Read Online More Adventures Of The Great Brain by John D. Fitzgerald - Free Book Online Page B

week I’d get out of town, where I was now known along with Tom as the kids who had a brother who was going with a girl. Papa announced the trip on Saturday during supper.

        “I’ve closed the Advocate for a week,” he said. “We will leave early Monday morning.”

    “Where are we going this year?” Tom asked eagerly.

        “Why not up Beaver Canyon, where we went last year?” Papa asked. “The fishing was excellent, and the hunting very good.”

        We left Adenville early Monday morning. Tom and I rode on the seat of the buckboard with Papa, who was driving our team of Bess and Dick. We had all our supplies and tent securely fastened to the bed of the buckboard in back of the seat. Sweyn rode Dusty. We traveled a logging road along the foothills of the Wasatch range of mountains until we came to the mouth of Beaver Canyon. The canyon got its name from the beaver dams at the head of the river that flowed down the canyon. We watered the horses and then ate the lunch Mamma had prepared for us.

        I stuffed myself on the fried chicken, hard-boiled eggs, bread and butter sandwiches, cake, and pie that Mamma had put in a cardboard shoe box. I knew from experience this would be our last bite of good cooking until we returned home. When we had eaten all we could, Papa stood up and patted his stomach.

        “No sense in going on a fishing and camping trip if you don’t rough it,” he said. “Throw away what you can’t eat, boys.”

        The only food Papa allowed us to keep was flour, salt and pepper, a sack of potatoes, bacon, a case of pork and beans, a small sack of onions, sugar, coffee, cans of condensed milk, and a small sack of dried beans. We expected to arrive at our destination in time to catch a mess of fish for supper.

        I was admiring the canyon as we drove up it. Pine and cedar trees were intermingled with aspens and cottonwoods. Some of the trees were growing out of cracks in cliffs and ledges. There were wild flowers. All of them had a great smell you never got in town. Blue jays cawed at us, and we could hear mountain canaries singing.

        Papa seemed much more concerned about the road “This road looks well traveled compared with what it was last year, “he said.

        “Maybe they have put on more men at the logging camp on top of the plateau,” Tom said.

        “I doubt it,” Papa said. “You can see this road has beer traveled by buggies, wagons, and buckboards.”

    We discovered why the road was so well traveled when we arrived at the place where we had camped last year. There were buggies, wagons, buckboards, tents, and people all over the place.

        “What in the name of Jupiter are all these people doing here?” Papa demanded, as if they were all poaching on his private property. “With all the places there are to fish in Utah, why did everybody who owns a fishing pole suddenly decide to choose this particular place?”

        It wasn’t hard for a fellow with a little brain like me to figure out. The year before we’d brought home about four dozen beautiful rainbow and German brown trout packed in wet mud and grass. Papa had insisted we lay them out on our front lawn to wash off the mud and grass with the hose. A big crowd gathered on the sidewalk in front of our house. I remembered how Papa had told them about his perfect place to fish in Beaver Canyon.

        Tom had been thinking the same thing. “Maybe you shouldn’t have told so many people about this place last year,” he said.

        “Well, you would think people would have the decency to respect a man’s private fishing and camping ground,” Papa said.

        Papa could certainly exaggerate. It was public land, and all those people had as much right to be there as we did. We found a place to camp and pitched our tent. Then we went fishing, but the water was muddy from a rainstorm farther up the canyon. We didn’t even get a bite. We ate a supper of cold