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 pass 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 apron 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.”
“Will 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....”