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 were only the disconnected parts of a merry-go-round.

Upon the white and silver wind organ which arose out of this ghastly display sat a personage in cap and bells with face elaborately decorated in every color of the rainbow. He was distributing printed announcements to the gaping citizens of Everdoze. Not so much as a frankfurter or a glass of lemonade did the people of this motley caravan buy.

It was late in the afternoon and Pee-wee and Pepsy were feeling the tedium of waiting when suddenly the sound of merry laughter burst upon their ears and somebody said, “Oh, I think it’s perfectly adorable to be on the wrong road! I just adore being lost! And I never saw anything so perfectly excruciating in my life!”

“It’s an auto full of girls,” said Pee-wee, adjusting his paper hat upon his head; “they come from the city, I can tell; you leave them to me.”

“I never saw anything so adorably funny in all my life” the partners now heard. “I just have a headache from laughing.”

“I know that kind,” said Pee-wee; “they’ve got the giggles. You leave them to me.”

Pepsy was ready enough to defer to the master mind, the more so because this approach of their first probable customers gave her a kind of stage fright. She was seized with sudden terror and the dishpan full of doughnuts shook in her hands as she placed it in full view by Pee-wee’s order.

The auto was evidently picking its way along the hubbly road in second gear. “We’ll find a place where we can turn around somewhere,” said a man’s voice good humoredly.

“Not till we’ve gorged ourselves with food,” the voice of a girl caroled forth.

Pee-wee gave his white paper cap a final adjustment, stood the pan of taffy enticingly in full view and waited as a pugilist waits, for the adversary’s next move.

“I am going to have a saucerful of ground glass, the latest breakfast food,” a female voice sang merrily. At which there was a chorus of laughter.

“What did she say?” Pepsy asked.

“Girls are crazy,” Pee-wee said.

Pepsy fumbled nervously with the several glasses of lemonade which stood temptingly ready on the counter and glanced fearfully but admiringly at the genius of this magnificent enterprise. It was the biggest moment in her poor little life and Pee-wee was a conquering hero. She placed the fudge within his reach and waited in terrible suspense to see him operate upon this giggling band of lost pilgrims.

Nearer and nearer the car came and now it poked its big nickel-plated nose around the bend and advanced slowly, easily, along the narrow, grass grown way. It looked singularly out of place in that wild valley.

A low, melodious horn politely reminded Simeon Drowser, who stood gaping in the middle of the road, to withdraw to a safer gaping point. He retreated to the platform in front of the post office and consulted with Beriah Bungel, the village constable, about this sumptuous apparition. Only a couple of hundred feet remained now between the refreshment parlor and this party of mirthful victims. If Pepsy’s red hair had been short enough it would have stood on end; as it was her fingers tingled with mingled appeal and confidence in the head of the firm.

Would it stop? Oh, would it stop? The suspense was terrible.

“F-r-resh doughnuts!” called Pee-wee in a sonorous voice. “Ice cold lemonade! It’s ice cold! Get your fudge here!”

Pepsy looked admiringly upon her hero. She would not have dared to obtrude into the negotiations which seemed at hand. She gazed wistfully at a half dozen girls in fresh, colorful, summer array as only a little red-headed orphan girl in a gingham dress can do. She gazed at the big, palatial touring car with eyes spellbound. It was thus that the Indians first gazed upon the ships of Columbus.

“Hot frankfurters,” shouted Pee-wee from behind his counter. “They’re all hot! Here you are! Get your fresh sweet cider! Five a glass! Doughnuts six for a dime! All fresh!”