The way we fixed it was to cut a piece of birch bark off a tree and slip it between Hervey’s wristlet and the nest. Then we fastened it down tight and bound it all around every which way with fishline.
One wasp got out, but he didn’t do any harm. He seemed to be in a hurry, so we didn’t bother him. Then we threw the nest out into the lake. We thought that by the time it got out into the middle of the lake the water would melt it, and the wasps would escape. Anyway, I should worry about them.
The girls didn’t calm down till we told them that the nest had started on a voyage. Then we kindled up the fire for them and they started making jelly cones. There are lots of things you eat, but jelly cones are the kind of things you keep on eating. You just keep on making them and eating them. Oh, boy, they were good.
It was so nice sitting around under that tree that we stayed pretty near all afternoon. Those girls were starting a Camp-fire Girls troop. They said a girl in Brookside had started it. Her name was Sophronia Simpe. They told us a lot about her. They said she had lived on a ranch out west and had ridden wild broncos and everything. She could even throw a lasso. They said once she fell off a wild horse.
Warde said, “Are you sure it wasn’t a clothes-horse?”
She said, “No, it wasn’t a clothes-horse, Freshy.”
I said, “Once our young hero fell off a merry-go-round horse; that’s why he doesn’t care to go around much any more. Ever since then he’s been on the square. He thinks when he goes around he’s doing a good turn.”
Stella Wingate said to Pee-wee, “Don’t you mind them, they’re only making fun of you.”
“I could handle them all,” Pee-wee said, “if I wasn’t busy eating.”
So, then they began asking us about the scouts and about the kind of good turns we do and all that. It was nice sprawling around and eating jelly cones and just talking. You can have a lot of fun doing nothing.