the sound, with its sudden start, its rattling clamor and its quick
cessation, made a jarring note in all the surrounding peacefulness.

"That's what wakes me up in the morning, the mail wagon going over,"
Pepsy said; "I know it's time to get up then. Those planks can talk,
they say the same thing every day."

You have to go back,
You have to go back,
You have to go back.

You listen to-morrow morning."

"They could never wake me up," Pee-wee said, which was probably true.
"What do you mean about their saying you have to go back?"

"When Aunt Jamsiah took me, I was a probator. Do you know what that
means?"

"It's what they do with people's wills," Pee-wee said.

"It means if I don't behave I have to go back to the orphan home," the
girl said. "And every day I was afraid I'd have to go back--for a long,
long time, I was. And when I was lying in bed mornings I'd hear the
planks saying that--

You have to go back,
You have to go back.

just like that, and I'd get good and scared."

"You won't have to go back," said Pee-wee.

"You leave it to me, I'll fix it. Those planks--I've known lots of
planks--and they can't tell the truth. Don't you care. I wouldn't
believe what an old plank said. Trees are all right, but planks--"

"I don't notice it so much now," Pepsy said; "that was a year ago and
Aunt Jamsiah says I'm all right and mind good except I'm a tomboy. That
ain't so bad, is it? Being a tomboy? A girl and me tried to set the
orphan home on fire because they licked us, but I'm good here. But I
wish they'd put a new floor on that bridge. Anyway, Aunt Jamsiah says
I'm good now."

Pee-wee was about to speak, but noticing that the girl's eyes were fixed
upon a crimson patch on the hillside where the sun was going down, and
seeing that her eyes sparkled strangely (for indeed they were not pretty
eyes) he said nothing, like the bully little scout that he was.

"Anyway, one thing, I wouldn't let an old bridge get my goat, I
wouldn't," he said finally, "and besides, you said you would show me a
woodchuck hole."

CHAPTER VI

THE WAY OF THE SCOUT

Pepsy's right name was Penelope Pepperall and Aunt Jamsiah had taken her
out of the County Home after the fire episode, by way of saving her from
the worse influence of a reformatory. She and Uncle Ebenezer had agreed
to