"That was nothing," Pee-wee told her; "it looks hard, but that"s nothing. There"s no such word as fail; that"s a what d"ye call it, a maxwell."
"You mean a Ford," Connie said.
"He means a Pierce-Arrow," Westy shouted.
"He means a maxim, don"t you?" the girl named Grace said. "And I think it"s a perfectly _splendid_ maxim."
"That"s nothing," Pee-wee piped up; "I know a lot of maxims. I"ve got a collection of them."
"He catches them in the woods," I said.
"Don"t you get discouraged," Pee-wee shouted.
"No, we won"t," Grace said; "and don"t you mind them, either. They"re just teasing you. And we want to ask you if you"ll do us a favor--a good turn. Will you?"
"_Sure_ I will," he said, very manly; "what is it?"
"We want you to _promise_ to come over to _Camp Smile Awhile_ to-morrow and cook dinner for us. And we want to ask all the rest of you boys to come, too. We"re just a lot of _greenhorns_ about cooking; isn"t it _shameful_ to have to admit it? But we"ve got everything over there, food and utensils, and you can make us up a _feast_ and we"ll spend the afternoon visiting. Say you will. Will you?"
_G--o--o--d night!_ I laughed so hard I nearly fell off my feet. _Oh, boy_, you should have seen Pee-wee"s face. You just ought to have seen it.
CHAPTER XIV
PEE-WEE ON SCOUTING
"Absolutely, positively," I said; "he"ll be there at ten-thirty. Do you want him to bring references?"
"We should say _not_," Grace Bentley said; "the _idea_! What we saw in the pictures was reference enough."
_Good night_, you should have seen Pee-wee"s face. He just stood there, gazing about as if he were in a trance.
One of the girls said, "Won"t it be _adorable_! We"re going to have chicken."
"Cooking chicken is his favorite indoor sport," Westy said. "How do you like your roast chicken; fried or stewed? It"s all the same to him."
I took out my scout note-book and made believe to write things down.
"We"ll just make up the menu," I said.
All of a sudden Pee-wee came out of his trance and shouted, "You mean me?"
"Menu," I said; "yes, they mean you." Then I said, "Would you like to have the fried potatoes stewed, or would you prefer to have them mashed with the skins on?"
One of the girls said to Pee-wee, "Don"t you mind him, he"s just _too_ silly."
"Do you prefer your fried eggs in the sh.e.l.ls, or would you like them roasted in ice-water? It doesn"t make any difference to him," Connie said.
"Don"t you pay any attention to them," Grace Bentley said to Pee-wee; "some of us will come over in the boat for you to-morrow morning, and when the dinner is ready, we want all of you to come, won"t you?"
"Sure, we"ll hike around the sh.o.r.e," I said, "and get up good appet.i.tes.
We"ll be there at about twelve-sixty. We"ll come around the longest way, so we"ll get good and hungry."
"Oh, that will be just _lovely_," they said, "and we"ll have a perfectly scrumptious time. Do you like pie? We"ve got a whole big jar full of mince meat."
"You have to be careful about mince pie," Pee-wee said; "it"s better, maybe, not to eat mince pie."
"Who"s a coward?" Westy piped up. "Do you think a scout is afraid of a piece of mince pie?"
"Oh, it will be just _dear_," another one of the girls said, and then they all crowded around Pee-wee and began saying, "You"ll _surely_ be ready, won"t you? We"ll come over for you at ten o"clock. And we"ll have everything ready for you. We"ve got lots of flour and seasoning----"
I said, "What kind of seasoning; summer or winter?"
They told Pee-wee not to mind us, and that we probably wouldn"t stop talking till our mouths were busy doing something else.
"What--what--time did you say you"d come?" he began stammering.
"At ten o"clock, and you"ll be ready, won"t you?"
"I--ye--yes," he stammered out.
"Positively?" Grace Bentley said.
"You--you can--you know, you never--kind of--maybe--you never can be sure of anything," he blurted out.
"But say you"ll _surely_ come," she hammered at him. "Will you?"
He said, "I guess--sure--yop." And he looked all around as if he was going to start to run.
"Absolutely, positively guaranteed," I told them; "a scout can be _trusted_."
So then we helped them off with their boat and their canoes, and they started across the lake in the dark. We said we"d paddle them over and then hike back through the woods, but they wouldn"t let us, because there wasn"t room enough and anyway, they said they wanted to show us that there were some things girls could do. They rowed and paddled pretty good, too; I have to admit it.
Pee-wee didn"t go down to the sh.o.r.e with the rest of us, but just stood where he was, like a statue. He was in a kind of a trance, I guess.
As we came near him, Westy said, "Of course, they don"t row very well, or paddle either, but they"re _trying_. All they have to do is to _try_."
"Oh, sure," I said; "if you can"t do a thing, just go ahead and do it anyway. You have to be resourceful. You have to have plenty of _initials_."
"Now you take making dressing for roast chicken, for instance," Connie said; "all you have to do is to know how. It"s a cinch."
"And if you don"t know how," I said; "do it anyway. It"s as easy as pie."
"Oh, pie"s a cinch," Wig said.
"Those girls will learn," I said; "they shouldn"t get discouraged."