“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.”
CHAPTER VI
THE WAY OF THE SCOUT
Pepsy’s right name was Penelope Pepperall and Aunt Jamsiah had taken her out of the County Home after the fire episode, by way of saving her from the worse influence of a reformatory. She and Uncle Ebenezer had agreed to be responsible for the girl, and Pepsy had spent a year of joyous freedom at the farm marred only by the threat hanging over her that she would be restored to the authorities upon the least suspicion of misconduct.