scrumptious time. Do you like pie? We've got a whole big jar full of
mince meat."

"You have to be careful about mince pie," Pee-wee said; "it's better,
maybe, not to eat mince pie."

"Who's a coward?" Westy piped up. "Do you think a scout is afraid of a
piece of mince pie?"

"Oh, it will be just _dear_," another one of the girls said, and then
they all crowded around Pee-wee and began saying, "You'll _surely_ be
ready, won't you? We'll come over for you at ten o'clock. And we'll have
everything ready for you. We've got lots of flour and seasoning----"

I said, "What kind of seasoning; summer or winter?"

They told Pee-wee not to mind us, and that we probably wouldn't stop
talking till our mouths were busy doing something else.

"What--what--time did you say you'd come?" he began stammering.

"At ten o'clock, and you'll be ready, won't you?"

"I--ye--yes," he stammered out.

"Positively?" Grace Bentley said.

"You--you can--you know, you never--kind of--maybe--you never can be
sure of anything," he blurted out.

"But say you'll _surely_ come," she hammered at him. "Will you?"

He said, "I guess--sure--yop." And he looked all around as if he was
going to start to run.

"Absolutely, positively guaranteed," I told them; "a scout can be
_trusted_."

So then we helped them off with their boat and their canoes, and they
started across the lake in the dark. We said we'd paddle them over and
then hike back through the woods, but they wouldn't let us, because
there wasn't room enough and anyway, they said they wanted to show us
that there were some things girls could do. They rowed and paddled
pretty good, too; I have to admit it.

Pee-wee didn't go down to the shore with the rest of us, but just stood
where he was, like a statue. He was in a kind of a trance, I guess.

As we came near him, Westy said, "Of course, they don't row very well,
or paddle either, but they're _trying_. All they have to do is to
_try_."

"Oh, sure," I said; "if you can't do a thing, just go ahead and do it
anyway. You have to be resourceful. You have to have plenty of
_initials_."

"Now you take making dressing for roast chicken, for instance," Connie
said; "all you have to do is to know how. It's a cinch."

"And if you don't know how," I said; "do it anyway. It's as easy as
pie."

"Oh, pie's a cinch," Wig said.

"Those girls will learn," I said; "they shouldn't get discouraged."

"They should be pitied, not blamed," Westy