“What?” Ronnie’s mouth comes wide open.
“There goes the eggs!” shouts Mack, making a grab at the sack. He picks it out of a snowbank and looks inside. “Okay—only a couple cracked—none of ’em broken.”
“Yes, Ronnie,” I repeats, as I help hold him up. “One of us! We’d be proud to count you as a member of our Rough and Ready Club.”
“You—you would?” Ronnie stares at us suspiciously.
“You bet we would!” assures Mack. “We’d be tickled to initiate you!”
“Initiate?” gulps Ronnie, and tries to get away. “No, sir! I don’t want to join your club. I want to go home!”
“Listen,” says I, kicking Mack in the shins, “we’re willing to make an extra special exception in your case—and let you join without any initiation.”
“Well...,” considers Ronnie, “I—I’d have to ask my Dad first. He doesn’t believe much in joining things. He says a man should be able to stand alone.”
“He’s wrong,” speaks up Tommy. “Doesn’t your Dad know that ‘united we stand, divided we fall’?”
Ronnie stares. “I don’t believe he ever heard of that,” he says. “But I’ll tell him.”