The physical exhaustion which follows nervous strain was upon her now and her little feet lagged in their soaking shoes and once or twice she stumbled with fatigue.

For what burden is heavier than a heavy heart? The soothing voices of insect life which soften the darkness and cheer the wayfarer in the countryside seemed only to mock her with their myriad care-free songs.

And to make matters worse there suddenly rang in her ears from far over to the west the loud clatter of those loose planks on the old bridge along the highway, as a car sped over it:

"You have to go back, You have to go back."

Then the noise ceased suddenly, and there was no sound but the calling of a screech-owl somewhere in the intervening woods.

Pepsy sat down on a rock by the roadside partly to rest and partly because she did not want to go home. She knew, or she ought to have known, that Aunt Jamsiah was pretty sure to be lenient about a harmless transgression with so generous a motive. But the warning voice from that unseen bridge disconcerted her. It was not long after she was seated that her head hung down and soon the gentle comforter of sleep came to her and she lay there, pillowing her head on her little thin arm.

But the comforter did not stay long, for Pepsy dreamed a dream. She dreamed that all the people of the village, Simeon Drowser, Nathaniel Knapp, Darius Dragg, the sneering Deadwood Gamely, and even the faithless Arabella Bellison, the school teacher, were pointing fingers a yard long, at her and saying, "You have to go back to the big brick building. You have to go back, you have to go back." On the big doughnut jar in the "refreshment parlor" sat Licorice Stick saying, "You have to go back the next time it thunders." She shook her fist at Licorice Stick and called him a Smarty and said she would not go back, but they all laughed and sang:

"You have to go back, You have to go back."

Miss Bellison was the worst of all. ...

"You have to go back, You have to------"

With a sudden start Pepsy sat up on the rock, wide awake,

"-----go back, You have to go back.",

She still heard.

Her forehead throbbed and her face felt very hot. There was a ringing in her ears. She was feverish, but she did not know that. All she knew was that everybody was against her and that the bridge had put them up to it. She was dizzy and had to put her hand on the rock to steady herself.

The lantern light was extinguished but she did not remember the lantern, or Wiggle. She felt very strange and wanted a drink of water. Her hand trembled and her little arm with which she braced herself against the rock, felt weak. And her head throbbed, throbbed. ...

Where were all those people? She felt around for them. Then she heard the voice again, far off through the woods, up along that highway. It was just an innocent automobile,

"You have to go back."

Pepsy rose to her feet with a start, reeled, reached for a tree, and clutched it. "I'll stop it, I'll--I'll make it--it stop--I'll tear it--I'll pull them off," she said. "I--I won't--go back--I won't, I won't, I won't!"

Staggering across the road she entered the woods. Each tree there seemed like two trees. She groped her way among them, dizzy, almost falling.

Sometimes the woods seemed to be moving. Perhaps it was by the merest chance that she stumbled into the trail which led through the woods to the highway, ending close to the old bridge.

But once in the familiar path she ran in a kind of frenzy. No doubt the fever gave her a kind of temporary, artificial strength, as indeed it gave her the crazy resolve somehow to still that haunting voice forever.

Crazed and reeling she stumbled and ran along, pausing now and again to press her throbbing head, then running on again like one possessed.

At last she came out of the woods suddenly on to the broad, smooth highway. There was the bridge, silent and--no, not dark. For there was a bright spot somewhere underneath it and gray smoke wriggling up through those cracks between the planks. And there, yes, there, crawling away in the darkness was a black figure. A silent, stealthy figure, stealing away.

To the dazed, feverish girl, the figure seemed to have two pairs of arms. She tried to call but could not. Her scream of delirious fright died away into a murmur as she staggered and fell p.r.o.ne upon the ground and knew no more.

But never again--never, never would those cruel planks taunt her with their heartless prediction. Never would they frighten the poor, sensitive, fearful little red-headed orphan girl any more.

CHAPTER XXVIII

STOCK ON HAND

It was Joey Burnside, the burliest and heartiest of the volunteer firemen, who carried Pepsy back through the woods to the farm while still the conflagration was at its height.

There was not timber enough left from the old bridge to kindle a scout camp-fire. A few charred remnants had gone floating down the stream and these fugitive remnants drifting into tiny coves and lodging in the river's bends were shown by the riverside dwellers as memorials of the event which had stirred the countryside more than any other item, of neighborhood history. Under the gaping s.p.a.ce of disconnected road the stream flowed placidly, uninterrupted by all the recent hubbub above it.

The straight highway looked strange without the bridge.

Pepsy had a fever all that night, but toward morning she fell asleep, and Aunt Jamsiah, who had watched her through the night, tiptoed into the little room under the eaves and out again to tell Pee-wee that he had better wait, that all Pepsy needed now was rest.

"Can't I just look at her?" Pee-wee asked. So he was allowed to stand in the doorway and see his partner as she lay there sleeping the good sleep of utter exhaustion.

"When she wakes up," Aunt Jamsiah said pleasantly.

Pee-wee knew the circ.u.mstances of her being found at the burning bridge and brought home, but he asked no questions and Aunt Jamsiah said nothing of the events of that momentous night. It seemed to be generally understood that this matter was in Aunt Jamsiah's hands for thorough consideration later.

Meanwhile Pee-wee went across the lawn and down the road to the scene of their hapless enterprise. The roadside rest could boast now of but two jars, one of peppermint sticks and one of gumdrops (both in rapid process of consumption) and a number of spools of tire tape. But the absence of doughnuts and sausages and lemonade, this was nothing. It was the absence of Pepsy that counted.

Pee-wee took his customary eye-opener, consisting of a gumdrop. He had to shake the jar to get a red one, that being the kind he preferred.

Then he drew his legs up on the counter and proceeded to work upon the willow whistle he was making.

His handiwork soon reached that stage of manufacture where it was necessary to soak the willow bark in water, so as to cause it to swell.

He thereupon distributed the remaining gumdrops impartially between his mouth and his trousers pocket and filled the empty jar with water, dropping his handiwork into it. Thus by gradual stages and without any sensational "closing out sales" the refreshment business was steadily going into a state of liquidation, even the lemon sticks being reduced to a liquid. There was no stock on hand now but two peppermint sticks and some tire tape.

Suddenly a most astonishing thing happened. The sound of an automobile horn was heard in the distance. A deep, melodious, dignified horn.

Not since the pa.s.sing of the six merry maidens had such welcome music sounded in Pee-wee's enraptured ears.

The signs had all been made fight, the ice cream had been made cold, the sausages hot, and the ground gla.s.s had been put where it belonged. No longer did "our taffy stick like glue." Indeed, there was no taffy of any kind on hand, notwithstanding these blatant announcements.

Along came the automobile, an eight-cylinder Super Junkster. And, yes, it was followed by another, and still another. Pee-wee could see the imposing procession as far down as the bend.

"Some detour," a good-natured voice said.

"Detour? Detour?" Pee-wee whispered in sudden and terrible excitement.

Then, as the full purport of the staggering truth burst upon him he issued forth from the roadside rest and contemplated the approaching pageant with joy bubbling up like soda water in his heart.

"Never mind," said another voice, "we can get some eats in this jungle, thank goodness. What I won't do to a couple of hot frankfurters."

A sudden chill cooled the fresh enthusiasm of Scout Harris.

"I'll buy every blamed doughnut they've got in the place," somebody shouted. "We won't leave a thing for the rest of the cars that have to plow through this jungle. I suppose this is what motorists will be up against for six months. What do you know about that? This eats merchant ought to clear a couple of million. I'll d.i.c.ker with him for everything hot that he's got, I'm starving."

"Same here!" another shouted.

Frantically, like a soldier waving his country's emblem in the last desperate moment of forlorn hope Scout Harris clambered over the counter and grasped the jar containing two peppermint sticks.

"Peppermint sticks! Peppermint sticks!" he shouted at the advancing column. "Get your peppermint sticks! They quench thirst and--and--and satisfy your hunger! They're filling! They warm you up! Peppermint is hot! Oh, get your peppermint sticks here!"

CHAPTER XXIX