“Don’t rub it in,” he said.
“I don’t mean it that way,” I told him. “Only why should you be putting up a half a dollar for something you won’t have anything to do with? Anyway that’s against the rule in this camp, taking up collections like that. Gee, I should think you’d be glad your mother did that—sending you up here like that.”
He said, “Do you live in a big house?”
“Sure,” I told him, “but what’s the difference? They’re all the same size when you get on the outside of them—the outside of every house is the same size. You go outside your house and you’ve got just as much room as I have when I go outside of my house. Let’s hear you deny it.”
“Tell that to Pee-wee,” he said, kind of laughing.
“Look out, you’ll crack your face laughing,” I told him.
He said, “When I go outside my house I just have to sit in the gutter. There used to be a lot but they’re building on it.”
“When I go outside of my house there’s a big lawn I have to mow,” I told him. “Jiminies, you’re lucky—you don’t have to cut the sidewalk.”
He said, “You crazy Indian, you make me laugh.”
“Sure, why not?” I said to him.