“The bee-line runs just this side of those cookies,” I said.
“You’re a fine kind of a leader,” he said, “to let her stand that plate over there. Is that what you call tactics?”
I said, “Why didn’t you take a half dozen cookies when she passed them around the same as the rest of us did? You only took one.”
“You don’t call that tactics, do you?” Westy asked him.
“I’ve got some manners,” the kid said.
I said, “Well, you haven’t got any cookies. Look here.” Then I showed him about a half a dozen. Oh, boy, they were nice and brown and crisp and they had nuts in them. The fellows all had about as many as a dozen cookies each, because Mrs. Copley had said, “Oh, do take more, I’m sure you’re a hungry lot of scouts.”
Pee-wee sat there on one of the steps watching us eat cookies. Every time he moved I said, “You stay right where you are. Remember, this is a bee-line hike.”
Westy said, “These cookies are mighty good.”
I said, “M—mmm, that’s what they are.”