This is going to be the craziest story I ever wrote. But anyway every word of it is true—except a few small words. Even the punctuation is true. But I have to admit the story is crazy. It’s the craziest story ever written in this world or any other world. I don’t care how many worlds there are. The name I call it by is the Funny-bone Hike, but I should worry what you call it. When you study first aid you have to know all about the different bones but the only bone I know anything about is my funny-bone. Anyway I don’t care so much about first aid—I like lemonade better.
But one thing, I’ve got the Safety First badge. To get that you have to think up a safety device in your home. I thought of a safety pin. I’ve got ten other merit badges, too. Next to laughing my specialty is cooking.
So now I’ll tell you about how all this crazy business started. It happened accidentally on purpose. Our troop was up at Temple Camp—that’s where we spend our summers. One morning six of us went down to Catskill Landing in the bus to get some fish-hooks and jaw-breakers; I’m crazy about those, I don’t mean fish-hooks.
The six scouts that happened to be along were Bert Winton, (he belongs out west) and Hervey Willetts, (gee whiz, he belongs everywhere I guess) and Garry Everson (he lives down the Hudson) and Warde Hollister (he’s in my patrol and my patrol is the Silver Foxes and they’re all crazier than each other, those fellows) and Pee-wee Harris (he’s one of the raving Ravens of our troop) and Roy Blakeley, that’s me, I mean I, correct, be seated. I was named after my sister because she was named before I was. I’m patrol leader of the Silver Foxes, but I’m not to blame, because they were wished onto me. I’m more to be pitied than blamed.
Now it’s about ten miles from Temple Camp to Catskill Landing. And it’s about three hundred and forty-eleven miles back from Catskill Landing to Temple Camp. I bet you’ll say that isn’t possible and I know it isn’t possible but it’s true just the same.
So this is the way it is. The first chapter of this story tells how we went to Catskill Landing and the next twenty or thirty chapters tell how we got back to Temple Camp. You can stay in Catskill Landing if you want to and not bother with the rest, I should worry. But the book includes the round trip only it wasn’t so round; it was kind of square like a circle and rectangular and right-angular and left angular, and every which way. It was shaped like a lot of wire all tangled up. The way back was so crooked that we met ourselves a lot of times going the other way.
So if you want to you can call this story The Tangled Trail. But I like the Funny-bone Hike better. Suit yourself.