lt-axe first of all. It's more important than the Handbook.
It means woodcraft and--and--and all that sort of stuff!"

Well, first I just laughed at him and jollied him along, because I know
how crazy he is about things like that--he'd wear every badge in the Hand.
book on his chest if he had the chance. And he's always getting new suits
and things, because his father is rich. Pee-wee's all right only he's
daffy about all the scout stuff that you see in the pictures and he
always has his belt-axe dragging on his belt, even when he's home, as
if he expected to chop down all the telegraph poles on Main Street.

"You have belt-axes on the brain," Westy told him.

"He's got them on the belt anyway," I said.

"You ask Mr. Ellsworth about it and see what he says," Ralph Warner
said. "He'll tell you it's better for Skinny to wait till he can earn
a little money and then buy a belt-axe. There's time enough."

"Sure he would," I said, because I know just how Mr. Ellsworth feels
about things like that. And for all I know, maybe he didn't want
Skinny to have everything at the start, just so as he would be able
to get some things all by himself later. Because Mr. Ellsworth thinks
that's the best way. Of course, we always jollied Pee-wee about his
belt-axe and about wearing his scout-knife and his drinking cup
hanging from his belt right home in Bridgeboro, as if he was in South
Africa, and Mr. Ellsworth always said he was the typical scout--that's
the word he used--typical.

But now I began to think maybe it would cause some trouble and I hoped
he wouldn't be giving Skinny any of that kind of talk. But he did just
the same, and it made a lot of trouble. Pee-wee's all right, but I
don't care if he knows what I said, because it's true.

On Monday we had it fixed for Skinny to come up to Camp Solitaire,
and Westy and I would teach him some stuff out of the Handbook. Then
we were going to give him the new stuff so he could put it on,
because we wanted him to feel good--you know what I mean--when he went
to meeting. We didn't want him to feel different from the other
fellows. But usually we don't do that until a fellow takes the
oath first.

Oh, boy, but wasn't he proud when we put the khaki suit on him, and
fixed the hat on his head. He smiled in that funny way he had that
always made me feel kind of bad, because it made his face look all
thin. And he was awful bashful and scared, but anyway, he was proud,
I could see that.