IN THE WOODS
Now I have to go backward—that’s one good thing about this story, it
has a reverse gear; you can go backward.
The first night we had the house-boat, Mr. Ellsworth went to see Mr.
Darren, who is superintendent of Northside Woods (that’s owned by the
Northside estate) and he asked Mr. Darren if we could chop down some
saplings to use on the boat. Because we wanted to make some stanchions
for the awning, and another flagpole, and some bumper sticks. He thought
that was a good idea, because lumber costs so much. Connie said the
reason it was high is because they’re building tall houses. So Mr.
Darren marked some saplings with chalk and said we could take those.
The next afternoon after that last meeting, we all hiked over to
Northside Woods to chop down the saplings. You have to go across the
bridge to get to Northside Woods and then you go up the road toward
Little Valley.
Westy didn’t go with the rest of us because he wanted to get a book out
of the library, for he thought the library might be closed when we got
back.
“Have a heart,” I said, “and don’t be late whatever you do, because
there’s been enough of that kind of thing in our patrol lately.”
“I’ll be Johnny-on-the-spot, don’t you fear,” he said. And I knew he
would, only he’s one of those fellows that’s always trying to do too
much. He isn’t late much, I’ll say that for him, but he always comes
running in at the last minute.
“Well, don’t get us in Dutch,” I told him, “that’s all I care about.”
We had a dandy hike over to the woods. My patrol got there first and
pretty soon the Ravens came along and Doc Carson had his First Aid
kit—you’d think somebody was going to fight a duel, honest. “Why don’t
you start a base hospital and be done with it?” I said.
Pretty soon the Elks came along and Skinny was with them. As soon as I
looked at him I felt kind of bad like, for I saw I was right about the
two dollars. I knew I was right all the time, but now I saw it, and
jingoes, it spoiled all my fun. Because he had a belt-axe on and I could
see he was very proud of it. He came up to me and smiled that funny kind
of a smile he had, and he said, “I got one; see, I got one.”
It was a new one all right, but not a regular scout-axe, and I guessed
he must have bought it in the hardware store. It was what they call a
camp axe—just the same only different. His belt was loose anyway, on
account of him being so thin, but the axe dragged it way down and made
him look awful funny, but he had on the scout smile and that’s the
principal thing.
“It’s a good one, ain’t it?” he asked me.
“It’s all right,” I said, but I just couldn’t take it and look at it.
“It’ll cut, too,” he said; “and I’m going to chop down a lot of trees.
And it’s my very own, isn’t it?”
Jiminy, I didn’t know how to answer that, so I didn’t say anything, only
I told him not to chop down many because he wasn’t strong yet. And I
told him not to chop any that didn’t have chalk marks. I told him to ask
Connie Bennett, and to stay near him, because Connie is the Elks’ leader
ever since Tom Slade went away. “You do what Connie tells you,” I said.
Well, the way that kid started you’d think he was going to chop the
North Pole in half. “He’d be able to chop through the equator in a
couple of hours at that rate,” I told Connie. But anyway, he was getting
fresh air and a whole lot of fun.
Some of the fellows chopped and some of them cut off the branches and
tied the saplings together, three or four each, because we were going to
haul them as far as the bridge and then float them down to the landing.
Every little while I looked at Skinny and he was chopping away at one
sapling for dear life. He had it all full of nicks and every nick had a
place all to itself.
“That isn’t chopping, it’s what you call woodcarving,” Dorry Benton
said.
“He’s a good butcher, anyway,” Artie said.
Every time Skinny hit, he hit in a different place and he would never
get the sapling down, I saw that, but he was having the time of his
life, just the same.
[Illustration: “EVERY TIME SKINNY HIT, HE HIT IN A DIFFERENT PLACE.”]
“Some Daniel Boone,” Will Dawson said. But I told them not to make fun
of him.
All the while I kept wondering if Skinny really thought that axe was his
very own like he said. And it seemed sort of funny that he could be
getting so much fun out of it. Oftentimes he would get tired and begin
to cough and Connie would make him sit down and rest. Then he would show
his axe to the fellows and match it to theirs and say he liked his best.
I don’t know, maybe there was something wrong about Skinny. Maybe he was
more crazy about weapons than he was about scouting. He didn’t seem to
think about anything except cutting down that sapling, and the more of a
botch he made out of it, the harder he worked. I remembered something
Mr. Ellsworth said to Tom Slade about not caring more for his gun than
he did for his country. But, gee, when I thought about what Skinny said
about the two things he liked most, the axe and the law about honor,
_good night_, I couldn’t understand him at all.
Pretty soon I began worrying about Westy, because something is always
delaying that fellow, and I even hoped that he wouldn’t stumble over any
more good turns, until this day’s work was over. If Westy fell out of a
ten-story building, he’d do a good turn on the way down—that’s the way
he is.
Well, pretty soon I heard him coming through the woods on the dead run.
We all stopped working and laughed, because he was coming along like a
marathon runner. All except Skinny—he went right on chopping away and
the sapling looked as if a cow had been chewing it.
I don’t know, but something or other made me feel kind of mad at him all
of a sudden, and I didn’t laugh at him.
Then he called over to me and he said, “Look—how I’m chopping it down
with my axe! See?”
“Who’s axe?” I said, because I just couldn’t help it.
“Look! See?” he shouted, all excited; “ain’t I a good chopper—ain’t I?”
Maybe you won’t understand how it was, because, gee, I can’t tell things
so you’ll see them just right. Anyway, I’m not excusing myself, that’s
one thing. But I just looked over at Skinny and I said:
“I don’t want to look at your axe! Shut up you little——” I was going
to call him a little thief, but I’m mighty glad I didn’t. “Can’t you see
I’m looking at something else?” I said, kind of mad.
“You’d be better off if you never thought about the axe; you’re a——”
Just then I heard somebody yell, “Look out, Westy, the boards are gone!
You’ll have to climb!”
After that, everything seemed to be all jumbled up. I saw Skinny
standing near his sapling just staring at me and he looked as if I had
just hit him and he didn’t understand at all. He didn’t even notice all
the other fellows who were running. Then I looked and I didn’t see
Westy, but all the fellows were heading for the ditch and I knew right
away what had happened. Somebody hollered, “Get your kit, Doc, and hurry
up.” There was a ditch near where the saplings grew and usually there
were a couple of boards across it. But they weren’t there when all of us
fellows went across and we had to go down into the ditch and climb up
the other side. I guess the woodsmen had taken them, maybe.
Anyway, when Westy came along the path he was running so hard he didn’t
notice in time that the boards weren’t there, and he went head over
heels into the ditch. I guess I was the last one to get there, and all
the fellows were standing around and Doc was kneeling over Westy, and
feeling his pulse. Westy’s face was all white and there was blood coming
down from his eye and he looked straight up and didn’t notice anybody.
All the fellows were quiet and scared, kind of, and waiting for Doc to
speak. But he wasn’t excited, only he said we’d better get a doctor. “It
isn’t a fracture,” he said; “it’s only a cut, but anyway, we’d better
get the doctor.”
Then I saw some blood on the front of Westy’s khaki shirt. But Doc saw
it first and he said, “Open his shirt, maybe he has something hanging
from his neck that cut him. Feel and see if he has a knife in his breast
pocket. Open his shirt first. Give me the iodine and some bandage, one
of you fellows.”
I thought I ought to be the one to open his shirt, because he was in my
patrol and besides we were special friends, as you might say. So I
pushed through past the others and just as I was kneeling down I saw
Skinny standing up on the edge of the ditch and his eyes looked big and
he was all trembling and excited. There were big red spots on his cheeks
and I knew that was the consumption that showed whenever he got excited.
He was all by himself up there and he looked kind of wild—I can’t
exactly tell you.
Then I opened Westy’s shirt and I saw he had a ring with two keys
hanging there and they must have pressed into his chest and cut him. It
kind of scared me, because there was so much blood, but Doc said, “Give
me the iodine—that’s nothing.”
And I knew he knew what he was talking about.
While he was putting iodine in the cut I felt in Westy’s pocket like Doc
told me to do, but there wasn’t any knife there. But there was something
else there and I pulled it out. Oh, gee, I hate to tell you about it. It
was my two dollar bill. I could tell because it was new and because it
had a stain on it in the shape of a half circle.
I always kept oil on those oar-locks, so they wouldn’t get rusty.