His belt was loose anyway, on account of him being so thin, but the axe dragged it way down and made him look awful funny, but he had on the scout smile and that's the principal thing.
"It's a good one, ain't it ?" he asked me.
"It's all right," I said, but I just couldn't take it and look at it.
"It'll cut, too," he said; "and I'm going to chop down a lot of trees.
And it's my very own, isn't it ?" Jiminy, I didn't know how to answer that, so I didn't say anything, only I told him not to chop down many because he wasn't strong yet.

And I told him not to chop any that didn't have chalk marks.

I told him to ask Connie Bennett, and to stay near him, because Connie is the Elks' leader ever since Tom Slade went away.

"You do what Connie tells you", I said.
Well, the way that kid started you'd think he was going to chop the North Pole in half.

"He'd be able to chop through the equator in a couple of hours at that rate," I told Connie.