, that's
what I call you."

He wasn't half wrong about that, either. ...

CHAPTER XXVII

SEEN IN THE DARK

So then he told her how it was about the County Fair, which shortly
would open. He told her very gently and kindly how Northvale had been
chosen, because it was the county seat and how he was powerless to
change the plans.

He looked around into her sober face, and sometimes lifted it to his,
and at almost every hope-blighting sentence, asked her if she did not
understand. He told her all about how county fairs are big things,
planned by many men, months and months in advance. And at each pause and
each gently asked question she nodded silently, as if it was all quite
clear and plausible, but her heart was breaking.

"But I'm not going to forget that good turn I owe you, no, siree," he
added finally as he set her down on the porch, much to Wiggle's relief.
"And I'm coming down the road to pay you a visit n' look over that
refreshment store of yours n' see if I can't make some suggestions
maybe. Now, what do you say to that?"

Pepsy nodded soberly, her thoughts far away.

"You'll see me along there," Mr. Jensen added cheerily, as he patted her
little shoulder, "n' I give you fair warning I'm the champion doughnut
eater of Borden County."

She smiled, still wistfully, and gulped, oh ever so little.

"That's what I am," he added with another genial pat. "So now you cheer
up and run back home and go to bed n' don't you lie awake crying. You
tell that little scout feller I'm coming to make you a visit n' that, I
usually drink nine glasses of lemonade. Now you run along and get to bed
quick."

"Thanks," she said, her voice trembling.

So Pepsy took her way silently along the dark road. Her bank had failed,
she could do nothing more. This was a strange sequel to follow Pee-wee's
glowing representations about good turns. She did not understand it. And
now that she had failed, the catastrophe in the cellar loomed larger,
and she saw her nocturnal truancy as a serious thing. What would Aunt
Jamsiah think of this? Pepsy had been forbidden to go away from the farm
at night, except to weekly prayer meeting.

The crickets sang cheerily as she returned along the dark road, a
disconsolate little figure, swinging her lantern. She was weary--weary
from exertion and disappointment and foreboding. Her good scout
enterprise was suddenly changed into an act of sneaking disobedience.
The ph