"Do you think I don't know any long words?" he said. "I know some of thelongest words that were ever invented and--and--even I can make specialones myself. Once I--don't you cry--once I was kept in school and JuliaCarson was kept in too, because she wriggled in her seat--you know howgirls do. I had to choose a word and write it a hundred times and Ididn't want to get through too soon, because I wanted to get out thesame time she did. So I chose the word incomprehensibility, and I--"
"Is that girl pretty?" Pepsy wanted to know.
"She's got a wart on her finger. It's the best one I ever saw," Pee-weesaid. "She's afraid to get in a boat, that girl is."
"I hate her," Pepsy said.
"What for?" Pee-wee inquired. "Because she has a wart? Don't you knowit's good luck to have warts?"
"Because--because she was bad and had to stay after school," Pepsy said.
"That shows how much you know about logic," Pee-wee said, "because I hadto stay too and I was worse than she was. So there."
"I wouldn't be afraid to get in a boat," Pepsy said proudly.
"I never said she was like you," Pee-wee declared. "She's not a tomboy."
Pepsy seemed comforted.
"You leave that feller to me," Pee-wee said. "I can handle Roy Blakeleyand all his patrol and they're a lot of jolliers--they think they're sosmart."
"I like you better than all of them," Pepsy said. "Sometimes I'm keptafter school too, you can ask Miss Bellison."
"One thing sure, I like you well enough to be partners with you,"Pee-wee said. "Do you want me to tell you something? I thought of a wayto make a lot of money, and if I do I'm going to buy three new tents forour troop. Do you want to go partners with me? We'll say the tents arefrom both of us and we'll have a lot of fun."
"I had a dollar once and I sent it to the heathens," Pepsy said, "andI'd rather help you than the heathens, because I like you better."
"Heathens are all right," Pee-wee said, "and I'm not saying anythingagainst heathens, especially wild ones, but we're just as wild. Youought to go to Temple Camp and see how wild we are."
He did not look very wild as he sat upon the narrow seat with his kneesdrawn up and his scout hat on the back of his head showing his curlyhair.
The girl gazed at his natty khaki attire, the row of merit badges on hissleeve, the trophies of his heroic triumphs. She was not the first tofeel the lure of a uniform. But it was the first uniform she had everseen at close range, for in the wartime she had been in that frowningbrick structure which still haunted her.
"I'll help you because you can do everything and you know a lot," shesaid.
In the fullness of her generosity and loyalty to Pee-wee's prowess shenever reminded him or even thought of the things she could do which hecould not. She would not do her little optional chore of milking acow for fear he might perceive her superiority in this little item ofproficiency. Poor girl, she was a better scout than she knew.
"If you think it up I'll do all the work, and then we'll be even," shesaid.
So Pee-wee told her of the colossal scheme which his lively imaginationhad conceived.
"It all started with a hot frankfurter," he said. "If I hadn't boughta hot frankfurter I wouldn't have thought of it. So that shows you howimportant a frankfurter is--kind of. Maybe a person might get to be amillionaire just starting with a frankfurter, you never can tell. ..."
CHAPTER VIII
MAKING PLANS
"I bought that frankfurter at a shack up on the highway and while I waseating it I just happened to think that as long as there's lots of fruitand things here and as long as you know how to make fudge, we'd starta shack right here in this well house and sell lemonade and fruit andfudge and cookies and things, and if we make lots of money I'd go up toBaxter City and buy some auto accessories like spark plugs and tire tapeand things and we'd sell those, too. We'd put signs on the trees alongthe road telling people to stop here and I know how to make up signs soas to get people good and hungry. You have them say that things are hotin the pan and you have to have drinks with names like arctic and alllike that. I know how to make them hungry and thirsty and I've got aballoon that I can blow up--see? And we'd print something on it and tieit to Wiggle's tail and make him walk up and down the road. What do yousay? Isn't it a peachy scheme? Will you help me?"
No dream of Pee-wee's could be impossible of fulfillment. With him, totry was to succeed, according to Pepsy's simple and unbounded faith. Theplan must be all right, and wondrous in its possibilities. It was allinspiration--born of a frankfurter. It was not for poor Pepsy to takeissue with this master mind.
Yet she did venture to say, "Not very many autos come down here, only afew that go through to Berryville. Licorice Stick--"
"That's a dandy name," Pee-wee said.
"He goes by a dozen times a day, but he hasn't got any money, and Mr.Flint goes by but he's a miser and Doctor Killem goes by in his buggyand he says people eat too much--"
"He's crazy!" Pee-wee shouted.
"And that's everybody that goes by except a few when they have the townfair in Berryville."
For a moment Pee-wee paused, balked but not beaten. "There's going to bean Uncle Tom's Cabin show in Berryville," he said, "and the town fair,that's two things. Let's start in and maybe later there'll be somesummer boarders in Berryville. We'll have waffles--I can make those. Andwe'll have lemonade and fruit and all kinds of things and when you'redoing your chores I'll tend counter. We'll make a lot of money, you seeif we don't."
In her generous confidence, Pepsy was quite carried away by Pee-wee'senthusiasm. She knew (who better than she?) that strangers never camealong that lonely by-road. But she believed that somehow they would comewhen the scout waved his magic wand.
"And I'll make cookies," she said, "and all the things to eat and youcan print the signs--"
"And shout to the people going by," Pee-wee concluded enthusiastically."You have to yell ALL HOT! THEY'RE ALL HOT! Just like that."
Few could resist this, Pepsy least of all. "Let's go and ask AuntJamsiah about it right now," she said.
"Let me do it, I know how to handle her," said Pee-wee.
And Pepsy deferred to the master mind, as usual.
CHAPTER IX
IT PAYS TO ADVERTISE
Permission to use the well house once secured, preparations for the vastenterprise progressed rapidly. The very next day, while Pepsy was ather chores, Pee-wee built a counter in the shack and sitting at thishe printed signs to be displayed along the woody approaches to thismouth-watering dispensary.
Neither the gloomy predictions of his uncle nor the laughing skepticismof his aunt dimmed his enterprising ardor. The signs which he printedwith his uncle's crate stencil, procured from the barn, bespoke thevariety of tempting offerings which existed so far only in his fertilemind.
He was somewhat handicapped in the preparation of these signs by thelargeness of the perforated letters of the stencil and the limited sizeof the cards. He had preferred cards to paper because they would notblow and tear and Aunt Jamsiah had given him a pile of these, uniformin size, on one side of which had been printed election notices of theprevious year. It was impossible, therefore, for Pee-wee to include allof each tempting announcement on one card, so he used two cards for eachreminder to the public. Thus on one card he printed FRANKFURTERS andon its mate intended for posting just below, the palate-ticklingconclusion, SIZZLING HOT.
FRANKFURTERS SIZZLING HOT -->
This is how the sign would appear upon some fence or tree. It would be aknockout blow to any hungry wayfarer.
Another two--card sign, intended for warmer weather, read:
ICE CREAM
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