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diff --git a/old/pewee10.txt b/old/pewee10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9bd7b00 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/pewee10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4484 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pee-Wee Harris, by Percy Keese Fitzhugh +#2 in our series by Percy Keese Fitzhugh + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Pee-Wee Harris + +Author: Percy Keese Fitzhugh + +Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9833] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on October 22, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEE-WEE HARRIS *** + + + + +Produced by James Eager + + + + + PEE-WEE HARRIS + + By + + PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH + + + Author of + + THE TOM SLADE BOOKS + THE ROY BLAKELEY BOOKS + + Published with the approval of + THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA + + MCMXXII. + + +CHAPTER CONTENTS + +I THE BATTLE OF THE BANANA +II A TRAGIC PREDICAMENT +III AN INVITATION +IV HE GOES TO CONQUER +V ENTER PEPSY +VI THE WAY OF THE SCOUT +VII A BIG IDEA +VIII MAKING PLANS +IX IT PAYS TO ADVERTISE +X DEADWOOD GAMELY TALKS BUSINESS +XI TWO IS A COMPANY--THREE IS BAD LUCK +XII THE ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT +XIII PEPSY'S SECRET +XIV SUSPENSE +XV SIX MERRY MAIDENS +XVI A REVELATION +XVII HARD TIMES +XVIII THE VOICE OF THE TAIL-LIGHT +XIX THE OTHER VOICE +XX AN OFFICIAL REBUKE +XXI SCOUT HARRIS FIXES IT +XXII FATE IS JUST +XXIII WHERE THERE'S A WILL THERE'S A WAY +XXIV PEPSY'S ENTERPRISE +XXV AN ACCIDENT +XXVI PEPSY'S INVESTMENT +XXVII SEEN IN THE DARK +XXVIII STOCK ON HAND +XXIX INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS +XXX PAID IN FULL +XXXI CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE +XXXII THE CLEW +XXXIII THE TRAMPLED TRAIL +XXXIV THE TRAIL'S END +XXXV EXIT + + + PEE-WEE HARRIS + + + CHAPTER I + + THE BATTLE OF THE BANANA + +PEE-WEE HARRIS, mascot of the Raven Patrol, First Bridgeboro Troop, +sat upon the lowest limb of the tree in front of his home eating a banana. +To maintain his balance it was necessary for him to keep a tight hold with +one hand on a knotty projection of the trunk while with the other he +clutched his luscious refreshment. + +The safety of his small form as he sat on the shaky limb depended +upon his hold of the trunk, while the tremendous responsibility of +holding his banana devolved upon the other hand. + +Pee-Wee was so much smaller than he should have been and the banana +so much larger than it should have been that they might almost be said to +have been of the same size. + +The slender limb on which Pee-Wee sat trembled and creaked with each +enormous bite that he took. The bright morning sunlight, wriggling through +the foliage overhead, picked out the round face and curly hair of our +young hero and showed him in all his pristine glory, frowning a terrible +frown, clinging for dear life with one hand and engaged in his customary +occupation of eating. + +He had ascended to this leafy throne with the banana in his pocket +but he could not restore it to his pocket now even if he wished to. +However, he did not wish to. In a military sense he was in a predicament, +both arms were in bad strategic position and his center exposed to +assault. His leafy throne was like many another throne in these eventful +times--extremely shaky. + +But the commissary department was in fine shape.... + +Suddenly the expeditionary forces of Uncle Sam appeared in the form of +the postman, who paused on his way across the lawn to the house. + +"Hello, up there," he said, suddenly discovering Pee-Wee. + +"Hello yourself and see how you like it," the mascot of the Ravens +called down. + +"I saw a banana up there and I thought maybe you were behind it," +the postman called, as he looked among the pack of letters he held in +his hand. + +"It's only half a banana," Pee-Wee shouted. + +"Well, you're only half a scout," the postman said; "you'd better +drop it, here's a letter for you." + +"For me?" + +"For you." + +Steadying himself, Pee-Wee took an enormous bite, considerably +reducing the length of the banana. "Wait a minute till I finish it," +he said as best he could with his mouth full. "Waaer--mint." + +"Can't wait," the postman said, heartlessly moving away. + +"Waymnt," Pee-Wee yelled, frantically taking another bite; +"wayermntdyehear, waymnt!" + +"Do you think the government can wait for you to finish a banana?" +the postman demanded with a wicked grin upon his face. "You got two hands; +here, take the letter if you want it; here it is," he added, reaching up. + +Pee-Wee tried to dispatch the remainder of the banana by one gigantic +and triumphant bite but the desperate expedient did not work; his mouth +with all its long practice, could not keep up with his hand; it became +clogged while yet a considerable length of banana projected out of the +gracefully drooping rind. + +"Here, take it," the postman said in a tone of ruthless finality. + +Chewing frantically and waving the remainder of banana menacingly +like a club, the baffled hero uttered some incomprehensible, imploring +jumble of suffocated words while the postman moved away a step or two, +repressing a fiendish smile. + +"Throwaway the banana," he said. + +By this time Pee-Wee was able to speak and while his chewing +apparatus was momentarily disengaged he demanded to know if the +postman thought he was crazy. The postman, resolved not to miss the +fun of the situation, was not going to let Pee-Wee take another bite; +time was precious, and two more bites of the sort that Pee-Wee took +might leave his hand free. + +"Take the letter," he said with an air of cold determination, +"or I'll leave it at the house. Here, take it quick; I've no time to +waste." + +"Do you want me to waste a banana," Pee-Wee yelled imploringly; +"a scout is supposed--" + +"Here, take it", the postman said. + +There followed the most terrible moment in the life of Pee-Wee Harris, +Scout. He knew that one more bite would be fatal, that the postman would +not wait. In two bites, or in three at most, he could finish the banana +and his hand would be free. + +How could a postman, who brings joy to the lonely, words of love from +far away, cheer to those who wait, comfort from across the seas, Boys' +Life Magazine--how could such a being be so relentless and cruel? If that +letter were left at the house, Pee-Wee would have to go to the house and +get it, and there his mother was lying in ambush waiting to pounce upon +him and make him mow the lawn, Why would not the postman wait for just +two bites? Maybe he could do it in one, he had consumed a peach in one +bite and a ham sandwich in four--his star record. + +He made a movement with his hand, and simultaneously the postman +retreated a step or two toward the house. Pee-Wee tried releasing his +hold upon the trunk with the other hand and almost lost his balance on +the shaky limb. + +"Here," said the postman, unyielding, "chuck the banana and take the +letter or you'll find it waiting for you in the front hall. It's an +important letter, it feels as if it had a couple of cookies in it." +The postman knew Pee-Wee. "Here you go," the torturer said grimly, +"take it or not, suit yourself." + +"Can't you see both hands are busy?" the victim pled. "Two bites--a +scout is supposed not to waste anything--he's supposed--he's supposed--wait +a minute--he's supposed if he starts a thing to finish it--wait, I'm not +going to take a bite, I'm only giving you an argument--can't you wait--" + +"Here you go, last chance, take it," the postman said, a faint smile +hovering at the corner of his mouth, "one, two," + +Out of Pee-Wee's wrath and anguish came an inspiration. + +"Stick the letter in the banana," he said, holding the banana down. + +"I don't know about that," the postman said, ruefully. + +"I know about it," Pee-Wee thundered down at him. "You said I had to +take it or not; that letter belongs to me and you, have to deliver it. +This banana, it's--it's the same as a mail box--you stick the letter in +the banana. You think you're so smart, you thought you'd make me throw +away the banana, naaah, didn't you? I wouldn't do that, not even +for--for--secretary--for the postmaster--general, I wouldn't! A scout has +resource." + +"All right, you win," said the postman, good humoredly, "only look +out you don't fall; here you go, hold on tight." + +Clutching to the knotty projection of trunk, Pee-Wee reached the +other hand as low as he could and the postman, smiling, stuck the +corner of the coveted letter into the mealy substance of the banana. + +"You win," the postman repeated laughingly; "it shows what Scout +Harris can do with food." + +"Food will win the war," Pee-Wee shouted. "You thought you could +make me throwaway my banana but you couldn't. I knew a man that died +from not eating a banana, I did." + +"Explain all that," the postman said. + +"He threw a banana away on his porch instead of eating it and later +he stepped on it and slid down the steps and broke his leg and they took +him to the hospital and compilations set in and he got pneumonia and +died from not eating that banana. So there." + +"That's a very fine argument." the postman said as he went away. + +"I know better ones than that." Pee-Wee shouted after him. + + + CHAPTER II + + A TRAGIC PREDICAMENT + +So there he sat upon his precarious perch trying to reassume the +posture which insured a good balance, clinging to the trunk with one +hand and to the banana with the other. + +And now that the encounter which had almost resulted in a tragic +sacrifice was over, and while our scout hero pauses triumphant, it +may be fitting to apologize to the reader for introducing our hero +in the act of eating. But indeed it was a question of introducing +him in the act of eating or of not introducing him at all. + + For a story of Pee-Wee Harris is necessarily more or less a story +of food. And this is a story abounding in cake and pie and waffles +and crullers and cookies and hot frankfurters. There will be found +in it also ice cream cones and jaw breakers and coconut bars and +potatoes roasted on sticks. Heroes of stories may have starved on +desert islands but there is to be none of that here. + +In this tale, if you follow the adventures of our scout hero +(who now at last appears before you as a star), you shall find +lemonade side by side with first aid, and all the characters shall +receive their just desserts, some of them (not to mention any names) +two helpings. + +So there he sat upon the branch, the mascot of the Raven Patrol, +with an interior like the Mammoth Cave and a voice like the +whisperings of the battle zone in France. Take a good look at him +while he is quiet for ten seconds hand running. Everything about him +is tremendous--except his size. He is built to withstand banter, +ridicule and jollying; his sturdy nature is guaranteed proof against +the battering assaults of unholy mirth from other scouts; his round +face and curly hair are the delight of the girls of Bridgeboro; his +loyalty is as the mighty rock of Gibraltar. A bully little scout he +is--a sort of human Ford. + +The question of removing the letter from the banana and getting +rid of the banana (in the proper way) now presented itself to him. +He took a bite of the banana and the letter almost fell. He then +tried releasing his hold upon the trunk but that would not do. He +then extracted the letter with his teeth which effectually prevented +him from eating the banana. + +What to do? + +Steadying himself with one hand (he could not let go the trunk +for so much as a moment), he brought the banana to his lips, held +it between his teeth and took the letter in his unoccupied hand. As +he bit into the banana the part remaining trembled and hung as on a +thread; another moment and it would drop. The predicament was tragic. +Slowly, but surely and steadily, the remainder of the banana broke away +and fell--into the hand that held the letter. + +Holding both letter and banana in the one perspiring palm, Pee-Wee +devoured first the one and then the other. Both were delicious, the +letter particularly. It had one advantage over the banana, for he +could only devour the banana once, whereas he devoured the contents +of the letter several times. He wished that bananas and doughnuts +were like letters. + + + CHAPTER III + + AN INVITATION + +The envelope was postmarked Everdoze which, with its one thousand two +hundred and fifty--seven inhabitants, was the cosmopolitan center of +Long Valley which ran ( if anything in that neighborhood could be said +to run) from Baxter City down below the vicinity of the bridge on the +highway. That is, Long Valley bordered the highway on its western side +for a distance of about ten miles. The valley was, roughly speaking, +a couple of miles wide, very deep in places, and thickly wooded. It +was altogether a very sequestered and romantic region. Through it, +paralleling the highway, was a road, consisting mostly of two wagon +ruts with a strip of grass and weeds between them. To traverse Long +Valley one turned into this road where it left the highway at Baxters, +and in the course of time the wayfarer would emerge out of this dim +tract into the light of day where the unfrequented road came into the +highway again below the bridge. + +About midway of this lonely road was Everdoze, and in a pleasant +old-fashioned white house in Everdoze lived Ebenezer Quig who once +upon a time had married Pee-Wee's Aunt Jamsiah. Pee-Wee remembered his +Aunt Jamsiah when she had come to make a visit in Bridgeboro and, +though he had never seen her since, he had always borne her tenderly +in mind because as a little (a very little) boy her name had always +reminded him of jam. The letter, as has been said, bore the postmark +of Everdoze and had been stamped by the very hand of Simeon Drowser, +the local postmaster. + +This is what the letter said: + + DEAR WALTER: + + Your uncle has been pestering me to write to you + but Pepsy has been using the pen for her school + exercise and I couldn't get hold of it till today + when she went away with Wiggle, perch fishing. + Licorice Stick says they're running in the brook + most wonderful but you can't believe half what he + says. Seems as if the perch know when school closes, + least ways that's what your uncle says. + +Pee-Wee reread these enchanting words. Pepsy! Wiggle! Perch fishing! +Licorice Stick! And school closing! And perch that knew about it. That +was the sort of perch for Pee-Wee. He read on: + + I told your uncle I reckoned you wouldn't care to + come here being you live in such a lively place but he + said this summer you would like to come for there will + be plenty for you to do because there is going to be a + spelling match in the town hall and an Uncle Tom's + Cabin show in August. + + You can have plenty of milk and fresh eggs and Miss + Arabella Bellison who has the school is staying this + summer and she will let you in the schoolhouse where + there is a library of more than forty books but some of + the pages are gone Pepsy says. + + She says to tell you she will show you where she cut + her initials but I tell her not to put such ideas in + your head and she knows how to climb in even if the door + is locked, such goings on as she and Wiggle have, they + will be the death of me. + + Well, Walter, you will be welcome if you can come + and spend the summer with us. I suppose you're a great + big boy by now; your mother was always tall for her age. + There are boys here who would like to be scout boys and + your uncle says you can teach them. We will do all we can + so that you have a pleasant summer if you come and tell + your mother we will be real glad to see you and will take + good care of you. + + I can't write more now because I am putting up + preserves, one hundred jars already. The apples will be + rotting on the trees, it's a shame. You will think we are + very old-fashioned, I'm afraid. + +Pee-Wee paused and smacked his lips and nearly fell backward off the +limb. One hundred jars of preserves and more coming, Apples rotting on +the trees! All that remained to complete his happiness was a bush laden +with ice cream cones growing wild. He read the concluding sentences: + + Your uncle would be glad to go and bring you in the + buckboard but it would take very long and he is busy + haying so if you don't mind the bad road it would be + better for your father to send you in the automobile. Be + sure to turn off the highway to the right just above + Baxters. The road goes through the woods. + + Your loving + + AUNT JAMSIAH. + +Steadying himself with one hand, Pee-Wee took the letter between +his teeth as if he were about to eat it. Then he cautiously let himself +down so that he hung by his knees, then clutched the limb with his +hands, hung for a moment with his legs dangling, and let go. In one +sense he was upon earth but in another sense he was walking on air. ... + + + CHAPTER IV + + HE GOES TO CONQUER + +Thus it befell that on the second day after the receipt of this +letter Pee-Wee Harris was sitting beside Charlie, the chauffeur, in +the fine sedan car belonging to Doctor Harris, advancing against poor, +helpless Everdoze. + +He traveled in all the martial splendor of his full scout regalia, +his duffel bag stuffed to capacity with his aluminum cooking set and +two extra scout suits. His diminutive but compact and sturdy little +form was decorated with his scout jackknife hanging from his belt, his +compass dangling from his neck, and his belt ax dragging down his belt +in back. + +A suggestive little dash of the culinary phase of scouting was to +be seen in a small saucepan stuck in his belt like a deadly dagger. Thus +if danger came he might confront his enemy with a sample of scout +cookery and kill him on the spot. + +His sleeves were bedecked with merit badges; from the end of his +scout staff waved the flaunting emblem of the Raven Patrol; his +stalking camera was swung over his shoulder like a knapsack; his +nickel-plated scout whistle jangled against the saucepan and in his +trousers pockets were a magnifying glass, three jaw breakers, a +chocolate bar, a few inches of electric wiring, and a rubber balloon +in a state of collapse. + +The highway from Bridgeboro was a broad, smooth road, a +temptation and a delight to speeders, where motorcycle cops lurked +in the bushes hardly waiting for cars with New York licenses. + +It was late in the afternoon when they reached Baxter City and +here they turned into such a road as Charlie vowed he had never seen +before. + +Scarcely had they gone a mile over rocks and ruts when the dim +woods closed in on either side, imparting a strange coolness. It was +almost like going through a leafy tunnel projecting branches brushed +the top of the car and mischievously grazed and tickled their faces. +The voices of the birds, clear in the stillness, seemed to complain +at this intrusion into their domain. + +"I'd like to know how I'm going to get back through this jungle +after dark," Charlie said. "I wonder what anybody wanted to start a +village down here for?" + +"Maybe--maybe they did it kind of absentmindedly," Pee-Wee said. +"I never started a village so I don't know." + +"Well, you'll startle one anyway," Charlie said. + +"I guess the village isn't much bigger than you are." + +The road took them southward through the valley. They were not far +west of the highway but the low country and the thick woods obscured +it from view. They could hear the tooting of auto horns over that way +and sometimes human voices sounding strange across the intervening +solitude. + +"I don't see why they didn't set the village down over at the +highway; it's not more than a mile or so," Charlie said. "Maybe they +were afraid the autos would run over it; safety first, hey? Nobody'll +run over it here, that's one sure thing." + +Pee-Wee took the last bite of a hot frankfurter he had bought at a +roadside shack on the highway and was now more free to talk. + +"Listen," he said, "what's that?" + +It was a distant rattling sound which began suddenly and ended +suddenly. They both listened. + +"There must be a bridge up there along the highway," Charlie said, +"that's the sound of cars going over it. Loose planking, hey?" + +Pee-Wee listened to the rattling of the loose planks as another +car sped over the unseen structure, little dreaming of the part that +bridge was destined to play in his young life. The commonplace noise +of the neglected flooring seemed emphasized by the quiet of the +woodland. That reminder of human traffic, so near and yet so far and +out of tune with all the gentler sounds of the valley, presented a +strange contrast and jarred even Pee-Wee's stout nerves. + +"There goes another," Charlie said; "we must be nearer to the +highway than I thought." + +They had, indeed, inscribed a kind of loop and having passed its +farthest point from the main road were traveling toward it again and +would have emerged upon it just beyond the bridge but for the wood +embowered and sequestered village which was their destination. The +first sign of this village was a cow standing in the middle of the +grass-grown road as if to challenge their approach. Perhaps she was +stationed there as a sort of traffic cop. + + + CHAPTER V + + ENTER PEPSY + +It will be seen by a glance at the accompanying sketch that the village +of Everdoze was about opposite the bridge on the highway. From this main +road the village could be reached by a trail through the woods. On +hearing of this, Charlie expressed regret that he had not allowed his +passenger to make the final stage of the journey on foot. + +"Well, I never in all my life !" said Aunt Jamsiah as Pee-Wee stepped +out of the car. "In goodness' name, where's the rest of you? I thought +you were a great, tall, strapping boy. I hope your appetite's bigger +than your body. And what on earth is that saucepan for? Are you going +to cook us all alive? Did you ever see such a thing?" she added, +speaking to Uncle Ebenezer who had stepped forward to welcome his nephew. + +"He's all decked out like a carnival! He's just too killing!" She +then proceeded to embrace him while his martial paraphernalia clanked +and rattled. + +"We won't need any more brass band," said a young girl in a gingham +apron and with brick red hair in long tightly woven braids, who stood +close by; "he's a melodeon. I don't see what they sent such a big car +for with such a little boy. 'Taint no fit, it ain't." + +Pee-Wee gave this girl a withering look which she boldly returned, +continuing to stare at him. Her face was covered with freckles and she +was so unqualifiedly plain and homely in face and attire that she might +be said to have been attractive on the ground of novelty. + +"Pepsy," said Mrs. Quig, addressing her, "you shake hands with +Walter and tell him you and he are going to be good friends. You +come right here and do as I say now and no more of those looks." + +"I ain't going to kiss him," the girl said by way of compromising. + +"You give him a welcome just like Wiggle is doing," said Aunt +Jamsiah, "and be ashamed that you have to learn your manners from +such as he. You do as I say now." + +"You're welcome--and I can beat you running," the girl said. + +"Girls are afraid of snakes," Pee-Wee retorted. + +Meanwhile the individual who had been cited as a model of social +correctness by Aunt Jamsiah stood upon the doorstep looking eagerly +up into Pee-Wee's face and wagging his tail with vigorous and +lightning rapidity. Wiggle's tail was easily the fastest thing in +Everdoze. His head vibrated in unison with it and his look of +intentness carried with it all sorts of friendly expectations. He +fairly shook with excitement and cordiality. He followed the sedan +car a few yards upon its homeward journey and then, by a sudden +impulse, deserted it and returned to a position directly in front of +Pee-Wee with wagging tail and questioning gaze. He seemed to say, +"I'm ready for anything, the sky is the limit." + +"You haven't had a bite to eat since breakfast and you're starving. +I can tell it," said Aunt Jamsiah. "You come right in the kitchen." + +"I had a lot of frankfurters and things at the places along the +highway," Pee-Wee said. "I had waffles at one place. I bet they make +a lot of money along that road selling things. There are shacks all +the way. All the autoists stop and buy things to eat. You can get +tires and everything." + +"Oh, I wouldn't want to eat tires," said Pepsy. + +"You think you're smart, don't you?" Pee-Wee said. + +"What are your soldier clothes for?" the girl wanted to know. + +"They're not soldier clothes," Pee-Wee said; + +"I'm a scout." + +"I bet you don't know as much as Miss Bellson does." + +"I bet I don't either," Pee-Wee said, "so I win." + +"She's the school teacher here and she knows everything." + +"Did she know I was coming?" + +"No she didn't and--" + +"Then she doesn't know everything," Pee-Wee said. + +"Smarty, smarty!" the girl retorted, "I came out of an orphan home +and that's more than you can say.". + +"You only get one helping of dessert there," said Pee-Wee. "I'd +rather be a scout than an orphan. I know a feller who was an orphan +and he was sorry for it afterwards." + +"Are you going to stay all summer?" + +"Till school opens," Pee-Wee said. + +"Do you want me to show you where there's a woodchuck hole?" + +At this point Pee-Wee was summoned again to the kitchen where he +ate a sumptuous repast, after which Pepsy and Wiggle took him about +and showed him the farm. + +Pee-Wee and Pepsy fenced a good deal but seemed to progress in this +cautious and defensive way toward a friendly understanding. As for +Wiggle, he danced about, following elusive scents that led nowhere, +carried off and back again by quick impulse, till at last the three +ended their tour of inspection at a little summer house which had been +built over a spring by the roadside. + +Here they drank of the bubbling, crystal water. Wiggle doing this +as everything else, with erratic impulse, drinking a dozen times and +not much at any time. + +The dying sunlight painted the slopes of the valley with crimson +tints and the countryside was very still. Through the woods to the +west could be heard occasionally the discordant noise from the loose +flooring of the bridge on the highway as an auto sped over it. In the +quiet evening the sound, with its sudden start, its rattling clamor and +its quick cessation, made a jarring note in all the surrounding +peacefulness. + +"That's what wakes me up in the morning, the mail wagon going +over," Pepsy said; "I know it's time to get up then. Those planks can +talk, they say the same thing every day." + + You have to go back, + You have to go back, + You have to go back. + +You listen to-morrow morning." + +"They could never wake me up," Pee-Wee said, which was probably +true. "What do you mean about their saying you have to go back?" + +"When Aunt Jamsiah took me, I was a probator. Do you know what +that means?" + +"It's what they do with people's wills," Pee-Wee said. + +"It means if I don't behave I have to go back to the orphan home," +the girl said. "And every day I was afraid I'd have to go back--for a +long, long time, I was. And when I was lying in bed mornings I'd hear +the planks saying that-- + + You have to go back, + You have to go back. + +just like that, and I'd get good and scared." + +"You won't have to go back," said Pee-Wee. + +"You leave it to me, I'll fix it. Those planks--I've known lots of +planks--and they can't tell the truth. Don't you care. I wouldn't believe +what an old plank said. Trees are all right, but planks--" + +"I don't notice it so much now," Pepsy said; "that was a year ago +and Aunt Jamsiah says I'm all right and mind good except I'm a tomboy. +That ain't so bad, is it? Being a tomboy? A girl and me tried to set +the orphan home on fire because they licked us, but I'm good here. But +I wish they'd put a new floor on that bridge. Anyway, Aunt Jamsiah says +I'm good now." + +Pee-Wee was about to speak, but noticing that the girl's eyes were +fixed upon a crimson patch on the hillside where the sun was going down, +and seeing that her eyes sparkled strangely (for indeed they were not +pretty eyes) he said nothing, like the bully little scout that he was. + +"Anyway, one thing, I wouldn't let an old bridge get my goat, I +wouldn't," he said finally, "and besides, you said you would show me +a woodchuck hole." + + + CHAPTER VI + + THE WAY OF THE SCOUT + +Pepsy's right name was Penelope Pepperall and Aunt Jamsiah had +taken her out of the County Home after the fire episode, by way of +saving her from the worse influence of a reformatory. She and Uncle +Ebenezer had agreed to be responsible for the girl, and Pepsy had +spent a year of joyous freedom at the farm marred only by the threat +hanging over her that she would be restored to the authorities upon +the least suspicion of misconduct. + +She had done her work faithfully and become a help and a comfort +to her benefactors. She had a snappy temper and a sharp tongue and was, +indeed, something of a tomboy. But Aunt Jamsiah, though often annoyed +and sometimes chagrined, took a charitable view of these shortcomings +and her generous heart was not likely to confound them with genuine +misdoing. + +So the stern condition of Pepsy's freedom had become something of +a dead letter, except in her own fearful fancy, and particularly when +that discordant voice of the bridge spoke ominously of her peril. + +Pepsy had been trusted and had proven worthy of the trust. She had +never known any mother or father, nor any home save the institution +from which Aunt Jamsiah had rescued her, and she had grown to love her +kindly guardians and the old farm where she had much work but also much +freedom. "Chores will keep her out of mischief," Aunt Jamsiah had said. + +Wiggle's ancestry and social standing were quite as much a mystery +as Pepsy's; he was not an aristocrat, that is certain, and having no +particular chores to do was free to devote his undivided time to +mischief; he concentrated on it, as the saying is, and thereby +accomplished wonders. He was Pepsy's steady comrade and the partner +of all her adventurous escapades. + +Pepsy was not romantic and imaginative, her freckled face and tightly +braided red hair and thin legs with wrinkled cotton stockings, protested +against that. She had a simple mind with a touch of superstition. It was +a kind of morbid dread of the institution she had left which had conjured +that ramshackle old bridge up on the highway into an ominous voice of +warning, She hated the bridge and dreaded it as a thing haunted. + +Pee-Wee soon became close friends with these two, and from a rather +cautious and defensive beginning Pepsy soon fell victim to the spell of +the little scout, as indeed everyone else did. Pepsy did not surrender +without a struggle. She showed Pee-Wee the woodchuck hole and Pee-Wee, +after a minute's skillful search, showed her the other hole, or back +entrance, under a stone wall. + +"There are always two," he told her, "and one of them is usually +under a stone wall. They're smart, woodchucks are." + +"Are they as smart as you?" she wanted to know. + +"Smarter," Pee-Wee admitted, generously; "they're smarter than +skunks and even skunks are smarter than I am." + +"I like you better than skunks," she said. Wiggle seemed to be of +the same opinion. "I like all the scouts on account of you," she said. + +No one could be long in Pee-Wee's company without hearing about +the scouts; he was a walking (or rather a running and jumping) +advertisement of the organization. He told Pepsy about tracking +and stalking and signaling and the miracles of cookery which his +friend Roy Blakeley had performed. + +"Can he cook better than you?" Pepsy wanted to know, a bit dubiously. + +"Yes, but I can eat more than he can," Pee-Wee said. And that seemed +to relieve her. + +"I can make a locust come to me," he added, and suiting the action +to the word he emitted a buzzing sound which brought a poor deluded +locust to his very hand. At such wonder-working she could only gape +and stare. Wiggle appeared to claim the locust as a souvenir of the +scout's magic. + +"You let it go, Wiggle," Pee-Wee said. "If you want to be a scout +you can't kill anything that doesn't do any harm. But you can kill +snakes and mosquitoes if you want to." Evidently it was the dream of +Wiggle's life to be a scout for he released the locust to Pee-Wee, +wagging his tail frantically. + +"You have to be loyal, too," the young propagandist said; "that's +a rule. You have to be helpful and think up ways to help people. No +matter what happens you have to be loyal." + +"Do you have to be loyal to orphan homes?" Pepsy wanted to know. +"If they lick you do you have to be loyal to them?" + +Here was a poser for the scout. But being small Pee-Wee was able +to wriggle out of almost anything. "You have to be loyal where +loyalty is due," he said. "That's what the rule says; it's Rule Two. +But, anyway, there's another rule and that's Rule Seven and it says +you have to be kind. You can't be kind licking people, that's one sure +thing. So it's a technicality that you don't have to be loyal to an +orphan home. You can ask any lawyer because that's what you call logic." + +"Deadwood Gamely's father is a lawyer," Pepsy said, "and I hate +Deadwood Gamely and I wouldn't go to his house to ask his father. +He's a smarty and I hit him with a tomato. Have I got a right to +do that--if he's a smarty?" + +Here was another legal technicality, but Pee-Wee was equal to the +occasion. "A--a scout has to be a--he has to have a good aim," he said. + + + CHAPTER VII + + A BIG IDEA + +They had been driving the cows home during this learned +exposition on scouting. Two things were now perfectly clear +to Pepsy's simple mind. One, that she would be loyal at any +cost, loyal to her new friend, and through him to all the +scouts. She knew them only through him. They were a race of +wonder-workers away off in the surging metropolis of Bridgeboro. +She could not aspire to be one of them, but she could be loyal, +she could "stick up" for them. + +The other matter which was now settled, once and for all, was that +it was all right to throw a tomato at a person you hated provided only +that you hit the mark. Aunt Jamsiah had been all wrong in her anger at +that exploit which had stirred the village. For to throw a tomato at +the son of Lawyer Gamely was aiming very high. + +The son of Lawyer Gamely had a Ford and worked in the bank at +Baxter City and was a mighty sport who wore white collars and red +ties and said that "Everdoze was asleep and didn't have brains +enough to lie down," and all such stuff. + +Pee-Wee let down the bars while the patient cows waited, and Scout +Wiggle (knowing that a scout should be helpful) gave the last cow a +snip on the leg to help her along. + +Here, at these rustic bars, ended Pepsy's chores for the day and in +the delightful interval before supper she and Pee-Wee lolled in the well +house by the roadside. Wiggle, with characteristic indecision, chased +the cows a few yards, returned to his companions, darted off to chase +the cows again, deserted that pastime with erratic suddenness, and +returned again wagging his tail and looking up intently as if to ask, +"What next?" Then he lay down panting. Mr. Ellsworth, Pee-Wee's +scoutmaster, would have said that Wiggle lacked method. ... + +"If I had a lot of money," Pepsy said, "you could teach me all +the things that scouts know and I'd pay you ever so much. Once I +had forty cents but I spent it at the Mammoth Carnival. I paid ten +cents to throw six balls so I could get a funny doll and I never hit +the doll and when I only had ten cents left I made believe the doll +was Deadwood Gamely and I hated and hated with all my might while I +threw the ball the last six times but I couldn't hit the doll." + +"You can't aim so good when you're mad," Pee-Wee said, "so if you +want to hit somebody with a tomato or an egg or anything like that you +just have kind thoughts about the person that you're aiming at, only +you're not supposed to throw tomatoes and eggs and things because you +can have more fun eating them. I wouldn't waste a tomato on that +feller because anyway you've got your tongue." + +"You can't sass him," said Pepsy, "because he uses big words and +he's such a smarty and he makes you feel silly and then you begin to +cry and get mad. When he says I'm an orphan and things--and things--Wiggle +hates him, too, don't you, Wiggle?" The girl was almost crying then and +Pee-Wee comforted her. + +"Do you think I don't know any long words?" he said. "I know some +of the longest words that were ever invented and--and--even I can make +special ones myself. Once I--don't you cry--once I was kept in school +and Julia Carson was kept in too, because she wriggled in her seat--you +know how girls do. I had to choose a word and write it a hundred times +and I didn't want to get through too soon, because I wanted to get out +the same time she did. So I chose the word incomprehensibility, and I--" + +"Is that girl pretty?" Pepsy wanted to know. + +"She's got a wart on her finger. It's the best one I ever saw," +Pee-Wee said. "She's afraid to get in a boat, that girl is." + +"I hate her," Pepsy said. + +"What for?" Pee-Wee inquired. "Because she has a wart? Don't you +know it's good luck to have warts?" + +"Because--because she was bad and had to stay after school," Pepsy +said. + +"That shows how much you know about logic," Pee-Wee said, "because +I had to stay too and I was worse than she was. So there." + +"I wouldn't be afraid to get in a boat," Pepsy said proudly. + +"I never said she was like you," Pee-Wee declared. "She's not a +tomboy." + +Pepsy seemed comforted. + +"You leave that feller to me," Pee-Wee said. "I can handle Roy +Blakeley and all his patrol and they're a lot of jolliers--they think +they're so smart." + +"I like you better than all of them," Pepsy said. "Sometimes I'm +kept after school too, you can ask Miss Bellison." + +"One thing sure, I like you well enough to be partners with you," +Pee-Wee said. "Do you want me to tell you something? I thought of a way +to make a lot of money, and if I do I'm going to buy three new tents +for our troop. Do you want to go partners with me? We'll say the tents +are from both of us and we'll have a lot of fun." + +"I had a dollar once and I sent it to the heathens," Pepsy said, +"and I'd rather help you than the heathens, because I like you better." + +"Heathens are all right," Pee-Wee said, "and I'm not saying anything +against heathens, especially wild ones, but we're just as wild. You +ought to go to Temple Camp and see how wild we are." + +He did not look very wild as he sat upon the narrow seat with his +knees drawn up and his scout hat on the back of his head showing his +curly hair. + +The girl gazed at his natty khaki attire, the row of merit badges +on his sleeve, the trophies of his heroic triumphs. She was not the +first to feel the lure of a uniform. But it was the first uniform she +had ever seen at close range, for in the wartime she had been in that +frowning brick structure which still haunted her. + +"I'll help you because you can do everything and you know a lot," +she said. + +In the fullness of her generosity and loyalty to Pee-Wee's prowess +she never reminded him or even thought of the things she could do +which he could not. She would not do her little optional chore of +milking a cow for fear he might perceive her superiority in this +little item of proficiency. Poor girl, she was a better scout than she +knew. + +"If you think it up I'll do all the work, and then we'll be even," +she said. + +So Pee-Wee told her of the colossal scheme which his lively +imagination had conceived. + +"It all started with a hot frankfurter," he said. "If I hadn't +bought a hot frankfurter I wouldn't have thought of it. So that +shows you how important a frankfurter is--kind of. Maybe a person +might get to be a millionaire just starting with a frankfurter, +you never can tell. ..." + + + CHAPTER VIII + + MAKING PLANS + +"I bought that frankfurter at a shack up on the highway and while I +was eating it I just happened to think that as long as there's lots of +fruit and things here and as long as you know how to make fudge, we'd +start a shack right here in this well house and sell lemonade and fruit +and fudge and cookies and things, and if we make lots of money I'd go +up to Baxter City and buy some auto accessories like spark plugs and +tire tape and things and we'd sell those, too. We'd put signs on the +trees along the road telling people to stop here and I know how to +make up signs so as to get people good and hungry. You have them say +that things are hot in the pan and you have to have drinks with names +like arctic and all like that. I know how to make them hungry and +thirsty and I've got a balloon that I can blow up--see? And we'd print +something on it and tie it to Wiggle's tail and make him walk up and +down the road. What do you say? Isn't it a peachy scheme? Will you +help me?" + +No dream of Pee-Wee's could be impossible of fulfillment. With him, +to try was to succeed, according to Pepsy's simple and unbounded faith. +The plan must be all right, and wondrous in its possibilities. It was +all inspiration--born of a frankfurter. It was not for poor Pepsy to +take issue with this master mind. + +Yet she did venture to say, "Not very many autos come down here, +only a few that go through to Berryville. Licorice Stick--" + +"That's a dandy name," Pee-Wee said. + +"He goes by a dozen times a day, but he hasn't got any money, and +Mr. Flint goes by but he's a miser and Doctor Killem goes by in his +buggy and he says people eat too much--" + +"He's crazy!" Pee-Wee shouted. + +"And that's everybody that goes by except a few when they have the +town fair in Berryville." + +For a moment Pee-Wee paused, balked but not beaten. "There's going +to be an Uncle Tom's Cabin show in Berryville," he said, "and the town +fair, that's two things. Let's start in and maybe later there'll be +some summer boarders in Berryville. We'll have waffles--I can make +those. And we'll have lemonade and fruit and all kinds of things and +when you're doing your chores I'll tend counter. We'll make a lot of +money, you see if we don't." + +In her generous confidence, Pepsy was quite carried away by +Pee-Wee's enthusiasm. She knew (who better than she?) that strangers +never came along that lonely by-road. But she believed that somehow +they would come when the scout waved his magic wand. + +"And I'll make cookies," she said, "and all the things to eat and +you can print the signs--" + +"And shout to the people going by," Pee-Wee concluded +enthusiastically. "You have to yell ALL HOT! THEY'RE ALL HOT! Just +like that." + +Few could resist this, Pepsy least of all. "Let's go and ask Aunt +Jamsiah about it right now," she said. + +"Let me do it, I know how to handle her," said Pee-Wee. + +And Pepsy deferred to the master mind, as usual. + + + CHAPTER IX + + IT PAYS TO ADVERTISE + +Permission to use the well house once secured, preparations for +the vast enterprise progressed rapidly. The very next day, while +Pepsy was at her chores, Pee-Wee built a counter in the shack and +sitting at this he printed signs to be displayed along the woody +approaches to this mouth-watering dispensary. + +Neither the gloomy predictions of his uncle nor the laughing +skepticism of his aunt dimmed his enterprising ardor. The signs +which he printed with his uncle's crate stencil, procured from +the barn, bespoke the variety of tempting offerings which existed +so far only in his fertile mind. + +He was somewhat handicapped in the preparation of these signs +by the largeness of the perforated letters of the stencil and the +limited size of the cards. He had preferred cards to paper because +they would not blow and tear and Aunt Jamsiah had given him a pile +of these, uniform in size, on one side of which had been printed +election notices of the previous year. It was impossible, +therefore, for Pee-Wee to include all of each tempting announcement +on one card, so he used two cards for each reminder to the public. +Thus on one card he printed FRANKFURTERS and on its mate intended +for posting just below, the palate-tickling conclusion, SIZZLING HOT. + + FRANKFURTERS + SIZZLING HOT --> + +This is how the sign would appear upon some fence or tree. It +would be a knockout blow to any hungry wayfarer. + +Another two--card sign, intended for warmer weather, read: + + ICE CREAM + <-- COLD AND COOLING + +Other signs originating in Pee-Wee's fertile mind and covering +the range of food and drink and auto accessories were these: + + PEANUT TAFFY + SWEET AND DELICIOUS --> + + OUR TIRE TAPE + <-- STICKS LIKE GLUE + + NON SKID + CHAINS --> + + FRESH + <-- BANANAS + + DRINK + SWEET CIDER --> + + MAGIC + <-- CARBON REMOVER + +There were many others, enough to decorate the road for miles in +both directions. If Pepsy as chef could live up to Pee-Wee's promises +the neighborhood would soon become famous. That was her one forlorn +hope, that the fame of their offerings would get abroad and lure the +traffic from its wonted path. But Pee-Wee's enthusiasm and energy +carried all before them like a storming column and she was soon as +hopeful and confident as he. + +When her chores were finished that afternoon she hurried to their +refreshment parlor, where Pee-Wee sat behind the new counter like a +stern schoolmaster, cards strewn about him, his round face black with +stencil ink, still turning out advertising bait for the public. + +"I don't care what they say," she panted; "we're going to make a +lot of money and buy the tents. I tripped on the third step in the +house just now and that means surely we'll have good luck and I can +help just as much as if I was a really truly scout, can't I? Aunt +Jamsiah says if I make a lot of doughnuts you'll just eat them all +and there won't be any to sell. We mustn't eat the things ourselves, +must we?" + +"That shows how much she knows," Pee-Wee said; "we might have to +do that to make the people hungry. If they see me eating a doughnut +and looking very happy, won't that make them want to buy some? We +have upkeep expenses, don't we?" + +"Yes, and I'm sorry I didn't tell her that," Pepsy said, "but I +never thought of it. You always think of things. I'm going to wash +the ink off your face, so hold still." + +She dipped her gingham apron under the trapdoor in the flooring +where the clear, cool water was, and taking his chin in her coarse +little freckly hands, washed the face of her hero and partner. And +meanwhile Wiggle tugged on her apron as if he thought she were +inflicting some injury upon the boy. + +So blinded was Pee-Wee by this vigorous bath and so preoccupied +the others that for the moment none of them noticed the young fellow +of about twenty who, with hat tilted rakishly on the side of his head +and cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth, stood in the +road watching them. + + + CHAPTER X + + DEADWOOD GAMELY TALKS BUSINESS + +Deadwood Gamely was the village sport and enjoyed a certain prestige +because his father was a lawyer. He was also somewhat of an object of +awe because he went to Baxter City every day, and worked in the bank +there. + +His ramshackle Ford roadster was considered an evidence of the +terribly reckless extravagance of his habits, but it was really +nothing more than a sort of pocketbook, since all his money went +into it, and a very shabby one at that. He had a cheap wit and +swaggeringly condescending air which he practiced on the simple +inhabitants of Everdoze, and in his banter he was not always kind. +Yet notwithstanding that he was tawdry both in dress and speech the +villagers did not venture much into the conversational arena with +him because they knew that they were not his equals in banter and +retort. + +"Hello, little orphan Annie," he said. "Bungel was telling me the +wagon is coming for you pretty soon. Over the hill to the poorhouse. +Ever hear that song? What's that you've got there, a soldier? Watcher +doing with him? Lucky kid, I'd like to be a soldier." + +"What were you, a slacker?" Pee-Wee shouted. + +This was not the kind of retort that Deadwood Gamely was accustomed +to hearing and he gave a quick look at the small stranger in khaki who +sat behind the counter like a judge on the bench staring straight at him. + +"Don't get him riled," Pepsy whispered. "He likes to get me riled +so's just to make me feel silly; it's--it's Deadwood Gamely. He's always +togged out swell like that," she added fearfully. + +"The only thing that's swell about him is his head," said Pee-Wee in +his loudest voice. "Don't you be scared of him, I'm here." + +"What's that?" said the young man in a tone intended to be darkly +menacing. + +"You'd better put your hat on the top of your head or it'll blow +off," said Pee-Wee. "I said that I'm here. Let's hear you deny it. If +I was a crow I might be afraid of you." + +Slightly taken aback by his ready retorts, the young man could only +say, "If you were a crow, hey?" He stepped a little closer to the +counter but the ominous advance did not alarm Pee-Wee in the least. He +sat behind his card-strewn counter holding the stencil brush like a sort +of weapon ready to besmear that face of sneering assurance if its owner +ventured too near. + +"So I'm a scarecrow, eh?" Mr. Gamely said with a side glance at +Pepsy. He was not going to have her witness his discomfiture at the +hands of this glib little stranger. Moreover, a slur at his personal +splendor was a very grave matter and not to be overlooked. + +"I don't like fresh kids," said Mr. Deadwood Gamely, advancing with +an air of veiled menace. + +"Sometimes they get so fresh they have to be salted a little. Don't +you think you'd better take that back?" + +Pepsy waited, fearful, breathless. + +"Sure I will," said Pee-Wee; "the next scarecrow I meet I'll +apologize to him." + +Deadwood Gamely paused. His usual procedure in an affair of this +kind would have been to advance quickly, ruffle his victim's hair in +a goading kind of swaggerish good humor and send him sprawling. He +would not really have hurt a youngster like Pee-Wee but he would have +made him look and feel ridiculous. + +But a glance at Pee-Wee's gummy stencil brush reminded Mr. Gamely +that discretion was the better part of valor. A dexterous dab or two +of that would have put an end to all his glory. Pee-Wee left no doubt +about this. + +"This summer-house is on private land," he said, "and I'm the boss +of it. If you try to get fresh with me I'll paint you blacker--blacker +than a--than a tomato could--I will. You come ten steps nearer, I dare +you to." + +Gamely paused irresolute, at which Pepsy, under protection of her +partner's terrible threat, set up a provoking laugh. Wiggle, +appearing to sense the situation, began to bark up-roariously. There +was nothing for the baffled village sport to do but retreat as +gracefully as he could. + +"Can't you take a joke?" he said weakly. "Do you think I'd hurt you?" + +"I know you wouldn't," said Pee-Wee; "you wouldn't get the chance. +You think you're smart, don't you, talking about the wagon coming to +get her and getting her all scared." + +Deadwood Gamely broke into a very excessive but false laugh. "No +harm intended," he said, vaulting on to the fence and sitting +discreetly at that distance. "What's all this going on here? Going to +have a circus or play store or something?" + +Pee-Wee was always magnanimous in victory. Abiding enmity was a +thing he knew not. So now he laid down his stencil brush (within easy +reach) and said, "We're going to start a refreshment shack and sell +fruit and lemonade and waffles and things and maybe auto accessories +and souvenirs." + +Pepsy seemed a bit uncomfortable as Pee-Wee said this, perhaps just +a trifle ashamed. She was afraid that this clever, sophisticated young +fellow would ridicule their enterprise, as indeed there was good reason +to do. Yet she felt ashamed, too, of her momentary faithlessness to +Pee-Wee. + +"Maybe some people will pass here when they have the carnival at +Berryville," she said, half apologetically. + +To her surprise Deadwood Gamely, instead of emitting an uproarious, +mocking laugh, appeared to be thinking. + +"Bully for you," he finally said, looking all about as if to size up +the surroundings. "Right on the job, hey? I'd like to buy some stock in +that enterprise. Whose idea is it? Yours, kiddo?" + +"We're going to make money enough to buy three tents for the scout +troop I belong to," Pee-Wee said. + +"Visiting here, hey?" + +"I live in Bridgeboro, New Jersey; I'm here for the summer." + +Deadwood Gamely sat on the fence still looking, about him and +whistling. Then, instead of bursting forth in derisive merriment as +Pepsy dreaded he would do, he made an astonishing remark. + +"I tell you what I'll do," he said. "You kids take care of the +place and furnish the fruit and stuff and I'll put up the coin for +all the stuff you have to buy--chewing gum, and accessories, and +souvenirs and junk that has to be got in the city, and we'll share +even. I'll put up the capital and be a silent partner. How does that +strike you? You two will be the active partners. We'll make the thing +go big. I mean what I say." + +"What's a silent partner?" Pee-Wee demanded. + +"Oh, that's just the fellow that puts up the money and keeps in the +background sort of, and nobody knows he's interested." + +"I'd rather be a noisy partner," Pee-Wee said. + +"I wouldn't be silent for anybody, I wouldn't." Deadwood Gamely +paused a moment, smiling. + +"No, but you could keep a secret, couldn't you?" he asked. + + + CHAPTER XI + + TWO IS A COMPANY--THREE IS BAD LUCK + +Pee-Wee and Pepsy were not agreed about allowing this third person +to buy into their enterprise. Pepsy was suspicious because she could +not understand it. But Pee-Wee, quick to forget dislikes and trifling +injuries, was strong for the new partner. + +"He's all right," he told her, "and scouts are supposed to be kind +and help people and maybe he wants to reform and we ought to help him +get into business." + +"He's a smarty and I hate him and three is bad luck," was all that +Pepsy could say. Then she broke down crying, "Miss Bellison hates him, +too," she sobbed, "and--and if people sit three in a seat in a wagon one +of them dies inside of a year. Now you go and spoil it all by having +three." + + "You get three jaw breakers for a cent," Pee-Wee said. "Lots of times +I bought them three for a cent, and I bought peanut bars three for a +cent too, and I never died inside of a year, you can ask anybody." + +"I don't care, I want to have it all alone with you," she sobbed. + +"If we count Wiggle in that will make four," Pee-Wee said, "and none +of us will die. If the customers die that doesn't count, does it?" + +Pepsy did not hear this rather ominous prediction about those who +would eat the waffles and the taffy. Her hate and her tears were her +only arguments, but they won the day. + +"He's got a Ford," Pee-Wee said in scornful final plea, "and he can +put up money enough for us to buy lots of sundries and pretty soon we'll +have money enough to start other refreshment places and he can be the +one to ride around he'll be kind of field manager. It shows how much +girls know about business," he added disgustedly. "I bet you don't even +know what capital means." + +"It means what you begin a sentence with," Pepsy sobbed. + +"You don't want it to be a success," he charged scornfully. + +"You're a mean thing to say that," she sobbed, and I do--I do--I +do want it to be a success--and--and--even if it isn't we'll have lots +of fun if it's just us two. Because anyway we can make believe, and +that's fun." + +"What do you mean, make believe?" Pee-Wee demanded. "Aren't we +going to make enough to buy the tents? That shows how much you know +about scouts. If scouts make up their minds to do things they do +them--and they don't make believe. I'll give in to you about that +feller but you have to say we're not going to just make believe and +play store, because that's the way girls do. You have to say you're +in earnest and cross your heart and say we'll make a lot of money--sure." + +Pepsy just sobbed. Her staunch little heart (when she would listen +to it) told her how forlorn was the hope of "really and truly" success +along that by-road through the wilderness. But the imagination which +could be terrified by the rattle of that planking on the old bridge +was quite equal to finding satisfaction in "playing store" and in seeing +customers where there were none. Pee-Wee believed that anything could be +done by power of will. She would find the utmost joy in pretending. No, +not the utmost joy, for the utmost joy would be to buy the tents. ... + +"You have to say we're not pretending like girls do" he insisted +relentlessly as she buried her head in her poor little thin arm and +sobbed more and more. "You have to say it. Do you cross your heart? +Is it going to be a success? Are we going to make lots of money--sure? +You have to say we're not just fooling like girls. Do you say it? +You're not just playing?" + +"N--no." + +"Cross your heart." + +Her freckly hands went crossways on her heaving breast. + +"It's business just like--like Mr. Drowser's store. Is it?" + +She nodded her head. + +"Say If I cross my heart and don't mean what I say, I hope to drop +dead the very same day. Say that?" + +So she sobbed out those terrible words. "And you promise not to let +him come in?" she added, provisionally. + +He promised and then suddenly she raised her head with a kind of +jerk, as if possessed by a sudden, new spirit of determination. Her +eyes were streaming. She looked straight into his face. There was fire +enough in her eyes to dry the tears. + +"If--if you wish a thing you--you get--you get it," she gulped. +"Because I wished and wished to go away from that--that place--and +now I made up my mind that we're going to--going to--make a lot of +money for--for you--I just did." + +She did not say how they were going to do it. + + + CHAPTER XII + + THE ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT + +The next morning Pee-Wee strode forth and made the magnanimous +sacrifice heroically. He found Deadwood Gamely in front of Simeon +Drowser's village store, talking with two men who sat in an auto. + +The auto was so large and handsome that it looked out of place in +front of Simeon Drowser's store, and the men who occupied it looked +like city men. It encouraged Pee-Wee ( or rather confirmed his +assurance of success) to see this sumptuous car in Everdoze, for it +proved that people did come to that sequestered village. He pictured +these two prosperous looking business men with frankfurters in their +hands, their mouths dripping with mustard. + +Pee-Wee was nothing if not self-possessed, his scout uniform was +his protection, and he strode up and spoke quite to the point to the +young fellow who leaned against the car with one foot on the running +board. + +"We decided not to take you in as a partner," he said, "because +we want to have it all to ourselves and I came to tell you." + +Deadwood Gamely seemed rather taken aback, but whether it was +because of this refusal of his offer, or because Pee-Wee's loud +announcement embarrassed him before the strangers it would be hard +to say. Seeing that the diminutive scout no longer held the deadly +stencil brush he removed Pee-Wee's hat with a swaggering good humor, +ruffled his hair, and said (rather disconcertedly), "All right, kiddo; +so long." + +Pee-Wee had anticipated an argument with Gamely and he was surprised +at the promptness and agreeableness of his dismissal. Two things, one +seen and one heard, remained in his memory as he trudged back to the +farm. One was a brief case lying on the back seat of the auto on which +was printed WALLACE CONSTRUCTION CO. The other was something he heard +one of the men say after he had returned a little way along the road. + +"I didn't think you were such a fool," the man said, evidently to +young Gamely. Within a few seconds more the auto was rolling away. + +It seemed to Pee-Wee that Gamely had told the men of his proposal +to join the big enterprise and that they had denounced his wisdom and +judgment. + +But Pee-Wee was not the one to be discouraged by that. "Maybe they +know all about construction," he said to himself, "but that's not +saying they know all about refreshment shacks. I bet they don't know +any more about eats than I do." Which in all probability was the case. + +On the way back to the farm, Pee-Wee noticed in a field the most +outlandish scarecrow he had ever seen. It was sitting on a stone wall, +and it must have been a brave crow that would have ventured within a +mile of that ridiculous bundle of rags. The face was effectually +concealed by a huge hat as is the case with most scarecrows, and all +the cast-off clothing of Everdoze for centuries back seemed combined +here in incongruous array. + +What was Pee-Wee's consternation when he beheld this figure actually +descend from the fence and come shambling over toward him. If the legs +were not on stilts they were certainly the longest legs he had ever +seen, and they must have been suspended by a kind of universal joint +for they moved in every direction while bringing their burden forward. + +Upon this absurd being's closer approach, Pee-Wee perceived it to be +a negro as thin and tall as a clothes pole, and so black that the +blackness of sin would seem white by comparison and the arctic night +like the blazing rays of midsummer. This was Licorice Stick whose home +was nowhere in particular, whose profession was everything and chiefly +nothing. + +"I done seed yer comin'," he said with a smile a mile long which +shone in the surrounding darkness like the midnight sun of Norway. +His teeth were as conspicuous as tombstones, and on close inspection +Pee-Wee saw that his tattered regalia was held together by a system +of safety pins placed at strategic points. The terrible responsibility +of suspenders was borne by a single strand consisting of a key ring +chain connected with a shoe lace and this ran through a harness pin +which, if the worst came to the worst, would act as a sort of emergency +stop. Licorice Stick was built in the shape of a right angle, his feet +being almost as long as his body and they flapped down like carpet +beaters when he walked. + +"You stayin' wib Uncle Eb?" he asked. "I seed yer yes' day. I done +hear yer start a sto." + +"A what?" Pee-Wee asked, as they walked along together. + +"A sto-- you sell eats, hey?" + +"Oh, you mean a store," Pee-Wee said. + +"I help you," said the lanky stranger; "me'n Pepsy, we good friends. +She hab to go back to dat workhouse, de bridge it say so. Dat bridge am +a sperrit." + +"You're crazy," Pee-Wee said. "What's the use of being scared at an +old rattly bridge. If you want to help us I'll tell you how you can do +it. I made a lot of signs and you can tack them all up on the trees +along the road for us if you want to. I'll show you just how to do it." + +No one was at the shack when they reached it for Pepsy was about +her household duties, so she had no knowledge of this new recruit in +their enterprise. Pee-Wee's conscience was clear in this matter, +however, for he had enlisted Licorice Stick as an employee, at the +staggering salary of twenty-five cents a week; there was no thought +of his being a partner. The willing assistance of his new friend would +leave his own time free for more important duties, and the advertising +work once done, Licorice Stick was to devote his time to catching fish +for the "sto" and other incidental duties. + +Pee-Wee now arranged his advertising masterpieces in order for +posting. The imposing type on the cards impressed Licorice Stick deeply. +He could not read two words but he seemed to sense the sensational +announcements, and the arrow which Pee-Wee had made on each card to +indicate the direction of the shack was regarded by him as a sort of +mystic symbol. + +"This is the way you have to do," Pee-Wee said; "now pay attention, +because it pays to advertise. There are two cards for each sign, see?" + +"Dey's nice black print," Licorice Stick said with reverent +appreciation. "En dey's de magic sign, too." + +"That tells them where the place is," Pee-Wee said. "Now, you keep +the cards just the way I give them to you and always tack them up with +the arrow pointing this way see? Here's a hammer and here's some tacks. +When you come to a nice big tree or a wooden fence or an old barn, +you're supposed to tack them up; and be sure to do it the way I tell +you. Now, suppose you're going to tack up the first card--the one on +the top of the pile. You tack it up and right close under it you tack +up the next one, and it will say:" + + FRANKFURTERS + SIZZLING HOT --> + +"Mmm--mm!" exclaimed Licorice Stick, as if a hot frankfurter had +actually been produced by this ingenious card trick. + +"Then you go along a little way," said Pee-Wee, "till you come to +another good place, maybe a fence or something, and you tack up the +next one and right underneath it you tack up the next one; always take +the next one off the top of the pile, see." + + ICE CREAM + <-- COLD AND COOLING + +Pee-Wee repeated, holding the next two cards up. This palate +tickling sleight-of-hand seemed like a miracle to the smiling, +astonished messenger. Pee-Wee seemed a kind of magician summoning +up luscious concoctions with a magic wand. The fifth and sixth cards +were held together for a moment and lo, Licorice Stick listened to the +mouth-watering announcement that peanut taffy was sweet and delicious. + +No "sperrit" of Licorice Stick's acquaintance had ever cast a spell +like this. They had called in weird voices but they had never contrived +a menu before his very eyes. + +He went forth armed with the hammer and tacks and a pile of +mysterious cards, a little proud but trembling a little, too. There +was something uncanny about this; he would see it through but it was +a strange, dark business. He shuffled along the road, peering fearfully +into the woods now and again when suddenly a terrible apparition +appeared before him. He stood stark still, his eyes bulging out of his +head, his hands shaking and cold with fear. ... + + + CHAPTER XIII + + PEPSY'S SECRET + +"Sally Knapp says we ought to have some barrels to put the money +in," said Pepsy as they were decorating their little wayside booth on +the day of the grand opening. "I don't care what she says." + +She was feeling encouraged, and cheerful for indeed the little +summer-house looked gay and attractive in its bunting drapery and +flaunting pennants. Failure could not lurk in such festal array, the +tin dishpan full of greasy doughnuts, the homemade rolls and fresh +sausages (which were better than any common wayside frankfurters) would +certainly lure the hungry thither. The world would seek these things +out. And were not the people of the grand carnival at Berryville to +pass here that very day, followed, no doubt, by gay pleasure seekers? + +To be sure there were no auto accessories yet, for there was no +capital, but there was lemonade and candy and cider and homemade ice +cream and there was Scout Harris wearing a kitchen apron ten times too +big for him, tied with a wonderful, spreading bow in back, and a paper +hat spotlessly white. + +The advertising department had not reported but no doubt the woods +were calling to the wayfarers in glaring red and black, or would as +soon as the wayfarers put in an appearance. Pepsy wore her Sunday +gingham dress embellished with a sash of patriotic bunting. + +"Don't you care what the girls say," Pee-Wee advised her as he sat +on the counter eating a piece of peanut taffy by way of testing the +stock, so that he might the more honestly recommend it. "I wouldn't +let any girls jolly me, I wouldn't. Lots of girls tried to jolly me +but they never got away with it." + +"Did that girl that was kept after school try to jolly you?" Pepsy +asked. + +"I wouldn't let any girls jolly me," Pee-Wee said, ignoring the +specific question and speaking with difficulty, because of the +stickiness of the taffy. "They think they're smart, girls do; I don't +mean you, but most of them. I know how to handle them all right. They +try to make a fool of you and then just giggle, but the last laugh is +the best, that's one sure thing." + +"I told her she was a freshy," Pepsy said, "and that she wouldn't +dare talk like that in front of you because you'd make a fool of her." + +"I should worry about girls," Pee-Wee said. + +"I'm not worrying about our refreshment shack anyway," Pepsy said, +"because now I know it will be lots and lots of a success. And maybe +you can buy four or five tents and lots of other things. Every night +in bed I keep saying: + + It has to succeed, + It has to succeed, + +and I make believe the floor on the bridge says that instead. But +sometimes it says I have to go back. When the wind blows this way +I can hear it loud. I know a secret that I thought of all by myself; +I thought about it when I was lying in bed listening. And I can make +us get lots of money, I can make it, oh, lots and lots and lots of a +success. So I don't care any more what people say. I told Aunt +Jamsiah I knew a secret and I could make us get lots of money here +and she said I should tell her and I wouldn't." + +"Till you tell me?" Pee-Wee asked. + +"No, I wouldn't tell anybody." + +"You ought to tell me because we're partners." "I wouldn't tell +anybody," she said, shaking her head emphatically so that her red +braids lashed about; "not even if you gave me--as much as a dollar. ..." + + + CHAPTER XIV + + SUSPENSE + +Soon the gorgeous chariot containing the carnival paraphernalia came +lumbering along en route for Berryville. It was a vision of red and +gold with wheels that looked like pinwheels in a fireworks display. + +The one discordant note about it was the rather startling projection +of the heads and legs of animals here and there as if the wagon were +returning from a hunt in South Africa. But these were only the +disconnected parts of a merry-go-round. + +Upon the white and silver wind organ which arose out of this ghastly +display sat a personage in cap and bells with face elaborately decorated +in every color of the rainbow. He was distributing printed announcements +to the gaping citizens of Everdoze. Not so much as a frankfurter or a +glass of lemonade did the people of this motley caravan buy. + +It was late in the afternoon and Pee-Wee and Pepsy were feeling the +tedium of waiting when suddenly the sound of merry laughter burst upon, +their ears and somebody said, "Oh, I think it's perfectly adorable to be +on the wrong road! I just adore being lost! And I never saw anything so +perfectly excruciating in my life!" + +"It's an auto full of girls," said Pee-Wee, adjusting his paper hat +upon his head; "they come from the city, I can tell; you leave them to +me." + +"I never saw anything so adorably funny in all my life," the partners +now heard. "I just have a headache from laughing." + +"I know that kind," said Pee-Wee; "they've got the giggles. You leave +them to me." + +Pepsy was ready enough to defer to the master mind, the more so +because this approach of their first probable customers gave her a kind +of stage fright. She was seized with sudden terror and the dishpan full +of doughnuts shook in her hands as she placed it in full view by +Pee-Wee's order. + +The auto was evidently picking its way along the hubbly road in +second gear. "We'll find a place where we can turn around somewhere," +said a man's voice good humoredly. + +"Not till we've gorged ourselves with food," the voice of a girl +caroled forth. + +Pee-Wee gave his white paper cap a final adjustment, stood the pan +of taffy enticingly in full view and waited as a pugilist waits, for the +adversary's next move. + +"I am going to have a saucerful of ground glass, the latest breakfast +food," a female voice sang merrily. At which there was a chorus of +laughter. + +"What did she say?" Pepsy asked. + +"Girls are crazy," Pee-Wee said. + +Pepsy fumbled nervously with the Several glasses of lemonade which +stood temptingly ready on the counter and glanced fearfully but +admiringly at the genius of this magnificent enterprise. + +It was the biggest moment in her poor little life and Pee-Wee was a +conquering hero. She placed the fudge within his reach and waited in +terrible suspense to see him operate upon this giggling band of lost +pilgrims. + +Nearer and nearer the car came and now it poked its big nickel +plated nose around the bend and advanced slowly, easily, along the +narrow, grass grown way. It looked singularly out of place in that +wild valley. + +A low, melodious horn politely reminded Simeon Drowser, who stood +gaping in the middle of the road, to withdraw to a safer gaping point. +He retreated to the platform in front of the post office and consulted +with Beriah Bungel, the village constable, about this sumptuous +apparition. + +Only a couple of hundred feet remained now between the refreshment +parlor and this party of mirthful victims. If Pepsy's red hair had been +short enough it would have stood on end; as it was her fingers tingled +with mingled appeal and confidence in the head of the firm. + +Would it stop? Oh, would it stop? The suspense was terrible. + +"F--r--resh doughnuts!" called Pee-Wee in a sonorous voice. "Ice cold +lemonade! It's ice cold! Get your fudge here!" + +Pepsy looked admiringly upon her hero. She would not have dared to +obtrude into the negotiations which seemed at hand. She gazed wistfully +at a half dozen girls in fresh, colorful, summer array as only a little +red-headed orphan girl in a gingham dress can do. She gazed at the big, +palatial touring car with eyes spellbound. It was thus that the Indians +first gazed upon the ships of Columbus. + +"Hot frankfurters," shouted Pee-Wee from behind his counter. +"They're all hot! Here you are. Get your fresh sweet cider! Five a +glass. Doughnuts six for a dime. All fresh." + + + CHAPTER XV + + SIX MERRY MAIDENS + +"What kind of nuts did you say?" called a girl merrily, as the car +stopped. + +"Doughnuts," said Pee-Wee. + +"We thought maybe everybody here were nuts," laughed the man who +was driving. + +"I'd like a nice saucerful of ground glass," laughed one of the +girls. "Can you serve carbon remover with it?" + +"Oh, isn't he just too cute." another girl said. + +"Could we get a little of your delicious tire tape, we're so hungry? +What are you all going to drink, girls? We'll have six glasses of carbon +remover, if you please, and, let's see, we'll have six plates of ice +cream hot out of the oven." + +"Do you think you can jolly me?" said the head of the firm. "I'll +give you some carpet tacks to eat if you'd like them." + +"Oh, wouldn't those be too scrumptious," another girl said. "Do you +serve peanut glue with them?" + +"I'll give you some fried fish-hooks," Pee-Wee shot back with +blighting sarcasm. + +"Yes, but what we'd like most of all is the ground glass," said +another girl. "Is it chocolate or vanilla flavor?" At which they all +giggled, while the man smiled broadly. + +"What flavor glass are you going to have, Esther?" a girl asked. + +"Oh, I think I'll take cathedral glass," caroled forth another; "I +think it's more digestible than window glass, if it's properly cooked." +At which there was another chorus of laughter. + +The terrible conqueror, who intended to subdue this bevy of giggling +maidens and cast a blight upon their levity, stood behind his counter +like a soldier making a last stand in a third line trench, while Pepsy, +captivated by the mirthful assailants, laughed uncontrollably. + +The head of this firm saw that this was no time for dallying +measures, his own partner was laughing, and even Wiggle was barking +uproariously at Pee-Wee as if he had shamelessly gone over to the enemy. + +"Oh, If, It's just--too--excruciatingly funny or anything!" one of +the girls laughed. "I never in my life heard of such--Oh, look at him! +Look at him! Hold me or I'll collapse!" + +Pee-Wee had come around from behind the counter, tripped on his long +white apron and gone sprawling on the ground, and the faithless Wiggle, +taking advantage of this inglorious mishap, started pulling on the apron +with all his might and main. Loyal Pepsy was only human, and tears of +laughter streamed down her cheeks, and the neighboring woodland echoed +to the sound of the unholy mirth in the auto. + +A large frying fork which Pee-Wee used as a sort of magnet to attract +trade was still in his hand and by means of this he caught his white +paper cap as it blew away, piercing it as if it were a fresh doughnut. +It was indeed the only instance of triumph for him in the tragic affair. +He arose, with Wiggle still tugging at his apron, his face decorated +with colorful earth, his eyes glaring defiance. + +The driver of the auto, who seemed to be a kindly man, put an end to +this unequal and hopeless struggle of the scout by ordering a round of +lemonade and purchasing fifty cents' worth of doughnuts. "When you have +a few minutes to spare," he said in a companionable undertone, "stroll +up the road and look about; the scenery is beautiful." + +"What do you mean?" Pee-Wee demanded. + +"And be sure to take some salted spark plugs with you in case you +get lost in the woods," one of the girls chirped teasingly as the auto +started. + +And the victim distinctly heard another say, as the big car rolled +away: "It's a shame to tease him; he's just too cute for anything. I +could just kiss him. But it was so excruciatingly funny." + + + CHAPTER XVI + + A REVELATION + +"What are you laughing at?" Pee-Wee demanded to know, as soon as he +had regained his poise and dignity. "You're as bad as they are." + +"I couldn't help laughing," Pepsy said remorsefully, "'specially +when you fell down. You said you were going to handle them." + +"That could happen to the smartest man," Pee-Wee said in scornful +reproval; "that could happen to--to--to Julius Caesar." + +"He's dead, you ask Miss Bellison," said Pepsy timidly. + +"That shows how much you know," said Pee-Wee scornfully as he +brushed off his clothing. + +"Can't something be a kind of a thing that could happen to somebody +who's dead if he was very smart, only if he wasn't dead. We got a dollar +and ten cents from them, didn't we?" + +"Yes, but--did you--did you--handle them?" Pepsy asked fearfully. + +"There are different ways of handling people," Pee-Wee said; "you +can't handle people that are crazy, can you? I can handle scoutmasters +even." + +Pepsy was willing to believe anything of her hero and she said, +"They were a lot of freshies and I hate them anyway." + +Pee-Wee did not trouble himself about what the man had said. His +chief interest was the dollar and ten cents of working capital which +they now had and how to invest it. In his enthusiasm he had been rather +premature in his advertisement of auto accessories, and he now purposed +to make good at least one of these announcements by commissioning Simeon +Drowser to buy some ten-cent rolls of tire tape for him at Baxter City, +whither Simeon went daily. + +He started along the road to the post office where he hoped to catch +Simeon before that worthy left for Baxter City. But he did not reach the +post office. The first interruption to his progress was one of his own +two-card signs staring him in the face from a roadside tree: + + CHEWING GUM + FOR PUNCTURES + +He paused scowling before this novel announcement. + +His gaze then wandered to a fence on which he read the astounding +words: + + PANCAKES FOR + HEADLIGHTS + +Alas, the ground glass which should have appeared in place of +pancakes did duty beneath the single word EAT on another tree nearby. Eat +GROUND GLASS the hungry motorist was blithely advised. + +Nor was this the worst. As Pee-Wee penetrated deeper into the woods the +more terrible was the masquerade of his own enticing signs. His stenciled +cards, deserting their lawful mates, had struck up ghastly unions with +other cards proclaiming frightful items of refreshment to the appalled +wayfarer who was reminded of NON-SKID BANANAS and advised that OUR PEANUT +TAFFY STICKS LIKE GLUE. The faithless TIRE TAPE which should have +surmounted the STICK LIKE GLUE card was nestling under the fatal EAT, +while FRANKFURTERS COLD AND COOLING and ICE CREAM SIZZLING HOT met +Pee-Wee's astonished gaze. He stood looking at this awful sequel of his +handiwork. + +Most of the cards were besmeared with mud and one or two in such a +freakish way as to give a curious turn to their meaning. On one card a +mischievous little rivulet of mud or wetted ink had ingeniously changed +a T into a crude R and the travelers read RUBES SOLD HERE. + +Pee-Wee contemplated this exhibition with dismay. Wherever he looked, +on fence or tree, some ridiculous sign stared him in the face. He did not +continue on to the post office but retraced his steps to the refreshment +parlor which was the subject of these printed slanders. + +He and Pepsy were discussing this miscarriage of their exploitation +design when a shuffling sound in the distance proclaimed the shambling +approach of the advertising department. And if Pee-Wee had not made +good his flaunting boast to handle the six merry maidens, he at least +made amends and regained somewhat of his heroic tradition in his +handling of Licorice Stick. + +"What did I tell you to do?" he shouted, his face red with terrible +wrath. "What did I tell you to do? Do you know the way you put those +cards up? You made fools of us, that's what you did!" + +"I done gone make no fools of you, no how:" Licorice Stick exclaimed. "I +see a sperrit 'n I shakes like dat, I do. As shu I'm stan' here I see a +sperrit in dem woods." + +From a vivid and terrifying narrative the partners made out that +while Licorice Stick was on his way to embellish the wayside in strict +accordance with instructions, he had encountered a spirit from the other +world in the form of the carnival clown whom we have seen pass our +wayside rest. + +The ghostly raiment of this lowly humorist and the motley decoration +of his face had so frightened Licorice Stick that he had dropped his cards +and retreated frantically into the woods. When the awful apparition had +passed he hid stealthily shuffled back to the spot and with many furtive +glances about him had gathered up the cards with trembling hands, and +proceeded to post them in pairs without regard to their proper order. + +After this triumphant exploitation feat (which ought to commend him +to every lying advertiser in the world) Licorice Stick had shuffled into +a new path of glory, going to the carnival, where (not finding the +sperrit in evidence) he had accepted a position to stand behind a +piece of canvas with his head in an opening and allow people to throw +baseballs at him. + +On hearing this Pee-Wee desisted from any further criticism. For, as +he told Pepsy, "a scout has to be kind and forgiving, and besides when I +go to the carnival I can plug him in the face with a baseball two or +three times and then we'll be square." + + + CHAPTER XVII + + HARD TIMES + +If many people went to the carnival they must have approached it +from the other direction. It was a small carnival and probably did not +attract much interest outside of Berryville. A few stragglers passed +Mr. Quig's farm traveling in buckboards and farm wagons, but they did +not come from distant parts and evidently were not hungry, + +Some were so unscrupulous as to bring their lunches with them. One +reckless farmer, indeed, bought a doughnut and exchanged it for another +with a smaller hole. + +Altogether the neighboring carnival did not bring much business to +Pee-Wee and Pepsy. Aunt Jamsiah took their enterprise good-naturedly; +Uncle Ebenezer said it was a good thing to keep the children out of +mischief. Miss Bellison, the young school teacher, bought ten cents' +worth of taffy each day as a matter of duty, and Beriah Bungel, the +town constable, being a natural born grafter, helped himself to +everything he wanted free of charge. + +So the pleasant summer days passed and brought them little business. +Occasionally some lonely auto would crawl along the foliage-arched road, +its driver looking for a place to turn around so that he might get back +out of his mistaken way. + +Most of these were too disgruntled at their mistakes and the +quality of the road to heed the voice of the tempter who shouted at +them, "Lemonade, ice cold! Get your lemonade here!" They usually +answered by asking how they could get to West Baxter. And Pee-Wee +would answer, "You have to go four miles back, get your hot doughnuts +here." Then they would start back but they never, never got their hot +doughnuts there. + +If Pee-Wee's stout heart was losing hope he did not show it, but +Pepsy was frankly in despair. In her free hours she sat in their +little shelter, her thin, freckly hands busy with the worsted +masterpiece that she was working. Pee-Wee, at least, had his appetite +to console him, but she had no relish for the stale lemonade and +melting, oozy taffy which stood pathetically on the counter each night. + + One day a lumbering, enclosed auto went by, an undertaker's car it +was, and Pepsy was seized with sudden fright lest it be the orphan +asylum wagon come to get her. The two dominating thoughts of her simple +mind were the fear that she would have to go back to "that place" and +the hope that Pee-Wee might get the money to buy those precious tents. +She had learned something of scouting, that scouts camp and live in the +open, and she had learned something of the good scout laws. She was +witnessing now an exhibition of scout faith and resolution, of faith +that was hopeless and resolution that was futile. She was soon to be +made aware of another scout quality which fairly staggered her and left +her wondering. + + + CHAPTER XVIII + + THE VOICE OF THE TAIL-LIGHT + +One night after dark, Pepsy and Pee-Wee were sitting in their +little roadside pavilion because they preferred it to the lamp-lighted +kitchen smelling of kerosene where Uncle Ebenezer read the American +Farm Journal, his arms spread on the red covered table. + +A cheery little cricket chirped somewhere in this scene of impending +failure; nearby a katydid was grinding out her old familiar song as if +it were the latest popular air. In the barn across the yard the +discordant sound of the horses kicking the echoing boards sounded clear +in the still night and seemed a part of the homely music of the +countryside. + +Suddenly a speeding auto, containing perhaps its load of merry, +heedless joy riders, went rattling over the old bridge along the +highway and the loose planks called out across the interval of +woodland to the little red-headed girl in this remote shack along the +obscure by-road. + + "You have to go back, + You have to go back, + You have to go back." + +Little did those speeding riders know of the voice they had called +up to terrify this unknown child. The rattling, warning voice ceased as +suddenly as it had begun as the unseen car rolled noiselessly along the +smooth highway. + +"Don't you be scared of it," Pee-Wee said. + +"You're as bad as Licorice Stick. Those old boards don't know what +they're talking about. I wouldn't be scared of what anything said +unless it was alive, that's sure." + +"They voted not to build a new bridge for two years because they've +got to build a new schoolhouse," said Pepsy. "That's because this county +hasn't got much money. I'll be glad when they build it; the floor's +going to be made out of stone; like--" + +"You mean the bridge?" + +"Yes, and I wish they'd hurry up. Every night I hear that and I know +boards tell the truth, because if a door squeaks that means you're going +to get married." + +"All you need is an oil can to keep from getting married then," said +Pee-Wee, "because if you oil a door it won't squeak. So there; lets +hear you answer that argument." + +There was no answer to that argument; keeping single was just a +matter of lubrication; but just the same that appalling sentence which +had become fixed in Pepsy's mind, haunted her, especially when she lay on +her feather mattress in the yellow painted bed up in her little room. + +She was just about to go in when they were aroused by a sound in the +distance. Pee-Wee thought it was an auto and he made ready to deliver +his usual verbal assault to the travelers. + +Louder and louder grew the sound and suddenly a motorcycle with no +headlight went whizzing past in the darkness. It was followed by +another, also without any headlight, but this second rider stopped +a little distance beyond the shack and got off his machine. + +Something, he knew not what, dissuaded Pee-Wee from making his +customary announcements and he stood in the darkness watching this second +speeder who seemed to be delayed by some trouble with his machine. The +traveler was certainly too hurried and preoccupied to think of doughnuts. + +Meanwhile, the first cyclist had covered perhaps fifty yards and was +still going. The little red taillight of his machine shone brightly. +Pee-Wee was just wondering why these travelers used no headlights and +whether the first cyclist would return to assist his friend, when he +beheld something which caught and held his gaze in rapt concentration. + +The little red taillight went out and on four times in quick +succession. There followed an appreciable pause, then two quick flashes. +Pee-Wee watched the tiny light, spellbound. It appeared for a couple +of seconds, then flashed twice with lightning rapidity. + +"Hide," Pee-Wee repeated to himself and motioned with his hand for +Pepsy not to move. Now, in such rapid succession that Pee-Wee could +hardly follow them, the flashes appeared, tinier as the cyclist sped +further away. + +"Hide Kelly's barn," Pee-Wee breathed. + +Presently the second cyclist was on his machine again, speeding through +the darkness. Either the first cyclist knew that his friend's trouble was +not serious, or time was so precious that he could not pause in any case. +Indeed, their flight must have been urgent to speed on such a road without +headlights. The whole thing had a rather sinister look. + +Pee-Wee wondered who Kelly was and where his barn was located. + + + CHAPTER XIX + + THE OTHER VOICE + +"What do you mean, hide in Kelly's barn?" Pepsy whispered, greatly +agitated. + +"Can you keep still about it?" Pee-Wee said. + +"Girls can't keep secrets. Can you keep still till I tell you it's +all right to speak?" + +"I can keep a secret and not even tell it to you," she shot back at +him in spirited defiance. "I know a secret that will--that will--help us +sure to make lots and lots of money. And I wouldn't even tell you or +Aunt Jamsiah, because she tried to make me. So there, Mr. Smarty. And +I don't care whether you tell me or not if I can't keep a secret, but +I've got a secret all by myself and it's that much bigger than yours," +she said, spreading out her thin, little arms to include a vast area. +"And besides that, I hate you," she added, bursting into tears and +starting for the house. "And you can have that girl who was kept in +after school for a partner," he heard her sobbing as she crossed the +yard. + +Pepsy did not pause to speak with Uncle Eb and Aunt Jamsiah who were +sitting in the kitchen, but the latter, seeing her in tears, said +kindly, "No folks passed by to the carnival to-night, Pepsy?" + +"Looks like rain," Uncle Eb said consolingly; "to-morrer'll be the +big night when they have the wrestlin' match. I reckon Jeb Collard n' all +his summer folks will go up on th' hay-rig from West Baxter. You wait +till to-morrer night, Pep. Mamsy'll make you up a pan of fresh doughnuts +fer to-morrer night, won't you, Mamsy? Don't you take on now, Pepsy girl; +you jes' go ter bed n' ferget yer troubles." + +"I don't care about people from West Baxter," Pepsy said, stamping +her foot and shaking her, head violently, "and I don't care about the +old carnival or anything--so now. They're all too stingy--to--to--buy +things--they're too stingy. I--I--I--don't care," she went on fairly in +hysterics, "he says I can't--I can't--keep--keep--a secret--but I've got +one and I won't tell it to anybody and I thought it up all myself and +it will surely make lots and lots and lots of people come and buy--and--and +he'll see if girls can do things." She was crying violently and shaking +like a leaf. + +"What is the secret, Pepsy?" Aunt Jamsiah asked gently; "maybe I +can help you." "I won't tell--I won't tell anybody," Pepsy sobbed. + +They were accustomed to these outbursts of her tense little nature +and said no more. Pepsy went up to her little room under the eaves, +catching each breath and trembling. No wonder they had not understood +her at that big brick orphan home. No wonder she had hated it. Little +as she was, she was too big for it. + +She was in a mood to torment herself that night and she lay awake +to listen for that dread voice from across the woods. She lay on her +left side so they would have good luck next day. She was greatly +overwrought and when at last she did hear the sound, loud and +heartless with its sudden beginning and sudden end, it startled and +terrorized her as if it were indeed that gloomy, windowless +equipage of the State Orphan Home, coming to take her away. + +She pushed her little fingers into her ears so that she could not +hear it. . . . + + + CHAPTER XX + + AN OFFICIAL REBUKE + +As for Pee-Wee, his trouble was quite of another character. The +dubious outlook for their great enterprise did not submerge his +buoyant spirit. He had been the genius of many colossal enterprises, +most of them falling short of his glowing predictions, and his +ingenious mind passed from one thing to another with no lingering regrets. + +He usually invested so much enthusiasm in organization that he had +none left for maintenance. He did not stick at anything long enough to +be disappointed in it; there were too many other worlds to be conquered. +His heart was no longer in the refreshment parlor and he was already +finding solace in becoming his own solitary customer, by eating the +taffy which he could not sell. + +There had been so few things in Pepsy's poor little life that she +had put her whole intense little heart and soul in this and was resolved +that this hero from the great world of Bridgeboro should buy the tents +which in plain fact he had already forgotten about. + +So it happened that while Pepsy was lying on her left side (one +of Licorice Stick's prescriptions) to insure good luck for the morrow, +Pee-Wee was dangling his legs from the counter eating a doughnut. + +What concerned him now was this mystery of the speeding cyclists. +That was the big thing in his young life. He believed them to be +fugitives. Their reckless speed, and the fact that they used no +headlights, gave color to this delightful supposition. Little had +they thought that this diminutive scout, unseen in the darkness, had +read that message in the Morse Code with perfect ease. Hide Kelly's +Barn. What did that mean? + +If Pee-Wee had liked Beriah Bungel, the Everdoze constable, he would +have gone to him with this information. But he disliked Beriah Bungel +with true scout thoroughness; he knew him to be officious, and swelling +with self-importance and he was not going to put business in such a +creature's way. + +But the next morning something happened which showed Scout Harris +in a new light. Going to the post office early in the morning, he saw +a sign posted on the bulletin board and he read it with lively interest. + + $250.00 REWARD + + for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the + thieves who stole two motorcycles from the yard of Chandler's + Motorcycle Repair Shop in Baxter City. + + The machines are Indian models bearing license plates 2570 + and 92632. Both machines are comparatively new. + + Communicate with Austin Sawyer, + County prosecutor, County of Borden, Baxter City. + +This notice had evidently been brought down by the mail driver +early in the morning and several distinguished citizens of Everdoze +were gathered about commenting on it. It seemed certain that none of +the Everdoze dozers had heard the motorcycles and surely no one in the +village would have been any the wiser for seeing those quick, tiny +flashes, which told so much to the scout. + +"I heerd somethin' but 'twan't no motorcycles," said Nathaniel Knapp; +"'twas a auto or I'm crazy." + +Then spoke Beriah Bungel, sticking his thumbs into his suspenders so +that his rusty-colored coat flapped open showing his imposing badge, +"They wouldn' never come this way, they wouldn', when they got th' +highway ter go on. They hit inter th' highway from Barter, that's what +they done. Them fellers hez con-federates waitin' across th' state line +with Noo York license plates. They made th' line last night; them fellers +gits as fur as they kin on the first go off. Waal, ha ow's refreshments?" +he added, turning upon Pee-Wee. + +"You ought to know," Pee-Wee piped up; "you took enough of them." +Which caused a laugh among the store loungers. + +"When I wuz a youngster if I sassed my elders I got the hickory +stick," Beriah said. "Yes, and when you grew up you got the +peppermint sticks and doughnuts and things," Pee-Wee shot back. + +At this Darius Dragg and Nathaniel Knapp laughed uproariously. +Constable Bungel saw but one way out of his rather embarrassing situation +and that was the old approved device of a box on the ears. The official +slap sounded loud in the little post office and left Pee-Wee's cheek +and ear tingling. + +"I'll learn yer how to answer back yer superiors," said Constable +Bungel. "We don't relish sass from city youngsters daown here, you mind +that. Naow yer git along a outer here n' tell yer uncle ter learn yer +some manners n' respect fer th' law." + +Pee-Wee faced him, his cheek flushed, his eyes blazing. "You're +a--you're a--coward--and a thief--that's what you are," he shouted. +"You--you--haven't got brains enough to find two--two--motorcycles--you +haven't--all you can do is stand around and eat things that other +people are trying to sell! You're a coward and a--a fo--ol--and you +owe us as much as--a--a dollar. You'd better button your coat up or +you'll--you'll be stealing your own watch--you--you coward!" + +With this rebuke, which left Beriah gaping, Pee-Wee started home, +holding a hand to his cheek. He was trying hard not to cry, not from +pain, but from the indignity he had suffered. He had never known such a +thing in all his life before. He felt shamed, humiliated. His whole +sturdy little form trembled at the thought of such degradation at the +hands of a stranger. . . . + + + + CHAPTER XXI + + SCOUT HARRIS FIXES IT + +Perhaps you will say that Pee-Wee was not a good scout to speak +with such impudent assurance to his elders. But you are to remember +what I told you about Pee-Wee, that everything about him was +tremendous except his size. He was not always the ideal scout in +little things. He was a true scout in the big things. + +When he reached the shack he found Pepsy waiting for him and he +poured forth his grievance into her sympathetic ears. "I'll fix him +all right," he said; "he's a coward, that's what he is, and he, +needn't think I'm afraid of him. I'll get even with him all right. +Whenever I make up my mind to do a thing I do it, that's one thing +sure." + +"Only we didn't make a success of our refreshment parlor," Pepsy +ventured to say, "but just the same we're going to because--" + +"What do I care about it?" Pee-Wee vociferated. "I know a way to +get two hundred and fifty dollars and that's more money than we'd +ever make in this old place. And I'll have you for my partner just +the same. I'm going to get two hundred and fifty dollars all at once." + +"Can I see it when you get it?" Pepsy asked. + +"You can have half of it because we're partners," Pee-Wee said, +recovering something of his former spirits as this new prospect +opened before him. + +"Can't we have the refreshment parlor any more?" Pepsy asked +wistfully. "Because, honest and true, we're going to make lots +and lots of money in it; I know a way--" + +"Listen, Pepsy," Pee-Wee said. "Do you know what the Morse Code +is? It's the language they use when they telegraph. Scouts have to +know all about that. Do you remember when I said hide Kelly's barn +last night? That's what that first feller said to the other one who +was stuck. Didn't you notice how his little red light kept flashing +away up the road? That's what it meant. They're hiding in Kelly's +barn and nobody knows it. + +"There's a sign in the post office and it says they'll give two +hundred and fifty dollars to anybody who tells where they are. Do +you think I'd tell Beriah Bungel?" he added contemptuously. "I'm +going to tell a man named Sawyer, he's the county prosecutor, he +lives in Baxter City. Only we have to go right away. I'm going back +with the mail car to Baxter. Do you want to go? If you do you have +to hurry up." + +The last time that Pepsy had appeared before an official--of--the--law +she had been sent to the big brick building and she was naturally wary +of prosecutors, judges and such people. Suppose Mr. Sawyer should order +herself and Pee-Wee to the gallows for meddling in these dark, +mysterious matters. Pee-Wee read this in her face. + +"Don't be scared," he said manfully; "I wouldn't let anybody hurt +you. My father knows a man that's a judge and he tells jokes and has +two helpings of dessert and everything just like other people. +Prosecutors aren't so bad, gee whiz, they're better than poison-ivy; +they're better than school principals anyway, that's sure. You see, +I'll handle him all right." + +Pepsy's thoughts wandered to the six merry maidens whom Pee-Wee +had "handled" with such astounding skill. "Can't we have our +refreshment parlor any more?" she asked, with a note of homesickness +for the little place they had decorated with such high hope. "If +you'll wait, if you'll wait as much as--two weeks--lots and lots and +lots and lots of people will come--" + +But Pee-Wee was not to be deterred by sentiment and false hope. +"Don't you want us to have two hundred and fifty dollars?" he asked +scornfully. "Don't you want us to buy those tents?" This was too much +for Pepsy. She grasped Pee-Wee's hand, following him reluctantly, as +she gave a wistful look back at their little wayside shelter. The +"stock" had not been set out for the day and the bare counter made +the place look forlorn and deserted as they went away. + +"It's a blamed sight easier than running a refreshment parlor," +Pee-Wee said; "it's just like picking the money up in the street. +All we have to do is to go to Mr. Sawyer's office and tell him and--" + +"You have to go in first," said Pepsy. + +Pee-Wee's enthusiasm was contagious and Pepsy was soon keyed up +to the new enterprise, even to the point of facing Mr. Sawyer. She +had cautiously resolved, however, to remain close to the door of his +office, so that she might effect a precipitate retreat at the first +mention of an orphan asylum. + +Whatever Pee-Wee did must be right and she saw now that two +hundred and fifty dollars won in the twinkling of an eye was better +than life spent in the retail trade. Yet she could not help thinking +wistfully and fondly of their little enterprise and its cosy +headquarters. + +They sat on a rock by the roadside waiting for the mailman's auto +to come along. Once in that Pepsy felt that her fate would be sealed. +She had never been away from Everdoze since she had first been taken +there. Baxter City was a vast place which she had seen in her dreams, +a place where people were arrested and run over and where the +constables were dressed up like soldiers. She clung tight to +Pee-Wee's hand. + +"I hate him, too," she said, referring to Beriah Bungel, "and it +will serve him right if Whitie dies and I just hope he does, because +his father hit you." + +"Who's Whitie?" Pee-Wee asked. + +"He's Mr. Bungel's little boy and he's all white because he's sick, +and they can't take him to a great big place in the city so they can +make him all well again and it just serves him right and I'm glad they +haven't got any money. Everybody says he's going to die and Licorice +Stick knows he's going to die in a rainstorm on a Friday, that's what +he said." + +This information about a little boy who was so pale that they +called him Whitie, and who was going to die in a rainstorm on a +Friday was all new to Pee-Wee. + +"Licorice Stick is crazy," he said. "What does he know about +dying? He never died, did he?" This brilliant argument appeared +to impress Pepsy. + +"If they took him to a hospital in New York then he wouldn't have +to die because they could fix him," Pepsy said. "I heard Aunt Jamsiah +say so. There are doctors there that can' fix people all well again." + +"I bet I'm as good a fixer as they are," Pee-Wee said; "I fixed +lots of people; I fixed a whole patrol once." + +"So they wouldn't die?" + +"They thought they were smart but I fixed them." + +"Fixing smarties is different," said Pepsy. "If people have +something the matter with their hips you can't fix them. Because, +anyway, if they're going to die on a Friday even snail water won't +fix them." + +"Snail water, what's that?" + +"It's medicine made from snails; Licorice Stick knows how to +make it. You have to stir it with a willow stick and then you get +well quick." + +"How can you get well quick when snails are slow?" Pee-Wee asked. +"That shows that Licorice Stick is crazy. It would be better to make +it with lightning-bugs." + +"Lightning-bugs mean there are ghosts around," said Pepsy, "the +lightning-bugs are their eyes. But anyway, just the same, nobody can +fix Whitie Bungel, because the doctor from Baxter said so, and he +knows because he's got an automobile." + +"Automobiles don't prove you know a lot," said Pee-Wee. + +"Just the same Whitie is going to die," said Pepsy, "and then +you'll see, because when my mother didn't have any money she died, +so there." Pee-Wee did not answer; he appeared to be thinking. And +so the minutes passed as they sat there on the rock by the roadside, +waiting for the mailman's auto to take them to Baxter City. + + +"Do you say I can't fix it?" he finally demanded. "Maybe you +think scouts can't fix things. They know first aid, scouts do. I can +fix that little feller; maybe you think I can't. You come with me, +I'll show you. Scouts--scouts can do things--they're better than snails +and lightning-bugs. I'll show you what they can do; you come with me." + +"Ain't you going to wait for the mailman?" + +"No, I'm not. You come with me." + +This apparent desertion of another cherished enterprise all in the +one day, took poor Pepsy quite by storm. She did not understand the +workings of Pee-Wee's active and fickle mind. But she followed his +sturdy little form dutifully as he trudged up the road and into a +certain lane. On he went, like a redoubtable conqueror with Pepsy +after him. To her consternation he went straight up to the kitchen +door, yes, of Constable Beriah Bungel's humble abode! Pepsy stood +behind him in a kind of daze and heard his resounding knock as in +a dream. Then suddenly to her dismay and terror she saw Beriah Bungel +himself standing in the open doorway looking fiercely down at the +little khaki-clad scout. + +"Mr. Bungel," she heard as she stood gaping and listening and +ready to run at the terrible official's first move, "Mr. Bungel, +if you want to know where those two fellers are that stole the +motorcycles, they're hiding in Kelly's barn and I guess they'll +stay there till dark. So if you want to go and get them you'll get +two hundred and fifty dollars as long as you don't say who told you +where they are." + +Without another word he turned and trudged away along the path, +Pepsy following after him, to astonished to speak. + + + CHAPTER XXII + + FATE IS JUST + +On that very morning Constable Bungel performed the stupendous +feat which sent his name ringing through Borden County and +established him definitely as the Sherlock Holmes of Everdoze. + +Followed by the local citizenry, who marveled at his deductive +skill, he advanced against Kelly's barn in the outskirts of +Berryville. Here, perceiving evidences of occupation, he demanded +admittance and on being ignored he forced an entrance and +courageously arrested two young fellows who were hiding there +waiting for the night to come. + + It is painful to relate that in process of being captured one of +these youthful fugitives delivered a devastating blow upon the long +nose of the constable thereby unconsciously doing a good turn like a +true scout and repaying him in kind for his treatment of Pee-Wee +Thus it will be seen that fate is just for, as Pee-Wee explained to +Pepsy, "He got everything I wanted him to get, a punch in the nose +and two hundred and fifty dollars. And that shows how I got paid back +for doing a good turn, because if I hadn't given up that two hundred +and fifty dollars he wouldn't have got punched, so you see it pays to +be generous and kind like it says in the handbook." + +The official pride of Beriah Bungel as he led his captives back +to Everdoze to await transportation to Baxter City was somewhat +chilled by the inglorious appearance of his face. There can be no +pomp and dignity in company with a wounded nose and Beriah Bungel's +nose was the largest thing about him except his official prowess. + +"Don't tell anybody I told him," Pee-Wee whispered to Pepsy, "or +you'll spoil it all and they won't give him the money." + +"Suppose he tells himself," Pepsy said. + +But Officer Bungel did not tell of the keen eyes and scout skill +which had put him in the way of profit and glory. For he was like the +whole race of Beriah Bungels the world over, officious, ignorant, +contemptible, grafting, shaming human nature and making thieving +fugitives look manly by comparison. + +Everdoze was greatly aroused by this epoch making incident. +Even a few stragglers from Berryville followed the crowd back +as far as Uncle Ebenezer's farm and Pee-Wee tried to tempt them +into the ways of the spendthrift with taffy and other delights +which cause the reckless to fall. But it was of no use. + +"I bet if there was a murder we could sell a lot," he said. +"Motorcycle thief crowds aren't very big. If the town hall burned +down I bet we'd do a lot of business. I wish the school-house would +burn down, hey? Murders and fires, those, are the best, especially +murders, because lots of people come." + +"I like fires better," Pepsy said. "Lots and lots and lots of +people go to fires." + +"Yes, and they get thirsty watching them, too," said Pee-Wee. +"That's the time to shout, ice cold lemonade." + +There was one person in Everdoze, and only one, who neither +followed nor witnessed this triumphal march, which had something +of the nature of a pageant. This was a little lame boy, very pale, +who sat in a wheel chair on the back porch of the lowly Bungel +homestead. + +The house was up a secluded lane and did not command a view of +the weeds and rocks of the main thoroughfare. This frail little boy, +whose blue veins you could follow like a trail, had never seen or +heard of Pee-Wee Harris, scout of the first class (if ever there +was one) and mascot of the Raven Patrol. He had indeed heard his +father speak of "cuffing a sassy little city urchin on the ear," +but how should he know that this same sassy little urchin had +thrown away two hundred and fifty dollars? + +Thrown it away? Well, let us hope not. Let us hope that those +wonder workers in the big city succeeded in "fixing" him, as indeed +they must have done, if they were as good fixers as Scout Harris. +Let us hope that Licorice Stick had gotten things wrong (as we have +seen him do once before) and that little Whitie Bungel did not die +in a rainstorm on a Friday. + + + CHAPTER XXIII + + WHERE THERE'S A WILL THERE'S A WAY + +To translate some little red flashes of light and read a secret in +them was utterly beyond the comprehension of poor Pepsy. Here was a +miracle indeed, compared with which the prophecies and spooky +adventures of Licorice Stick were as nothing. And to win two hundred +and fifty dollars by such a supernatural feat was staggering to her +simple mind. + +Licorice Stick's encounters with "sperrits" had never brought him a +cent. But deliberately to sacrifice this fabulous sum in the interest +of a poor little invalid that he had never seen, made Pee-Wee not +only a prophet but a saint to poor Pepsy. If scouts did things like +this they were certainly extraordinary creatures. To give two hundred +and fifty dollars to a person who has boxed your ears and then to go +merrily upon your way in quest of new triumphs, that Pepsy could not +understand. + +The whole business had transpired so quickly that Pepsy had only seen +the two hundred and fifty dollars flying in the air, as it were, and +now they were poor again, even before they had realized their riches. +And there was Pee-Wee sitting on the counter of their unprofitable +little roadside rest, with his knees drawn up, sucking a lemon stick +(which apparently no one else wanted) and discoursing on the subject +of good turns generally. There seemed to be nothing in his life now +but the lemon stick. + +"You think girls can't do good turns, don't you?" Pepsy queried +wistfully. + +Pee-Wee removed the lemon stick from his mouth, critically +inspecting the sharp point which he had sucked it to. By a sort of +vacuum process he could sharpen a stick of candy till it rivaled a +stenographer's pencil. + +"Do you know what reciprocal means?" he asked with an air of +concealing some staggering bit of wisdom. + +"It's a kind of a church," Pepsy ventured. + +"That's Episcopal," Pee-Wee said with withering superiority! Placing +the lemon stick carefully in his mouth again. This action was followed by +a sudden depression of both cheeks, like rubber balls from which the air +has escaped. He then removed the dagger-like lemon stick again to observe +it. + +"If you have an apple and I have an apple and you give me yours, +that's a good turn, isn't it? And if I give you mine that's another +good turn, isn't it? And we're both just as well off as we were before. +That's recip--" He had to pause to lick some trickling lemon juice from +his chubby chin, "rical." + +Pepsy seemed greatly impressed, and Pee-Wee continued his edifying +lecture. "I should worry about two hundred and fifty dollars because +you saw how people always get paid back only sometimes it isn't so +soon like with the apples. Everything always comes out all right," +continued the little optimist between tremendous sucks, "and if you're +going to get a punch in the nose you get it, and you can see how Mr. +Bungel got paid back auto--what'd you call it?" + +"Automobile?" Pepsy ventured. + +"Automatically," Pee-Wee blurted out, catching a fugitive drop of +lemon juice as it was about to leave his chin. "Good turns are the same +as bad turns, only different. Do you see? I bet you can't say +automatically while you're sucking a lemon stick." + +"Is it a--a scout stunt?" Pepsy asked. Pee-Wee performed this +astounding feat for her edification, catching the liquid by-product +with true scout agility. Whether from scout gallantry or scout +appetite, he did not put Pepsy to the test. + +"I'm glad of it, anyway," she said, "because now we can stay +here and have our store and there isn't anybody like that pros--like +that Mr. Sawyer to be afraid of." + +"Do you think I'm afraid of prosecutors?" Pee-Wee demanded to +know. "I'm not afraid of them any more then I'm afraid of June-bugs; +I bet you're afraid of June-bugs." + +"I'm not," she vociferated, tossing her red braids and looking very +brave. + +"Then why should you be afraid of prosecutors?" + +"I wouldn't be afraid of anything that doesn't sting." + +Pepsy said nothing, only thought. And Pee-Wee said nothing, only +sucked the lemon stick, observing it from time to time, as its point +became more deadly. + +"Maybe I'm not as brave as you are and can't do things and I'm +scared of Baxter City, but I bet you. I can think up as good turns as +you can, so there! And if you promise to stay here I'll make it so lots +of people will come and you can buy the tents and that will be a good +turn won't it? You said if you make up your mind to do a thing you can +do it." + +"I wouldn't take back what I said," said Pee-Wee, finishing the +lemon stick by a terrible sudden assault with his teeth. + +"Well, then, so there, Mr. Smarty," she said with an air of +triumph, "I'm going to do a good turn, you see, because I made up +my mind to it good and hard, and we'll make lots and lots of money. +So do you promise to stay here and keep on being partners? Do you +cross your heart you will?" + +If Pee-Wee had been as observant of Pepsy as he was used to being +of signs along a trail he might have noticed that her eyes were all +ablaze and that her little, thin, freckly wrist trembled. But how should +he know that his own carelessly uttered words had burned themselves into +her very soul? + +"If you make up your mind to do a thing you can do it." + + + CHAPTER XXIV + + PEPSY'S ENTERPRISE + +Pepsy knew the scouts only through Pee-Wee. She knew they could +do things that girls could not do. She must have been deaf if she +did not hear this. She knew they walked with dauntless courage in +great cities, and that they were not afraid of prosecutors. + +They were strange, wonderful things to her. They possessed all +the manly arts and some of the womanly arts as well. They could +track, swim, dive, read strange messages in flashes of light, +sacrifice appalling riches and think nothing of it. They could +cook, sew, imitate birds, and read things in the stars. Pee-Wee +had not left Pepsy in the dark about any of these matters. + +Pepsy knew that she could not aspire to be a scout. The young +propagandist had forgotten to tell her of the Girl Scouts who can +do a few things, if you please. But one thing Pepsy could do; she +could worship at the feet of his heroic legion. + +If all there was to doing things was making up your mind to do them, +then could she not do a good turn as well as a boy? Surely Scout Harris, +the wonder worker, could not be mistaken about anything. He had shown +Pepsy, conclusively, how good turns (to say nothing of bad ones) are +always paid back by an inexorable law. Punches on the nose, or kindly +acts of charity and sweet sacrifice, it was always the same. ... + +Pepsy had no money invested in their unprofitable enterprise, for she +had no money to invest. Neither had she any capital of scout +experience to draw upon. But one little nest egg she had. She had +once made a small deposit in this staunch institution of reciprocal +kindness. All by herself, and long before she had known of Pee-Wee +and the scouts, she had done a good turn. + +According to the inevitable rule, which she did not doubt, the +principal and interest of this could now be drawn. Why not? Somewhere, +and she knew where, there was a good turn standing to her credit. It +would be paid her just as surely as that splendid punch in the nose +was paid to Beriah Bungel. And, using this good turn that was standing +to her credit, she would be the instrument which fate would choose, to +pay scout Harris back for his great sacrifice of two hundred and fifty +dollars. You see how nicely everything was going to work out. + +The person who would now do Pepsy the good turn which would bring +success and fortune to their little enterprise and enable Scout Harris +to buy three tents, was Mr. Ira Jensen who lived in the big red house +up the road. A very mighty man was Mr. Ira Jensen almost as terrible +in worldly grandeur and official power as a prosecutor. Not quite, but +almost. At all events, Pepsy could muster up courage to go and face him, +and that she was now resolved to do. + +Indeed, this had been her secret. + + + CHAPTER XXV + + AN ACCIDENT + +Mr. Ira Jensen sometimes wore a white collar and he was deacon in +the church and he was the one who selected the Everdoze school teacher, +and he was president of the Horden County Agricultural Association and +he had a khaki-colored swinging-seat on his porch and muslin curtains +in his windows. So you may judge from all this what a mighty man he was. + +Such a man is not to be approached except upon a well-considered plan. +It required almost another week of idling in the refreshment parlor, +of vain hopes, and ebbing interest on the part of the scout partner, +to bring Pepsy to the state of desperation needed for her terrible +enterprise. A sudden and alarming turn of Pee-Wee's fickle mind +precipitated her action. + +"Let's eat up all the stuff and make the summerhouse into a gymnasium, +and we can give magic lantern shows in it, too. What do you say?" +Pee-Wee inquired in his most enthusiastic manner. "We can charge five +cents to get in." He did not explain whence the audiences would come. +He had found an old magic lantern in the attic and that was enough. +The only stock now on hand was what might be called the permanent +stock (if any stock could be called permanent where Pee-Wee was). +No longer did the fresh, greasy doughnut and the cooling lemonade +grace the forlorn little counter. + +"No, I won't!" Pepsy said, tossing those red braids. "I won't eat +the things because we started here and I love them, so there!" + +"If you love them I should think you'd want to eat them," said +Pee-Wee. "That shows how much you know about logic." + +"I don't care, I'm just going to stay here and if you promise to +wait we'll get lots and lots of money," she said. "You promised me +you'd wait," she added wistfully, "you crossed your heart. Won't you +please wait till--till--five days--may-be? Won't you, please? Maybe that +will be a good turn, maybe?" + +He did not refuse. Instead he helped himself to some gumdrops out +of a glass jar, and appeared to be content. But Pepsy knew better than +to trust the fickle heart of man and that night she played the poor +little card that she had been holding. + +After Uncle Eb and Aunt Jamsiah had gone to bed and while the curly +head of Scout Harris was reposing in sweet oblivion upon his pillow, +Pepsy crept cautiously down the squeaky, boxed-in stairs and paused, +in suspense, in the kitchen. The ticking of the big clock there seemed +very loud, almost accusing, and Pepsy's heart seemed to keep time with +it as it thumped in her little breast. How different the familiar +kitchen seemed, deserted and in darkness! The two stove lids were +laid a little off their places to check the banked fire, leaving two +bright crescent lines like a pair of eyes staring up at her. This light, +reflected in one of the milk pails standing inverted on a high shelf, +made a sort of ghostly mirror in which Pepsy saw herself better than +in that crinkly, outlandish mirror in her little room. + +For a moment she was afraid to move lest she make a noise, and so +she paused, almost terrified, looking at her own homely little face, +on the most fateful night of her life. Then she tiptoed out through +the pantry where the familiar smell of fresh butter reassured her. It +seemed companionable, in the strange darkness and awful stillness, this +smell of fresh butter. She crept across the side porch where the +churn stood like a ghost, a dish-towel on its tall handle and crossed +the weedy lawn, where the beehives seemed to be watching her, and +headed for the dark, open road. But here her courage failed. Some +thought of doing her errand in the morning occurred to her, but, she +could not go then without saying where and why she was going. And in +case of failure no one must ever know about this. ... + +So she screwed up her courage and returned to the side porch to get +a lantern. She shook it and found it empty. There was nothing to do now +but brave the darkness or go down into the cellar and fill the lantern +from the big kerosene can. She paused in the darkness before those +sepulchral stone steps, then in a sudden impulse of determination +she tightened her little hand upon the lantern till her nails dug +into her palms and went down, down. + +She groped her way to the kerosene can and finally came upon it and +felt its surface. Yes, it was the kerosene can. Her trembling little +hand fumbled for the tiny faucet. How queer it felt in the dark when +she could not see it! It seemed to have a little knob or something +on it. ... + +Her hand was shaking but she held the little tank of the lantern under +the faucet and was about to turn the handle when something--something +soft and wet and silent--touched her other hand. She drew a quick +breath, her heart was in her mouth, her hands were icy cold. Still +she had presence of mind enough not to scream. + +But as she rose in panic terror from her stooping posture, the +lantern pulled upward against the faucet, toppling the big can off +its skids. There was no plug in the can and the kerosene flowed out +upon the terror-stricken child, wetting her shoes and stockings, and +made a great puddle on the stone floor. She stood in the darkness, +seeing none of this, which made the catastrophe the more terrible. + +And then, as she stood in terror, wet and bewildered, waiting for +whatever terrible sequel might come, she felt again that something +soft and wet and silent on her hand. She moved her hand a little and +felt of something soft. Soft in a different way. Soft but not wet. + +"Wiggle," she sobbed in a whisper; "why--why--didn't you--you--tell me +it was you--Wiggle?" + +But he only licked her hand again as if to say, "If there is anything +on for to-night, I'm with you. Cheer up. Adventures are my middle +name". ... + + + CHAPTER XXVI + + PEPSY'S INVESTMENT + +For a few seconds Pepsy stood in suspense amid the spreading, +dripping havoc she had caused, listening for some sound above. But +the seconds piled up into a full minute and no approaching step was +heard. The danger seemed over. + +But the very air was redolent of kerosene; she stood in a puddle +of it, and one of her stockings and both of her plain little buttoned +shoes were thoroughly wet. When she moved her toes she could feel the +soppy liquid. Oh, for a light! It would lessen her terror if she could +just see what had happened and how she looked. + +She groped her way to the small oblong of lesser darkness which +indicated the open bulk-head doors, and felt better when she was in +the free open darkness of outdoors. Wiggle, seeming to know that +something unusual was happening, kept close to her heels. + +She reentered the kitchen, where those accusing, ghostly, red +slits of eyes in the stove seemed to watch her. She fumbled +nervously on the shelf above the stove and got some matches, +spilling a number of them on the floor. She could not pause to +gather them up while those red eyes stared. She had planned her poor +little enterprise with a view to secrecy, but in the emergency and with +the minutes passing, she did not now pause to think or consider. Near +the flour barrel hung several goodly pudding bags, luscious reminders +of Thanksgiving. Aunt Jamsiah had promised to make a plum-pudding for +Pee-Wee in the largest one of these and he had spent some time in +measuring them and computing their capacity, with the purpose of +selecting the most capacious. Pepsy now hurriedly took all of these +and a kitchen apron along with them, and descended again into the cellar. + +By the dim lantern light she lifted the fallen tank and replaced +it on its skids. Then she wiped up the floor as best she could with +the makeshift mop which had been intended to serve a better +purpose. She wiped off her soggy shoes and tried to clean that +clinging oiliness from her hands. It seemed to her as if the +whole world were nothing but kerosene. + +She did not know what to do with the drenched rags, so she took them +with her when she started again for the dark road, this time with her +two cheery companions, the lantern and Wiggle. She soon found the +dripping rags a burden and cast them from her as she passed the well. +Wiggle turned back and inspected the smelly, soggy mass, found that he +did not like it, took a hasty drink from the puddle under the well +spout, and rejoined his companion. + +It must have been close to ten o'clock when Mr. Ira Jensen, enjoying +a last smoke on his porch before retiring, saw the lantern light swinging +up his roadway. The next thing that he was aware of was the pungent odor +of kerosene borne upon the freshening night breeze. And then the little +delegation stood revealed before him, Wiggle, wagging his tail, the +lantern sputtering, and Pepsy's head jerking nervously as if she were +trying to shake out what she had to say. + +It took Pepsy a few moments to key herself up to the speaking point. +Then she spoke tremulously but with a kind of jerky readiness suggesting +many lonely rehearsals. + +"Mr. Jensen," she said, "I have to do a good turn and so I came +to ask you if you'll help me and the reason I smell like kerosene is +because I tipped over the kerosene can." This last was not in her +studied part, but she threw it in answer to an audible sniff from +Mr. Jensen. + + "You said when I came here and stayed nights when Mrs. Jensen +was sick with the flu and everybody else was sick and you couldn't +get anybody to do--to nurse her--you remember?" She did not give him +time to answer for she knew that if she paused she could not go on. +Her momentum kept her going. "You said then--just before I went +home--you'd--you said I was--you said you'd do me a good turn some +day, because I helped you. So now a boy that's staying with us--we +have a refreshment parlor and nobody comes to buy anything--and he +wants to buy some tents and we have to make a lot of money so will +you please have them have the County Fair in Berryville this year so +lots of people will go past our summerhouse? + +"We have lemonade and he calls to the people and tells them, only +there ain't any people. But lots and lots and lots of people come to +the County Fair from all over, don't they? So now I'd like it for you +to do me that good turn if you want to pay me back." + +Thus Pepsy, standing tremulously but still boldly, her thin little +hand clutching the lantern, played her one card for the sake of Pee-Wee +Harris, Scout. Standing there in her oil soaked gingham dress, she made +demand upon this staunch bank of known probity, for principal and +interest in the matter of the one great good turn she had one before +she had ever known of Scout Harris. It never occurred to her as she +looked with frank expectancy at Mr. Jensen that her naive request was +quite preposterous. + +To his credit be it said, Mr. Jensen did not deny her too abruptly. +Instead he spread his knees and arms and, smiling genially, beckoned her +to him. + +"I can't, I'm all kerosene," she said. + +"Never you mind," he said. "You come and stand right here while I +tell you how it is." So she set down the lantern and stepped forward and +stood between his knees and then he lifted her into his lap. "Well, +well, well, you're quite a girl; you're quite a little girl, ain't you, +huh? So you came all the way in the dark to ask me that! Here, you sit +right where you are and never you mind about kerosene; if you ain't +scared of the dark I reckon I ain't scared of kerosene. Now, I want +you should listen 'cause I'm going to tell you jes' how it is n' then +you'll understand. Because I call you a little kind of a--a herro--ine, +that's what I call you." + +He wasn't half wrong about that, either. ... + + + CHAPTER XXVII + + SEEN IN THE DARK + +So then he told her how it was about the County Fair, which shortly +would open. He told her very gently and kindly how Northvale had been +chosen, because it was the county seat and how he was powerless to change +the plans. + +He looked around into her sober face, and sometimes lifted it to his, +and at almost every hope-blighting sentence, asked her if she did not +understand. He told her all about how county fairs are big things, +planned by many men, months and months in advance. And at each pause +and each gently asked question she nodded silently, as if it was all +quite clear and plausible, but her heart was breaking. + +"But I'm not going to forget that good turn I owe you, no, siree," +he added finally as he set her down on the porch, much to Wiggle's +relief. "And I'm coming down the road to pay you a visit n' look over +that refreshment store of yours n' see if I can't make some suggestions +maybe. Now, what do you say to that?" + +Pepsy nodded soberly, her thoughts far away. + +"You'll see me along there," Mr. Jensen added cheerily, as he patted +her little shoulder, "n' I give you fair warning I'm the champion +doughnut eater of Borden County." + +She smiled, still wistfully, and gulped, oh ever so little. + +"That's what I am," he added with another genial pat. "So now you +cheer up and run back home and go to bed n' don't you lie awake crying. +You tell that little scout feller I'm coming to make you a visit n' +that, I usually drink nine glasses of lemonade. Now you run along and +get to bed quick." + +"Thanks," she said, her voice trembling. + +So Pepsy took her way silently along the dark road. Her bank had +failed, she could do nothing more. This was a strange sequel to +follow Pee-Wee's glowing representations about good turns. She did +not understand it. And now that she had failed, the catastrophe in +the cellar loomed larger, and she saw her nocturnal truancy as a +serious thing. What would Aunt Jamsiah think of this? Pepsy had been +forbidden to go away from the farm at night, except to weekly prayer +meeting. + +The crickets sang cheerily as she returned along the dark road, a +disconsolate little figure, swinging her lantern. She was weary--weary +from exertion and disappointment and foreboding. Her good scout +enterprise was suddenly changed into an act of sneaking disobedience. +The physical exhaustion which follows nervous strain was upon her now +and her little feet lagged in their soaking shoes and once or twice she +stumbled with fatigue. + +For what burden is heavier than a heavy heart? The soothing voices +of insect life which soften the darkness and cheer the wayfarer in the +countryside seemed only to mock her with their myriad care-free songs. +And to make matters worse there suddenly rang in her ears from far over +to the west the loud clatter of those loose planks on the old bridge +along the highway, as a car sped over it: + + "You have to go back, + You have to go back." + +Then the noise ceased suddenly, and there was no sound but the calling +of a screech-owl somewhere in the intervening woods. + +Pepsy sat down on a rock by the roadside partly to rest and partly +because she did not want to go home. She knew, or she ought to have +known, that Aunt Jamsiah was pretty sure to be lenient about a harmless +transgression with so generous a motive. But the warning voice from that +unseen bridge disconcerted her. It was not long after she was seated +that her head hung down and soon the gentle comforter of sleep came to +her and she lay there, pillowing her head on her little thin arm. + +But the comforter did not stay long, for Pepsy dreamed a dream. +She dreamed that all the people of the village, Simeon Drowser, +Nathaniel Knapp, Darius Dragg, the sneering Deadwood Gamely, and even +the faithless Arabella Bellison, the school teacher, were pointing +fingers a yard long, at her and saying, "You have to go back to the +big brick building. You have to go back, you have to go back." On the +big doughnut jar in the "refreshment parlor" sat Licorice Stick saying, +"You have to go back the next time it thunders." She shook her fist at +Licorice Stick and called him a Smarty and said she would not go back, +but they all laughed and sang: + + "You have to go back, + You have to go back." + +Miss Bellison was the worst of all. ... + + "You have to go back, + You have to------" + +With a sudden start Pepsy sat up on the rock, wide awake, + + "-----go back, + You have to go back.", + +She still heard. + +Her forehead throbbed and her face felt very hot. There was a +ringing in her ears. She was feverish, but she did not know that. +All she knew was that everybody was against her and that the bridge +had put them up to it. She was dizzy and had to put her hand on the +rock to steady herself. The lantern light was extinguished but she +did not remember the lantern, or Wiggle. She felt very strange and +wanted a drink of water. Her hand trembled and her little arm with +which she braced herself against the rock, felt weak. And her head +throbbed, throbbed. ... + +Where were all those people? She felt around for them. Then she +heard the voice again, far off through the woods, up along that highway. +It was just an innocent automobile, + + "You have to go back." + +Pepsy rose to her feet with a start, reeled, reached for a tree, +and clutched it. "I'll stop it, I'll--I'll make it--it stop--I'll tear +it--I'll pull them off," she said. "I--I won't--go back--I won't, I won't, +I won't!" + +Staggering across the road she entered the woods. Each tree there +seemed like two trees. She groped her way among them, dizzy, almost +falling. Sometimes the woods seemed to be moving. Perhaps it was by +the merest chance that she stumbled into the trail which led through +the woods to the highway, ending close to the old bridge. + +But once in the familiar path she ran in a kind of frenzy. No doubt +the fever gave her a kind of temporary, artificial strength, as indeed +it gave her the crazy resolve somehow to still that haunting voice +forever. Crazed and reeling she stumbled and ran along, pausing now and +again to press her throbbing head, then running on again like one +possessed. + +At last she came out of the woods suddenly on to the broad, smooth +highway. There was the bridge, silent and--no, not dark. For there was +a bright spot somewhere underneath it and gray smoke wriggling up +through those cracks between the planks. And there, yes, there, +crawling away in the darkness was a black figure. A silent, stealthy +figure, stealing away. + +To the dazed, feverish girl, the figure seemed to have two pairs of +arms. She tried to call but could not. Her scream of delirious fright +died away into a murmur as she staggered and fell prone upon the ground +and knew no more. + +But never again--never, never would those cruel planks taunt her with +their heartless prediction. Never would they frighten the poor, +sensitive, fearful little red-headed orphan girl any more. + + + CHAPTER XXVIII + + STOCK ON HAND + +It was Joey Burnside, the burliest and heartiest of the volunteer +firemen, who carried Pepsy back through the woods to the farm while +still the conflagration was at its height. + +There was not timber enough left from the old bridge to kindle a +scout camp-fire. A few charred remnants had gone floating down the +stream and these fugitive remnants drifting into tiny coves and lodging +in the river's bends were shown by the riverside dwellers as memorials +of the event which had stirred the countryside more than any other item, +of neighborhood history. Under the gaping space of disconnected road +the stream flowed placidly, uninterrupted by all the recent hubbub +above it. The straight highway looked strange without the bridge. + +Pepsy had a fever all that night, but toward morning she fell asleep, +and Aunt Jamsiah, who had watched her through the night, tiptoed into +the little room under the eaves and out again to tell Pee-Wee that he +had better wait, that all Pepsy needed now was rest. + +"Can't I just look at her?" Pee-Wee asked. So he was allowed to +stand in the doorway and see his partner as she lay there sleeping +the good sleep of utter exhaustion. + +"When she wakes up," Aunt Jamsiah said pleasantly. + +Pee-Wee knew the circumstances of her being found at the burning +bridge and brought home, but he asked no questions and Aunt Jamsiah +said nothing of the events of that momentous night. It seemed to be +generally understood that this matter was in Aunt Jamsiah's hands +for thorough consideration later. + +Meanwhile Pee-Wee went across the lawn and down the road to the +scene of their hapless enterprise. The roadside rest could boast now +of but two jars, one of peppermint sticks and one of gumdrops (both +in rapid process of consumption) and a number of spools of tire tape. +But the absence of doughnuts and sausages and lemonade, this was +nothing. It was the absence of Pepsy that counted. + +Pee-Wee took his customary eye-opener, consisting of a gumdrop. He had +to shake the jar to get a red one, that being the kind he preferred. +Then he drew his legs up on the counter and proceeded to work upon +the willow whistle he was making. + +His handiwork soon reached that stage of manufacture where it was +necessary to soak the willow bark in water, so as to cause it to swell. +He thereupon distributed the remaining gumdrops impartially between his +mouth and his trousers pocket and filled the empty jar with water, +dropping his handiwork into it. Thus by gradual stages and without any +sensational "closing out sales" the refreshment business was steadily +going into a state of liquidation, even the lemon sticks being reduced +to a liquid. There was no stock on hand now but two peppermint sticks +and some tire tape. + +Suddenly a most astonishing thing happened. The sound of an +automobile horn was heard in the distance. A deep, melodious, dignified +horn. Not since the passing of the six merry maidens had such welcome +music sounded in Pee-Wee's enraptured ears. + +The signs had all been made fight, the ice cream had been made cold, +the sausages hot, and the ground glass had been put where it belonged. +No longer did "our taffy stick like glue." Indeed, there was no taffy +of any kind on hand, notwithstanding these blatant announcements. + +Along came the automobile, an eight-cylinder Super Junkster. And, +yes, it was followed by another, and still another. Pee-Wee could see +the imposing procession as far down as the bend. + +"Some detour," a good-natured voice said. + +"Detour? Detour?" Pee-Wee whispered in sudden and terrible +excitement. Then, as the full purport of the staggering truth burst +upon him he issued forth from the roadside rest and contemplated the +approaching pageant with joy bubbling up like soda water in his heart. + +"Never mind," said another voice, "we can get some eats in this +jungle, thank goodness. What I won't do to a couple of hot +frankfurters." + +A sudden chill cooled the fresh enthusiasm of Scout Harris. + +"I'll buy every blamed doughnut they've got in the place," +somebody shouted. "We won't leave a thing for the rest of the +cars that have to plow through this jungle. I suppose this is +what motorists will be up against for six months. What do you know +about that? This eats merchant ought to clear a couple of million. +I'll dicker with him for everything hot that he's got, I'm starving." + +"Same here!" another shouted. + +Frantically, like a soldier waving his country's emblem in the +last desperate moment of forlorn hope Scout Harris clambered over +the counter and grasped the jar containing two peppermint sticks. + +"Peppermint sticks! Peppermint sticks!" he shouted at the +advancing column. "Get your peppermint sticks! They quench thirst +and--and--and satisfy your hunger! They're filling! They warm you up! +Peppermint is hot! Oh, get your peppermint sticks here!" + + + CHAPTER XXIX + + INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS + +Pee-Wee emerged safely, if not triumphantly, from this ordeal amid +much laughter, and was just congratulating himself upon his skillful +handling of "the trade" in a period of acute shortage when he received +a knockout blow. In depositing the trifling price of the peppermint +sticks in his trousers pocket, he discovered there four gumdrops glued +together and clinging so affectionately that nothing could part them. + +At the moment of this discovery, Scout Harris, thus driven into a +corner and standing at bay with nothing but one huge, consolidated +gumdrop for defense, heard the unmistakable sound of another car +crawling over the rocks and hubbles of that outlandish road in second +gear. On, on, on, it came like some horrible British tank. + +And now again he heard voices, "We can eat about twenty of them in +my patrol y--mm. Are we hungry? Oh, no! Hot frankfurters! Oh, boy, lead +me to them. I could even eat the sign, I'm so hungry. Put her in high. +What do we care about the road?" + +Pee-Wee listened and waited in terrible suspense. Scouts! He knew +something about the scout capacity. Then, upon the fresh morning air +there floated another voice calling a sentence which he knew too well +it was the good scout motto. "Hey there, you, whoever you are, Mr. +Refreshment Man? Be Prepared! We're s--c--o--u--t--s we are and we're +h--u--n--g--r--e--e! We haven't had anything since breakfast at +four-thirty. We had to come around through this rocky tour or detour or +whatever you call it. Somebody ate the bridge last night. Are there any +scouts down in this South African backyard?" + +If Pee-Wee had not heard that familiar motto "Be Prepared," he +would have known the approaching caravan to be scouts by their talk +and banter. + +Be Prepared. Pee-Wee glanced at the bare counter and the empty jars +and the shiny dishpan which held nothing but Pepsy's ball of worsted and +the terrible ornamental thing that she was knitting. There they were, +just as she had laid them the day before. Poor little Pepsy. ... + +Then they descended upon him as only hungry scouts can descend. +Pee-Wee's glowing promises which decorated the woods (and which he +could not fulfill) had brought the party to a state of distraction. +It was a big Crackerjack touring car overflowing with scouts and +driven by a smiling scoutmaster. It seemed as if they ought to have +been pressed in and down with a shovel like ice cream in a quart box. + +"For the love of--" one of them began. + +"Look what's here, it's a scout." + +"That?" shouted another, "Let's have the magnifying glass, will you?" + +Pee-Wee straightened himself up to his full +height. The big Crackerjack touring car stopped. + +"Some detour," the scoutmaster said with an air of infinite relief. + +"Do they have scouts down here?" a member of the party asked. + +"I'm only staying here, I belong in Bridgeboro, New Jersey," +Pee-Wee said. + +"Don't talk about bridges," another scout said. + +"Talk about something pleasant. A scout is supposed to save life, +scout law number six; let's have a couple of thousand hot dogs, will +you? We're dying. And forty-eleven dozen doughnuts with the holes +removed." + +"Do you--I--eh--do you--need any tire tape?" Pee-Wee stammered, +playing for time. "Tire tape! What do you take us for? A lot of +blow-outs? Let's have some eats and we'll take care of the blow-out." + +"Come on, hurry up, a scout is supposed to be prepared," piped +up a natty scout wearing the bronze cross. + +"Where's all the food?" the scoutmaster asked, glancing at the +empty counter. "We were led to suppose--" + +"Don't you know what a shortage is?" Pee-Wee piped up in sheer +desperation. + +"We know what a shorty is," one of the party shot back. + +"You don't expect us to eat a shortage, do you?" another said. +"Come ahead, hurry up, a scout isn't supposed to be cruel. You can +always depend on scout signs that you find in the woods. A scout +that puts scout signs--" + +"Those are different kinds of signs!" Pee-Wee shouted. "Those +are trail signs. You think you're so smart! That shows how much +you know about--about--" + +"Three strikes out," one of the scouts shouted. "About--about +industrial conditions," Pee-Wee concluded. "Don't you know what +a--a--what'd you call it--a--" + +"Yes, that's what you call it," a scout laughed. + +"Don't you know what a reconstruction period is?" Pee-Wee fairly +yelled, amid uncontrollable laughter. "If something happens like a +war--or a--a bridge burning down--or something--or other--that makes +business conditions--what'd you call it--it makes them all kind +of upside down, doesn't it? Sometimes--kind of--things are hard to +get. Everybody knows that." + +"We can see it," a scout said. + +By this time the scoutmaster was laughing heartily but with the +greatest good humor. Pee-Wee continued bravely, to the great +amusement of the party. + +"Gee whiz, nobody ever came along this road. You admit that scouts +are hungry, don't you?" + +"We proclaim it," said the scoutmaster. + +"I ate a lot of the stuff and my aunt wouldn't cook any more +stuff for us because nobody ever came and it got stale and I ate +too much of it, that's what she said. So now, anyway, we're going +to start in again because the business world--and we're--we're going +to speed up production." + +"All right, speed up the auto and good luck to you," the scout +with the bronze cross said. He seemed to be a patrol leader. + +There was a little fraternal chat before this boisterous troop +moved on and all seemed interested in Pee-Wee and his enterprise. +They were on their way to camp somewhere down the line. "You'll +succeed all right," they called back to him, "only be sure to have +plenty of stuff on hand when we come back in a couple of weeks or +we'll kill you." + +"Do you like waffles and honey?" the proprietor shouted after them. + +"We've got the bees working overtime for us," a scout called back. + +"I'll have a lot of those--ten cents each," Pee-Wee announced. "Do +you like clam chowder?" he called, raising his voice to cover the +increasing distance. + +"Don't you make us hungry," one called back. + +"Good luck to you, you'll make it a go all right." + +"I'm lucky, I always have good luck," the small optimist screamed +at the top of his voice. "Do you like peanut taffy? Do you like hot +corn," he added, fairly yelling this sudden inspiration after the +departing sufferers; "with butter and pepper on it; do you like that? +I'll have some!" + +These were the last words they heard as the big car moved slowly +over the rocky, grass-grown road. They are good words to end a +chapter with--hot corn with pepper and butter on it. ... + +Oh, boy! + + + + CHAPTER XXX + + PAID IN FULL + +Pee-Wee was just about to make a frantic rush to the house when +he saw another automobile coming along the road, brushing the projecting +foliage aside as some stealthily advancing creature might do. Not far +behind it he could hear other ears grinding along that impossible road +in second gear. + +The world seemed to be making a pathway, of rather a highway, +to Pee-Wee's door. The sequestered, overgrown road, with its +intertwined and overarching boughs, was become a surging thoroughfare. +The birds, formally unmolested in their wonted haunts, complained to +one another of this sudden intrusion into their domains. Away back +where this obscure road branched off the highway to furnish the +unfrequented access to Everdoze and Berryville, a sign had been placed +that morning with an arrow pointing toward the depths of the Everdoze +jungle. + + DETOUR --> + + HIGHWAY CLOSED. FOLLOW + YELLOW ARROWS. + +These yellow arrows appeared at intervals along the Everdoze road, +thus guiding the motorist back to the highway at a point a mile or two +below the gap where the bridge had been. Everdoze was on the map now +in dead earnest. The little hamlet nestling in its wooded valley was +destined to review such a procession of Pierce-Arrows, and Packards, +and Cadillacs, aye and Fords and jitney busses, as it had never +dreamed of in all its humble career. + +Who was responsible for this? Or was accident responsible? Who, +if anyone, by the mere touching of a match had started a blaze which, +would illuminate poor little Everdoze? Everdoze had gone to bed +(at eight P. M.) in obscurity. It had awakened to find itself +dragged into the light of day. Already Constable Bungel was devising +a formidable code of "traffic regulations"--traps and snares to catch +the prosperous and make them pay tribute as they passed along. + +As early as seven o'clock that vigilant agent of the peace had +placed a sign in front of the post office (where he was wont to +loiter) reading, "NO PARKING HERE." But all the while he hoped that +the unwary would park there and pay the three dollars and costs. + +But of all the signs which appeared in Everdoze on that day when +fate, like an alarm clock, had awakened it out of its slumber, there +was one which thrilled the soul of Pee-Wee Harris and caused +consternation to everybody else. This appeared in front of the +"Town Hall" and at a number of other strategic places in and out +of the village. + +"Come and read it! Come and read it!" shouted little Silas Knapp +as he madly intercepted Pee-Wee who, as I have said, was about to run +to the house. "It's a monolopy or somethin' like that--Mr. Drowser says +so! Come and read it!" + +So before going to the house Pee-Wee went and read it. He did not +know that the stern phraseology had been penned ever so tenderly and +with a twinkle in the eye, of the writer. He did not know that it was +a tribute (or shall we say the repayment of a good turn?) to the little +red-headed girl, who, all unaware of this hubbub, was sleeping in her +little bedroom under the eaves. Strange that such a little girl could +thus shake her fist by proxy at the grasping villagers! + + NOTICE + + The property on both sides of the road + from two miles north of the Everdoze line to + the boundary of Ebenezer Quig's farm, is of + private ownership. + + Anyone attempting to sell or vend or who + erects any tent or shack for such purpose upon + said property will be prosecuted to the full + extent of the law. + + IRA C. JENSEN. + +So Pepsy had kept her word after all, her one poor little +investment of kindness had paid a hundred percent dividend, and +the partners were the owners of a monopoly, or a monolopy, whichever +you choose to call it. + + + CHAPTER XXXI + + CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE + +Along the road and over the stone wall and straight across the +bed of tiger-lilies sped Pee-Wee, using his own particular mode of +scout pace, patent not applied for. Across the side porch and into +the kitchen he went, pell-mell, shouting in a voice to crack the +heavens. + +"It's a monolopy--I mean a monopoly! We've got a monopoly! Where's +everybody? Hey, Aunt Jamsiah, where are you? Where's Uncle Eb? Hurry +up and make some doughnuts? There's a detour! Cars--hundreds of +cars--from the highway--they're coming along the road. You ought to +see. Where's the ice-pick? Can I have some lemons? Are there any +cookies left? I left two on the plate last night. Where's the +sugar so I can--" + +He paused in his frenzy of haste and enthusiasm as Aunt Jamsiah +opened the sitting room door, very quietly and seriously. + +"Shh, come in here, Walter," she said. + +Her manner, kind, gentle, but serious, disconcerted Pee-Wee and +chilled his enthusiasm. The very fact that he was summoned into the +sitting room seemed ominous for that holy of holies was never used; +not more than once or twice in Pee-Wee's recollection had his own +dusty shoes stood upon that sacred oval-shaped rag carpet. Never +before had he found himself within reaching distance of that plush +album that stood on its wire holder on the marble table. + +This solemn apartment was the only room in the house that had a +floor covering and the fact that Pee-Wee could not hear his own +foot-falls agitated him strangely. Uncle Eb sat in the corner near +the melodeon looking strangely out of place in his ticking overalls. + +"Is--is she--dead?" Pee-Wee whispered fearfully. + +"Sit down, Walter," said Aunt Jamsiah; "no, she isn't dead, she's +better." + +Uncle Eb said nothing, only watched Pee-Wee keenly. + +Pee-Wee seated himself, feeling very uncomfortable. + +"Walter," said his aunt, "something very serious has happened and +I'm going to ask one or two questions. You will tell me the truth, +won't you?" + +"I'll answer fer him doin' that," said Uncle Eb. + +"Sure I will," said Pee-Wee proudly. + +"Walter, do you know what Pepsy's secret was? You remember she +said she had a secret that would make lots and lots of people come +and buy things from you?" + +"Girls are--" Pee-Wee began. He was going to say they were crazy, +but remembering the one that lay upstairs he caught himself up and +said, "they're kind of--they think they have big ideas when they +haven't. I should worry about their secrets." + +"But some of Pepsy's ideas and plans have been very big, Walter," +his aunt said ruefully. "You see we know her better than you do. She's +very, very queer; I'm afraid no one understands her." + +"I understand her," said Pee-Wee. "She believes in bad luck days." + +Aunt Jamsiah paused a moment, considering; then she went straight +to the point. "Pepsy wants to do right, dear, but she will do wrong +in order to do right--sometimes. We have always been a little fearful +of her for that reason. She--she can't argue in her own mind and consider +things as--as you do." + +"I know lots of dandy arguments," Pee-Wee announced. + +"You know, Walter, her father was a--he was a--not a very good man. +And Pepsy is--queer. Last night she made a dreadful mess in the cellar. +She was at the kerosene; oh, it makes me just sick to think of it. +She had some rags soaked with kerosene. Some of them were found out +by the well. The others--" Aunt Jamsiah lifted her handkerchief to her +eyes and wept for a moment, silently. + +"What others?" Pee-Wee asked. + +"The ones that were used to set fire to the bridge, dear. Oh, it's +terrible to think of it. Poor, poor Pepsy. That is what is bringing +lots and lots of people along our road to-day, Walter. Pepsy was found +lying unconscious near the bridge. She had kerosene all over her. One +charred rag was found over there. It just makes me--it makes me--" + +Pee-Wee arose and laid one hand on the back of the hair-cloth +chair. He, too, was concerned now. + +"You--you didn't tell her--you didn't blame--accuse her--did you?" +he asked. + +"No, I didn't," his aunt breathed worriedly. + +"I asked her to tell me all about last night and she would tell +me nothing. She said that the planks on the bridge tormented her. +To almost everything I asked her she said, 'I won't tell.' She is +very, very stubborn; she was always so." + +"Because, anyway," Pee-Wee said, alluding to his former query, +"if anybody says she burned down the bridge on purpose it's a lie. +I don't care who says it, it's a lie. She's--she's my partner--and +it's a lie. If--even--if the minister says it, it's a lie!" + +"Listen, my dear boy," said his aunt kindly. "I'm not angry with +Pepsy, poor child. I'm not accusing her, and you mustn't talk about +the Rev. Mr. Gloomer telling lies. Pepsy tried to burn down the +orphan home once, for some trifling grievance. We can't take the +responsibility of the poor child any longer. I'm afraid that any +minute Beriah Bungel will want to take her--arrest her. I know she's +your partner, dear, but it would be better for us to send her back +to the state home where she will probably be kept than to let her +be arrested. I don't think she knew what she was doing, poor, poor +child--" + +Aunt Jamsiah broke down completely, crying in her handkerchief. +So Uncle Eb finished what little there was to say. + +"We had to send fer 'em, Walter," said he. "She'll be better +off there fer a spell, I reckon. I ain't so sure about her doin' +it, though it looks bad. Least ways, she didn't know what she was +doing. But don't you worry--" + +Pee-Wee did not wait to hear more. He just could not stand there. + +"When--when are they--coming?" he asked. "I reckon to--morrow, boy. +Now, you look here--." + +But Pee-Wee had gone. + +Up the narrow, boxed-in stairs he went, never asking permission. +He could see nothing but a big enclosed wagon, dark inside, with +Pepsy inside it. He had no more idea what he was going to do that +day than the man in the moon. But he knew what he was going to do +that very minute. When a scout makes up his mind to do a thing. ... + +Into the little room under the eaves he strode, his eyes +glistening, but his heart staunch and his resolve indomitable. +And she smiled when she saw him. She was sitting up and she looked +ever so little in her nightclothes and ever so plain with her tightly +braided red hair. But her eyes were clear and she smiled when she +looked at him. ... + +"I won't tell anybody where I went," she said, "because I was a +smarty and I thought I could make somebody do a good turn ever +so--ever so big. And they'd only laugh at me if I told them what +it was. So I'm not going to be a tell-tale cat." + +"Pep," he said, "it shows that you're right because lots and lots +of automobiles are coming along our road since the old bridge burned +down and it's a detour and that means hundreds and hundreds of them +have to go past our refreshment place and we're going to make lots +of money. And I thought of a dandy idea, it's what they call an +inspiration. We're going to name the place Pepsy Rest, because Pepsy +will remind people to buy chewing gum, because that has pepsin in it +and as soon as you're all well we'll start in and keep on being +partners, because we have a monopoly. Do you know what that is? It's +when you can sell all you want of something and nobody else can sell +it. ... + +"Mr. Jensen, he put up a sign, and he said no one should sell +things on his property and he owns all the property along the road, +and you bet everybody is scared of him. So now we're going to have a +great big business and we began as poor boys, I mean girls, I mean a +boy and a girl. So don't you believe anything that anybody tells you, +not even--not even Aunt Jamsiah. Because you know how I told you I +was a good fixer and I'm always lucky, you have to admit that." + +"Can I be the one to count the money?" Pepsy asked. + +"Sure, and I'll be the one to eat what's left of the things that +won't keep," said Pee-Wee. "Only don't you worry no matter what you +hear--" + +She was on the point of telling him how Mr. Jensen had done his +good turn after all, and all about what she remembered of the +previous night. But she decided that she was not going to have a +boy laughing at her and put it within his power to call her a +tell-tale cat some day. So instead she threw her arms around him +and said, "Oh goody, goody!" + +You know how girls do. + + + CHAPTER XXXII + + THE CLEW + + Pee-Wee never knew until now how much he cared about his little +companion of the summer and how little he cared about their roadside +enterprise except so far as she was concerned in it. All morning the +almost continuous procession passed along the road reviewed by a +gaping assemblage on the platform in front of the post office. Many +motorists who read the enticing promises along the way paused for +refreshment only to find the little rustic shelter bare and deserted. + +But they were not the only ones to be disappointed. Upon the front +porch of Doctor Killem's house there sat in a wheel chair the queerest +little figure ever seen outside of a soup advertisement. He was of the +kewpie type, all head and eyes, and he had a kind of ridiculous air of +stern authority about him as he sat all bundled up in blankets soberly +reviewing the passing cars. So odd and gnomelike was he that he might +have stepped out of the pages of "Alice in Wonderland." He would have +made a good radiator ornament on an automobile. + +This, you will know, was little Whitie Bungel, who seemed not +at all disconcerted at being elsewhere than in his own home. He had +been moved about so much without any exertion on his own part that +he was quite at home anywhere. + +Though Pee-Wee had spoken in high hope to Pepsy about their +unexpected and glowing prospects, he was haunted by thoughts of +the terrible thing which was to happen on the morrow. Pepsy was +to be taken away, back to the big brick building which she hated, +just as the planks of the old bridge had foretold; + +Pee-Wee's loyalty was so staunch that he did not even consider +the things his aunt had said. He was going to save Pepsy from that +place and make her the sharer of the fortune that was within their +grasp. He made this resolve with the same generous impulse as that +which had caused him to put two hundred and fifty dollars within +the reach of Mr. Bungel who had boxed his ears. + +"I'm lucky," he said to himself as he trudged down to the post +office; "I'll fix things all right. I'll show them; I don't care, +I'll show them. They won't take her back to that place, not while +I'm around." + +He did not know how he was going to prevent this but he had +unbounded faith in his capacity to fix things and in his good luck. + +So, as he trudged along, stepping out of the way of many cars, he +came to the home of Doctor Killem. + +"Hello, soldier," piped up a little thin voice upon the porch. + + "I'm not a soldier," said Pee-Wee. + +"My father can arrest people," said the little gnome, looking +straight ahead of him. + +"That doesn't prove I'm a soldier," said Pee-Wee. + +"You've got a uniform," said the gnome. "I'm not afraid of +soldiers. My father's got a lot of money, he's got two hundred +and fifty dollars and I'm not going to get dead." + +"Where's your father?" Pee-Wee asked. + +"He's up the road and he's going to catch people and put them +in jail." + +"Is he?" + +"Why do you say 'Is he?' I didn't go to the hospital last +night. Do you want to know why?" He asked questions as if they +were riddles. + +"Yes, why?" Pee-Wee asked, half interested. + +"Because the bridge burned down. Do you like bridges?" + +"It isn't a question of whether a person likes them or not," +Pee-Wee said; preoccupied with his own sorrow and worry, yet +amused in spite of himself at this queer little fellow. + +"Yes it is," said Whitie Bungel. + +"All right then, it is," said Pee-Wee. + +"Why did you say it wasn't?" + +"Oh, I don't know, I guess I was thinking of something else." + +"What were you thinking of?" + +"Oh, I don't know--nothing." + +"Why did you say you were?" + +"You didn't tell me about why you didn't go to the hospital last +night." + +"I can see things that other folks can't see," Whitie announced. + +"You're like Licorice Stick," said Pee-Wee. + +"He's black," Whitie said. + +"I know he is." + +"Then how am I like him? I'm white. My name is Whitie." + +Pee-Wee felt like a prisoner at the bar of justice with this +little personage swathed in blankets, staring down at him. His +wrappings covered his neck and all that could be seen of him was +his face, perfectly motionless. Finally he said as if he were +pronouncing sentence. + +"Doctor Killem took me in his auto. We had to turn around and come +back when we came to the bridge burning down. He's going to take me +another way. I saw a man getting dead," + +"Where?" Pee-Wee asked, his interest somewhat aroused, + +"Will you give me that tin thing if I tell you?" + +"That isn't a tin thing, it's a compass, it tells you which way to go. + +"Can it talk?" + +"No, it can't talk." + +"Then how can it tell you?" + +"It points its finger." + +"You're crazy." + +"All right," Pee-Wee laughed in spite of himself. "You tell me +about the man getting dead and I'll give you the tin thing." + +"He was lying down in the bushes and wriggling." + +"Where? Near the bridge?" Pee-Wee asked. + +"Doctor Killem didn't see him and he laughed at me. He said I was +seeing things. Can you wriggle? I looked back out of the window and +saw him." + +"Did you tell your father about it?" Pee-Wee asked, hardly +knowing what to think of this information. + +"My mother made him give her the two hundred and fifty dollars +so I wouldn't get dead. Do you know what I'm going to be when I grow up?" + +"No; what?" + +"A giant." + +"Well, you'd better hurry up about it." + +"Do you know where my father got that two hundred and fifty dollars?" + +"Where?" + +"It was a prize for catching thieves. You can't catch thieves." + +"I know it," Pee-Wee said. + +"Are you going to be a thief when you grow up?" + +"No, I guess not," said Pee-Wee. + +"You can have three guesses." + +"All right, I guess not three times. Now, tell me if you told your +father about seeing that man getting dead." + +"Yes, and he said I'm always seeing things; everybody says that. +Maybe I'll get dead when it rains." + +"Don't you believe it," Pee-Wee said; "Licorice Stick's been +telling you that. Didn't you say you were going to be a giant first?" + +"You're not a giant." + +Alas, Pee-Wee knew this only too well. He knew too that it would +be quite impossible to get anything in the way of a connected +narrative out of this stern little autocrat. Whether he had actually +been "seeing things" or had only seen something in his queer little +inner life, who should say? Evidently no one took him very seriously. +And this fact did not seem to trouble him at all. Removing the +compass cord from about his neck, Pee-Wee advanced to proffer his +second gift to the Bungel family. Little did that stiff, serious +little figure know that the much-needed money which Mrs. Bungel had +been wise enough to take from her husband, had come from the same +source. Pee-Wee searched in vain for any sign of hands in those +enveloping blankets. There were no hands, there seemed to be no +body even; just two eyes looking straight ahead as if their owner +were not going to assist at all in the transfer of the little gift. +So Pee-Wee laid the compass on the porch rail. + +"There you are," he said; "that needle always points to the north." + +The two severe eyes stared down at the compass on the rail but +their owner made no attempt to reach it as Pee-Wee started off. If +Pee-Wee had not been so worried and preoccupied he would have thought +that he had never seen anything so absurdly amusing in all his life. + +"Come back and say good-by," the little voice commanded. + +Pee-Wee returned and stood in the exact spot where he had stood +before and said, "Good-by." Although the little pale face did not +turn the fraction of an inch, the staring eyes followed Pee-Wee as +he went along the road. + + + CHAPTER XXXIII + + THE TRAMPLED TRAIL + +Pee-Wee felt as if he were emerging from some enchanted spot in +the "Arabian Nights," abounding with giants and men "getting dead." +He had no more belief in what this imperious little imp had told him +than he had in the predictions of Licorice Stick, or the homely +superstitions of Pepsy. + +Indeed, if he had thought seriously of these erratic snapshot +bits of information about figures wriggling in the dark and "getting +dead" he would never have mentioned these things to Licorice Stick +whom he ran plunk into as that aggregation of rags and nonsense sat +upon a stone wall up the road engaged in the profitable occupation +of watching the passing cars. Licorice Stick's business was +contemplating the world and he always attended strictly to business. + +"Lordy me!" he said, rolling his eyes, "you don' go nowheres +that kid 'e tell you. Dat wrigglin' man, he no man, he a sperrit. +Don' you go near dat bridge, you get a spell. Yo keep away f'm dat +bridge." + +How much this had to do with Pee-Wee's actually going to the +scene of the fire it would be hard to say. If he had not talked +with Whitie he probably would not have gone. At all events, he had +nothing else to do and he wanted to think. So he followed the trail +through the woods to the highway. + +It seemed quite probable that Whitie's jerky sentences were about +true, that the doctor had been compelled to turn back by reason of +the burning bridge. The fact that Whitie was holding his imperial +court on the doctor's porch made this part of his story seem true. + +Perhaps it would be about right to say that little Whitie's +spasmodic announcements directed Pee-Wee in his idle wanderings on +that morning when he was fearful and sick at heart. + +Long afterwards he remembered with interest that it was little +Whitie Bungel (for whose recovery he had sacrificed two hundred and +fifty dollars and not a little glory) who put him in the way of +the terrible discovery that he made on that fateful day. And the +funny thing about it was that the little gnome had given the clue +to his benefactor and not his father who knew nothing about the +frightful revelation of that morning until it was all over. + +So perhaps there is a little god of good turns after all, who, +all unseen, administers punches in the nose and pays back two +hundred and fifty dollar gifts and so forth, and has the time of +his life watching how these things work out. Or a "pay back sperrit" +as Licorice Stick might have called him. ... + +As Pee-Wee approached the scene of the fire he saw in the bushes +something which caught his eye. This was a torn fragment of clothing. +The bushes were trampled down at the spot. It was not hard for the +scout to follow this line of trampled brush which was so disordered +that he thought it could not have been caused by a walking or fleeing +person. It was well away from the area where the men had fought the +flames. + +Here and there something brown and sticky on the leaves caught +the scout's eye. Some one had crawled stealthily through here. Or +else dragged himself through. Pee-Wee shuddered at this thought. +He examined the trampled channel more carefully. And from this +examination he was satisfied of one fact which made him uneasy, +apprehensive. + +The weight which had crushed the bush down had been a prone, dead +weight. At intervals of perhaps three or four feet were gathered +wounded strands of the tall grass, as if some groping hand had +reached ahead, gathering and pulling on them. Pulling a helpless +weight. Pee-Wee knew this for he saw with the eyes of a scout. + + + CHAPTER XXXIV + + THE TRAIL'S END + +This trampled channel petered out in a comparatively bare area +across which was more brush. Almost hidden in this was a tumbled-down +shack, hardly bigger than a closet, in which boys who had been wont +to dive from the old bridge had donned their bathing suits. It had +been thrown together as a storage place for fishing tackle and crab +nets and these latter, rotten and gray with age still hung in the +dank, musty place. + +Pee-Wee paused a moment, irresolute, nervous. He had a strange +feeling, a feeling of apprehension which amounted to a certainty. +And as he paused two charred bits of timber from the old bridge, +still held together by a rusty brace, creaked, and the creaking +seemed loud in the stillness of desolation. + +A rusty can, the discarded receptacle of bait, lay at his feet, +and in his hesitation and transient fear, he kicked it, and followed +it, kicking it again. Then, banishing such cracked-up excuses for +delay he put aside his fears and went around the tiny shelter to +where the rotted door hung loose upon one broken hinge. + +Within lay a human figure. The hair was wet and matted and +prickly leaves were stuck in it. The face was streaked with +blood, the clothes were torn. One of the legs lay in a very +unnatural attitude. The eyes were wide open and staring with a +glassy look at some rough fishing rods which lay across the rafters +above. One of the arms was outstretched and the hand lay open as if +its owner were saying, "Here I am, you see." There was something +very appalling about that dumb attitude of speech and welcome when +the voice and the eyes could not speak. For he had "got dead," this +poor troubled creature "got dead" after committing one hideous +crime to hide another. + +The people in the nearest house along the now deserted highway +came at Pee-Wee's breathless summons and gazed down silently but +would not touch the figure with outstretched arm and opened hand +that seemed to say, "Step in, you're welcome, here I am." + +So they called the coroner and the body of Deadwood Gamely was borne +away and it was soon known that he had died from injuries received +in falling down the embankment which he was scrambling up after +setting fire to one of the supports of the old bridge. + +He had not done this horrible thing willfully, at least not +for money to spend. That very day a warrant was issued for his +arrest in Baxter City for embezzlement of funds which he had stolen +from the bank in which he had been employed. But the angel of death +had traveled faster than the law. + +That the contractors, or one of them, who wished to benefit the +county with a modern bridge had offered Gamely pay to do this +dreadful deed of arson seemed certain. But it seemed equally certain +that the wretched boy had balked at this frightful enterprise, +putting it off from day to day, until discovery and arrest for his +other crime stared him in the face. He had waited till the very night +before the day on which his petty thefts would be revealed. Then in +frantic desperation he had taken this only means of acquiring a sum +of money quickly. No one could say this for a certainty. + +But in a story where we have witnessed so many good turns may we +not dismiss poor Deadwood Gamely and his tragic end from our thoughts +with the hope, nay, even the confidence, that his second crime was not +a deed of willing choice? There was more money misappropriated by Tom, +Dick and Harry, before the new steel bridge was up than ever poor +Deadwood Gamely, with his silly clothes and hat, would have dared +to steal. And so the tax rate went up and Commissioner +Somebody--or--other got a new automobile and County Engineer Grabson +built a big house and so on, and so on, and so on. + +But before the new million-dollar bridge was finished the Pepsy +Roadside Rest was flourishing as the only real "monolopy" in Everdoze. + + + CHAPTER XXXV + + EXIT + +So it befell that the big black wagon belonging to the brick +orphan home came and turned around and went back again. It got in +the way of all the automobiles that were headed for The Home of Fresh +Doughnuts (a new sign) and was a nuisance generally. The men who drove +it didn't buy so much as a gumdrop. + +But what cared the partners? For such a business were they doing +as would make the Standard Oil Company turn green with envy. Their +financial rating was so high that you couldn't see it without a +telescope. Every time there was a strike over at the new bridge the +partners reaped a profit from the delay. Thus labor unconsciously put +business in the way of monopolies. + +And so the great enterprise prospered. The advertising department +had now two steady employees--Licorice Stick and Wiggle. Licorice Stick +covered the road up as far as Berryville with a huge placard hung from +his neck. Wiggle proudly flew an inflated balloon from his tail bearing +the appropriate reminder HOT DOGS AT THE PEPSY REST. + +One evening, oh, it must have been about six o'clock, the weary +partners were closing up their little shack for the night. Pepsy was +counting the money and Pee-Wee was eating the cookies that were left +over. For he was conscientious and must open shop with a fresh supply +each day. Sometimes he would have a dozen or more to eat, but he did +it bravely--from a sense of duty. A scout is dutiful. + +Presently there hove in sight a large figure, walking. + +"Oh, it's Mr. Jensen," said Pepsy; "hurry up and finish the +cookies or he'll want them; he always does that." + +Mr. Jensen came up mopping his forehead. + +"Any lemonade left?" he asked. + +"There's about one glass," Pee-Wee said. + +In accordance with his invariable daily custom, Mr. Jensen bought +up the remainder of stock, drank several glasses of cider, and chatted +with the partners. + +"Ain't heard of any rivals, have you?" he asked. "We've got the whole +detour eating out of our hands," said Pee-Wee, which was literally true. + +"Makin' money fast, huh? You takin' good care of this little gal +of mine?" + +Pepsy smiled at him and he put his arm around her and kissed her +and said, "If he don't take good care of you, you just come and let +me know ." + +Then he winked at Pee-Wee. + +When he was gone something reminded Pee-Wee to look into the big +lemonade cooler and make sure that it was empty. It was not quite +empty, there being about ten lemon pits, a slice of rind, and a small +piece of ice left in the bottom of it. But this was worth going after +and Pee-Wee went after it. With all his strength he raised the goodly +cooler to a position above his head and tilted it to his mouth. His +arms trembled under its weight, and his hands slipped upon its cold, +beady sides. The several drops of highly diluted lemonade trickled +down into his mouth but the flavory pits and rind remained at bay at +the bottom of the cooler. + +They would not roll but they might fall. Pee-Wee held the cooler +up to a perfectly perpendicular position above his upturned face. +Then, oh, horrors! The wet cooler slipped through his hands and the +curly head of Pee-Wee Harris disappeared within it. If the postman +who found him wrestling valiantly with a banana and clinging with +the other hand, could only have seen him in this new and terrible +predicament! + +And thus the curly head and terribly frowning countenance of +Scout Harris disappears out of our story into a new realm of joy. ... + + + + THE END + + + +Other books by Percy Keese Fitzhugh (7 Sep 1876 - 5 Jul 1950). Note +that characters from each series crossover to or are mentioned in the +others. + + 1 - Pee-Wee Harris - 1922 + 2 - Pee-Wee Harris On The Trail - 1922 + 3 - Pee-Wee Harris In Camp - 1922 + 4 - Pee-Wee Harris In Luck - 1922 + 5 - Pee-Wee Harris Adrift - 1922 + 6 - Pee-Wee Harris F.O.B. Bridgeboro - 1923 + 7 - Pee-Wee Harris: Fixer - 1924 + 8 - Pee-Wee Harris As Good As His Word - 1925 + 9 - Pee-Wee Harris: Mayor for a Day - 1926 +10 - Pee-Wee Harris and The Sunken Treasure - 1927 +11 - Pee-Wee Harris On The Briny Deep - 1928 +12 - Pee-Wee Harris In Darkest Africa - 1929 +13 - Pee-Wee Harris Turns Detective - 1930 + + 1 - Roy Blakeley - 1920 + 2 - Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp - 1920 + 3 - Roy Blakeley Pathfinder - 1920 + 4 - Roy Blakeley's Camp On Wheels - 1920 + 5 - Roy Blakeley's Silver Fox Patrol - 1920 + 6 - Roy Blakeley's Motor Caravan - 1921 + 7 - Roy Blakeley Lost Strayed or Stolen - 1921 + 8 - Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike - 1922 + 9 - Roy Blakeley at The Haunted Camp - 1922 +10 - Roy Blakeley's Funny-Bone Hike - 1923 +11 - Roy Blakeley's Tangled Trail - 1924 +12 - Roy Blakeley on the Mohawk Trail - 1925 +13 - Roy Blakeley's Elastic Hike - 1926 +14 - Roy Blakeley's Roundabout Hike - 1927 +15 - Roy Blakeley's Happy-Go-Lucky Hike - 1928 +16 - Roy Blakeley's Go-As-You Please Hike - 1929 + + 1 - Tom Slade - Boy Scout - 1915 + 2 - Tom Slade At Temple Camp - 1917 + 3 - Tom Slade On The River - 1917 + 4 - Tom Slade With The Colors - 1918 + 5 - Tom Slade On A Transport - 1918 + 6 - Tom Slade With The Boys Over There - 1918 + 7 - Tom Slade' Motor-cycle Dispatch Bearer - 1918 + 8 - Tom Slade With The Flying Corps - 1919 + 9 - Tom Slade at Black Lake - 1920 +10 - Tom Slade On Mystery Trail - 1921 +11 - Tom Slade's Double Dare - 1922 +12 - Tom Slade On Overlook Mountain - 1923 +13 - Tom Slade Picks a Winner - 1924 +14 - Tom Slade At Bear Mountain - 1925 +15 - Tom Slade: Forest Ranger - 1926 +16 - Tom Slade At Shadow Isle - 1928 +17 - Tom Slade In The North Woods - 1927 +18 - Tom Slade in the Haunted Cavern - 1929 +19 - Tom Slade Parachute Jumper - 1930 + + 1 - Westy Martin - 1924 + 2 - Westy Martin In The Yellowstone - 1924 + 3 - Westy Martin In The Rockies - 1925 + 4 - Westy Martin On The Santa Fe Trail - 1926 + 5 - Westy Martin On The Old Indian Trail - 1928 + 6 - Westy Martin In The Land Of The Purple Sage - 1929 + 7 - Westy Martin On The Mississippi - 1930 + 8 - Westy Martin In The Sierras - 1931 + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Pee-Wee Harris, +by Percy Keese Fitzhugh + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEE-WEE HARRIS *** + +This file should be named pewee10.txt or pewee10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, pewee11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, pewee10a.txt + +Produced by James Eager + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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