ENTER PEPSY
It will be seen by a glance at the accompanying sketch that the village
of Everdoze was about opposite the bridge on the highway. From this main
road the village could be reached by a trail through the woods. On
hearing of this, Charlie expressed regret that he had not allowed his
passenger to make the final stage of the journey on foot.
“Well, I _never_ in all my _life_!” said Aunt Jamsiah as Pee-wee stepped
out of the car. “In goodness’ name, where’s the rest of you? I thought
you were a great, tall, strapping boy. I hope your appetite’s bigger
than your body. And what on earth is that saucepan for? Are you going to
cook us all alive? Did you ever _see_ such a thing!” she added, speaking
to Uncle Ebenezer who had stepped forward to welcome his nephew.
“He’s all decked out like a carnival! He’s just too killing!” She then
proceeded to embrace him while his martial paraphernalia clanked and
rattled.
“We won’t need any more brass band,” said a young girl in a gingham
apron and with brick red hair in long tightly woven braids, who stood
close by; “he’s a _melodeon_. I don’t see what they sent such a big car
for with such a little boy. ’Taint no fit, it ain’t.”
Pee-wee gave this girl a withering look which she boldly returned,
continuing to stare at him. Her face was covered with freckles and she
was so unqualifiedly plain and homely in face and attire that she might
be said to have been attractive on the ground of novelty.
“Pepsy,” said Mrs. Quig, addressing her, “you shake hands with Walter
and tell him you and he are going to be good friends. You come right
here and do as I say now and no more of those looks.”
“I ain’t going to kiss him,” the girl said by way of compromising.
“You give him a welcome just like Wiggle is doing,” said Aunt Jamsiah,
“and be ashamed that you have to learn your manners from such as he. You
do as I say now.”
“You’re welcome—and I can beat you running,” the girl said.
“Girls are afraid of snakes,” Pee-wee retorted. Meanwhile the individual
who had been cited as a model of social correctness by Aunt Jamsiah
stood upon the doorstep looking eagerly up into Pee-wee’s face and
wagging his tail with vigorous and lightning rapidity. Wiggle’s tail was
easily the fastest thing in Everdoze. His head vibrated in unison with
it and his look of intentness carried with it all sorts of friendly
expectations. He fairly shook with excitement and cordiality. He
followed the sedan car a few yards upon its homeward journey and then,
by a sudden impulse, deserted it and returned to a position directly in
front of Pee-wee with wagging tail and questioning gaze. Pie seemed to
say, “I’m ready for anything, the sky is the limit.”
“You haven’t had a bite to eat since breakfast and you’re _starving_. I
can _tell_ it,” said Aunt Jamsiah. “You come right in the kitchen.”
“I had a lot of frankfurters and things at the places along the
highway,” Pee-wee said. “I had waffles at one place. I bet they make a
lot of money along that road selling things. There are shacks all the
way. All the autoists stop and buy things to eat. You can get tires and
everything.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to eat tires,” said Pepsy.
“You think you’re smart, don’t you?” Pee-wee said.
“What are your soldier clothes for?” the girl wanted to know.
“They’re not soldier clothes,” Pee-wee said; “I’m a scout.”
“I bet you don’t know as much as Miss Bellison does.”
“I bet I don’t either,” Pee-wee said, “so I win.”
“She’s the school teacher here and she knows everything.”
“Did she know I was coming?”
“No, she didn’t and—”
“Then she doesn’t know everything,” Pee-wee said.
“Smarty, smarty!” the girl retorted, “I came out of an orphan home and
that’s more than you can say.”
“You only get one helping of dessert there,” said Pee-wee. “I’d rather
be a scout than an orphan. I know a feller who was an orphan and he was
sorry for it afterwards.”
“Are you going to stay all summer?”
“Till school opens,” Pee-wee said.
“Do you want me to show you where there’s a woodchuck hole?”
At this point Pee-wee was summoned again to the kitchen where he ate a
sumptuous repast, after which Pepsy and Wiggle took him about and showed
him the farm.
Pee-wee and Pepsy fenced a good deal but seemed to progress in this
cautious and defensive way toward a friendly understanding. As for
Wiggle he danced about, following elusive scents that led nowhere,
carried off and back again by quick impulse, till at last the three
ended their tour of inspection at a little summer house which had been
built over a spring by the roadside. Here they drank of the bubbling,
crystal water, Wiggle doing this as everything else, with erratic
impulse, drinking a dozen times and not much at any time.
The dying sunlight painted the slopes of the valley with crimson tints
and the countryside was very still. Through the woods to the west could
be heard occasionally the discordant noise from the loose flooring of
the bridge on the highway as an auto sped over it. In the quiet evening
the sound, with its sudden start, its rattling clamor and its quick
cessation, made a jarring note in all the surrounding peacefulness.
“That’s what wakes me up in the morning, the mail wagon going over,”
Pepsy said; “I know it’s time to get up then. Those planks can talk,
they say the same thing every day.
You have to go back,
You have to go back,
You have to go back.
You listen to-morrow morning.”
“They could never wake _me_ up,” Pee-wee said, which was probably true.
“What do you mean about their saying you have to go back?”
“When Aunt Jamsiah took me, I was a probator. Do you know what that
means?”
“It’s what they do with people’s wills,” Pee-wee said.
“It means if I don’t behave I have to go back to the orphan home,” the
girl said. “And every day I was afraid I’d have to go back—for a long,
long time, I was. And when I was lying in bed mornings I’d hear the
planks saying that—
You have to go back,
You have to go back.
just like that, and I’d get good and scared.”
“You won’t have to go back,” said Pee-wee. “You leave it to me, I’ll fix
it. Those planks—I’ve known lots of planks—and they can’t tell the
truth. Don’t you care. I wouldn’t believe what an old plank said. Trees
are all right, but planks—”
“I don’t notice it so much now,” Pepsy said; “that was a year ago and
Aunt Jamsiah says I’m all right and mind good except I’m a tomboy. That
ain’t so bad, is it? Being a tomboy? A girl and me tried to set the
orphan home on fire because they licked us, but I’m good here. But I
wish they’d put a new floor on that bridge. Anyway, Aunt Jamsiah says
I’m good now.” Pee-wee was about to speak, but noticing that the girl’s
eyes were fixed upon a crimson patch on the hillside where the sun was
going down, and seeing that her eyes sparkled strangely (for indeed they
were not pretty eyes) he said nothing, like the bully little scout that
he was.
“Anyway, one thing, I wouldn’t let an old bridge get my goat, I
wouldn’t,” he said finally, “and besides, you said you would show me a
woodchuck hole.”