Pee-Wee Harris Part 6

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 a.s.surance 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 embarra.s.sed 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 antic.i.p.ated 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."