r any more?" she asked, with a note of homesickness for the little
place they had decorated with such high hope. "If you'll wait, if you'll
wait as much as--two weeks--lots and lots and lots and lots of people
will come--"

But Pee-wee was not to be deterred by sentiment and false hope. "Don't
you want us to have two hundred and fifty dollars?" he asked scornfully.
"Don't you want us to buy those tents?" This was too much for Pepsy. She
grasped Pee-wee's hand, following him reluctantly, as she gave a wistful
look back at their little wayside shelter. The "stock" had not been set
out for the day and the bare counter made the place look forlorn and
deserted as they went away.

"It's a blamed sight easier than running a refreshment parlor," Pee-wee
said; "it's just like picking the money up in the street. All we have to
do is to go to Mr. Sawyer's office and tell him and--"

"You have to go in first," said Pepsy.

Pee-wee's enthusiasm was contagious and Pepsy was soon keyed up to
the new enterprise, even to the point of facing Mr. Sawyer. She had
cautiously resolved, however, to remain close to the door of his office,
so that she might effect a precipitate retreat at the first mention of
an orphan asylum.

Whatever Pee-wee did must be right and she saw now that two hundred and
fifty dollars won in the twinkling of an eye was better than life spent
in the retail trade. Yet she could not help thinking wistfully and
fondly of their little enterprise and its cosy headquarters.

They sat on a rock by the roadside waiting for the mailman's auto to
come along. Once in that Pepsy felt that her fate would be sealed. She
had never been away from Everdoze since she had first been taken there.
Baxter City was a vast place which she had seen in her dreams, a place
where people were arrested and run over and where the constables were
dressed up like soldiers. She clung tight to Pee-wee's hand.

"I hate him, too," she said, referring to Beriah Bungel, "and it will
serve him right if Whitie dies and I just hope he does, because his
father hit you."

"Who's Whitie?" Pee-wee asked.

"He's Mr. Bungel's little boy and he's all white because he's sick, and
they can't take him to a great big place in the city so they can make
him all well again and it just serves him right and I'm glad they
haven't got any money. Everybody says he's going to die and Licorice
Stick knows he's going to die in a rainstorm on a Friday, that's what he
sai