Pee-Wee Harris Part 12

"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 cla.s.s (if ever there was one) and mascot of the Raven Patrol. He had indeed heard his father speak of "cuffing a sa.s.sy little city urchin on the ear," but how should he know that this same sa.s.sy 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 b.a.l.l.s 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 appet.i.te, 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, finis.h.i.+ng the lemon stick by a terrible sudden a.s.sault 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 inst.i.tution 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 princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.sociation 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.