Pee-Wee Harris Part 7

No one was at the shack when they reached it for Pepsy was about her household duties, so she had no knowledge of this new recruit in their enterprise. Pee-wee's conscience was clear in this matter, however, for he had enlisted Licorice Stick as an employee, at the staggering salary of twenty-five cents a week; there was no thought of his being a partner. The willing a.s.sistance of his new friend would leave his own time free for more important duties, and the advertising work once done, Licorice Stick was to devote his time to catching fish for the "sto" and other incidental duties.

Pee-wee now arranged his advertising masterpieces in order for posting.

The imposing type on the cards impressed Licorice Stick deeply. He could not read two words but he seemed to sense the sensational announcements, and the arrow which Pee-wee had made on each card to indicate the direction of the shack was regarded by him as a sort of mystic symbol.

"This is the way you have to do," Pee-wee said; "now pay attention, because it pays to advertise. There are two cards for each sign, see?"

"Dey's nice black print," Licorice Stick said with reverent appreciation. "En dey's de magic sign, too."

"That tells them where the place is," Pee-wee said. "Now, you keep the cards just the way I give them to you and always tack them up with the arrow pointing this way see? Here's a hammer and here's some tacks. When you come to a nice big tree or a wooden fence or an old barn, you're supposed to tack them up; and be sure to do it the way I tell you. Now, suppose you're going to tack up the first card--the one on the top of the pile. You tack it up and right close under it you tack up the next one, and it will say:"

FRANKFURTERS SIZZLING HOT -->

"Mmm--mm!" exclaimed Licorice Stick, as if a hot frankfurter had actually been produced by this ingenious card trick.

"Then you go along a little way," said Pee-wee, "till you come to another good place, maybe a fence or something, and you tack up the next one and right underneath it you tack up the next one; always take the next one off the top of the pile, see."

ICE CREAM <-- cold="" and="" cooling="">

Pee-wee repeated, holding the next two cards up. This palate tickling sleight-of-hand seemed like a miracle to the smiling, astonished messenger. Pee-wee seemed a kind of magician summoning up luscious concoctions with a magic wand. The fifth and sixth cards were held together for a moment and lo, Licorice Stick listened to the mouth-watering announcement that peanut taffy was sweet and delicious.

No "sperrit" of Licorice Stick's acquaintance had ever cast a spell like this. They had called in weird voices but they had never contrived a menu before his very eyes.

He went forth armed with the hammer and tacks and a pile of mysterious cards, a little proud but trembling a little, too. There was something uncanny about this; he would see it through but it was a strange, dark business. He shuffled along the road, peering fearfully into the woods now and again when suddenly a terrible apparition appeared before him. He stood stark still, his eyes bulging out of his head, his hands shaking and cold with fear. ...

CHAPTER XIII

PEPSY'S SECRET

"Sally Knapp says we ought to have some barrels to put the money in,"

said Pepsy as they were decorating their little wayside booth on the day of the grand opening. "I don't care what she says."

She was feeling encouraged, and cheerful for indeed the little summer-house looked gay and attractive in its bunting drapery and flaunting pennants. Failure could not lurk in such festal array, the tin dishpan full of greasy doughnuts, the homemade rolls and fresh sausages (which were better than any common wayside frankfurters) would certainly lure the hungry thither. The world would seek these things out. And were not the people of the grand carnival at Berryville to pa.s.s here that very day, followed, no doubt, by gay pleasure seekers?

To be sure there were no auto accessories yet, for there was no capital, but there was lemonade and candy and cider and homemade ice cream and there was Scout Harris wearing a kitchen ap.r.o.n ten times too big for him, tied with a wonderful, spreading bow in back, and a paper hat spotlessly white.

The advertising department had not reported but no doubt the woods were calling to the wayfarers in glaring red and black, or would as soon as the wayfarers put in an appearance. Pepsy wore her Sunday gingham dress embellished with a sash of patriotic bunting.

"Don't you care what the girls say," Pee-wee advised her as he sat on the counter eating a piece of peanut taffy by way of testing the stock, so that he might the more honestly recommend it. "I wouldn't let any girls jolly me, I wouldn't. Lots of girls tried to jolly me but they never got away with it."

"Did that girl that was kept after school try to jolly you?" Pepsy asked.

"I wouldn't let any girls jolly me," Pee-wee said, ignoring the specific question and speaking with difficulty, because of the stickiness of the taffy. "They think they're smart, girls do; I don't mean you, but most of them. I know how to handle them all right. They try to make a fool of you and then just giggle, but the last laugh is the best, that's one sure thing."

"I told her she was a freshy," Pepsy said, "and that she wouldn't dare talk like that in front of you because you'd make a fool of her."

"I should worry about girls," Pee-wee said.

"I'm not worrying about our refreshment shack anyway," Pepsy said, "because now I know it will be lots and lots of a success. And maybe you can buy four or five tents and lots of other things. Every night in bed I keep saying:

It has to succeed, It has to succeed,

and I make believe the floor on the bridge says that instead. But sometimes it says I have to go back. When the wind blows this way I can hear it loud. I know a secret that I thought of all by myself; I thought about it when I was lying in bed listening. And I can make us get lots of money, I can make it, oh, lots and lots and lots of a success. So I don't care any more what people say. I told Aunt Jamsiah I knew a secret and I could make us get lots of money here and she said I should tell her and I wouldn't."

"Till you tell me?" Pee-wee asked.

"No, I wouldn't tell anybody."

"You ought to tell me because we're partners." "I wouldn't tell anybody," she said, shaking her head emphatically so that her red braids lashed about; "not even if you gave me--as much as a dollar. ..."

CHAPTER XIV

SUSPENSE

Soon the gorgeous chariot containing the carnival paraphernalia came lumbering along en route for Berryville. It was a vision of red and gold with wheels that looked like pinwheels in a fireworks display.

The one discordant note about it was the rather startling projection of the heads and legs of animals here and there as if the wagon were returning from a hunt in South Africa. But these were only the disconnected parts of a merry-go-round.

Upon the white and silver wind organ which arose out of this ghastly display sat a personage in cap and bells with face elaborately decorated in every color of the rainbow. He was distributing printed announcements to the gaping citizens of Everdoze. Not so much as a frankfurter or a gla.s.s of lemonade did the people of this motley caravan buy.

It was late in the afternoon and Pee-wee and Pepsy were feeling the tedium of waiting when suddenly the sound of merry laughter burst upon, their ears and somebody said, "Oh, I think it's perfectly adorable to be on the wrong road! I just adore being lost! And I never saw anything so perfectly excruciating in my life!"

"It's an auto full of girls," said Pee-wee, adjusting his paper hat upon his head; "they come from the city, I can tell; you leave them to me."

"I never saw anything so adorably funny in all my life," the partners now heard. "I just have a headache from laughing."

"I know that kind," said Pee-wee; "they've got the giggles. You leave them to me."

Pepsy was ready enough to defer to the master mind, the more so because this approach of their first probable customers gave her a kind of stage fright. She was seized with sudden terror and the dishpan full of doughnuts shook in her hands as she placed it in full view by Pee-wee's order.

The auto was evidently picking its way along the hubbly road in second gear. "We'll find a place where we can turn around somewhere," said a man's voice good humoredly.

"Not till we've gorged ourselves with food," the voice of a girl caroled forth.

Pee-wee gave his white paper cap a final adjustment, stood the pan of taffy enticingly in full view and waited as a pugilist waits, for the adversary's next move.

"I am going to have a saucerful of ground gla.s.s, the latest breakfast food," a female voice sang merrily. At which there was a chorus of laughter.

"What did she say?" Pepsy asked.

"Girls are crazy," Pee-wee said.

Pepsy fumbled nervously with the Several gla.s.ses of lemonade which stood temptingly ready on the counter and glanced fearfully but admiringly at the genius of this magnificent enterprise.

It was the biggest moment in her poor little life and Pee-wee was a conquering hero. She placed the fudge within his reach and waited in terrible suspense to see him operate upon this giggling band of lost pilgrims.