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