"You'll see me along there," Mr. Jensen added cheerily, as he patted
her little shoulder, "n' I give you fair warning I'm the champion
doughnut eater of Borden County."
She smiled, still wistfully, and gulped, oh ever so little.
"That's what I am," he added with another genial pat. "So now you
cheer up and run back home and go to bed n' don't you lie awake crying.
You tell that little scout feller I'm coming to make you a visit n'
that, I usually drink nine glasses of lemonade. Now you run along and
get to bed quick."
"Thanks," she said, her voice trembling.
So Pepsy took her way silently along the dark road. Her bank had
failed, she could do nothing more. This was a strange sequel to
follow Pee-Wee's glowing representations about good turns. She did
not understand it. And now that she had failed, the catastrophe in
the cellar loomed larger, and she saw her nocturnal truancy as a
serious thing. What would Aunt Jamsiah think of this? Pepsy had been
forbidden to go away from the farm at night, except to weekly prayer
meeting.
The crickets sang cheerily as she returned along the dark road, a
disconsolate little figure, swinging her lantern. She was weary--weary
from exertion and disappointment and foreboding.
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