CHAPTER VII
A BIG IDEA
They had been driving the cows home during this learned exposition on scouting. Two things were now perfectly clear to Pepsy’s simple mind. One, that she would be loyal at any cost, loyal to her new friend, and through him to all the scouts. She knew them only through him. They were a race of wonder-workers away off in the surging metropolis of Bridgeboro. She could not aspire to be one of them, but she could be loyal, she could “stick up” for them.
The other matter which was now settled, once and for all, was that it was all right to throw a tomato at a person you hated provided only that you hit the mark. Aunt Jamsiah had been all wrong in her anger at that exploit which had stirred the village. For to throw a tomato at the son of Lawyer Gamely was aiming very high.
The son of Lawyer Gamely had a Ford and worked in the bank at Baxter City and was a mighty sport who wore white collars and red ties and said that “Everdoze was asleep and didn’t have brains enough to lie down,” and all such stuff.
Pee-wee let down the bars while the patient cows waited, and Scout Wiggle (knowing that a scout should be helpful) gave the last cow a snip on the leg to help her along.
Here, at these rustic bars, ended Pepsy’s chores for the day and in the delightful interval before supper she and Pee-wee lolled in the wellhouse by the roadside. Wiggle, with characteristic indecision, chased the cows a few yards, returned to his companions, darted off to chase the cows again, deserted that pastime with erratic suddenness, and returned again wagging his tail and looking up intently as if to ask, “What next?” Then he lay down panting. Mr. Ellsworth, Pee-wee’s scoutmaster, would have said that Wiggle lacked method....
“If I had a lot of money,” Pepsy said, “you could teach me all the things that scouts know and I’d pay you ever so much. Once I had forty cents but I spent it at the Mammoth Carnival. I paid ten cents to throw six balls so I could get a funny doll and I never hit the doll and when I only had ten cents left I made believe the doll was Deadwood Gamely and I hated and hated with all my might while I threw the ball the last six times but I couldn’t hit the doll.”
“You can’t aim so good when you’re mad,” Pee-wee said, “so if you want to hit somebody with a tomato or an egg or anything like that you must have kind thoughts about the person that you’re aiming at, only you’re not supposed to throw tomatoes and eggs and things because you can have more fun eating them. I wouldn’t waste a tomato on that feller because anyway you’ve got your tongue.”
“You can’t sass him,” said Pepsy, “because he uses big words and he’s such a smarty and he makes you feel silly and then you begin to cry and get mad. When he says I’m an orphan and things—and things—Wiggle hates him, too, don’t you, Wiggle?” The girl was almost crying then and Pee-wee comforted her.