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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 sa.s.sed 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 embarra.s.sing 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 sa.s.s 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 b.u.t.ton 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 st.u.r.dy 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 a.s.surance 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--"

"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.