the girls say," Pee-wee advised her as he sat on
the counter eating a piece of peanut taffy by way of testing the stock,
so that he might the more honestly recommend it. "I wouldn't let any
girls jolly me, I wouldn't. Lots of girls tried to jolly me but they
never got away with it."

"Did that girl that was kept after school try to jolly you?" Pepsy
asked.

"I wouldn't let any girls jolly me," Pee-wee said, ignoring the specific
question and speaking with difficulty, because of the stickiness of the
taffy. "They think they're smart, girls do; I don't mean you, but most
of them. I know how to handle them all right. They try to make a fool
of you and then just giggle, but the last laugh is the best, that's one
sure thing."

"I told her she was a freshy," Pepsy said, "and that she wouldn't dare
talk like that in front of you because you'd make a fool of her."

"I should worry about girls," Pee-wee said.

"I'm not worrying about our refreshment shack anyway," Pepsy said,
"because now I know it will be lots and lots of a success. And maybe you
can buy four or five tents and lots of other things. Every night in bed
I keep saying:

It has to succeed,
It has to succeed,

and I make believe the floor on the bridge says that instead. But
sometimes it says I have to go back. When the wind blows this way I can
hear it loud. I know a secret that I thought of all by myself; I thought
about it when I was lying in bed listening. And I can make us get lots
of money, I can make it, oh, lots and lots and lots of a success. So I
don't care any more what people say. I told Aunt Jamsiah I knew a secret
and I could make us get lots of money here and she said I should tell
her and I wouldn't."

"Till you tell me?" Pee-wee asked.

"No, I wouldn't tell anybody."

"You ought to tell me because we're partners." "I wouldn't tell
anybody," she said, shaking her head emphatically so that her red braids
lashed about; "not even if you gave me--as much as a dollar. ..."

CHAPTER XIV

SUSPENSE

Soon the gorgeous chariot containing the carnival paraphernalia came
lumbering along en route for Berryville. It was a vision of red and gold
with wheels that looked like pinwheels in a fireworks display.

The one discordant note about it was the rather startling projection
of the heads and legs of animals here and there as if the wagon
were returning from a hunt in South Africa. But these wer