Books: Pee Wee Harris
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Percy Keese Fitzhugh >> Pee Wee Harris
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"What do I care about it?" Pee-Wee vociferated. "I know a way to
get two hundred and fifty dollars and that's more money than we'd
ever make in this old place. And I'll have you for my partner just
the same. I'm going to get two hundred and fifty dollars all at once."
"Can I see it when you get it?" Pepsy asked.
"You can have half of it because we're partners," Pee-Wee said,
recovering something of his former spirits as this new prospect
opened before him.
"Can't we have the refreshment parlor any more?" Pepsy asked
wistfully. "Because, honest and true, we're going to make lots
and lots of money in it; I know a way--"
"Listen, Pepsy," Pee-Wee said. "Do you know what the Morse Code
is? It's the language they use when they telegraph. Scouts have to
know all about that. Do you remember when I said hide Kelly's barn
last night? That's what that first feller said to the other one who
was stuck. Didn't you notice how his little red light kept flashing
away up the road? That's what it meant. They're hiding in Kelly's
barn and nobody knows it.
"There's a sign in the post office and it says they'll give two
hundred and fifty dollars to anybody who tells where they are. Do
you think I'd tell Beriah Bungel?" he added contemptuously. "I'm
going to tell a man named Sawyer, he's the county prosecutor, he
lives in Baxter City. Only we have to go right away. I'm going back
with the mail car to Baxter. Do you want to go? If you do you have
to hurry up."
The last time that Pepsy had appeared before an official--of--the--law
she had been sent to the big brick building and she was naturally wary
of prosecutors, judges and such people. Suppose Mr. Sawyer should order
herself and Pee-Wee to the gallows for meddling in these dark,
mysterious matters. Pee-Wee read this in her face.
"Don't be scared," he said manfully; "I wouldn't let anybody hurt
you. My father knows a man that's a judge and he tells jokes and has
two helpings of dessert and everything just like other people.
Prosecutors aren't so bad, gee whiz, they're better than poison-ivy;
they're better than school principals anyway, that's sure. You see,
I'll handle him all right."
Pepsy's thoughts wandered to the six merry maidens whom Pee-Wee
had "handled" with such astounding skill. "Can't we have our
refreshment parlor any more?" she asked, with a note of homesickness
for the little place they had decorated with such high hope. "If
you'll wait, if you'll wait as much as--two weeks--lots and lots and
lots and lots of people will come--"
But Pee-Wee was not to be deterred by sentiment and false hope.
"Don't you want us to have two hundred and fifty dollars?" he asked
scornfully. "Don't you want us to buy those tents?" This was too much
for Pepsy. She grasped Pee-Wee's hand, following him reluctantly, as
she gave a wistful look back at their little wayside shelter. The
"stock" had not been set out for the day and the bare counter made
the place look forlorn and deserted as they went away.
"It's a blamed sight easier than running a refreshment parlor,"
Pee-Wee said; "it's just like picking the money up in the street.
All we have to do is to go to Mr. Sawyer's office and tell him and--"
"You have to go in first," said Pepsy.
Pee-Wee's enthusiasm was contagious and Pepsy was soon keyed up
to the new enterprise, even to the point of facing Mr. Sawyer. She
had cautiously resolved, however, to remain close to the door of his
office, so that she might effect a precipitate retreat at the first
mention of an orphan asylum.
Whatever Pee-Wee did must be right and she saw now that two
hundred and fifty dollars won in the twinkling of an eye was better
than life spent in the retail trade. Yet she could not help thinking
wistfully and fondly of their little enterprise and its cosy
headquarters.
They sat on a rock by the roadside waiting for the mailman's auto
to come along. Once in that Pepsy felt that her fate would be sealed.
She had never been away from Everdoze since she had first been taken
there. Baxter City was a vast place which she had seen in her dreams,
a place where people were arrested and run over and where the
constables were dressed up like soldiers. She clung tight to
Pee-Wee's hand.
"I hate him, too," she said, referring to Beriah Bungel, "and it
will serve him right if Whitie dies and I just hope he does, because
his father hit you."
"Who's Whitie?" Pee-Wee asked.
"He's Mr. Bungel's little boy and he's all white because he's sick,
and they can't take him to a great big place in the city so they can
make him all well again and it just serves him right and I'm glad they
haven't got any money. Everybody says he's going to die and Licorice
Stick knows he's going to die in a rainstorm on a Friday, that's what
he said."
This information about a little boy who was so pale that they
called him Whitie, and who was going to die in a rainstorm on a
Friday was all new to Pee-Wee.
"Licorice Stick is crazy," he said. "What does he know about
dying? He never died, did he?" This brilliant argument appeared
to impress Pepsy.
"If they took him to a hospital in New York then he wouldn't have
to die because they could fix him," Pepsy said. "I heard Aunt Jamsiah
say so. There are doctors there that can' fix people all well again."
"I bet I'm as good a fixer as they are," Pee-Wee said; "I fixed
lots of people; I fixed a whole patrol once."
"So they wouldn't die?"
"They thought they were smart but I fixed them."
"Fixing smarties is different," said Pepsy. "If people have
something the matter with their hips you can't fix them. Because,
anyway, if they're going to die on a Friday even snail water won't
fix them."
"Snail water, what's that?"
"It's medicine made from snails; Licorice Stick knows how to
make it. You have to stir it with a willow stick and then you get
well quick."
"How can you get well quick when snails are slow?" Pee-Wee asked.
"That shows that Licorice Stick is crazy. It would be better to make
it with lightning-bugs."
"Lightning-bugs mean there are ghosts around," said Pepsy, "the
lightning-bugs are their eyes. But anyway, just the same, nobody can
fix Whitie Bungel, because the doctor from Baxter said so, and he
knows because he's got an automobile."
"Automobiles don't prove you know a lot," said Pee-Wee.
"Just the same Whitie is going to die," said Pepsy, "and then
you'll see, because when my mother didn't have any money she died,
so there." Pee-Wee did not answer; he appeared to be thinking. And
so the minutes passed as they sat there on the rock by the roadside,
waiting for the mailman's auto to take them to Baxter City.
"Do you say I can't fix it?" he finally demanded. "Maybe you
think scouts can't fix things. They know first aid, scouts do. I can
fix that little feller; maybe you think I can't. You come with me,
I'll show you. Scouts--scouts can do things--they're better than snails
and lightning-bugs. I'll show you what they can do; you come with me."
"Ain't you going to wait for the mailman?"
"No, I'm not. You come with me."
This apparent desertion of another cherished enterprise all in the
one day, took poor Pepsy quite by storm. She did not understand the
workings of Pee-Wee's active and fickle mind. But she followed his
sturdy little form dutifully as he trudged up the road and into a
certain lane. On he went, like a redoubtable conqueror with Pepsy
after him. To her consternation he went straight up to the kitchen
door, yes, of Constable Beriah Bungel's humble abode! Pepsy stood
behind him in a kind of daze and heard his resounding knock as in
a dream. Then suddenly to her dismay and terror she saw Beriah Bungel
himself standing in the open doorway looking fiercely down at the
little khaki-clad scout.
"Mr. Bungel," she heard as she stood gaping and listening and
ready to run at the terrible official's first move, "Mr. Bungel,
if you want to know where those two fellers are that stole the
motorcycles, they're hiding in Kelly's barn and I guess they'll
stay there till dark. So if you want to go and get them you'll get
two hundred and fifty dollars as long as you don't say who told you
where they are."
Without another word he turned and trudged away along the path,
Pepsy following after him, to astonished to speak.
CHAPTER XXII
FATE IS JUST
On that very morning Constable Bungel performed the stupendous
feat which sent his name ringing through Borden County and
established him definitely as the Sherlock Holmes of Everdoze.
Followed by the local citizenry, who marveled at his deductive
skill, he advanced against Kelly's barn in the outskirts of
Berryville. Here, perceiving evidences of occupation, he demanded
admittance and on being ignored he forced an entrance and
courageously arrested two young fellows who were hiding there
waiting for the night to come.
It is painful to relate that in process of being captured one of
these youthful fugitives delivered a devastating blow upon the long
nose of the constable thereby unconsciously doing a good turn like a
true scout and repaying him in kind for his treatment of Pee-Wee
Thus it will be seen that fate is just for, as Pee-Wee explained to
Pepsy, "He got everything I wanted him to get, a punch in the nose
and two hundred and fifty dollars. And that shows how I got paid back
for doing a good turn, because if I hadn't given up that two hundred
and fifty dollars he wouldn't have got punched, so you see it pays to
be generous and kind like it says in the handbook."
The official pride of Beriah Bungel as he led his captives back
to Everdoze to await transportation to Baxter City was somewhat
chilled by the inglorious appearance of his face. There can be no
pomp and dignity in company with a wounded nose and Beriah Bungel's
nose was the largest thing about him except his official prowess.
"Don't tell anybody I told him," Pee-Wee whispered to Pepsy, "or
you'll spoil it all and they won't give him the money."
"Suppose he tells himself," Pepsy said.
But Officer Bungel did not tell of the keen eyes and scout skill
which had put him in the way of profit and glory. For he was like the
whole race of Beriah Bungels the world over, officious, ignorant,
contemptible, grafting, shaming human nature and making thieving
fugitives look manly by comparison.
Everdoze was greatly aroused by this epoch making incident.
Even a few stragglers from Berryville followed the crowd back
as far as Uncle Ebenezer's farm and Pee-Wee tried to tempt them
into the ways of the spendthrift with taffy and other delights
which cause the reckless to fall. But it was of no use.
"I bet if there was a murder we could sell a lot," he said.
"Motorcycle thief crowds aren't very big. If the town hall burned
down I bet we'd do a lot of business. I wish the school-house would
burn down, hey? Murders and fires, those, are the best, especially
murders, because lots of people come."
"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 class (if ever there
was one) and mascot of the Raven Patrol. He had indeed heard his
father speak of "cuffing a sassy little city urchin on the ear,"
but how should he know that this same sassy 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 balls 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
appetite, 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, finishing the
lemon stick by a terrible sudden assault 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 worship 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 institution 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
principal 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 Association 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.
He had found an old magic lantern in the attic and that was enough.
The only stock now on hand was what might be called the permanent
stock (if any stock could be called permanent where Pee-Wee was).
No longer did the fresh, greasy doughnut and the cooling lemonade
grace the forlorn little counter.
"No, I won't!" Pepsy said, tossing those red braids. "I won't eat
the things because we started here and I love them, so there!"
"If you love them I should think you'd want to eat them," said
Pee-Wee. "That shows how much you know about logic."
"I don't care, I'm just going to stay here and if you promise to
wait we'll get lots and lots of money," she said. "You promised me
you'd wait," she added wistfully, "you crossed your heart. Won't you
please wait till--till--five days--may-be? Won't you, please? Maybe that
will be a good turn, maybe?"
He did not refuse. Instead he helped himself to some gumdrops out
of a glass jar, and appeared to be content. But Pepsy knew better than
to trust the fickle heart of man and that night she played the poor
little card that she had been holding.
After Uncle Eb and Aunt Jamsiah had gone to bed and while the curly
head of Scout Harris was reposing in sweet oblivion upon his pillow,
Pepsy crept cautiously down the squeaky, boxed-in stairs and paused,
in suspense, in the kitchen. The ticking of the big clock there seemed
very loud, almost accusing, and Pepsy's heart seemed to keep time with
it as it thumped in her little breast. How different the familiar
kitchen seemed, deserted and in darkness! The two stove lids were
laid a little off their places to check the banked fire, leaving two
bright crescent lines like a pair of eyes staring up at her. This light,
reflected in one of the milk pails standing inverted on a high shelf,
made a sort of ghostly mirror in which Pepsy saw herself better than
in that crinkly, outlandish mirror in her little room.
For a moment she was afraid to move lest she make a noise, and so
she paused, almost terrified, looking at her own homely little face,
on the most fateful night of her life. Then she tiptoed out through
the pantry where the familiar smell of fresh butter reassured her. It
seemed companionable, in the strange darkness and awful stillness, this
smell of fresh butter. She crept across the side porch where the
churn stood like a ghost, a dish-towel on its tall handle and crossed
the weedy lawn, where the beehives seemed to be watching her, and
headed for the dark, open road. But here her courage failed. Some
thought of doing her errand in the morning occurred to her, but, she
could not go then without saying where and why she was going. And in
case of failure no one must ever know about this. ...
So she screwed up her courage and returned to the side porch to get
a lantern. She shook it and found it empty. There was nothing to do now
but brave the darkness or go down into the cellar and fill the lantern
from the big kerosene can. She paused in the darkness before those
sepulchral stone steps, then in a sudden impulse of determination
she tightened her little hand upon the lantern till her nails dug
into her palms and went down, down.
She groped her way to the kerosene can and finally came upon it and
felt its surface. Yes, it was the kerosene can. Her trembling little
hand fumbled for the tiny faucet. How queer it felt in the dark when
she could not see it! It seemed to have a little knob or something
on it. ...
Her hand was shaking but she held the little tank of the lantern under
the faucet and was about to turn the handle when something--something
soft and wet and silent--touched her other hand. She drew a quick
breath, her heart was in her mouth, her hands were icy cold. Still
she had presence of mind enough not to scream.
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