Pee-Wee Harris Part 4

"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 ch.o.r.e 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 ch.o.r.es 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 ch.o.r.es, 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 -->