If all there was to doing things was making up your mind to do them, then could she not do a good turn as well as a boy? Surely Scout Harris, the wonder worker, could not be mistaken about anything. He had shown Pepsy, conclusively, how good turns (to say nothing of bad ones) are always paid back by an inexorable law. Punches on the nose, or kindly acts of charity and sweet sacrifice, it was always the same....
Pepsy had no money invested in their unprofitable enterprise, for she had had no money to invest. Neither had she any capital of scout experience to draw upon. But one little nest egg she had. She had once made a small deposit in this staunch institution of reciprocal kindness. All by herself, and long before she had known of Pee-wee and the scouts, she had done a good turn.
According to the inevitable rule, which she did not doubt, the principal and interest of this could now be drawn. Why not? Somewhere, and she knew where, there was a good turn standing to her credit. It would be paid her just as surely as that splendid punch in the nose was paid to Beriah Bungel. And, using this good turn that was standing to her credit, she would be the instrument which fate would choose, to pay Scout Harris back for his great sacrifice of two hundred and fifty dollars. You see how nicely everything was going to work out.
The person who would now do Pepsy the good turn which would bring success and fortune to their little enterprise and enable Scout Harris to buy three tents, was Mr. Ira Jensen who lived in the big red house up the road. A very mighty man was Mr. Ira Jensen, almost as terrible in worldly grandeur and official power as a prosecutor. Not quite, but almost. At all events, Pepsy could muster up courage to go and face him, and that she was now resolved to do.
Indeed, this had been her secret.
CHAPTER XXV
AN ACCIDENT
Mr. Ira Jensen sometimes wore a white collar and he was deacon in the church and he was the one who selected the Everdoze school teacher, and he was president of the Borden County Agricultural Association and he had a khaki-colored swinging-seat on his porch and muslin curtains in his windows. So you may judge from all this what a mighty man he was.
Such a man is not to be approached except upon a well-considered plan. It required almost another week of idling in the refreshment parlor, of vain hopes, and ebbing interest on the part of the scout partner, to bring Pepsy to the state of desperation needed for her terrible enterprise. A sudden and alarming turn of Pee-wee’s fickle mind precipitated her action.
“Let’s eat up all the stuff and make the summer-house into a gymnasium, and we can give magic lantern shows in it, too. What do you say?” Pee-wee inquired in his most enthusiastic manner. “We can charge five cents to get in.” He did not explain whence the audiences would come. He had found an old magic lantern in the attic and that was enough. The only stock now on hand was what might be called the permanent stock (if any stock could be called permanent where Pee-wee was). No longer did the fresh, greasy doughnut and the cooling lemonade grace the forlorn little counter.