I said, “How do you feel, Dub, now that you’re going?”
“I feel full of ice cream,” he said.
“Do you feel sore at us, even just a little bit?” I asked him.
He started laughing and he said, “What for, I’d like to know?”
“You know as well as I do,” I told him. “Because only for Will and I keeping still you might have had the Gold Medal—even your Eagle badge too, maybe? You’re so quiet, I thought maybe after all you were sore. Are you?”
“You have to be quiet when Pee-wee’s around,” he said. “A fellow doesn’t get a chance to say anything.”
I said, “Will you let me tell Pee-wee and Sandy so they’ll know what you are before you go? They won’t let on at camp. Then all the four of us will make you the full salute, Dub. Gee Dub, Will and I feel mean. I know you’ve got to go and we can’t help you that way. But just the same I want everybody at camp to know all about you—what you really are. It makes us feel mean, doesn’t it Will?”
Will said, “I’ve got nothing to say. I don’t feel so very mean.”
Oh but I was good and mad. You never saw me when I was good and mad. I said, “Well, if you don’t feel mean, I do. You’d be back in Bridgeboro if it wasn’t for him. It’s just the same as if Dub gives you a present of staying the rest of the season. It’s as good as the Burnside award—what he does for you. And you don’t feel mean! I’d like to know how you do feel.”
“I feel kind of worried,” Will said.