I said, “He only looks short on account of it being such a short acquaintance. He’ll look shorter when you’ve known him longer.” Brent said, “You say you’re camping around here?” “Are you doing your own cooking and everything?” Pee-wee blurted out. “And your own eating?” I asked them. “Yes, but we’d just _love_ to have you come and help us do it,” one of them said. “Which? The cooking or the eating?” Pee-wee wanted to know. One of them said, “Dinner is all ready, we were just going to eat it when we heard voices and we came here to see who it was. And we want you all to come and help us eat dinner. You know scouts have to be helpful.” “I’m helpful,” Pee-wee shouted. “I know all about it.” “He learned about it in the third grade,” I said. “It’s derived from the Latin word _full_ and the Greek word _help_; _helpful_ meaning full of helpings. Anything else you’d like to ask him?” “I’d like to ask you all if you like fish-balls?” she said. “How many fish-balls?” Pee-wee shouted. “Can we eat them with our left hands?” Brent wanted to know. “They’re all crazy,” Pee-wee said, all excited. “Not the fish-balls _we_ make,” the girl said. “He means us,” Brent said. “We are on a left-handed hike, and we can’t turn to the right. If the fish-balls are cooked right we can’t eat them.” “Don’t you pay any attention to them,” Pee-wee said, “because over in camp everybody says they’re crazy, and they even admit it themselves.” “Suppose some of the fish-balls are left,” one of the girls laughed. “None of them will be,” I told her. “A scout’s word is to be trusted. Dinner is over at Temple Camp by now so we might accept an invitation if we were properly approached—in a left-handed manner.” “It’ll be accepted anyway by me,” Pee-wee said; “and I’d like to know what to call you by.” “My name is Marjorie Eaton,” one of the girls said. “He’ll be crazy about you,” I said; “he’s so fond of eatin’.” “And my name’s Stella Wingate,” the other girl said. So then Brent introduced all of us to the girls in that funny, sober way he has and told them about our patented left-handed hike. Those girls said they belonged down at Brookside and were just camping for the day. If you want to go to Brookside you just row down the outlet and pretty soon you come to it. I said, “How far is your camp from here. And can we get to it without turning to the right?” Marjorie Eaton said, “I don’t see how you ever expect to get away from the lake if you keep turning to the left; you’ll just go around and around and around. I think you’re all too silly. You’ll just go hiking around forever.” Brent said, “You never can tell, they may cut a road to the left some day while we’re going around.” “Didn’t I tell you they’re all crazy?” Pee-wee shouted. The other girl said, “If you _must_ go on with such a _perfectly ridiculous_ thing, why don’t you give a broad interpretation to your rule?” “I’d like to give something worse than that to it,” the kid shouted.