough, I tried birch bark. But anyway I like birch beer. I’m crazy about root beer too, only it reminds me of cube root and that reminds me of arithmetic.

Maybe you don’t know what cube root is; you’re lucky. Cube root is the number which taken three times as a factor produces a given number called its cube. I should worry. Because anyway this story isn’t about cubes, it’s about rubes and boobs and a lot of things and some roots but no cubes. You get those in school and school is closed up or I wouldn’t be writing this story.

Anyway I began this story twice. Gee whiz, I thought I was going to strike out. The first time I started with a long description of Temple Camp, and my father said it made him sleepy. Then after I went camping over Sunday I started again, and coffee came out of my fountain pen, and my sister said that a story like that would keep everybody awake, and I told her that’s more than some stories do.

So then I cleaned my fountain pen out and started again, and this is my third start, and my pen’s working fine. Only I’ve got to go downstairs to supper now so I have to end this chapter.

My sister says the place to end chapters is just when something very exciting is happening. But my mother says the place to end them is just when the dinner gong sounds. Anyway to-night we’re going to have chocolate pudding and that’s exciting so you’ll be in suspense while I’m eating chocolate pudding and after that I bet you don’t know who you’re going to meet.