“Why pick on me?” Hervey asked her, all the while lying on his back with his hands behind his head, kind of careless like.
She said, “Because you have a look in your eye. I just feel you’re going to do something tragic. I can just feel it in my bones. Girls are good at reading characters. I know your type.”
“Make Roy Blakeley promise,” Pee-wee said, all the while strutting around very important, sort of, “because he’s the worst of the lot.”
Marjorie Eaton said, “Mr. Tall Boy with the spectacles, will you give your solemn word of honor——”
“As a scout,” Pee-wee shouted.
“As a scout,” Marjorie said, “will you give your solemn word of honor and cross your heart and hope to die that none of these boys will touch that wasps’ nest—will you?”
“Why pick on me?” Brent said.
“Because you have spectacles and I feel that you’re honorable—I just feel it,” she said. “Will you promise for all of them including Willis, or whatever that crazy boy’s name is who lies on his back, will you promise that not a single, solitary one of you will touch that wasps’ nest? Because I won’t make a single jelly cone till you do.”
“Make him raise up his hand in the scout salute and promise,” said Pee-wee. “Because I know that bunch; I’ve been out with them before.”
Brent said, “Will you girls promise to make as many jelly rolls as we can eat in half an hour?”