But anyway, he was getting fresh air and a whole lot of fun.

Some of the fellows chopped and some of them cut off the branches and tied the saplings together, three or four each, because we were going to haul them as far as the bridge and then float them down to the landing.
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.