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Pee Wee Harris

<h2> CHAPTER XXVI </h2> 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. ... <h2> CHAPTER XXVII </h2> 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. <h2> CHAPTER XXVIII </h2> 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!" <h2> CHAPTER XXIX </h2> 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! <h2> CHAPTER XXX </h2> 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. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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