AN ACCIDENT

Mr. Ira Jensen sometimes wore a white collar and he was deacon in the church and he was the one who selected the Everdoze school teacher, and he was president of the Borden County Agricultural Association and he had a khaki-colored swinging-seat on his porch and muslin curtains in his windows. So you may judge from all this what a mighty man he was.

Such a man is not to be approached except upon a well-considered plan. It required almost another week of idling in the refreshment parlor, of vain hopes, and ebbing interest on the part of the scout partner, to bring Pepsy to the state of desperation needed for her terrible enterprise. A sudden and alarming turn of Pee-wee’s fickle mind precipitated her action.

“Let’s eat up all the stuff and make the summer-house into a gymnasium, and we can give magic lantern shows in it, too. What do you say?” Pee-wee inquired in his most enthusiastic manner. “We can charge five cents to get in.” He did not explain whence the audiences would come. He had found an old magic lantern in the attic and that was enough. The only stock now on hand was what might be called the permanent stock (if any stock could be called permanent where Pee-wee was). No longer did the fresh, greasy doughnut and the cooling lemonade grace the forlorn little counter.

“No, I won’t!” Pepsy said, tossing those red braids. “I won’t eat the things because we started here and I love them, so there!”

“If you love them I should think you’d want to eat them,” said Pee-wee. “That shows how much you know about logic.”

“I don’t care, I’m just going to stay here and if you promise to wait we’ll get lots and lots of money,” she said. “You promised me you’d wait,” she added wistfully, “you crossed your heart. Won’t you please wait till—till—five days—maybe? Won’t you, please? Maybe that will be a good turn, maybe?”

He did not refuse. Instead he helped himself to some gumdrops out of a glass jar, and appeared to be content. But Pepsy knew better than to trust the fickle heart of man and that night she played the poor little card that she had been holding.

After Uncle Eb and Aunt Jamsiah had gone to bed and while the curly head of Scout Harris was reposing in sweet oblivion upon his pillow, Pepsy crept cautiously down the squeaky, boxed-in stairs and paused, in suspense, in the kitchen. The ticking of the big clock there seemed very loud, almost accusing, and Pepsy’s heart seemed to keep time with it as it thumped in her little breast.

How different the familiar kitchen seemed, deserted and in darkness! The two stove lids were laid a little off their places to check the banked fire, leaving two bright crescent lines like a pair of eyes staring up at her. This light, reflected in one of the milk pails standing inverted on a high shelf, made a sort of ghostly mirror in which Pepsy saw herself better than in that crinkly, outlandish mirror in her little room.

For a moment she was afraid to move lest she make a noise, and so she paused, almost terrified, looking at her own homely little face, on the most fateful night of her life. Then she tiptoed out through the pantry where the familiar smell of fresh butter reassured her. It seemed companionable, in the strange darkness and awful stillness, this smell of fresh butter. She crept across the side porch where the churn stood like a ghost, a dish-towel on its tall handle and crossed the weedy lawn, where the beehives seemed to be watching her, and headed for the dark, open road.

But here her courage failed. Some thought of doing her errand in the morning occurred to her, but she could not go then without saying where and why she was going. And in case of failure no one must ever know about this....

So she screwed up her courage and returned to the side porch to get a lantern. She shook it and found it empty. There was nothing to do now but brave the darkness or go down into the cellar and fill the lantern from the big kerosene can. She paused in the darkness before those sepulchral stone steps, then in a sudden impulse of determination she tightened her little hand upon the lantern till her nails dug into her palms and went down, down.

She groped her way to the kerosene can and finally came upon it and felt its surface. Yes, it was the kerosene can. Her trembling little hand fumbled for the tiny faucet. How queer it felt in the dark when she could not see it! It seemed to have a little knob or something on it....

Her hand was shaking but she held the little tank of the lantern under the faucet and was about to turn the handle when something—something soft and wet and silent—touched her other hand. She drew a quick breath, her heart was in her mouth, her hands were icy cold. Still she had presence of mind enough not to scream.

But as she rose in panic terror from her stooping posture, the lantern pulled upward against the faucet, toppling the big can off its skids. There was no plug in the can and the kerosene flowed out upon the terror-stricken child, wetting her shoes and stockings, and made a great puddle on the stone floor. She stood in the darkness, seeing none of this, which made the catastrophe the more terrible.

And then, as she stood in terror, wet and bewildered, waiting for whatever terrible sequel might come, she felt again that something soft and wet and silent on her hand. She moved her hand a little and felt of something soft—soft in a different way. Soft but not wet.

“Wiggle,” she sobbed in a whisper; “why—why—didn’t you—you—tell me it was you—Wiggle?”

But he only licked her hand again as if to say, “If there is anything on for to-night, I’m with you. Cheer up. Adventures are my middle name....”