Every little while I looked at Skinny and he was chopping away at one sapling for dear life.  He had it all full of nicks and every nick had a place all to itself.

“That isn’t chopping, it’s what you call woodcarving,” Dorry Benton said.

“He’s a good butcher, anyway,” Artie said.

Every time Skinny hit, he hit in a different place and he would never get the sapling down, I saw that, but he was having the time of his life, just the same.

“Some Daniel Boone,” Will Dawson said.  But I told them not to make fun of him.

All the while I kept wondering if Skinny really thought that axe was his very own like he said.  And it seemed sort of funny that he could be getting so much fun out of it.  Oftentimes he would get tired and begin to cough and Connie would make him sit down and rest.  Then he would show his axe to the fellows and match it to theirs and say he liked his best.  I don’t know, maybe there was something wrong about Skinny.  Maybe he was more crazy about weapons than he was about scouting.  He didn’t seem to think ahoot anything except cutting down that sapling, and the more of a botch he made out of it, the harder he worked.  I remembered something Mr. Ellsworth said to Tom Slade about not caring more for his gun than he did for his country.  But, gee, when I thought about what Skinny said about the two things he liked most, the axe and the law about honor, good night, I couldn’t understand him at all.

Illustration #3

“Every time Skinny hit, he hit in a different place”

Pretty soon I began worrying about Westy, because something is always delaying that fellow, and I even hoped that he wouldn’t stumble over any more good turns, until this day’s work was over.  If Westy fell out of a ten-story building, he’d do a good turn on the way down—­that’s the way he is.

Well, pretty soon I heard him coming through the woods on the dead run.  We all stopped working and laughed, because he was coming along like a marathon runner.  All except Skinny-he went right on chopping away and the sapling looked as if a cow had been chewing it.

I don’t know, but something or other made me feel kind of mad at him all of a sudden, and I didn’t laugh at him.

Then he called over to me and he said, “Look how I’m chopping it down with my axe!  See?” “Who’s axe?” I said, because I just couldn’t help it.

“Look!  See?” he shouted, all excited; “ain’t I a good chopper—­ain’t I?”

Maybe you won’t understand how it was, because, gee, I can’t tell things so you’ll see them just right.  Anyway, I’m not excusing myself, that’s one thing.  But I just looked over at Skinny and I said: 

“I don’t want to look at your axe!  Shut up you little—­” I was going to call him a little thief, but I’m mighty glad I didn’t.  “Can’t you see I’m looking at something else?” I said, kind of mad.  “You’d be better off if you never thought about the axe; you’re a—­”