Books: Pee Wee Harris
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Percy Keese Fitzhugh >> Pee Wee Harris
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"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."
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