JELLY CONES
The way we fixed it was to cut a piece of birch bark off a tree and slip
it between Hervey’s wristlet and the nest. Then we fastened it down
tight and bound it all around every which way with fishline.
One wasp got out, but he didn’t do any harm. He seemed to be in a hurry,
so we didn’t bother him. Then we threw the nest out into the lake. We
thought that by the time it got out into the middle of the lake the
water would melt it, and the wasps would escape. Anyway, I should worry
about them.
The girls didn’t calm down till we told them that the nest had started
on a voyage. Then we kindled up the fire for them and they started
making jelly cones. There are lots of things you eat, but jelly cones
are the kind of things you keep on eating. You just keep on making them
and eating them. Oh, boy, they were good.
It was so nice sitting around under that tree that we stayed pretty near
all afternoon. Those girls were starting a Camp-fire Girls troop. They
said a girl in Brookside had started it. Her name was Sophronia Simpe.
They told us a lot about her. They said she had lived on a ranch out
west and had ridden wild broncos and everything. She could even throw a
lasso. They said once she fell off a wild horse.
Warde said, “Are you sure it wasn’t a clothes-horse?”
She said, “No, it wasn’t a clothes-horse, Freshy.”
I said, “Once our young hero fell off a merry-go-round horse; that’s why
he doesn’t care to go around much any more. Ever since then he’s been on
the square. He thinks when he goes around he’s doing a good turn.”
Stella Wingate said to Pee-wee, “Don’t you mind them, they’re only
making fun of you.”
“I could handle them all,” Pee-wee said, “if I wasn’t busy eating.”
So, then they began asking us about the scouts and about the kind of
good turns we do and all that. It was nice sprawling around and eating
jelly cones and just talking. You can have a lot of fun doing nothing.
Marjorie Eaton said, “What kind of good turns do you do?”
I said, “Well, to give you an instance——”
“You got that out of a book,” Pee-wee shouted. “_Just to give you an
instance._ You don’t know what it means.”
I said, “As I was about to say when I was rudely interrupted, once I
knew a poor family that were starving because they didn’t have any
coal——”
“You don’t eat coal!” Pee-wee shouted.
Marjorie said, “Yes, what kind of a good turn did you do?”
I said, “I stuck out my tongue and made faces.”
“That shows——” Pee-wee started.
I said, “I went over to the coal-yard where the men were unloading coal
from the Drearie Railroad. I took a pail with me. It was enamel, all
nice and white. That’s why it was called pale—shut up everybody——”
“Did I say anything?” Pee-wee hollered.
“No, but you were going to,” I said. “I took the pail over to the
coal-yard and started calling names at the men and sticking out my
tongue at them and making faces. Then the men began throwing coal at me
and pretty soon I had a pailful. So, then, I took it to the poor family.
And that shows how a few hard names and ugly faces can bring much
happiness. But the trouble with Pee-wee is that he can never stick out
his tongue because it’s too busy.”
Stella Wingate said, “Really?”
“Absolutely, positively,” I said. “I can tell you lots of good turns
that we did.”
“Don’t you believe a word he’s telling you!” Pee-wee shouted.
“Don’t believe _him_,” I said. “He’s so dumb he’s named after a
dumb-waiter. He thinks that a somersault is a good turn.”
By that time everybody was laughing because they like to see Pee-wee and
me in a mortal come-back—I mean combat.
“Wait till I finish this jelly cone and I’ll tell you something,” the
kid shouted, all excited. “When I was trying to win the stromeny—wait a
minute—badge——”
“He means the astronomy badge,” Warde said.
“Sure,” I said. “He’s so dumb he thinks Warde is named after Ward’s
cake. When he was trying for the astronomy badge he thought William S.
Hart was a shooting star because he’s always aiming a couple of
pistols.”
_“That shows——_” Pee-wee started.
“He’s always thinking about shows,” Warde said.
I said, “To show you how dumb he is, when he didn’t win the first aid
badge he said he was going to try for the second aid badge. When he was
trying for the life saving medal he thought a daring feat couldn’t be
performed with his arms. He thought only colored scouts could try for
the blacksmith badge. And to show you——”
“Hurry, before he finishes the jelly cone he’s eating,” Brent said. “I
can feel the earth shaking under me.”
“You’ve only got about five seconds,” Hervey said to me.
Gee whiz, it was a race with Pee-wee’s mouth. He was getting the jelly
cone out of the way to start a converted attack, or a concerted attack,
or whatever you call it.
“Give him another one—quick,” I said. Marjorie handed him a couple of
cones to keep him busy; she was laughing so hard she couldn’t speak.
I said, “Just to show you how dumb he is, he thinks that a Star Scout is
one who has won the astronomy badge. He thinks that the Raven Patrol
that he’s in is named after him, because he’s always raving; I’ll leave
it to Brent.”
Brent said, “Alas, it’s true. All joking aside, an Eagle Scout came from
Brooklyn last summer——”
“I don’t blame him,” Hervey said.
“That’s neither here nor there,” Brent said.
“_Where is it then?_” Pee-wee yelled.
Brent said, “The point is, our young hero thought that the youth in
question won the Eagle award by reading the _Brooklyn Daily Eagle_—and
that isn’t all.”
“I never knew that,” Warde said.
“It was common talk in camp,” Brent said. “But the worst is yet to
come.”
“You’d better hurry up,” I said.
“There isn’t another cone left,” Stella sang out.
Brent said, “But all joking aside——”
“Which side?” Hervey asked him.
“To the left,” I said.
“The left side, of course,” Brent said. “All joking to the left——”
But that was as far as he got. Just then our young hero took the floor,
I mean the ground. Already he had taken most of the jelly cones.
I said, “Stand aside, everybody.”
“That shows you that they’re all crazy!” Pee-wee screamed. “Not only
they walk left-handed but they talk left-handed. They’d be tramping
around the lake yet if it wasn’t for a couple of girls. And Roy Blakeley
he writes all this crazy stuff up and has his picture on the cover of a
lot of books and you girls will be in the stories, too—you see. But over
in camp everybody says his whole patrol ought to be named the laughing
hyenas; they’re so crazy that they jolly themselves when they haven’t
got anybody else to jolly and they think it’s fun to tell a new
tenderfoot to go out in the woods and see if he can hear the birch bark
and invite a new troop up to their cabin and tell them there’s going to
be a racket up there and then show them a tennis racket and they told a
little fellow that wanted to play tennis where he could find a racket
and they told him to come where I was if he wanted a racket, because I
made rackets, and even Mr. Allison says that sometimes; they go too
far——”
“That’s why we just kept going round and round the lake this time,” I
said. “Sometimes we go entirely too near; you as much as admitted it
yourself.”