“Hide Kelly’s barn,” Pee-wee breathed.
Presently the second cyclist was on his machine again, speeding through the darkness. Either the first cyclist knew that his friend’s trouble was not serious, or time was so precious that he could not pause in any case. Indeed, their flight must have been urgent to speed on such a road without headlights. The whole thing had a rather sinister look. Pee-wee wondered who Kelly was and where his barn was located.
CHAPTER XIX
THE OTHER VOICE
“What do you mean, hide in Kelly’s barn?” Pepsy whispered, greatly agitated.
“Can you keep still about it?” Pee-wee said. “Girls can’t keep secrets. Can you keep still till I tell you it’s all right to speak?”
“I can keep a secret and not even tell it to you,” she shot back at him in spirited defiance. “I know a secret that will—that will—help us sure to make lots and lots of money. And I wouldn’t even tell you or Aunt Jamsiah, because she tried to make me. So there, Mr. Smarty. And I don’t care whether you tell me or not if I can’t keep a secret, but I’ve got a secret all by myself and it’s that much bigger than yours,” she said, spreading out her thin, little arms to include a vast area. “And besides that, I hate you,” she added, bursting into tears and starting for the house. “And you can have that girl who was kept in after school for a partner,” he heard her sobbing as she crossed the yard.
Pepsy did not pause to speak with Uncle Eb and Aunt Jamsiah who were sitting in the kitchen, but the latter, seeing her in tears, said kindly, “No folks passed by to the carnival to-night, Pepsy?”
“Looks like rain,” Uncle Eb said consolingly; “to-morrer’ll be the big night when they have the wrestlin’ match. I reckon Jeb Collard n’ all his summer folks will go up on th’ hay-rig from West Baxter. You wait till to-morrer night, Pep. Mamsy’ll make you up a pan of fresh doughnuts fer to-morrer night, won’t you, Mamsy? Don’t you take on now, Pepsy girl; you jes’ go ter bed n’ ferget yer troubles.”
“I don’t care about people from West Baxter,” Pepsy said, stamping her foot and shaking her head violently, “and I don’t care about the old carnival or anything—so now. They’re all too stingy—to—to—buy things—they’re too stingy. I—I—I—don’t care,” she went on fairly in hysterics, “he says I can’t—I can’t—keep—keep—a secret—but I’ve got one and I won’t tell it to anybody and I thought it up all myself and it will surely make lots and lots and lots of people come and buy—and—and he’ll see if girls can do things.” She was crying violently and shaking like a leaf.