A REVELATION
“What are you laughing at?” Pee-wee demanded to know, as soon as he had
regained his poise and dignity. “You’re as bad as they are.”
“I couldn’t _help_ laughing,” Pepsy said remorsefully, “’specially when
you fell down. You said you were going to handle them.”
“That could happen to the smartest man,” Pee-wee said in scornful
reproval; “that could happen to—to—to Julius Caesar.”
“He’s dead, you ask Miss Bellison,” said Pepsy timidly.
“That shows how much you know,” said Pee-wee scornfully as he brushed
off his clothing. “Can’t something be a kind of a thing that could
happen to somebody who’s dead if he was very smart, only if he wasn’t
dead? We got a dollar and ten cents from them, didn’t we?”
“Yes, but—did you—did you—handle them?” Pepsy asked fearfully.
“There are different ways of handling people,” Pee-wee said; “you can’t
handle people that are crazy, can you? I can handle scoutmasters even.”
Pepsy was willing to believe anything of her hero and she said, “They
were a lot of freshies and I hate them anyway.”
Pee-wee did not trouble himself about what the man had said. His chief
interest was the dollar and ten cents of working capital which they now
had and how to invest it. In his enthusiasm he had been rather premature
in his advertisement of auto accessories and he now purposed to make
good at least one of these announcements by commissioning Simeon Drowser
to buy some ten-cent rolls of tire tape for him at Baxter City, whither
Simeon went daily.
He started along the road to the post office where he hoped to catch
Simeon before that worthy left for Baxter City. But he did not reach the
post office. The first interruption to his progress was one of his own
two-card signs staring him in the face from a roadside tree
CHEWING GUM
FOR PUNCTURES
He paused scowling before this novel announcement.
His gaze then wandered to a fence on which he read the astounding words:
PANCAKES FOR
HEADLIGHTS
Alas, the ground glass which should have appeared in place of pancakes
did duty beneath the single word _EAT_ on another tree nearby. _Eat
GROUND GLASS_ the hungry motorist was blithely advised.
Nor was this the worst. As Pee-wee penetrated deeper into the woods the
more terrible was the masquerade of his own enticing signs. His
stenciled cards, deserting their lawful mates, had struck up ghastly
unions with other cards proclaiming frightful items of refreshment to
the appalled wayfarer who was reminded of _NON-SKID BANANAS_ and advised
that _OUR PEANUT TAFFY STICKS LIKE GLUE_. The faithless _TIRE TAPE_
which should have surmounted the _STICK LIKE GLUE_ card was nestling
under the fatal _EAT_, while _FRANKFURTERS COLD AND COOLING_ and _ICE
CREAM SIZZLING HOT_ met Pee-wee’s astonished gaze. He stood looking at
this awful sequel of his handiwork.
Most of the cards were besmeared with mud and one or two in such a
freakish way as to give a curious turn to their meaning. On one card a
mischievous little rivulet of mud or wetted ink had ingeniously changed
a T into a crude R and the travelers read _RUBES SOLD HERE_.
Pee-wee contemplated this exhibition with dismay. Wherever he looked, on
fence or tree, some ridiculous sign stared him in the face. He did not
continue on to the post office but retraced his steps to the refreshment
parlor which was the subject of these printed slanders.
He and Pepsy were discussing this miscarriage of their exploitation
design when a shuffling sound in the distance proclaimed the shambling
approach of the advertising department. And if Pee-wee had not made good
his flaunting boast to handle the six merry maidens he at least made
amends and regained somewhat of his heroic tradition in his handling of
Licorice Stick.
“What did I tell you to do?” he shouted, his face red with terrible
wrath. “What did I tell you to do? Do you know the way you put those
cards up? You made fools of us, that’s what you did!”
“I done gone make no fools ob you, nohow,” Licorice Stick exclaimed. “I
see a sperrit ’n I shakes like dat, I do. As shu I’m stan’ here I see a
sperrit in dem woods.”
From a vivid and terrifying narrative the partners made out that while
Licorice Stick was on his way to embellish the wayside in strict
accordance with instructions, he had encountered a spirit from the other
world in the form of the carnival clown whom we have seen pass our
wayside rest.
The ghostly raiment of this lowly humorist and the motley decoration of
his face had so frightened Licorice Stick that he had dropped his cards
and retreated frantically into the woods. When the awful apparition had
passed he had stealthily shuffled back to the spot and with many furtive
glances about him had gathered up the cards with trembling hands, and
proceeded to post them in pairs without regard to their proper order.
After this triumphant exploitation feat (which ought to commend him to
every lying advertiser in the world) Licorice Stick had shuffled into a
new path of glory, going to the carnival, where (not finding the sperrit
in evidence) he had accepted a position to stand behind a piece of
canvas with his head in an opening and allow people to throw baseballs
at him.
On hearing this Pee-wee desisted from any further criticism. For, as he
told Pepsy, “a scout has to be kind and forgiving, and besides when I go
to the carnival I can plug him in the face with a baseball two or three
times and then we’ll be square.”