STUNG
I said, “Excuse me while I fall in a faint.” I just fell on the ground
and buried my face in my hands. The next thing I knew Warde was lying
beside me suffering from shock. I said, “The fixer has fixed it.”
Pee-wee just stood staring. “You make me tired,” he shouted. “Do you
mean to say I can’t take that out——”
“Oh, absolutely, positively not,” I said; “a scout’s honor——”
“It’s just a what d’you call it—a teckinality,” he shouted. “If they
have to have that thing——”
“Oh, we _don’t_, we _don’t_!” the girls began crying. “Don’t touch it
whatever you do! Remember your promise! Don’t go near it!”
I jumped up and I said, “Girls, a scout’s honor is to be trusted. The
deed is did. The jelly cone maker stays in the wasps’ nest. Who cares
for jelly cones? Our honor is the only thing that counts. You can depend
on us, girls. We are boy scouts. The fixer has fixed it, and it will
stay fixed.”
“Is the little tin cone very necessary?” Brent asked them.
Marjorie said, “Oh, yes; you see we wrap the pie crust around it, that
makes it into a cone shape, you know. Then we push it off carefully and
stand it in a pan, a hot pan——”
“Mmm, yum, yum,” I said.
“And leave it in the oven till it’s nice and hard and crisp,” Marjorie
said. “Then we fill them with jam; they’re perfectly delicious. Of
course, we make a lot of them and stand them up in the pan and let them
crisp all at once. They really ought to be left in till they’re brown.
Oh, I’m so sorry you can’t try them. Isn’t it exasperating? When you see
them crisping in the pan they look like a lot of little tents—like an
encampment. A friend of ours, Sophronia Simpe, invented them. We just
come out here in the woods and _gorge_ ourselves with them every
Saturday.”
Warde said, “Well, I guess this will be an off Saturday. We’re sorry,
but we made a promise and, as Pee-wee very truthfully remarked, the
wasps are good and mad by now and if we pulled that little tin wedge
out——”
“Oh, we wouldn’t have you to do it for _worlds_.” Stella said. “Do you
think we want to be overwhelmed with wasps?”
“Oh, positively not; say not so,” I said. “Not after our brave young
hero sealed them up so nicely. They must be pretty mad by now.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t take any chances with them,” Brent said.
“Safety first,” Hervey said. “Let them rage; we’re safe.”
Then, all of a sudden, Pee-wee went up in the air. “Now I know you’re
all crazy,” he said. “Do you mean to tell me that tin wedge or whatever
you call that thing, can’t be pulled out very quietly——”
“And break a solemn vow?” Brent asked him. “How about a scout’s honor?”
“You make me tired!” he yelled. “It shows how much you know about
physics, I mean ethics, I mean about how a thing can be all right if
when you first said it, it wasn’t why you didn’t know how it was going
to turn out.”
“It’s as clear as shoe-blacking,” I said. “Why didn’t you explain all
that before?”
“Because you’re a lot of crazy lunatics!” he shouted. “I’m going to take
that thing out——”
“Have a care, Scout Harris,” I said. “Stand back; our honor is more
important than a thousand jelly cones. You shall not pass.”
All the while the girls were jumping around telling us not to let him
and crying and starting to run away—you know how they are.
I don’t know whether we would have had any jelly cones that afternoon if
it hadn’t been for Hervey Willetts. All the while he was lying there on
his back not paying much attention to us. All of a sudden he grabbed
some leaves that were on a low branch. I guess he didn’t mean to break
his promise. But anyway down came the wasps’ nest kerplunk right on him
and out flew the little tin wedge. Gee whiz, that fellow was quick. In
about half a second he had his leather wristlet against the hole.
By that time the girls were hiding behind a tree about twenty feet away
and screaming. Pee-wee was making a grand scramble for the cone form or
whatever you call it, and the rest of us were laughing. There was Hervey
hugging the big nest and holding his leather wristlet tight against the
opening. He tried to get up with the nest in his arms and it was awful
funny to see him because he didn’t have the use of one arm.
“What’ll I do with it?” he asked us.
“We should worry what you do with it,” I said. “Carry it around with you
all afternoon, only for goodness’ sake don’t take your wrist away from
the opening. I bet they’re all just crowding inside the entrance to see
which one of them can be the first out.”
Hervey said, “I wouldn’t mind so much being stung by one wasp, but I
don’t like the idea of hugging this thing for the rest of my life. My
arm’s beginning to ache, too. I can hear a buzzing inside.”
I said, “Hang on to it, the plot grows thicker.”