“Going down,” Warde said.
“Did you know you fell?” I called to him, just as he was scrambling up again. “Do you need any first aid or would you prefer orangeade?”
“It’s a rope from that tent,” he shouted. “I tripped over it.”
Before we could reach him a girl went running up to him calling, “Oh, did you hurt yourself?” She began brushing him off and asking him if he hit his head and kept on brushing him off all the time, straightening his scarf and everything like that. “Oh, you tore your stocking,” she said. “Isn’t that a perfect shame!” She was a regular little finale hopper, that girl. She had on one of those hats, whatever you call it, and everything. She had on sandals, she had bobbed hair too.
When we reached the scene, Pee-wee was just standing there letting her brush him off.
Warde said, “That’s the way with him, he falls for everything. He fell for waffles and then he fell for a rope.”
I said, “Look at the hole in your stocking. Where’s the part where the hole is? Look around on the ground.”
“Don’t you mind them, they’re crazy,” Pee-wee said.
Brent said to the rest of us, “You shouldn’t laugh at a fellow because he’s down.”
“Most always he’s up in the air,” I said.