ghnuts there.

If Pee-wee's stout heart was losing hope he did not show it, but Pepsy
was frankly in despair. In her free hours she sat in their little
shelter, her thin, freckly hands busy with the worsted masterpiece that
she was working. Pee-wee, at least, had his appetite to console him, but
she had no relish for the stale lemonade and melting, oozy taffy which
stood pathetically on the counter each night.

One day a lumbering, enclosed auto went by, an undertaker's car it
was, and Pepsy was seized with sudden fright lest it be the orphan
asylum wagon come to get her. The two dominating thoughts of her simple
mind were the fear that she would have to go back to "that place" and
the hope that Pee-wee might get the money to buy those precious tents.
She had learned something of scouting, that scouts camp and live in
the open, and she had learned something of the good scout laws. She was
witnessing now an exhibition of scout faith and resolution, of faith
that was hopeless and resolution that was futile. She was soon to be
made aware of another scout quality which fairly staggered her and left
her wondering.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE VOICE OF THE TAIL-LIGHT

One night after dark, Pepsy and Pee-wee were sitting in their little
roadside pavilion because they preferred it to the lamp-lighted kitchen
smelling of kerosene where Uncle Ebenezer read the American Farm
Journal, his arms spread on the red covered table.

A cheery little cricket chirped somewhere in this scene of impending
failure; nearby a katydid was grinding out her old familiar song as
if it were the latest popular air. In the barn across the yard the
discordant sound of the horses kicking the echoing boards sounded
clear in the still night and seemed a part of the homely music of the
countryside.

Suddenly a speeding auto, containing perhaps its load of merry, heedless
joy riders, went rattling over the old bridge along the highway and the
loose planks called out across the interval of woodland to the little
red-headed girl in this remote shack along the obscure by-road.

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

Little did those speeding riders know of the voice they had called up
to terrify this unknown child. The rattling, warning voice ceased as
suddenly as it had begun as the unseen car rolled noiselessly along the
smooth highway.