Pee-Wee Harris Part 13

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 gla.s.s 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 b.u.t.ter rea.s.sured her. It seemed companionable, in the strange darkness and awful stillness, this smell of fresh b.u.t.ter. 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 k.n.o.b 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.

But as she rose in panic terror from her stooping posture, the lantern pulled upward against the faucet, toppling the big can off its skids.

There was no plug in the can and the kerosene flowed out upon the terror-stricken child, wetting her shoes and stockings, and made a great puddle on the stone floor. She stood in the darkness, seeing none of this, which made the catastrophe the more terrible.

And then, as she stood in terror, wet and bewildered, waiting for whatever terrible sequel might come, she felt again that something soft and wet and silent on her hand. She moved her hand a little and felt of something soft. Soft in a different way. Soft but not wet.

"Wiggle," she sobbed in a whisper; "why--why--didn't you--you--tell me it was you--Wiggle?"

But he only licked her hand again as if to say, "If there is anything on for to-night, I'm with you. Cheer up. Adventures are my middle name".

CHAPTER XXVI

PEPSY'S INVESTMENT

For a few seconds Pepsy stood in suspense amid the spreading, dripping havoc she had caused, listening for some sound above. But the seconds piled up into a full minute and no approaching step was heard. The danger seemed over.

But the very air was redolent of kerosene; she stood in a puddle of it, and one of her stockings and both of her plain little b.u.t.toned shoes were thoroughly wet. When she moved her toes she could feel the soppy liquid. Oh, for a light! It would lessen her terror if she could just see what had happened and how she looked.

She groped her way to the small oblong of lesser darkness which indicated the open bulk-head doors, and felt better when she was in the free open darkness of outdoors. Wiggle, seeming to know that something unusual was happening, kept close to her heels.

She reentered the kitchen, where those accusing, ghostly, red slits of eyes in the stove seemed to watch her. She fumbled nervously on the shelf above the stove and got some matches, spilling a number of them on the floor. She could not pause to gather them up while those red eyes stared. She had planned her poor little enterprise with a view to secrecy, but in the emergency and with the minutes pa.s.sing, she did not now pause to think or consider. Near the flour barrel hung several goodly pudding bags, luscious reminders of Thanksgiving. Aunt Jamsiah had promised to make a plum-pudding for Pee-wee in the largest one of these and he had spent some time in measuring them and computing their capacity, with the purpose of selecting the most capacious. Pepsy now hurriedly took all of these and a kitchen ap.r.o.n along with them, and descended again into the cellar.

By the dim lantern light she lifted the fallen tank and replaced it on its skids. Then she wiped up the floor as best she could with the makeshift mop which had been intended to serve a better purpose. She wiped off her soggy shoes and tried to clean that clinging oiliness from her hands. It seemed to her as if the whole world were nothing but kerosene.

She did not know what to do with the drenched rags, so she took them with her when she started again for the dark road, this time with her two cheery companions, the lantern and Wiggle. She soon found the dripping rags a burden and cast them from her as she pa.s.sed the well.

Wiggle turned back and inspected the smelly, soggy ma.s.s, found that he did not like it, took a hasty drink from the puddle under the well spout, and rejoined his companion.

It must have been close to ten o'clock when Mr. Ira Jensen, enjoying a last smoke on his porch before retiring, saw the lantern light swinging up his roadway. The next thing that he was aware of was the pungent odor of kerosene borne upon the freshening night breeze. And then the little delegation stood revealed before him, Wiggle, wagging his tail, the lantern sputtering, and Pepsy's head jerking nervously as if she were trying to shake out what she had to say.

It took Pepsy a few moments to key herself up to the speaking point.

Then she spoke tremulously but with a kind of jerky readiness suggesting many lonely rehearsals.

"Mr. Jensen," she said, "I have to do a good turn and so I came to ask you if you'll help me and the reason I smell like kerosene is because I tipped over the kerosene can." This last was not in her studied part, but she threw it in answer to an audible sniff from Mr. Jensen.

"You said when I came here and stayed nights when Mrs. Jensen was sick with the flu and everybody else was sick and you couldn't get anybody to do--to nurse her--you remember?" She did not give him time to answer for she knew that if she paused she could not go on. Her momentum kept her going. "You said then--just before I went home--you'd--you said I was--you said you'd do me a good turn some day, because I helped you.

So now a boy that's staying with us--we have a refreshment parlor and n.o.body comes to buy anything--and he wants to buy some tents and we have to make a lot of money so will you please have them have the County Fair in Berryville this year so lots of people will go past our summerhouse?

"We have lemonade and he calls to the people and tells them, only there ain't any people. But lots and lots and lots of people come to the County Fair from all over, don't they? So now I'd like it for you to do me that good turn if you want to pay me back."

Thus Pepsy, standing tremulously but still boldly, her thin little hand clutching the lantern, played her one card for the sake of Pee-wee Harris, Scout. Standing there in her oil soaked gingham dress, she made demand upon this staunch bank of known probity, for princ.i.p.al and interest in the matter of the one great good turn she had one before she had ever known of Scout Harris. It never occurred to her as she looked with frank expectancy at Mr. Jensen that her naive request was quite preposterous.

To his credit be it said, Mr. Jensen did not deny her too abruptly.

Instead he spread his knees and arms and, smiling genially, beckoned her to him.

"I can't, I'm all kerosene," she said.

"Never you mind," he said. "You come and stand right here while I tell you how it is." So she set down the lantern and stepped forward and stood between his knees and then he lifted her into his lap. "Well, well, well, you're quite a girl; you're quite a little girl, ain't you, huh? So you came all the way in the dark to ask me that! Here, you sit right where you are and never you mind about kerosene; if you ain't scared of the dark I reckon I ain't scared of kerosene. Now, I want you should listen 'cause I'm going to tell you jes' how it is n' then you'll understand. Because I call you a little kind of a--a herro--ine, that's what I call you."

He wasn't half wrong about that, either. ...

CHAPTER XXVII

SEEN IN THE DARK

So then he told her how it was about the County Fair, which shortly would open. He told her very gently and kindly how Northvale had been chosen, because it was the county seat and how he was powerless to change the plans.

He looked around into her sober face, and sometimes lifted it to his, and at almost every hope-blighting sentence, asked her if she did not understand. He told her all about how county fairs are big things, planned by many men, months and months in advance. And at each pause and each gently asked question she nodded silently, as if it was all quite clear and plausible, but her heart was breaking.

"But I'm not going to forget that good turn I owe you, no, siree," he added finally as he set her down on the porch, much to Wiggle's relief.

"And I'm coming down the road to pay you a visit n' look over that refreshment store of yours n' see if I can't make some suggestions maybe. Now, what do you say to that?"

Pepsy nodded soberly, her thoughts far away.

"You'll see me along there," Mr. Jensen added cheerily, as he patted her little shoulder, "n' I give you fair warning I'm the champion doughnut eater of Borden County."

She smiled, still wistfully, and gulped, oh ever so little.

"That's what I am," he added with another genial pat. "So now you cheer up and run back home and go to bed n' don't you lie awake crying. You tell that little scout feller I'm coming to make you a visit n' that, I usually drink nine gla.s.ses of lemonade. Now you run along and get to bed quick."

"Thanks," she said, her voice trembling.

So Pepsy took her way silently along the dark road. Her bank had failed, she could do nothing more. This was a strange sequel to follow Pee-wee's glowing representations about good turns. She did not understand it. And now that she had failed, the catastrophe in the cellar loomed larger, and she saw her nocturnal truancy as a serious thing. What would Aunt Jamsiah think of this? Pepsy had been forbidden to go away from the farm at night, except to weekly prayer meeting.

The crickets sang cheerily as she returned along the dark road, a disconsolate little figure, swinging her lantern. She was weary--weary from exertion and disappointment and foreboding. Her good scout enterprise was suddenly changed into an act of sneaking disobedience.