Pee-wee Harris

by Percy Keese Fitzhugh

“I reckon to-morrow, boy. Now, you look here—”

But Pee-wee had gone.

Up the narrow, boxed-in stairs he went, never asking permission. He could see nothing but a big enclosed wagon, dark inside, with Pepsy inside it. He had no more idea what he was going to do that day than the man in the moon. But he knew what he was going to do that very minute. When a scout makes up his mind to do a thing....

Into the little room under the eaves he strode, his eyes glistening, but his heart staunch and his resolve indomitable. And she smiled when she saw him. She was sitting up and she looked ever so little in her nightclothes and ever so plain with her tightly braided red hair. But her eyes were clear and she smiled when she looked at him....

“I won’t tell anybody where I went,” she said, “because I was a smarty and I thought I could make somebody do a good turn ever so—ever so big. And they’d only laugh at me if I told them what it was. So I’m not going to be a tell-tale cat.”

“Pep,” he said, “it shows that you’re right because lots and lots of automobiles are coming along our road since the old bridge burned down and it’s a detour and that means hundreds and hundreds of them have to go past our refreshment place and we’re going to make lots of money. And I thought of a dandy idea, it’s what they call an inspiration. We’re going to name the place Pepsy Rest, because Pepsy will remind people to buy chewing gum, because that has pepsin in it and as soon as you’re all well we’ll start in and keep on being partners, because we have a monopoly. Do you know what that is? It’s when you can sell all you want of something and nobody else can sell it. See?

“Mr. Jensen, he put up a sign, and he said no one should sell things on his property and he owns all the property along the road, and you bet everybody is scared of him. So now we’re going to have a great big business and we began as poor boys, I mean girls, I mean a boy and a girl. So don’t you believe anything that anybody tells you, not even—not even Aunt Jamsiah. Because you know how I told you I was a good fixer and I’m always lucky, you have to admit that.”

“Can I be the one to count the money?” Pepsy asked.

“Sure, and I’ll be the one to eat what’s left of the things that won’t keep,” said Pee-wee. “Only don’t you worry no matter what you hear—”

She was on the point of telling him how Mr. Jensen had done his good turn after all, and all about what she remembered of the previous night. But she decided that she was not going to have a boy laughing at her and put it within his power to call her a tell-tale cat some day. So instead she threw her arms around him and said, “Oh goody, goody!”