diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:14:55 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:14:55 -0700 |
| commit | c897c226b7aa0029abfbff374d89c80dd75e9af6 (patch) | |
| tree | ffb41b015301f005d5fe24318d6600d061e31f40 | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 402-0.txt | 7929 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 402-0.zip | bin | 0 -> 146035 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 402-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 154352 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 402-h/402-h.htm | 9742 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 402.txt | 7928 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 402.zip | bin | 0 -> 145163 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/pnrod10.txt | 8520 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/pnrod10.zip | bin | 0 -> 156286 bytes |
11 files changed, 34135 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/402-0.txt b/402-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d1dd9e9 --- /dev/null +++ b/402-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7929 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Penrod, by Booth Tarkington + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Penrod + +Author: Booth Tarkington + +Release Date: March 14, 2006 [EBook #402] +Last Updated: March 3, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PENROD *** + + + + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger + + + + + +PENROD + + +By Booth Tarkington + + + +To + +John, Donald And Booth Jameson + +From A Grateful Uncle + + + + +CONTENTS + + I. A Boy and His Dog + II. Romance + III. The Costume + IV. Desperation + V. The Pageant of the Table Round + VI. Evening + VII. Evils of Drink + VIII. School + IX. Soaring + X. Uncle John + XI. Fidelity of a Little Dog + XII. Miss Rennsdale Accepts + XIII. The Smallpox Medicine + XIV. Maurice Levy's Constitution + XV. The Two Families + XVI. The New Star + XVII. Retiring from the Show-Business + XVIII. Music + XIX. The Inner Boy + XX. Brothers of Angels + XXI. Rupe Collins + XXII. The Imitator + XXIII. Coloured Troops in Action + XXIV. “Little Gentleman” + XXV. Tar + XXVI. The Quiet Afternoon + XXVII. Conclusion of the Quiet Afternoon + XXVIII. Twelve + XXIX. Fanchon + XXX. The Birthday Party + XXXI. Over the Fence + + + + +CHAPTER I A BOY AND HIS DOG + +Penrod sat morosely upon the back fence and gazed with envy at Duke, his +wistful dog. + +A bitter soul dominated the various curved and angular surfaces known +by a careless world as the face of Penrod Schofield. Except in solitude, +that face was almost always cryptic and emotionless; for Penrod had +come into his twelfth year wearing an expression carefully trained to be +inscrutable. Since the world was sure to misunderstand everything, mere +defensive instinct prompted him to give it as little as possible to lay +hold upon. Nothing is more impenetrable than the face of a boy who has +learned this, and Penrod's was habitually as fathomless as the depth +of his hatred this morning for the literary activities of Mrs. Lora +Rewbush--an almost universally respected fellow citizen, a lady of +charitable and poetic inclinations, and one of his own mother's most +intimate friends. + +Mrs. Lora Rewbush had written something which she called “The Children's +Pageant of the Table Round,” and it was to be performed in public that +very afternoon at the Women's Arts and Guild Hall for the benefit of the +Coloured Infants' Betterment Society. And if any flavour of sweetness +remained in the nature of Penrod Schofield after the dismal trials of +the school-week just past, that problematic, infinitesimal remnant was +made pungent acid by the imminence of his destiny to form a prominent +feature of the spectacle, and to declaim the loathsome sentiments of a +character named upon the programme the Child Sir Lancelot. + +After each rehearsal he had plotted escape, and only ten days earlier +there had been a glimmer of light: Mrs. Lora Rewbush caught a very +bad cold, and it was hoped it might develop into pneumonia; but she +recovered so quickly that not even a rehearsal of the Children's Pageant +was postponed. Darkness closed in. Penrod had rather vaguely debated +plans for a self-mutilation such as would make his appearance as the +Child Sir Lancelot inexpedient on public grounds; it was a heroic +and attractive thought, but the results of some extremely sketchy +preliminary experiments caused him to abandon it. + +There was no escape; and at last his hour was hard upon him. Therefore +he brooded on the fence and gazed with envy at his wistful Duke. + +The dog's name was undescriptive of his person, which was obviously +the result of a singular series of mesalliances. He wore a grizzled +moustache and indefinite whiskers; he was small and shabby, and looked +like an old postman. Penrod envied Duke because he was sure Duke would +never be compelled to be a Child Sir Lancelot. He thought a dog free and +unshackled to go or come as the wind listeth. Penrod forgot the life he +led Duke. + +There was a long soliloquy upon the fence, a plaintive monologue without +words: the boy's thoughts were adjectives, but they were expressed by +a running film of pictures in his mind's eye, morbidly prophetic of the +hideosities before him. Finally he spoke aloud, with such spleen that +Duke rose from his haunches and lifted one ear in keen anxiety. + + “'I hight Sir Lancelot du Lake, the Child, + Gentul-hearted, meek, and mild. + What though I'm BUT a littul child, + Gentul-hearted, meek, and----' OOF!” + +All of this except “oof” was a quotation from the Child Sir Lancelot, as +conceived by Mrs. Lora Rewbush. Choking upon it, Penrod slid down from +the fence, and with slow and thoughtful steps entered a one-storied wing +of the stable, consisting of a single apartment, floored with cement and +used as a storeroom for broken bric-a-brac, old paint-buckets, decayed +garden-hose, worn-out carpets, dead furniture, and other condemned odds +and ends not yet considered hopeless enough to be given away. + +In one corner stood a large box, a part of the building itself: it was +eight feet high and open at the top, and it had been constructed as a +sawdust magazine from which was drawn material for the horse's bed in +a stall on the other side of the partition. The big box, so high and +towerlike, so commodious, so suggestive, had ceased to fulfil its +legitimate function; though, providentially, it had been at least half +full of sawdust when the horse died. Two years had gone by since that +passing; an interregnum in transportation during which Penrod's father +was “thinking” (he explained sometimes) of an automobile. Meanwhile, the +gifted and generous sawdust-box had served brilliantly in war and peace: +it was Penrod's stronghold. + +There was a partially defaced sign upon the front wall of the box; the +donjon-keep had known mercantile impulses: + + The O. K. RaBiT Co. + PENROD ScHoFiELD AND CO. + iNQuiRE FOR PRicEs + +This was a venture of the preceding vacation, and had netted, at one +time, an accrued and owed profit of $1.38. Prospects had been brightest +on the very eve of cataclysm. The storeroom was locked and guarded, but +twenty-seven rabbits and Belgian hares, old and young, had perished here +on a single night--through no human agency, but in a foray of cats, the +besiegers treacherously tunnelling up through the sawdust from the small +aperture which opened into the stall beyond the partition. Commerce has +its martyrs. + +Penrod climbed upon a barrel, stood on tiptoe, grasped the rim of the +box; then, using a knot-hole as a stirrup, threw one leg over the top, +drew himself up, and dropped within. Standing upon the packed sawdust, +he was just tall enough to see over the top. + +Duke had not followed him into the storeroom, but remained near the open +doorway in a concave and pessimistic attitude. Penrod felt in a dark +corner of the box and laid hands upon a simple apparatus consisting of +an old bushel-basket with a few yards of clothes-line tied to each of +its handles. He passed the ends of the lines over a big spool, which +revolved upon an axle of wire suspended from a beam overhead, and, with +the aid of this improvised pulley, lowered the empty basket until it +came to rest in an upright position upon the floor of the storeroom at +the foot of the sawdust-box. + +“Eleva-ter!” shouted Penrod. “Ting-ting!” + +Duke, old and intelligently apprehensive, approached slowly, in a +semicircular manner, deprecatingly, but with courtesy. He pawed the +basket delicately; then, as if that were all his master had expected of +him, uttered one bright bark, sat down, and looked up triumphantly. His +hypocrisy was shallow: many a horrible quarter of an hour had taught him +his duty in this matter. + +“El-e-VAY-ter!” shouted Penrod sternly. “You want me to come down there +to you?” + +Duke looked suddenly haggard. He pawed the basket feebly again and, +upon another outburst from on high, prostrated himself flat. Again +threatened, he gave a superb impersonation of a worm. + +“You get in that el-e-VAY-ter!” + +Reckless with despair, Duke jumped into the basket, landing in a +dishevelled posture, which he did not alter until he had been drawn +up and poured out upon the floor of sawdust with the box. There, +shuddering, he lay in doughnut shape and presently slumbered. + +It was dark in the box, a condition that might have been remedied by +sliding back a small wooden panel on runners, which would have let in +ample light from the alley; but Penrod Schofield had more interesting +means of illumination. He knelt, and from a former soap-box, in a +corner, took a lantern, without a chimney, and a large oil-can, the leak +in the latter being so nearly imperceptible that its banishment +from household use had seemed to Penrod as inexplicable as it was +providential. + +He shook the lantern near his ear: nothing splashed; there was no sound +but a dry clinking. But there was plenty of kerosene in the can; and he +filled the lantern, striking a match to illumine the operation. Then he +lit the lantern and hung it upon a nail against the wall. The sawdust +floor was slightly impregnated with oil, and the open flame quivered in +suggestive proximity to the side of the box; however, some rather deep +charrings of the plank against which the lantern hung offered evidence +that the arrangement was by no means a new one, and indicated at least a +possibility of no fatality occurring this time. + +Next, Penrod turned up the surface of the sawdust in another corner +of the floor, and drew forth a cigar-box in which were half a +dozen cigarettes, made of hayseed and thick brown wrapping paper, a +lead-pencil, an eraser, and a small note-book, the cover of which was +labelled in his own handwriting: + +“English Grammar. Penrod Schofield. Room 6, Ward School Nomber Seventh.” + +The first page of this book was purely academic; but the study of +English undefiled terminated with a slight jar at the top of the second: +“Nor must an adverb be used to modif----” + +Immediately followed: + + “HARoLD RAMoREZ THE RoADAGENT + OR WiLD LiFE AMoNG THE + ROCKY MTS.” + +And the subsequent entries in the book appeared to have little concern +with Room 6, Ward School Nomber Seventh. + + + +CHAPTER II ROMANCE + +The author of “Harold Ramorez,” etc., lit one of the hayseed cigarettes, +seated himself comfortably, with his back against the wall and his +right shoulder just under the lantern, elevated his knees to support the +note-book, turned to a blank page, and wrote, slowly and earnestly: + +“CHAPITER THE SIXTH” + + +He took a knife from his pocket, and, broodingly, his eyes upon the +inward embryos of vision, sharpened his pencil. After that, he extended +a foot and meditatively rubbed Duke's back with the side of his shoe. +Creation, with Penrod, did not leap, full-armed, from the brain; but +finally he began to produce. He wrote very slowly at first, and then +with increasing rapidity; faster and faster, gathering momentum and +growing more and more fevered as he sped, till at last the true fire +came, without which no lamp of real literature may be made to burn. + + +Mr. Wilson reched for his gun but our hero had him covred and soon said +Well I guess you don't come any of that on me my freind. + +Well what makes you so sure about it sneered the other bitting his lip +so savageley that the blood ran. You are nothing but a common Roadagent +any way and I do not propose to be bafled by such, Ramorez laughed at +this and kep Mr. Wilson covred by his ottomatick. + +Soon the two men were struggling together in the death-roes but soon Mr +Wilson got him bound and gaged his mouth and went away for awhile leavin +our hero, it was dark and he writhd at his bonds writhing on the floor +wile the rats came out of their holes and bit him and vernim got all +over him from the floor of that helish spot but soon he managed to push +the gag out of his mouth with the end of his toungeu and got all his +bonds off. + +Soon Mr Wilson came back to tant him with his helpless condition flowed +by his gang of detectives and they said Oh look at Ramorez sneering at +his plight and tanted him with his helpless condition because Ramorez +had put the bonds back sos he would look the same but could throw them +off him when he wanted to Just look at him now sneered they. To hear him +talk you would thought he was hot stuff and they said Look at him now, +him that was going to do so much, Oh I would not like to be in his fix. + +Soon Harold got mad at this and jumped up with blasing eyes throwin off +his bonds like they were air Ha Ha sneered he I guess you better not +talk so much next time. Soon there flowed another awful struggle and +siezin his ottomatick back from Mr Wilson he shot two of the detectives +through the heart Bing Bing went the ottomatick and two more went to +meet their Maker only two detectives left now and so he stabbed one and +the scondrel went to meet his Maker for now our hero was fighting +for his very life. It was dark in there now for night had falen and a +terrible view met the eye Blood was just all over everything and the +rats were eatin the dead men. + +Soon our hero manged to get his back to the wall for he was fighting +for his very life now and shot Mr Wilson through the abodmen Oh said Mr +Wilson you---- ---- ---- (The dashes are Penrod's.) + +Mr Wilson stagerd back vile oaths soilin his lips for he was in pain Why +you---- ----you sneered he I will get you yet---- ----you Harold Ramorez + +The remainin scondrel had an ax which he came near our heros head with +but missed him and ramand stuck in the wall Our heros amunition was +exhaused what was he to do, the remanin scondrel would soon get his ax +lose so our hero sprung forward and bit him till his teeth met in the +flech for now our hero was fighting for his very life. At this the +remanin scondrel also cursed and swore vile oaths. Oh sneered he---- +---- ----you Harold Ramorez what did you bite me for Yes sneered Mr +Wilson also and he has shot me in the abdomen too the---- + +Soon they were both cursin and reviln him together Why you---- ---- ---- +---- ----sneered they what did you want to injure us for----you Harold +Ramorez you have not got any sence and you think you are so much but you +are no better than anybody else and you are a---- ---- ---- ---- ---- +---- + +Soon our hero could stand this no longer. If you could learn to act like +gentlmen said he I would not do any more to you now and your low vile +exppresions have not got any effect on me only to injure your own self +when you go to meet your Maker Oh I guess you have had enogh for one day +and I think you have learned a lesson and will not soon atemp to beard +Harold Ramorez again so with a tantig laugh he cooly lit a cigarrete and +takin the keys of the cell from Mr Wilson poket went on out. + +Soon Mr Wilson and the wonded detective manged to bind up their wonds +and got up off the floor---- ----it I will have that dasstads life now +sneered they if we have to swing for it---- ---- ---- ----him he shall +not eccape us again the low down---- ---- ---- ---- ---- + +Chapiter seventh + +A mule train of heavily laden burros laden with gold from the mines was +to be seen wondering among the highest clifts and gorgs of the Rocky Mts +and a tall man with a long silken mustash and a cartigde belt could be +heard cursin vile oaths because he well knew this was the lair of Harold +Ramorez Why---- ---- ----you you---- ---- ---- ---- mules you sneered he +because the poor mules were not able to go any quicker ---- you I will +show you Why---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----it sneered he his oaths growing +viler and viler I will whip you---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----you +sos you will not be able to walk for a week---- ----you you mean old---- +---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----mules you + +Scarcly had the vile words left his lips when---- + + +“PENROD!” + +It was his mother's voice, calling from the back porch. + +Simultaneously, the noon whistles began to blow, far and near; and the +romancer in the sawdust-box, summoned prosaically from steep mountain +passes above the clouds, paused with stubby pencil halfway from lip to +knee. His eyes were shining: there was a rapt sweetness in his gaze. As +he wrote, his burden had grown lighter; thoughts of Mrs. Lora Rewbush +had almost left him; and in particular as he recounted (even by +the chaste dash) the annoyed expressions of Mr. Wilson, the wounded +detective, and the silken moustached mule-driver, he had felt +mysteriously relieved concerning the Child Sir Lancelot. Altogether he +looked a better and a brighter boy. + +“Pen-ROD!” + +The rapt look faded slowly. He sighed, but moved not. + +“Penrod! We're having lunch early just on your account, so you'll have +plenty of time to be dressed for the pageant. Hurry!” + +There was silence in Penrod's aerie. + +“PEN-rod!” + +Mrs. Schofields voice sounded nearer, indicating a threatened approach. +Penrod bestirred himself: he blew out the lantern, and shouted +plaintively: + +“Well, ain't I coming fast's I can?” + +“Do hurry,” returned the voice, withdrawing; and the kitchen door could +be heard to close. + +Languidly, Penrod proceeded to set his house in order. + +Replacing his manuscript and pencil in the cigar-box, he carefully +buried the box in the sawdust, put the lantern and oil-can back in the +soap-box, adjusted the elevator for the reception of Duke, and, in no +uncertain tone, invited the devoted animal to enter. + +Duke stretched himself amiably, affecting not to hear; and when this +pretence became so obvious that even a dog could keep it up no longer, +sat down in a corner, facing it, his back to his master, and his head +perpendicular, nose upward, supported by the convergence of the two +walls. This, from a dog, is the last word, the comble of the immutable. +Penrod commanded, stormed, tried gentleness; persuaded with honeyed +words and pictured rewards. Duke's eyes looked backward; otherwise +he moved not. Time elapsed. Penrod stooped to flattery, finally to +insincere caresses; then, losing patience spouted sudden threats. + +Duke remained immovable, frozen fast to his great gesture of implacable +despair. + +A footstep sounded on the threshold of the store-room. + +“Penrod, come down from that box this instant!” + +“Ma'am?” + +“Are you up in that sawdust-box again?” As Mrs. Schofield had just heard +her son's voice issue from the box, and also, as she knew he was there +anyhow, her question must have been put for oratorical purposes only. +“Because if you are,” she continued promptly, “I'm going to ask your +papa not to let you play there any----” + +Penrod's forehead, his eyes, the tops of his ears, and most of his hair, +became visible to her at the top of the box. “I ain't 'playing!'” he +said indignantly. + +“Well, what ARE you doing?” + +“Just coming down,” he replied, in a grieved but patient tone. + +“Then why don't you COME?” + +“I got Duke here. I got to get him DOWN, haven't I? You don't suppose I +want to leave a poor dog in here to starve, do you?” + +“Well, hand him down over the side to me. Let me----” + +“I'll get him down all right,” said Penrod. “I got him up here, and I +guess I can get him down!” + +“Well then, DO it!” + +“I will if you'll let me alone. If you'll go on back to the house I +promise to be there inside of two minutes. Honest!” + +He put extreme urgency into this, and his mother turned toward the +house. “If you're not there in two minutes----” + +“I will be!” + +After her departure, Penrod expended some finalities of eloquence upon +Duke, then disgustedly gathered him up in his arms, dumped him into the +basket and, shouting sternly, “All in for the ground floor--step back +there, madam--all ready, Jim!” lowered dog and basket to the floor +of the storeroom. Duke sprang out in tumultuous relief, and bestowed +frantic affection upon his master as the latter slid down from the box. + +Penrod dusted himself sketchily, experiencing a sense of satisfaction, +dulled by the overhanging afternoon, perhaps, but perceptible: he had +the feeling of one who has been true to a cause. The operation of the +elevator was unsinful and, save for the shock to Duke's nervous system, +it was harmless; but Penrod could not possibly have brought himself to +exhibit it in the presence of his mother or any other grown person in +the world. The reasons for secrecy were undefined; at least, Penrod did +not define them. + + + +CHAPTER III THE COSTUME + +After lunch his mother and his sister Margaret, a pretty girl of +nineteen, dressed him for the sacrifice. They stood him near his +mother's bedroom window and did what they would to him. + +During the earlier anguishes of the process he was mute, exceeding the +pathos of the stricken calf in the shambles; but a student of eyes +might have perceived in his soul the premonitory symptoms of a sinister +uprising. At a rehearsal (in citizens' clothes) attended by mothers and +grown-up sisters, Mrs. Lora Rewbush had announced that she wished the +costuming to be “as medieval and artistic as possible.” Otherwise, and +as to details, she said, she would leave the costumes entirely to the +good taste of the children's parents. Mrs. Schofield and Margaret were +no archeologists, but they knew that their taste was as good as that of +other mothers and sisters concerned; so with perfect confidence they had +planned and executed a costume for Penrod; and the only misgiving they +felt was connected with the tractability of the Child Sir Lancelot +himself. + +Stripped to his underwear, he had been made to wash himself vehemently; +then they began by shrouding his legs in a pair of silk stockings, once +blue but now mostly whitish. Upon Penrod they visibly surpassed mere +ampleness; but they were long, and it required only a rather loose +imagination to assume that they were tights. + +The upper part of his body was next concealed from view by a garment +so peculiar that its description becomes difficult. In 1886, Mrs. +Schofield, then unmarried, had worn at her “coming-out party” a dress of +vivid salmon silk which had been remodelled after her marriage to accord +with various epochs of fashion until a final, unskilful campaign at a +dye-house had left it in a condition certain to attract much attention +to the wearer. Mrs. Schofield had considered giving it to Della, the +cook; but had decided not to do so, because you never could tell how +Della was going to take things, and cooks were scarce. + +It may have been the word “medieval” (in Mrs. Lora Rewbush's rich +phrase) which had inspired the idea for a last conspicuous usefulness; +at all events, the bodice of that once salmon dress, somewhat modified +and moderated, now took a position, for its farewell appearance in +society, upon the back, breast, and arms of the Child Sir Lancelot. + +The area thus costumed ceased at the waist, leaving a Jaeger-like and +unmedieval gap thence to the tops of the stockings. The inventive genius +of woman triumphantly bridged it, but in a manner which imposes upon +history almost insuperable delicacies of narration. Penrod's father +was an old-fashioned man: the twentieth century had failed to shake his +faith in red flannel for cold weather; and it was while Mrs. Schofield +was putting away her husband's winter underwear that she perceived how +hopelessly one of the elder specimens had dwindled; and simultaneously +she received the inspiration which resulted in a pair of trunks for the +Child Sir Lancelot, and added an earnest bit of colour, as well as a +genuine touch of the Middle Ages, to his costume. Reversed, fore to aft, +with the greater part of the legs cut off, and strips of silver braid +covering the seams, this garment, she felt, was not traceable to its +original source. + +When it had been placed upon Penrod, the stockings were attached to it +by a system of safety-pins, not very perceptible at a distance. Next, +after being severely warned against stooping, Penrod got his feet into +the slippers he wore to dancing-school--“patent-leather pumps” now +decorated with large pink rosettes. + +“If I can't stoop,” he began, smolderingly, “I'd like to know how'm I +goin' to kneel in the pag----” + +“You must MANAGE!” This, uttered through pins, was evidently thought to +be sufficient. + +They fastened some ruching about his slender neck, pinned ribbons at +random all over him, and then Margaret thickly powdered his hair. + +“Oh, yes, that's all right,” she said, replying to a question put by her +mother. “They always powdered their hair in Colonial times.” + +“It doesn't seem right to me--exactly,” objected Mrs. Schofield, gently. +“Sir Lancelot must have been ever so long before Colonial times.” + +“That doesn't matter,” Margaret reassured her. “Nobody'll know the +difference--Mrs. Lora Rewbush least of all. I don't think she knows a +thing about it, though, of course, she does write splendidly and the +words of the pageant are just beautiful. Stand still, Penrod!” (The +author of “Harold Ramorez” had moved convulsively.) “Besides, powdered +hair's always becoming. Look at him. You'd hardly know it was Penrod!” + +The pride and admiration with which she pronounced this undeniable truth +might have been thought tactless, but Penrod, not analytical, found his +spirits somewhat elevated. No mirror was in his range of vision and, +though he had submitted to cursory measurements of his person a week +earlier, he had no previous acquaintance with the costume. He began +to form a not unpleasing mental picture of his appearance, something +somewhere between the portraits of George Washington and a vivid memory +of Miss Julia Marlowe at a matinee of “Twelfth Night.” + +He was additionally cheered by a sword which had been borrowed from a +neighbor, who was a Knight of Pythias. Finally there was a mantle, an +old golf cape of Margaret's. Fluffy polka-dots of white cotton had been +sewed to it generously; also it was ornamented with a large cross of +red flannel, suggested by the picture of a Crusader in a newspaper +advertisement. The mantle was fastened to Penrod's shoulder (that is, +to the shoulder of Mrs. Schofield's ex-bodice) by means of large +safety-pins, and arranged to hang down behind him, touching his heels, +but obscuring nowise the glory of his facade. Then, at last, he was +allowed to step before a mirror. + +It was a full-length glass, and the worst immediately happened. It might +have been a little less violent, perhaps, if Penrod's expectations had +not been so richly and poetically idealized; but as things were, the +revolt was volcanic. + +Victor Hugo's account of the fight with the devil-fish, in “Toilers +of the Sea,” encourages a belief that, had Hugo lived and increased in +power, he might have been equal to a proper recital of the half +hour which followed Penrod's first sight of himself as the Child Sir +Lancelot. But Mr. Wilson himself, dastard but eloquent foe of Harold +Ramorez, could not have expressed, with all the vile dashes at +his command, the sentiments which animated Penrod's bosom when the +instantaneous and unalterable conviction descended upon him that he was +intended by his loved ones to make a public spectacle of himself in his +sister's stockings and part of an old dress of his mother's. + +To him these familiar things were not disguised at all; there seemed no +possibility that the whole world would not know them at a glance. The +stockings were worse than the bodice. He had been assured that these +could not be recognized, but, seeing them in the mirror, he was sure +that no human eye could fail at first glance to detect the difference +between himself and the former purposes of these stockings. Fold, +wrinkle, and void shrieked their history with a hundred tongues, +invoking earthquake, eclipse, and blue ruin. The frantic youth's final +submission was obtained only after a painful telephonic conversation +between himself and his father, the latter having been called up and +upon, by the exhausted Mrs. Schofield, to subjugate his offspring by +wire. + +The two ladies made all possible haste, after this, to deliver +Penrod into the hands of Mrs. Lora Rewbush; nevertheless, they found +opportunity to exchange earnest congratulations upon his not having +recognized the humble but serviceable paternal garment now brilliant +about the Lancelotish middle. Altogether, they felt that the costume +was a success. Penrod looked like nothing ever remotely imagined by +Sir Thomas Malory or Alfred Tennyson;--for that matter, he looked like +nothing ever before seen on earth; but as Mrs. Schofield and Margaret +took their places in the audience at the Women's Arts and Guild Hall, +the anxiety they felt concerning Penrod's elocutionary and gesticular +powers, so soon to be put to public test, was pleasantly tempered by +their satisfaction that, owing to their efforts, his outward appearance +would be a credit to the family. + + + +CHAPTER IV DESPERATION + +The Child Sir Lancelot found himself in a large anteroom behind the +stage--a room crowded with excited children, all about equally medieval +and artistic. Penrod was less conspicuous than he thought himself, but +he was so preoccupied with his own shame, steeling his nerves to meet +the first inevitable taunting reference to his sister's stockings, +that he failed to perceive there were others present in much of his own +unmanned condition. Retiring to a corner, immediately upon his entrance, +he managed to unfasten the mantle at the shoulders, and, drawing it +round him, pinned it again at his throat so that it concealed the rest +of his costume. This permitted a temporary relief, but increased his +horror of the moment when, in pursuance of the action of the “pageant,” + the sheltering garment must be cast aside. + +Some of the other child knights were also keeping their mantles close +about them. A few of the envied opulent swung brilliant fabrics +from their shoulders, airily, showing off hired splendours from a +professional costumer's stock, while one or two were insulting examples +of parental indulgence, particularly little Maurice Levy, the Child Sir +Galahad. This shrinking person went clamorously about, making it known +everywhere that the best tailor in town had been dazzled by a great +sum into constructing his costume. It consisted of blue velvet +knickerbockers, a white satin waistcoat, and a beautifully cut little +swallow-tailed coat with pearl buttons. The medieval and artistic +triumph was completed by a mantle of yellow velvet, and little white +boots, sporting gold tassels. + +All this radiance paused in a brilliant career and addressed the Child +Sir Lancelot, gathering an immediately formed semicircular audience of +little girls. Woman was ever the trailer of magnificence. + +“What YOU got on?” inquired Mr. Levy, after dispensing information. +“What you got on under that ole golf cape?” + +Penrod looked upon him coldly. At other times his questioner would have +approached him with deference, even with apprehension. But to-day the +Child Sir Galahad was somewhat intoxicated with the power of his own +beauty. + +“What YOU got on?” he repeated. + +“Oh, nothin',” said Penrod, with an indifference assumed at great cost +to his nervous system. + +The elate Maurice was inspired to set up as a wit. “Then you're nakid!” + he shouted exultantly. “Penrod Schofield says he hasn't got nothin' on +under that ole golf cape! He's nakid! He's nakid.” + +The indelicate little girls giggled delightedly, and a javelin pierced +the inwards of Penrod when he saw that the Child Elaine, amber-curled +and beautiful Marjorie Jones, lifted golden laughter to the horrid jest. + +Other boys and girls came flocking to the uproar. “He's nakid, he's +nakid!” shrieked the Child Sir Galahad. “Penrod Schofield's nakid! He's +NA-A-A-KID!” + +“Hush, hush!” said Mrs. Lora Rewbush, pushing her way into the group. +“Remember, we are all little knights and ladies to-day. Little knights +and ladies of the Table Round would not make so much noise. Now +children, we must begin to take our places on the stage. Is everybody +here?” + +Penrod made his escape under cover of this diversion: he slid behind +Mrs. Lora Rewbush, and being near a door, opened it unnoticed and went +out quickly, closing it behind him. He found himself in a narrow and +vacant hallway which led to a door marked “Janitor's Room.” + +Burning with outrage, heart-sick at the sweet, cold-blooded laughter +of Marjorie Jones, Penrod rested his elbows upon a window-sill and +speculated upon the effects of a leap from the second story. One of the +reasons he gave it up was his desire to live on Maurice Levy's account: +already he was forming educational plans for the Child Sir Galahad. + +A stout man in blue overalls passed through the hallway muttering to +himself petulantly. “I reckon they'll find that hall hot enough NOW!” he +said, conveying to Penrod an impression that some too feminine women had +sent him upon an unreasonable errand to the furnace. He went into the +Janitor's Room and, emerging a moment later, minus the overalls, passed +Penrod again with a bass rumble--“Dern 'em!” it seemed he said--and +made a gloomy exit by the door at the upper end of the hallway. + +The conglomerate and delicate rustle of a large, mannerly audience was +heard as the janitor opened and closed the door; and stage-fright +seized the boy. The orchestra began an overture, and, at that, Penrod, +trembling violently, tiptoed down the hall into the Janitor's Room. It +was a cul-de-sac: There was no outlet save by the way he had come. + +Despairingly he doffed his mantle and looked down upon himself for +a last sickening assurance that the stockings were as obviously and +disgracefully Margaret's as they had seemed in the mirror at home. For a +moment he was encouraged: perhaps he was no worse than some of the +other boys. Then he noticed that a safety-pin had opened; one of those +connecting the stockings with his trunks. He sat down to fasten it +and his eye fell for the first time with particular attention upon the +trunks. Until this instant he had been preoccupied with the stockings. + +Slowly recognition dawned in his eyes. + +The Schofields' house stood on a corner at the intersection of two +main-travelled streets; the fence was low, and the publicity obtained by +the washable portion of the family apparel, on Mondays, had often been +painful to Penrod; for boys have a peculiar sensitiveness in these +matters. A plain, matter-of-fact washerwoman' employed by Mrs. +Schofield, never left anything to the imagination of the passer-by; and +of all her calm display the scarlet flaunting of his father's winter +wear had most abashed Penrod. One day Marjorie Jones, all gold and +starch, had passed when the dreadful things were on the line: Penrod had +hidden himself, shuddering. The whole town, he was convinced, knew these +garments intimately and derisively. + +And now, as he sat in the janitor's chair, the horrible and paralyzing +recognition came. He had not an instant's doubt that every fellow actor, +as well as every soul in the audience, would recognize what his mother +and sister had put upon him. For as the awful truth became plain to +himself it seemed blazoned to the world; and far, far louder than the +stockings, the trunks did fairly bellow the grisly secret: WHOSE they +were and WHAT they were! + +Most people have suffered in a dream the experience of finding +themselves very inadequately clad in the midst of a crowd of +well-dressed people, and such dreamers' sensations are comparable to +Penrod's, though faintly, because Penrod was awake and in much too full +possession of the most active capacities for anguish. + +A human male whose dress has been damaged, or reveals some vital lack, +suffers from a hideous and shameful loneliness which makes every +second absolutely unbearable until he is again as others of his sex and +species; and there is no act or sin whatever too desperate for him in +his struggle to attain that condition. Also, there is absolutely no +embarrassment possible to a woman which is comparable to that of a man +under corresponding circumstances and in this a boy is a man. Gazing +upon the ghastly trunks, the stricken Penrod felt that he was a degree +worse then nude; and a great horror of himself filled his soul. + +“Penrod Schofield!” + +The door into the hallway opened, and a voice demanded him. He could not +be seen from the hallway, but the hue and the cry was up; and he knew +he must be taken. It was only a question of seconds. He huddled in his +chair. + +“Penrod Schofield!” cried Mrs. Lora Rewbush angrily. + +The distracted boy rose and, as he did so, a long pin sank deep into his +back. He extracted it frenziedly, which brought to his ears a protracted +and sonorous ripping, too easily located by a final gesture of horror. + +“Penrod Schofield!” Mrs. Lora Rewbush had come out into the hallway. + +And now, in this extremity, when all seemed lost indeed, particularly +including honour, the dilating eye of the outlaw fell upon the blue +overalls which the janitor had left hanging upon a peg. + +Inspiration and action were almost simultaneous. + + + +CHAPTER V THE PAGEANT OF THE TABLE ROUND + + +“Penrod!” Mrs. Lora Rewbush stood in the doorway, indignantly gazing +upon a Child Sir Lancelot mantled to the heels. “Do you know that you +have kept an audience of five hundred people waiting for ten minutes?” + She, also, detained the five hundred while she spake further. + +“Well,” said Penrod contentedly, as he followed her toward the buzzing +stage, “I was just sitting there thinking.” + +Two minutes later the curtain rose on a medieval castle hall richly done +in the new stage-craft made in Germany and consisting of pink and blue +cheesecloth. The Child King Arthur and the Child Queen Guinevere were +disclosed upon thrones, with the Child Elaine and many other celebrities +in attendance; while about fifteen Child Knights were seated at a +dining-room table round, which was covered with a large Oriental rug, +and displayed (for the knights' refreshment) a banquet service of silver +loving-cups and trophies, borrowed from the Country Club and some local +automobile manufacturers. + +In addition to this splendour, potted plants and palms have seldom been +more lavishly used in any castle on the stage or off. + +The footlights were aided by a “spot-light” from the rear of the hall; +and the children were revealed in a blaze of glory. + +A hushed, multitudinous “O-OH” of admiration came from the decorous and +delighted audience. Then the children sang feebly: + + “Chuldrun of the Tabul Round, + Lit-tul knights and ladies we. + Let our voy-siz all resound + Faith and hope and charitee!” + +The Child King Arthur rose, extended his sceptre with the decisive +gesture of a semaphore, and spake: + + “Each littul knight and lady born + Has noble deeds TO perform + In THEE child-world of shivullree, + No matter how small his share may be. + Let each advance and tell in turn + What claim has each to knighthood earn.” + +The Child Sir Mordred, the villain of this piece, rose in his place +at the table round, and piped the only lines ever written by Mrs. Lora +Rewbush which Penrod Schofield could have pronounced without loathing. +Georgie Bassett, a really angelic boy, had been selected for the role of +Mordred. His perfect conduct had earned for him the sardonic sobriquet, +“The Little Gentleman,” among his boy acquaintances. (Naturally he had +no friends.) Hence the other boys supposed that he had been selected for +the wicked Mordred as a reward of virtue. He declaimed serenely: + + “I hight Sir Mordred the Child, and I teach + Lessons of selfishest evil, and reach + Out into darkness. Thoughtless, unkind, + And ruthless is Mordred, and unrefined.” + +The Child Mordred was properly rebuked and denied the accolade, though, +like the others, he seemed to have assumed the title already. He made +a plotter's exit. Whereupon Maurice Levy rose, bowed, announced that he +highted the Child Sir Galahad, and continued with perfect sang-froid: + + “I am the purest of the pure. + I have but kindest thoughts each day. + I give my riches to the poor, + And follow in the Master's way.” + +This elicited tokens of approval from the Child King Arthur, and he bade +Maurice “stand forth” and come near the throne, a command obeyed with +the easy grace of conscious merit. + +It was Penrod's turn. He stepped back from his chair, the table between +him and the audience, and began in a high, breathless monotone: + + “I hight Sir Lancelot du Lake, the Child, + Gentul-hearted, meek, and mild. + What though I'm BUT a littul child, + Gentul-heartud, meek, and mild, + I do my share though but--though but----” + +Penrod paused and gulped. The voice of Mrs. Lora Rewbush was heard from +the wings, prompting irritably, and the Child. Sir Lancelot repeated: + + “I do my share though but--though but a tot, + I pray you knight Sir Lancelot!” + +This also met the royal favour, and Penrod was bidden to join Sir +Galahad at the throne. As he crossed the stage, Mrs. Schofield whispered +to Margaret: + +“That boy! He's unpinned his mantle and fixed it to cover his whole +costume. After we worked so hard to make it becoming!” + +“Never mind; he'll have to take the cape off in a minute,” returned +Margaret. She leaned forward suddenly, narrowing her eyes to see +better. “What IS that thing hanging about his left ankle?” she whispered +uneasily. “How queer! He must have got tangled in something.” + +“Where?” asked Mrs. Schofield, in alarm. + +“His left foot. It makes him stumble. Don't you see? It looks--it looks +like an elephant's foot!” + +The Child Sir Lancelot and the Child Sir Galahad clasped hands before +their Child King. Penrod was conscious of a great uplift; in a moment he +would have to throw aside his mantle, but even so he was protected and +sheltered in the human garment of a man. His stage-fright had passed, +for the audience was but an indistinguishable blur of darkness beyond +the dazzling lights. His most repulsive speech (that in which he +proclaimed himself a “tot”) was over and done with; and now at last the +small, moist hand of the Child Sir Galahad lay within his own. Craftily +his brown fingers stole from Maurice's palm to the wrist. The two boys +declaimed in concert: + + “We are two chuldrun of the Tabul Round + Strewing kindness all a-round. + With love and good deeds striving ever for the best, + May our littul efforts e'er be blest. + Two littul hearts we offer. See + United in love, faith, hope, and char--OW!” + +The conclusion of the duet was marred. The Child Sir Galahad suddenly +stiffened, and, uttering an irrepressible shriek of anguish, gave a +brief exhibition of the contortionist's art. (“HE'S TWISTIN' MY WRIST! +DERN YOU, LEGGO!”) + +The voice of Mrs. Lora Rewbush was again heard from the wings; it +sounded bloodthirsty. Penrod released his victim; and the Child King +Arthur, somewhat disconcerted, extended his sceptre and, with the +assistance of the enraged prompter, said: + + “Sweet child-friends of the Tabul Round, + In brotherly love and kindness abound, + Sir Lancelot, you have spoken well, + Sir Galahad, too, as clear as bell. + So now pray doff your mantles gay. + You shall be knighted this very day.” + +And Penrod doffed his mantle. + +Simultaneously, a thick and vasty gasp came from the audience, as +from five hundred bathers in a wholly unexpected surf. This gasp was +punctuated irregularly, over the auditorium, by imperfectly subdued +screams both of dismay and incredulous joy, and by two dismal shrieks. +Altogether it was an extraordinary sound, a sound never to be forgotten +by any one who heard it. It was almost as unforgettable as the sight +which caused it; the word “sight” being here used in its vernacular +sense, for Penrod, standing unmantled and revealed in all the medieval +and artistic glory of the janitor's blue overalls, falls within its +meaning. + +The janitor was a heavy man, and his overalls, upon Penrod, were merely +oceanic. The boy was at once swaddled and lost within their blue +gulfs and vast saggings; and the left leg, too hastily rolled up, had +descended with a distinctively elephantine effect, as Margaret had +observed. Certainly, the Child Sir Lancelot was at least a sight. + +It is probable that a great many in that hall must have had, even then, +a consciousness that they were looking on at History in the Making. +A supreme act is recognizable at sight: it bears the birthmark of +immortality. But Penrod, that marvellous boy, had begun to declaim, even +with the gesture of flinging off his mantle for the accolade: + + “I first, the Child Sir Lancelot du Lake, + Will volunteer to knighthood take, + And kneeling here before your throne + I vow to----” + +He finished his speech unheard. The audience had recovered breath, but +had lost self-control, and there ensued something later described by a +participant as a sort of cultured riot. + +The actors in the “pageant” were not so dumfounded by Penrod's costume +as might have been expected. A few precocious geniuses perceived +that the overalls were the Child Lancelot's own comment on maternal +intentions; and these were profoundly impressed: they regarded him with +the grisly admiration of young and ambitious criminals for a jail-mate +about to be distinguished by hanging. But most of the children simply +took it to be the case (a little strange, but not startling) that +Penrod's mother had dressed him like that--which is pathetic. They tried +to go on with the “pageant.” + +They made a brief, manful effort. But the irrepressible outbursts from +the audience bewildered them; every time Sir Lancelot du Lake the Child +opened his mouth, the great, shadowy house fell into an uproar, and the +children into confusion. Strong women and brave girls in the audience +went out into the lobby, shrieking and clinging to one another. Others +remained, rocking in their seats, helpless and spent. The neighbourhood +of Mrs. Schofield and Margaret became, tactfully, a desert. Friends of +the author went behind the scenes and encountered a hitherto unknown +phase of Mrs. Lora Rewbush; they said, afterward, that she hardly seemed +to know what she was doing. She begged to be left alone somewhere with +Penrod Schofield, for just a little while. + +They led her away. + + + +CHAPTER VI EVENING + +The sun was setting behind the back fence (though at a considerable +distance) as Penrod Schofield approached that fence and looked +thoughtfully up at the top of it, apparently having in mind some purpose +to climb up and sit there. Debating this, he passed his fingers gently +up and down the backs of his legs; and then something seemed to decide +him not to sit anywhere. He leaned against the fence, sighed profoundly, +and gazed at Duke, his wistful dog. + +The sigh was reminiscent: episodes of simple pathos were passing before +his inward eye. About the most painful was the vision of lovely +Marjorie Jones, weeping with rage as the Child Sir Lancelot was dragged, +insatiate, from the prostrate and howling Child Sir Galahad, after an +onslaught delivered the precise instant the curtain began to fall upon +the demoralized “pageant.” And then--oh, pangs! oh, woman!--she slapped +at the ruffian's cheek, as he was led past her by a resentful janitor; +and turning, flung her arms round the Child Sir Galahad's neck. + +“PENROD SCHOFIELD, DON'T YOU DARE EVER SPEAK TO ME AGAIN AS LONG AS +YOU LIVE!” Maurice's little white boots and gold tassels had done their +work. + +At home the late Child Sir Lancelot was consigned to a locked +clothes-closet pending the arrival of his father. Mr. Schofield came +and, shortly after, there was put into practice an old patriarchal +custom. It is a custom of inconceivable antiquity: probably primordial, +certainly prehistoric, but still in vogue in some remaining citadels of +the ancient simplicities of the Republic. + +And now, therefore, in the dusk, Penrod leaned against the fence and +sighed. + +His case is comparable to that of an adult who could have survived a +similar experience. Looking back to the sawdust-box, fancy pictures this +comparable adult a serious and inventive writer engaged in congenial +literary activities in a private retreat. We see this period marked +by the creation of some of the most virile passages of a Work dealing +exclusively in red corpuscles and huge primal impulses. We see +this thoughtful man dragged from his calm seclusion to a horrifying +publicity; forced to adopt the stage and, himself a writer, compelled +to exploit the repulsive sentiments of an author not only personally +distasteful to him but whose whole method and school in belles lettres +he despises. + +We see him reduced by desperation and modesty to stealing a pair of +overalls. We conceive him to have ruined, then, his own reputation, +and to have utterly disgraced his family; next, to have engaged in +the duello and to have been spurned by his lady-love, thus lost to him +(according to her own declaration) forever. Finally, we must behold: +imprisonment by the authorities; the third degree and flagellation. + +We conceive our man decided that his career had been perhaps too +eventful. Yet Penrod had condensed all of it into eight hours. + +It appears that he had at least some shadowy perception of a recent +fulness of life, for, as he leaned against the fence, gazing upon his +wistful Duke, he sighed again and murmured aloud: + +“WELL, HASN'T THIS BEEN A DAY!” + +But in a little while a star came out, freshly lighted, from the highest +part of the sky, and Penrod, looking up, noticed it casually and +a little drowsily. He yawned. Then he sighed once more, but not +reminiscently: evening had come; the day was over. It was a sigh of pure +ennui. + + + +CHAPTER VII EVILS OF DRINK + +Next day, Penrod acquired a dime by a simple and antique process which +was without doubt sometimes practised by the boys of Babylon. When the +teacher of his class in Sunday-school requested the weekly contribution, +Penrod, fumbling honestly (at first) in the wrong pockets, managed to +look so embarrassed that the gentle lady told him not to mind, and said +she was often forgetful herself. She was so sweet about it that, looking +into the future, Penrod began to feel confident of a small but regular +income. + +At the close of the afternoon services he did not go home, but proceeded +to squander the funds just withheld from China upon an orgy of the most +pungently forbidden description. In a Drug Emporium, near the church, he +purchased a five-cent sack of candy consisting for the most part of the +heavily flavoured hoofs of horned cattle, but undeniably substantial, +and so generously capable of resisting solution that the purchaser must +needs be avaricious beyond reason who did not realize his money's worth. + +Equipped with this collation, Penrod contributed his remaining nickel to +a picture show, countenanced upon the seventh day by the legal but not +the moral authorities. Here, in cozy darkness, he placidly insulted his +liver with jaw-breaker upon jaw-breaker from the paper sack, and in a +surfeit of content watched the silent actors on the screen. + +One film made a lasting impression upon him. It depicted with relentless +pathos the drunkard's progress; beginning with his conversion to beer +in the company of loose travelling men; pursuing him through an +inexplicable lapse into evening clothes and the society of some +remarkably painful ladies, next, exhibiting the effects of alcohol on +the victim's domestic disposition, the unfortunate man was seen in the +act of striking his wife and, subsequently, his pleading baby daughter +with an abnormally heavy walking-stick. Their flight--through the +snow--to seek the protection of a relative was shown, and finally, the +drunkard's picturesque behaviour at the portals of a madhouse. + +So fascinated was Penrod that he postponed his departure until this film +came round again, by which time he had finished his unnatural repast +and almost, but not quite, decided against following the profession of a +drunkard when he grew up. + +Emerging, satiated, from the theatre, a public timepiece before a +jeweller's shop confronted him with an unexpected dial and imminent +perplexities. How was he to explain at home these hours of dalliance? +There was a steadfast rule that he return direct from Sunday-school; and +Sunday rules were important, because on that day there was his father, +always at home and at hand, perilously ready for action. One of the +hardest conditions of boyhood is the almost continuous strain put upon +the powers of invention by the constant and harassing necessity for +explanations of every natural act. + +Proceeding homeward through the deepening twilight as rapidly as +possible, at a gait half skip and half canter, Penrod made up his mind +in what manner he would account for his long delay, and, as he drew +nearer, rehearsed in words the opening passage of his defence. + +“Now see here,” he determined to begin; “I do not wished to be blamed +for things I couldn't help, nor any other boy. I was going along the +street by a cottage and a lady put her head out of the window and said +her husband was drunk and whipping her and her little girl, and she +asked me wouldn't I come in and help hold him. So I went in and tried to +get hold of this drunken lady's husband where he was whipping their baby +daughter, but he wouldn't pay any attention, and I TOLD her I ought to +be getting home, but she kep' on askin' me to stay----” + +At this point he reached the corner of his own yard, where a coincidence +not only checked the rehearsal of his eloquence but happily obviated all +occasion for it. A cab from the station drew up in front of the gate, +and there descended a troubled lady in black and a fragile little girl +about three. Mrs. Schofield rushed from the house and enfolded both in +hospitable arms. + +They were Penrod's Aunt Clara and cousin, also Clara, from Dayton, +Illinois, and in the flurry of their arrival everybody forgot to put +Penrod to the question. It is doubtful, however, if he felt any relief; +there may have been even a slight, unconscious disappointment not +altogether dissimilar to that of an actor deprived of a good part. + +In the course of some really necessary preparations for dinner he +stepped from the bathroom into the pink-and-white bedchamber of his +sister, and addressed her rather thickly through a towel. + +“When'd mamma find out Aunt Clara and Cousin Clara were coming?” + +“Not till she saw them from the window. She just happened to look out +as they drove up. Aunt Clara telegraphed this morning, but it wasn't +delivered.” + +“How long they goin' to stay?” + +“I don't know.” + +Penrod ceased to rub his shining face, and thoughtfully tossed the towel +through the bathroom door. “Uncle John won't try to make 'em come +back home, I guess, will he?” (Uncle John was Aunt Clara's husband, a +successful manufacturer of stoves, and his lifelong regret was that he +had not entered the Baptist ministry.) “He'll let 'em stay here quietly, +won't he?” + +“What ARE you talking about?” demanded Margaret, turning from her +mirror. “Uncle John sent them here. Why shouldn't he let them stay?” + +Penrod looked crestfallen. “Then he hasn't taken to drink?” + +“Certainly not!” She emphasized the denial with a pretty peal of soprano +laughter. + +“Then why,” asked her brother gloomily, “why did Aunt Clara look so +worried when she got here?” + +“Good gracious! Don't people worry about anything except somebody's +drinking? Where did you get such an idea?” + +“Well,” he persisted, “you don't KNOW it ain't that.” + +She laughed again, wholeheartedly. “Poor Uncle John! He won't even allow +grape juice or ginger ale in his house. They came because they were +afraid little Clara might catch the measles. She's very delicate, and +there's such an epidemic of measles among the children over in Dayton +the schools had to be closed. Uncle John got so worried that last night +he dreamed about it; and this morning he couldn't stand it any longer +and packed them off over here, though he thinks its wicked to travel +on Sunday. And Aunt Clara was worried when she got here because they'd +forgotten to check her trunk and it will have to be sent by express. Now +what in the name of the common sense put it into your head that Uncle +John had taken to----” + +“Oh, nothing.” He turned lifelessly away and went downstairs, a new-born +hope dying in his bosom. Life seems so needlessly dull sometimes. + + + +CHAPTER VIII SCHOOL + +Next morning, when he had once more resumed the dreadful burden of +education, it seemed infinitely duller. And yet what pleasanter sight +is there than a schoolroom well filled with children of those sprouting +years just before the 'teens? The casual visitor, gazing from the +teacher's platform upon these busy little heads, needs only a blunted +memory to experience the most agreeable and exhilarating sensations. +Still, for the greater part, the children are unconscious of the +happiness of their condition; for nothing is more pathetically true than +that we “never know when we are well off.” The boys in a public school +are less aware of their happy state than are the girls; and of all the +boys in his room, probably Penrod himself had the least appreciation of +his felicity. + +He sat staring at an open page of a textbook, but not studying; not even +reading; not even thinking. Nor was he lost in a reverie: his mind's eye +was shut, as his physical eye might well have been, for the optic nerve, +flaccid with ennui, conveyed nothing whatever of the printed page +upon which the orb of vision was partially focused. Penrod was doing +something very unusual and rare, something almost never accomplished +except by coloured people or by a boy in school on a spring day: he was +doing really nothing at all. He was merely a state of being. + +From the street a sound stole in through the open window, and abhorring +Nature began to fill the vacuum called Penrod Schofield; for the sound +was the spring song of a mouth-organ, coming down the sidewalk. The +windows were intentionally above the level of the eyes of the seated +pupils; but the picture of the musician was plain to Penrod, painted for +him by a quality in the runs and trills, partaking of the oboe, of the +calliope, and of cats in anguish; an excruciating sweetness obtained +only by the wallowing, walloping yellow-pink palm of a hand whose back +was Congo black and shiny. The music came down the street and passed +beneath the window, accompanied by the care-free shuffling of a pair of +old shoes scuffing syncopations on the cement sidewalk. It passed into +the distance; became faint and blurred; was gone. Emotion stirred in +Penrod a great and poignant desire, but (perhaps fortunately) no fairy +godmother made her appearance. + +Otherwise Penrod would have gone down the street in a black skin, +playing the mouth-organ, and an unprepared coloured youth would have +found himself enjoying educational advantages for which he had no +ambition whatever. + +Roused from perfect apathy, the boy cast about the schoolroom an eye +wearied to nausea by the perpetual vision of the neat teacher upon the +platform, the backs of the heads of the pupils in front of him, and the +monotonous stretches of blackboard threateningly defaced by arithmetical +formulae and other insignia of torture. Above the blackboard, the +walls of the high room were of white plaster--white with the qualified +whiteness of old snow in a soft coal town. This dismal expanse was +broken by four lithographic portraits, votive offerings of a thoughtful +publisher. The portraits were of good and great men, kind men; men +who loved children. Their faces were noble and benevolent. But the +lithographs offered the only rest for the eyes of children fatigued by +the everlasting sameness of the schoolroom. Long day after long day, +interminable week in and interminable week out, vast month on vast +month, the pupils sat with those four portraits beaming kindness down +upon them. The faces became permanent in the consciousness of the +children; they became an obsession--in and out of school the children +were never free of them. The four faces haunted the minds of children +falling asleep; they hung upon the minds of children waking at night; +they rose forebodingly in the minds of children waking in the morning; +they became monstrously alive in the minds of children lying sick of +fever. Never, while the children of that schoolroom lived, would they +be able to forget one detail of the four lithographs: the hand of +Longfellow was fixed, for them, forever, in his beard. And by a simple +and unconscious association of ideas, Penrod Schofield was accumulating +an antipathy for the gentle Longfellow and for James Russell Lowell and +for Oliver Wendell Holmes and for John Greenleaf Whittier, which would +never permit him to peruse a work of one of those great New Englanders +without a feeling of personal resentment. + +His eyes fell slowly and inimically from the brow of Whittier to +the braid of reddish hair belonging to Victorine Riordan, the little +octoroon girl who sat directly in front of him. Victorine's back was as +familiar to Penrod as the necktie of Oliver Wendell Holmes. So was her +gayly coloured plaid waist. He hated the waist as he hated Victorine +herself, without knowing why. Enforced companionship in large quantities +and on an equal basis between the sexes appears to sterilize the +affections, and schoolroom romances are few. + +Victorine's hair was thick, and the brickish glints in it were +beautiful, but Penrod was very tired of it. A tiny knot of green ribbon +finished off the braid and kept it from unravelling; and beneath the +ribbon there was a final wisp of hair which was just long enough to +repose upon Penrod's desk when Victorine leaned back in her seat. It was +there now. Thoughtfully, he took the braid between thumb and forefinger, +and, without disturbing Victorine, dipped the end of it and the green +ribbon into the inkwell of his desk. He brought hair and ribbon forth +dripping purple ink, and partially dried them on a blotter, though, a +moment later when Victorine leaned forward, they were still able to add +a few picturesque touches to the plaid waist. + +Rudolph Krauss, across the aisle from Penrod, watched the operation with +protuberant eyes, fascinated. Inspired to imitation, he took a piece of +chalk from his pocket and wrote “RATS” across the shoulder-blades of the +boy in front of him, then looked across appealingly to Penrod for tokens +of congratulation. Penrod yawned. It may not be denied that at times he +appeared to be a very self-centred boy. + + + +CHAPTER IX SOARING + +Half the members of the class passed out to a recitation-room, the +empurpled Victorine among them, and Miss Spence started the remaining +half through the ordeal of trial by mathematics. Several boys and girls +were sent to the blackboard, and Penrod, spared for the moment, followed +their operations a little while with his eyes, but not with his mind; +then, sinking deeper in his seat, limply abandoned the effort. His eyes +remained open, but saw nothing; the routine of the arithmetic lesson +reached his ears in familiar, meaningless sounds, but he heard nothing; +and yet, this time, he was profoundly occupied. He had drifted away from +the painful land of facts, and floated now in a new sea of fancy which +he had just discovered. + +Maturity forgets the marvellous realness of a boy's day-dreams, how +colourful they glow, rosy and living, and how opaque the curtain closing +down between the dreamer and the actual world. That curtain is almost +sound-proof, too, and causes more throat-trouble among parents than is +suspected. + +The nervous monotony of the schoolroom inspires a sometimes unbearable +longing for something astonishing to happen, and as every boy's +fundamental desire is to do something astonishing himself, so as to be +the centre of all human interest and awe, it was natural that Penrod +should discover in fancy the delightful secret of self-levitation. +He found, in this curious series of imaginings, during the lesson in +arithmetic, that the atmosphere may be navigated as by a swimmer under +water, but with infinitely greater ease and with perfect comfort in +breathing. In his mind he extended his arms gracefully, at a level with +his shoulders, and delicately paddled the air with his hands, which at +once caused him to be drawn up out of his seat and elevated gently to a +position about midway between the floor and the ceiling, where he +came to an equilibrium and floated; a sensation not the less exquisite +because of the screams of his fellow pupils, appalled by the miracle. +Miss Spence herself was amazed and frightened, but he only smiled down +carelessly upon her when she commanded him to return to earth; and +then, when she climbed upon a desk to pull him down, he quietly paddled +himself a little higher, leaving his toes just out of her reach. Next, +he swam through a few slow somersaults to show his mastery of the new +art, and, with the shouting of the dumfounded scholars ringing in +his ears, turned on his side and floated swiftly out of the window, +immediately rising above the housetops, while people in the street below +him shrieked, and a trolley car stopped dead in wonder. + +With almost no exertion he paddled himself, many yards at a stroke, to +the girls' private school where Marjorie Jones was a pupil--Marjorie +Jones of the amber curls and the golden voice! Long before the “Pageant +of the Table Round,” she had offered Penrod a hundred proofs that +she considered him wholly undesirable and ineligible. At the Friday +Afternoon Dancing Class she consistently incited and led the laughter at +him whenever Professor Bartet singled him out for admonition in matters +of feet and decorum. And but yesterday she had chid him for his +slavish lack of memory in daring to offer her a greeting on the way to +Sunday-school. “Well! I expect you must forgot I told you never to speak +to me again! If I was a boy, I'd be too proud to come hanging around +people that don't speak to me, even if I WAS the Worst Boy in Town!” + So she flouted him. But now, as he floated in through the window of her +classroom and swam gently along the ceiling like an escaped toy balloon, +she fell upon her knees beside her little desk, and, lifting up her arms +toward him, cried with love and admiration: + +“Oh, PENrod!” + +He negligently kicked a globe from the high chandelier, and, smiling +coldly, floated out through the hall to the front steps of the school, +while Marjorie followed, imploring him to grant her one kind look. + +In the street an enormous crowd had gathered, headed by Miss Spence and +a brass band; and a cheer from a hundred thousand throats shook the +very ground as Penrod swam overhead. Marjorie knelt upon the steps +and watched adoringly while Penrod took the drum-major's baton and, +performing sinuous evolutions above the crowd, led the band. Then he +threw the baton so high that it disappeared from sight; but he went +swiftly after it, a double delight, for he had not only the delicious +sensation of rocketing safely up and up into the blue sky, but also +that of standing in the crowd below, watching and admiring himself as he +dwindled to a speck, disappeared and then, emerging from a cloud, came +speeding down, with the baton in his hand, to the level of the treetops, +where he beat time for the band and the vast throng and Marjorie Jones, +who all united in the “Star-spangled Banner” in honour of his aerial +achievements. It was a great moment. + +It was a great moment, but something seemed to threaten it. The face +of Miss Spence looking up from the crowd grew too vivid--unpleasantly +vivid. She was beckoning him and shouting, “Come down, Penrod Schofield! +Penrod Schofield, come down here!” + +He could hear her above the band and the singing of the multitude; she +seemed intent on spoiling everything. Marjorie Jones was weeping to +show how sorry she was that she had formerly slighted him, and throwing +kisses to prove that she loved him; but Miss Spence kept jumping between +him and Marjorie, incessantly calling his name. + +He grew more and more irritated with her; he was the most important +person in the world and was engaged in proving it to Marjorie Jones and +the whole city, and yet Miss Spence seemed to feel she still had the +right to order him about as she did in the old days when he was an +ordinary schoolboy. He was furious; he was sure she wanted him to do +something disagreeable. It seemed to him that she had screamed “Penrod +Schofield!” thousands of times. + +From the beginning of his aerial experiments in his own schoolroom, he +had not opened his lips, knowing somehow that one of the requirements +for air floating is perfect silence on the part of the floater; but, +finally, irritated beyond measure by Miss Spence's clamorous insistence, +he was unable to restrain an indignant rebuke and immediately came to +earth with a frightful bump. + +Miss Spence--in the flesh--had directed toward the physical body of the +absent Penrod an inquiry as to the fractional consequences of dividing +seventeen apples, fairly, among three boys, and she was surprised and +displeased to receive no answer although to the best of her knowledge +and belief, he was looking fixedly at her. She repeated her question +crisply, without visible effect; then summoned him by name with +increasing asperity. Twice she called him, while all his fellow +pupils turned to stare at the gazing boy. She advanced a step from the +platform. + +“Penrod Schofield!” + +“Oh, my goodness!” he shouted suddenly. “Can't you keep still a MINUTE?” + + + +CHAPTER X UNCLE JOHN + +Miss Spence gasped. So did the pupils. + +The whole room filled with a swelling conglomerate “O-O-O-O-H!” + +As for Penrod himself, the walls reeled with the shock. He sat with his +mouth open, a mere lump of stupefaction. For the appalling words that +he had hurled at the teacher were as inexplicable to him as to any other +who heard them. + +Nothing is more treacherous than the human mind; nothing else so loves +to play the Iscariot. Even when patiently bullied into a semblance of +order and training, it may prove but a base and shifty servant. And +Penrod's mind was not his servant; it was a master, with the April +wind's whims; and it had just played him a diabolical trick. The very +jolt with which he came back to the schoolroom in the midst of his +fancied flight jarred his day-dream utterly out of him; and he sat, +open-mouthed in horror at what he had said. + +The unanimous gasp of awe was protracted. Miss Spence, however, finally +recovered her breath, and, returning deliberately to the platform, faced +the school. “And then for a little while,” as pathetic stories sometimes +recount, “everything was very still.” It was so still, in fact, that +Penrod's newborn notoriety could almost be heard growing. This grisly +silence was at last broken by the teacher. + +“Penrod Schofield, stand up!” + +The miserable child obeyed. + +“What did you mean by speaking to me in that way?” + +He hung his head, raked the floor with the side of his shoe, swayed, +swallowed, looked suddenly at his hands with the air of never having +seen them before, then clasped them behind him. The school shivered in +ecstatic horror, every fascinated eye upon him; yet there was not a +soul in the room but was profoundly grateful to him for the +sensation--including the offended teacher herself. Unhappily, all this +gratitude was unconscious and altogether different from the kind which, +results in testimonials and loving-cups. On the contrary! + +“Penrod Schofield!” + +He gulped. + +“Answer me at once! Why did you speak to me like that?” + +“I was----” He choked, unable to continue. + +“Speak out!” + +“I was just--thinking,” he managed to stammer. + +“That will not do,” she returned sharply. “I wish to know immediately +why you spoke as you did.” + +The stricken Penrod answered helplessly: + +“Because I was just thinking.” + +Upon the very rack he could have offered no ampler truthful explanation. +It was all he knew about it. + +“Thinking what?” + +“Just thinking.” + +Miss Spence's expression gave evidence that her power of self-restraint +was undergoing a remarkable test. However, after taking counsel with +herself, she commanded: + +“Come here!” + +He shuffled forward, and she placed a chair upon the platform near her +own. + +“Sit there!” + +Then (but not at all as if nothing had happened), she continued the +lesson in arithmetic. Spiritually the children may have learned a lesson +in very small fractions indeed as they gazed at the fragment of +sin before them on the stool of penitence. They all stared at him +attentively with hard and passionately interested eyes, in which there +was never one trace of pity. It cannot be said with precision that he +writhed; his movement was more a slow, continuous squirm, effected with +a ghastly assumption of languid indifference; while his gaze, in the +effort to escape the marble-hearted glare of his schoolmates, affixed +itself with apparent permanence to the waistcoat button of James Russell +Lowell just above the “U” in “Russell.” + +Classes came and classes went, grilling him with eyes. Newcomers +received the story of the crime in darkling whispers; and the outcast +sat and sat and sat, and squirmed and squirmed and squirmed. (He did one +or two things with his spine which a professional contortionist would +have observed with real interest.) And all this while of freezing +suspense was but the criminal's detention awaiting trial. A known +punishment may be anticipated with some measure of equanimity; at least, +the prisoner may prepare himself to undergo it; but the unknown looms +more monstrous for every attempt to guess it. Penrod's crime was unique; +there were no rules to aid him in estimating the vengeance to fall upon +him for it. What seemed most probable was that he would be expelled from +the schools in the presence of his family, the mayor, and council, and +afterward whipped by his father upon the State House steps, with the +entire city as audience by invitation of the authorities. + +Noon came. The rows of children filed out, every head turning for a last +unpleasingly speculative look at the outlaw. Then Miss Spence closed the +door into the cloakroom and that into the big hall, and came and sat at +her desk, near Penrod. The tramping of feet outside, the shrill calls +and shouting and the changing voices of the older boys ceased to be +heard--and there was silence. Penrod, still affecting to be occupied +with Lowell, was conscious that Miss Spence looked at him intently. + +“Penrod,” she said gravely, “what excuse have you to offer before I +report your case to the principal?” + +The word “principal” struck him to the vitals. Grand Inquisitor, Grand +Khan, Sultan, Emperor, Tsar, Caesar Augustus--these are comparable. He +stopped squirming instantly, and sat rigid. + +“I want an answer. Why did you shout those words at me?” + +“Well,” he murmured, “I was just--thinking.” + +“Thinking what?” she asked sharply. + +“I don't know.” + +“That won't do!” + +He took his left ankle in his right hand and regarded it helplessly. + +“That won't do, Penrod Schofield,” she repeated severely. “If that is +all the excuse you have to offer I shall report your case this instant!” + +And she rose with fatal intent. + +But Penrod was one of those whom the precipice inspires. “Well, I HAVE +got an excuse.” + +“Well”--she paused impatiently--“what is it?” + +He had not an idea, but he felt one coming, and replied automatically, +in a plaintive tone: + +“I guess anybody that had been through what I had to go through, last +night, would think they had an excuse.” + +Miss Spence resumed her seat, though with the air of being ready to leap +from it instantly. + +“What has last night to do with your insolence to me this morning?” + +“Well, I guess you'd see,” he returned, emphasizing the plaintive note, +“if you knew what I know.” + +“Now, Penrod,” she said, in a kinder voice, “I have a high regard for +your mother and father, and it would hurt me to distress them, but you +must either tell me what was the matter with you or I'll have to take +you to Mrs. Houston.” + +“Well, ain't I going to?” he cried, spurred by the dread name. “It's +because I didn't sleep last night.” + +“Were you ill?” The question was put with some dryness. + +He felt the dryness. “No'm; _I_ wasn't.” + +“Then if someone in your family was so ill that even you were kept up +all night, how does it happen they let you come to school this morning?” + +“It wasn't illness,” he returned, shaking his head mournfully. “It was +lots worse'n anybody's being sick. It was--it was--well, it was jest +awful.” + +“WHAT was?” He remarked with anxiety the incredulity in her tone. + +“It was about Aunt Clara,” he said. + +“Your Aunt Clara!” she repeated. “Do you mean your mother's sister who +married Mr. Farry of Dayton, Illinois?” + +“Yes--Uncle John,” returned Penrod sorrowfully. “The trouble was about +him.” + +Miss Spence frowned a frown which he rightly interpreted as one of +continued suspicion. “She and I were in school together,” she said. “I +used to know her very well, and I've always heard her married life was +entirely happy. I don't----” + +“Yes, it was,” he interrupted, “until last year when Uncle John took to +running with travelling men----” + +“What?” + +“Yes'm.” He nodded solemnly. “That was what started it. At first he was +a good, kind husband, but these travelling men would coax him into a +saloon on his way home from work, and they got him to drinking beer and +then ales, wines, liquors, and cigars----” + +“Penrod!” + +“Ma'am?” + +“I'm not inquiring into your Aunt Clara's private affairs; I'm asking +you if you have anything to say which would palliate----” + +“That's what I'm tryin' to TELL you about, Miss Spence,” he +pleaded,--“if you'd jest only let me. When Aunt Clara and her little +baby daughter got to our house last night----” + +“You say Mrs. Farry is visiting your mother?” + +“Yes'm--not just visiting--you see, she HAD to come. Well of course, +little baby Clara, she was so bruised up and mauled, where he'd been +hittin' her with his cane----” + +“You mean that your uncle had done such a thing as THAT!” exclaimed Miss +Spence, suddenly disarmed by this scandal. + +“Yes'm, and mamma and Margaret had to sit up all night nursin' little +Clara--and AUNT Clara was in such a state SOMEBODY had to keep talkin' +to HER, and there wasn't anybody but me to do it, so I----” + +“But where was your father?” she cried. + +“Ma'am?” + +“Where was your father while----” + +“Oh--papa?” Penrod paused, reflected; then brightened. “Why, he was down +at the train, waitin' to see if Uncle John would try to follow 'em and +make 'em come home so's he could persecute 'em some more. I wanted to do +that, but they said if he did come I mightn't be strong enough to +hold him and----” The brave lad paused again, modestly. Miss Spence's +expression was encouraging. Her eyes were wide with astonishment, and +there may have been in them, also, the mingled beginnings of admiration +and self-reproach. Penrod, warming to his work, felt safer every moment. + +“And so,” he continued, “I had to sit up with Aunt Clara. She had some +pretty big bruises, too, and I had to----” + +“But why didn't they send for a doctor?” However, this question was only +a flicker of dying incredulity. + +“Oh, they didn't want any DOCTOR,” exclaimed the inspired realist +promptly. “They don't want anybody to HEAR about it because Uncle John +might reform--and then where'd he be if everybody knew he'd been a +drunkard and whipped his wife and baby daughter?” + +“Oh!” said Miss Spence. + +“You see, he used to be upright as anybody,” he went on explanatively. +“It all begun----” + +“Began, Penrod.” + +“Yes'm. It all commenced from the first day he let those travelling men +coax him into the saloon.” Penrod narrated the downfall of his Uncle +John at length. In detail he was nothing short of plethoric; and +incident followed incident, sketched with such vividness, such abundance +of colour, and such verisimilitude to a drunkard's life as a drunkard's +life should be, that had Miss Spence possessed the rather chilling +attributes of William J. Burns himself, the last trace of skepticism +must have vanished from her mind. Besides, there are two things that +will be believed of any man whatsoever, and one of them is that he has +taken to drink. And in every sense it was a moving picture which, with +simple but eloquent words, the virtuous Penrod set before his teacher. + +His eloquence increased with what it fed on; and as with the eloquence +so with self-reproach in the gentle bosom of the teacher. She cleared +her throat with difficulty once or twice, during his description of his +ministering night with Aunt Clara. “And I said to her, 'Why, Aunt Clara, +what's the use of takin' on so about it?' And I said, 'Now, Aunt Clara, +all the crying in the world can't make things any better.' And then +she'd just keep catchin' hold of me, and sob and kind of holler, and I'd +say, 'DON'T cry, Aunt Clara--PLEASE don't cry.”' + +Then, under the influence of some fragmentary survivals of the +respectable portion of his Sunday adventures, his theme became more +exalted; and, only partially misquoting a phrase from a psalm, he +related how he had made it of comfort to Aunt Clara, and how he had +besought her to seek Higher guidance in her trouble. + +The surprising thing about a structure such as Penrod was erecting is +that the taller it becomes the more ornamentation it will stand. Gifted +boys have this faculty of building magnificence upon cobwebs--and Penrod +was gifted. Under the spell of his really great performance, Miss Spence +gazed more and more sweetly upon the prodigy of spiritual beauty and +goodness before her, until at last, when Penrod came to the explanation +of his “just thinking,” she was forced to turn her head away. + +“You mean, dear,” she said gently, “that you were all worn out and +hardly knew what you were saying?” + +“Yes'm.” + +“And you were thinking about all those dreadful things so hard that you +forgot where you were?” + +“I was thinking,” he said simply, “how to save Uncle John.” + +And the end of it for this mighty boy was that the teacher kissed him! + + + +CHAPTER XI FIDELITY OF A LITTLE DOG + +The returning students, that afternoon, observed that Penrod's desk was +vacant--and nothing could have been more impressive than that sinister +mere emptiness. The accepted theory was that Penrod had been arrested. +How breathtaking, then, the sensation when, at the beginning of the +second hour, he strolled--in with inimitable carelessness and, rubbing +his eyes, somewhat noticeably in the manner of one who has snatched an +hour of much needed sleep, took his place as if nothing in particular +had happened. This, at first supposed to be a superhuman exhibition +of sheer audacity, became but the more dumfounding when Miss +Spence--looking up from her desk--greeted him with a pleasant little +nod. Even after school, Penrod gave numerous maddened investigators no +relief. All he would consent to say was: + +“Oh, I just TALKED to her.” + +A mystification not entirely unconnected with the one thus produced was +manifested at his own family dinner-table the following evening. Aunt +Clara had been out rather late, and came to the table after the rest +were seated. She wore a puzzled expression. + +“Do you ever see Mary Spence nowadays?” she inquired, as she unfolded +her napkin, addressing Mrs. Schofield. Penrod abruptly set down his +soup-spoon and gazed at his aunt with flattering attention. + +“Yes; sometimes,” said Mrs. Schofield. “She's Penrod's teacher.” + +“Is she?” said Mrs. Farry. “Do you--” She paused. “Do people think her a +little--queer, these days?” + +“Why, no,” returned her sister. “What makes you say that?” + +“She has acquired a very odd manner,” said Mrs. Farry decidedly. “At +least, she seemed odd to ME. I met her at the corner just before I got +to the house, a few minutes ago, and after we'd said howdy-do to each +other, she kept hold of my hand and looked as though she was going to +cry. She seemed to be trying to say something, and choking----” + +“But I don't think that's so very queer, Clara. She knew you in school, +didn't she?” + +“Yes, but----” + +“And she hadn't seen you for so many years, I think it's perfectly +natural she----” + +“Wait! She stood there squeezing my hand, and struggling to get her +voice--and I got really embarrassed--and then finally she said, in a +kind of tearful whisper, 'Be of good cheer--this trial will pass!'” + +“How queer!” exclaimed Margaret. + +Penrod sighed, and returned somewhat absently to his soup. + +“Well, I don't know,” said Mrs. Schofield thoughtfully. “Of course she's +heard about the outbreak of measles in Dayton, since they had to close +the schools, and she knows you live there----” + +“But doesn't it seem a VERY exaggerated way,” suggested Margaret, “to +talk about measles?” + +“Wait!” begged Aunt Clara. “After she said that, she said something even +queerer, and then put her handkerchief to her eyes and hurried away.” + +Penrod laid down his spoon again and moved his chair slightly back from +the table. A spirit of prophecy was upon him: he knew that someone was +going to ask a question which he felt might better remain unspoken. + +“What WAS the other thing she said?” Mr. Schofield inquired, thus +immediately fulfilling his son's premonition. + +“She said,” returned Mrs. Farry slowly, looking about the table, “she +said, 'I know that Penrod is a great, great comfort to you!'” + +There was a general exclamation of surprise. It was a singular thing, +and in no manner may it be considered complimentary to Penrod, that this +speech of Miss Spence's should have immediately confirmed Mrs. Farry's +doubts about her in the minds of all his family. + +Mr. Schofield shook his head pityingly. + +“I'm afraid she's a goner,” he went so far as to say. + +“Of all the weird ideas!” cried Margaret. + +“I never heard anything like it in my life!” Mrs. Schofield exclaimed. +“Was that ALL she said?” + +“Every word!” + +Penrod again resumed attention to his soup. His mother looked at him +curiously, and then, struck by a sudden thought, gathered the glances of +the adults of the table by a significant movement of the head, and, by +another, conveyed an admonition to drop the subject until later. Miss +Spence was Penrod's teacher: it was better, for many reasons, not +to discuss the subject of her queerness before him. This was Mrs. +Schofield's thought at the time. Later she had another, and it kept her +awake. + +The next afternoon, Mr. Schofield, returning at five o'clock from the +cares of the day, found the house deserted, and sat down to read his +evening paper in what appeared to be an uninhabited apartment known to +its own world as the “drawing-room.” A sneeze, unexpected both to him +and the owner, informed him of the presence of another person. + +“Where are you, Penrod?” the parent asked, looking about. + +“Here,” said Penrod meekly. + +Stooping, Mr. Schofield discovered his son squatting under the piano, +near an open window--his wistful Duke lying beside him. + +“What are you doing there?” + +“Me?” + +“Why under the piano?” + +“Well,” the boy returned, with grave sweetness, “I was just kind of +sitting here--thinking.” + +“All right.” Mr. Schofield, rather touched, returned to the digestion of +a murder, his back once more to the piano; and Penrod silently drew +from beneath his jacket (where he had slipped it simultaneously with +the sneeze) a paper-backed volume entitled: “Slimsy, the Sioux City +Squealer, or, 'Not Guilty, Your Honor.'” + +In this manner the reading-club continued in peace, absorbed, contented, +the world well forgot--until a sudden, violently irritated slam-bang of +the front door startled the members; and Mrs. Schofield burst into the +room and threw herself into a chair, moaning. + +“What's the matter, mamma?” asked her husband laying aside his paper. + +“Henry Passloe Schofield,” returned the lady, “I don't know what IS to +be done with that boy; I do NOT!” + +“You mean Penrod?” + +“Who else could I mean?” She sat up, exasperated, to stare at him. +“Henry Passloe Schofield, you've got to take this matter in your +hands--it's beyond me!” + +“Well, what has he----” + +“Last night I got to thinking,” she began rapidly, “about what Clara +told us--thank Heaven she and Margaret and little Clara have gone to tea +at Cousin Charlotte's!--but they'll be home soon--about what she said +about Miss Spence----” + +“You mean about Penrod's being a comfort?” + +“Yes, and I kept thinking and thinking and thinking about it till I +couldn't stand it any----” + +“By GEORGE!” shouted Mr. Schofield startlingly, stooping to look +under the piano. A statement that he had suddenly remembered his son's +presence would be lacking in accuracy, for the highly sensitized Penrod +was, in fact, no longer present. No more was Duke, his faithful dog. + +“What's the matter?” + +“Nothing,” he returned, striding to the open window and looking out. “Go +on.” + +“Oh,” she moaned, “it must be kept from Clara--and I'll never hold up my +head again if John Farry ever hears of it!” + +“Hears of WHAT?” + +“Well, I just couldn't stand it, I got so curious; and I thought of +course if Miss Spence HAD become a little unbalanced it was my duty to +know it, as Penrod's mother and she his teacher; so I thought I would +just call on her at her apartment after school and have a chat and see +and I did and--oh----” + +“Well?” + +“I've just come from there, and she told me--she told me! Oh, I've NEVER +known anything like this!” + +“WHAT did she tell you?” + +Mrs. Schofield, making a great effort, managed to assume a temporary +appearance of calm. “Henry,” she said solemnly, “bear this in mind: +whatever you do to Penrod, it must be done in some place when Clara +won't hear it. But the first thing to do is to find him.” + +Within view of the window from which Mr. Schofield was gazing was the +closed door of the storeroom in the stable, and just outside this door +Duke was performing a most engaging trick. + +His young master had taught Duke to “sit up and beg” when he wanted +anything, and if that didn't get it, to “speak.” Duke was facing the +closed door and sitting up and begging, and now he also spoke--in a +loud, clear bark. + +There was an open transom over the door, and from this descended--hurled +by an unseen agency--a can half filled with old paint. + +It caught the small besieger of the door on his thoroughly surprised +right ear, encouraged him to some remarkable acrobatics, and turned +large portions of him a dull blue. Allowing only a moment to perplexity, +and deciding, after a single and evidently unappetizing experiment, +not to cleanse himself of paint, the loyal animal resumed his quaint, +upright posture. + +Mr. Schofield seated himself on the window-sill, whence he could keep in +view that pathetic picture of unrequited love. + +“Go on with your story, mamma,” he said. “I think I can find Penrod when +we want him.” + +And a few minutes later he added, “And I think I know the place to do it +in.” + +Again the faithful voice of Duke was heard, pleading outside the bolted +door. + + + +CHAPTER XII MISS RENNSDALE ACCEPTS + +“One-two-three; one-two-three--glide!” said Professor Bartet, +emphasizing his instructions by a brisk collision of his palms at +“glide.” “One-two-three; one-two-three--glide!” + +The school week was over, at last, but Penrod's troubles were not. + +Round and round the ballroom went the seventeen struggling little +couples of the Friday Afternoon Dancing Class. Round and round went +their reflections with them, swimming rhythmically in the polished, dark +floor--white and blue and pink for the girls; black, with dabs of white, +for the white-collared, white-gloved boys; and sparks and slivers +of high light everywhere as the glistening pumps flickered along the +surface like a school of flying fish. Every small pink face--with one +exception--was painstaking and set for duty. It was a conscientious +little merry-go-round. + +“One-two-three; one-two-three--glide! One-two-three; +one-two-three--glide! One-two-th--Ha! Mister Penrod Schofield, you lose +the step. Your left foot! No, no! This is the left! See--like me! Now +again! One-two-three; one-two-three--glide! Better! Much better! Again! +One-two-three; one-two-three--gl--Stop! Mr. Penrod Schofield, this +dancing class is provided by the kind parents of the pupilses as much +to learn the mannerss of good societies as to dance. You think you shall +ever see a gentleman in good societies to tickle his partner in the +dance till she say Ouch? Never! I assure you it is not done. Again! Now +then! Piano, please! One-two-three; one-two-three--glide! Mr. Penrod +Schofield, your right foot--your right foot! No, no! Stop!” + +The merry-go-round came to a standstill. + +“Mr. Penrod Schofield and partner”--Professor Bartet wiped his +brow--“will you kindly observe me? One-two-three--glide! So! Now +then--no; you will please keep your places, ladies and gentlemen. Mr. +Penrod Schofield, I would puttickly like your attention, this is for +you!” + +“Pickin' on me again!” murmured the smouldering Penrod to his small, +unsympathetic partner. “Can't let me alone a minute!” + +“Mister Georgie Bassett, please step to the centre,” said the professor. + +Mr. Bassett complied with modest alacrity. + +“Teacher's pet!” whispered Penrod hoarsely. He had nothing but contempt +for Georgie Bassett. The parents, guardians, aunts, uncles, cousins, +governesses, housemaids, cooks, chauffeurs and coachmen, appertaining to +the members of the dancing class, all dwelt in the same part of town and +shared certain communal theories; and among the most firmly established +was that which maintained Georgie Bassett to be the Best Boy in Town. +Contrariwise, the unfortunate Penrod, largely because of his recent +dazzling but disastrous attempts to control forces far beyond him, +had been given a clear title as the Worst Boy in Town. (Population, +135,000.) To precisely what degree his reputation was the product of +his own energies cannot be calculated. It was Marjorie Jones who first +applied the description, in its definite simplicity, the day after the +“pageant,” and, possibly, her frequent and effusive repetitions of it, +even upon wholly irrelevant occasions, had something to do with its +prompt and quite perfect acceptance by the community. + +“Miss Rennsdale will please do me the fafer to be Mr. Georgie Bassett's +partner for one moment,” said Professor Bartet. “Mr. Penrod Schofield +will please give his attention. Miss Rennsdale and Mister Bassett, +obliche me, if you please. Others please watch. Piano, please! Now +then!” + +Miss Rennsdale, aged eight--the youngest lady in the class--and Mr. +Georgie Bassett one-two-three--glided with consummate technique for the +better education of Penrod Schofield. It is possible that amber-curled, +beautiful Marjorie felt that she, rather than Miss Rennsdale, might have +been selected as the example of perfection--or perhaps her remark was +only woman. + +“Stopping everybody for that boy!” said Marjorie. + +Penrod, across the circle from her, heard distinctly--nay, he was +obviously intended to hear; but over a scorched heart he preserved a +stoic front. Whereupon Marjorie whispered derisively in the ear of her +partner, Maurice Levy, who wore a pearl pin in his tie. + +“Again, please, everybody--ladies and gentlemen!” cried Professor +Bartet. “Mister Penrod Schofield, if you please, pay puttickly +attention! Piano, please! Now then!” + +The lesson proceeded. At the close of the hour Professor Bartet stepped +to the centre of the room and clapped his hands for attention. + +“Ladies and gentlemen, if you please to seat yourselves quietly,” he +said; “I speak to you now about to-morrow. As you all know--Mister +Penrod Schofield, I am not sticking up in a tree outside that window! If +you do me the fafer to examine I am here, insides of the room. Now then! +Piano, pl--no, I do not wish the piano! As you all know, this is the +last lesson of the season until next October. Tomorrow is our special +afternoon; beginning three o'clock, we dance the cotillon. But this +afternoon comes the test of mannerss. You must see if each know how to +make a little formal call like a grown-up people in good societies. You +have had good, perfect instruction; let us see if we know how to perform +like societies ladies and gentlemen twenty-six years of age. + +“Now, when you're dismissed each lady will go to her home and prepare to +receive a call. The gentlemen will allow the ladies time to reach their +houses and to prepare to receive callers; then each gentleman will call +upon a lady and beg the pleasure to engage her for a partner in the +cotillon to-morrow. You all know the correct, proper form for these +calls, because didn't I work teaching you last lesson till I thought +I would drop dead? Yes! Now each gentleman, if he reach a lady's house +behind some-other gentleman, then he must go somewhere else to a lady's +house, and keep calling until he secures a partner; so, as there are the +same number of both, everybody shall have a partner. + +“Now please all remember that if in case--Mister Penrod Schofield, when +you make your call on a lady I beg you to please remember that gentlemen +in good societies do not scratch the back in societies as you appear to +attempt; so please allow the hands to rest carelessly in the lap. Now +please all remember that if in case--Mister Penrod Schofield, if you +please! Gentlemen in societies do not scratch the back by causing +frictions between it and the back of your chair, either! Nobody else is +itching here! _I_ do not itch! I cannot talk if you must itch! In the +name of Heaven, why must you always itch? What was I saying? Where ah! +the cotillon--yes! For the cotillon it is important nobody shall fail +to be here tomorrow; but if any one should be so very ill he cannot +possible come he must write a very polite note of regrets in the form +of good societies to his engaged partner to excuse himself--and he must +give the reason. + +“I do not think anybody is going to be that sick to-morrow--no; and I +will find out and report to parents if anybody would try it and not be. +But it is important for the cotillon that we have an even number of so +many couples, and if it should happen that someone comes and her partner +has sent her a polite note that he has genuine reasons why he cannot +come, the note must be handed at once to me, so that I arrange some +other partner. Is all understood? Yes. The gentlemen will remember now +to allow the ladies plenty of time to reach their houses and prepare +to receive calls. Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your polite +attention.” + +It was nine blocks to the house of Marjorie Jones; but Penrod did it in +less than seven minutes from a flying start--such was his haste to lay +himself and his hand for the cotillon at the feet of one who had so +recently spoken unamiably of him in public. He had not yet learned that +the only safe male rebuke to a scornful female is to stay away from +her--especially if that is what she desires. However, he did not wish +to rebuke her; simply and ardently he wished to dance the cotillon with +her. Resentment was swallowed up in hope. + +The fact that Miss Jones' feeling for him bore a striking resemblance to +that of Simon Legree for Uncle Tom, deterred him not at all. Naturally, +he was not wholly unconscious that when he should lay his hand for the +cotillon at her feet it would be her inward desire to step on it; but +he believed that if he were first in the field Marjorie would have to +accept. These things are governed by law. + +It was his fond intention to reach her house even in advance of herself, +and with grave misgiving he beheld a large automobile at rest before the +sainted gate. Forthwith, a sinking feeling became a portent inside him +as little Maurice Levy emerged from the front door of the house. + +“'Lo, Penrod!” said Maurice airily. + +“What you doin' in there?” inquired Penrod. + +“In where?” + +“In Marjorie's.” + +“Well, what shouldn't I be doin' in Marjorie's?” Mr. Levy returned +indignantly. “I was inviting her for my partner in the cotillon--what +you s'pose?” + +“You haven't got any right to!” Penrod protested hotly. “You can't do it +yet.” + +“I did do it yet!” said Maurice. + +“You can't!” insisted Penrod. “You got to allow them time first. He said +the ladies had to be allowed time to prepare.” + +“Well, ain't she had time to prepare?” + +“When?” Penrod demanded, stepping close to his rival threateningly. “I'd +like to know when----” + +“When?” echoed the other with shrill triumph. “When? Why, in mamma's +sixty-horse powder limousine automobile, what Marjorie came home with me +in! I guess that's when!” + +An impulse in the direction of violence became visible upon the +countenance of Penrod. + +“I expect you need some wiping down,” he began dangerously. “I'll give +you sumpthing to remem----” + +“Oh, you will!” Maurice cried with astonishing truculence, contorting +himself into what he may have considered a posture of defense. “Let's +see you try it, you--you itcher!” + +For the moment, defiance from such a source was dumfounding. Then, +luckily, Penrod recollected something and glanced at the automobile. + +Perceiving therein not only the alert chauffeur but the magnificent +outlines of Mrs. Levy, his enemy's mother, he manoeuvred his lifted hand +so that it seemed he had but meant to scratch his ear. + +“Well, I guess I better be goin',” he said casually. “See you tomorrow!” + +Maurice mounted to the lap of luxury, and Penrod strolled away with an +assumption of careless ease which was put to a severe strain when, from +the rear window of the car, a sudden protuberance in the nature of a +small, dark, curly head shrieked scornfully: + +“Go on--you big stiff!” + +The cotillon loomed dismally before Penrod now; but it was his duty +to secure a partner and he set about it with a dreary heart. The delay +occasioned by his fruitless attempt on Marjorie and the altercation with +his enemy at her gate had allowed other ladies ample time to prepare for +callers--and to receive them. Sadly he went from house to house, finding +that he had been preceded in one after the other. Altogether his +hand for the cotillon was declined eleven times that afternoon on the +legitimate ground of previous engagement. This, with Marjorie, scored +off all except five of the seventeen possible partners; and four of the +five were also sealed away from him, as he learned in chance encounters +with other boys upon the street. + +One lady alone remained; he bowed to the inevitable and entered this +lorn damsel's gate at twilight with an air of great discouragement. The +lorn damsel was Miss Rennsdale, aged eight. + +We are apt to forget that there are actually times of life when too much +youth is a handicap. Miss Rennsdale was beautiful; she danced like a +premiere; she had every charm but age. On that account alone had she +been allowed so much time to prepare to receive callers that it was only +by the most manful efforts she could keep her lip from trembling. + +A decorous maid conducted the long-belated applicant to her where she +sat upon a sofa beside a nursery governess. The decorous maid announced +him composedly as he made his entrance. + +“Mr. Penrod Schofield!” + +Miss Rennsdale suddenly burst into loud sobs. + +“Oh!” she wailed. “I just knew it would be him!” + +The decorous maid's composure vanished at once--likewise her decorum. +She clapped her hand over her mouth and fled, uttering sounds. The +governess, however, set herself to comfort her heartbroken charge, and +presently succeeded in restoring Miss Rennsdale to a semblance of that +poise with which a lady receives callers and accepts invitations to +dance cotillons. But she continued to sob at intervals. + +Feeling himself at perhaps a disadvantage, Penrod made offer of his +hand for the morrow with a little embarrassment. Following the form +prescribed by Professor Bartet, he advanced several paces toward the +stricken lady and bowed formally. + +“I hope,” he said by rote, “you're well, and your parents also in good +health. May I have the pleasure of dancing the cotillon as your partner +t'-morrow afternoon?” + +The wet eyes of Miss Rennsdale searched his countenance without +pleasure, and a shudder wrung her small shoulders; but the governess +whispered to her instructively, and she made a great effort. + +“I thu-thank you fu-for your polite invu-invu-invutation; and I ac----” + Thus far she progressed when emotion overcame her again. She beat +frantically upon the sofa with fists and heels. “Oh, I DID want it to be +Georgie Bassett!” + +“No, no, no!” said the governess, and whispered urgently, whereupon Miss +Rennsdale was able to complete her acceptance. + +“And I ac-accept wu-with pu-pleasure!” she moaned, and immediately, +uttering a loud yell, flung herself face downward upon the sofa, +clutching her governess convulsively. + +Somewhat disconcerted, Penrod bowed again. + +“I thank you for your polite acceptance,” he murmured hurriedly; “and +I trust--I trust--I forget. Oh, yes--I trust we shall have a most +enjoyable occasion. Pray present my compliments to your parents; and I +must now wish you a very good afternoon.” + +Concluding these courtly demonstrations with another bow he withdrew in +fair order, though thrown into partial confusion in the hall by a final +wail from his crushed hostess: + +“Oh! Why couldn't it be anybody but HIM!” + + + +CHAPTER XIII THE SMALLPOX MEDICINE + +Next morning Penrod woke in profound depression of spirit, the cotillon +ominous before him. He pictured Marjorie Jones and Maurice, graceful and +light-hearted, flitting by him fairylike, loosing silvery laughter upon +him as he engaged in the struggle to keep step with a partner about four +years and two feet his junior. It was hard enough for Penrod to keep +step with a girl of his size. + +The foreboding vision remained with him, increasing in vividness, +throughout the forenoon. He found himself unable to fix his mind +upon anything else, and, having bent his gloomy footsteps toward the +sawdust-box, after breakfast, presently descended therefrom, abandoning +Harold Ramorez where he had left him the preceding Saturday. Then, as he +sat communing silently with wistful Duke, in the storeroom, coquettish +fortune looked his way. + +It was the habit of Penrod's mother not to throw away anything +whatsoever until years of storage conclusively proved there would never +be a use for it; but a recent house-cleaning had ejected upon the back +porch a great quantity of bottles and other paraphernalia of medicine, +left over from illnesses in the family during a period of several years. +This debris Della, the cook, had collected in a large market basket, +adding to it some bottles of flavouring extracts that had proved +unpopular in the household; also, old catsup bottles; a jar or two of +preserves gone bad; various rejected dental liquids--and other things. +And she carried the basket out to the storeroom in the stable. + +Penrod was at first unaware of what lay before him. Chin on palms, he +sat upon the iron rim of a former aquarium and stared morbidly through +the open door at the checkered departing back of Della. It was another +who saw treasure in the basket she had left. + +Mr. Samuel Williams, aged eleven, and congenial to Penrod in years, +sex, and disposition, appeared in the doorway, shaking into foam a black +liquid within a pint bottle, stoppered by a thumb. + +“Yay, Penrod!” the visitor gave greeting. + +“Yay,” said Penrod with slight enthusiasm. “What you got?” + +“Lickrish water.” + +“Drinkin's!” demanded Penrod promptly. This is equivalent to the cry of +“Biters” when an apple is shown, and establishes unquestionable title. + +“Down to there!” stipulated Sam, removing his thumb to affix it firmly +as a mark upon the side of the bottle a check upon gormandizing that +remained carefully in place while Penrod drank. + +This rite concluded, the visitor's eye fell upon the basket deposited by +Della. He emitted tokens of pleasure. + +“Looky! Looky! Looky there! That ain't any good pile o' stuff--oh, no!” + +“What for?” + +“Drug store!” shouted Sam. “We'll be partners----” + +“Or else,” Penrod suggested, “I'll run the drug store and you be a +customer----” + +“No! Partners!” insisted Sam with such conviction that his host yielded; +and within ten minutes the drug store was doing a heavy business with +imaginary patrons. Improvising counters with boards and boxes, and +setting forth a very druggish-looking stock from the basket, each of the +partners found occupation to his taste--Penrod as salesman and Sam as +prescription clerk. + +“Here you are, madam!” said Penrod briskly, offering a vial of Sam's +mixing to an invisible matron. “This will cure your husband in a few +minutes. Here's the camphor, mister. Call again! Fifty cents' worth of +pills? Yes, madam. There you are! Hurry up with that dose for the nigger +lady, Bill!” + +“I'll 'tend to it soon's I get time, Jim,” replied the prescription +clerk. “I'm busy fixin' the smallpox medicine for the sick policeman +downtown.” + +Penrod stopped sales to watch this operation. Sam had found an empty +pint bottle and, with the pursed lips and measuring eye of a great +chemist, was engaged in filling it from other bottles. + +First, he poured into it some of the syrup from the condemned preserves; +and a quantity of extinct hair oil; next the remaining contents of a +dozen small vials cryptically labelled with physicians' prescriptions; +then some remnants of catsup and essence of beef and what was left +in several bottles of mouthwash; after that a quantity of rejected +flavouring extract--topping off by shaking into the mouth of the +bottle various powders from small pink papers, relics of Mr. Schofield's +influenza of the preceding winter. + +Sam examined the combination with concern, appearing unsatisfied. “We +got to make that smallpox medicine good and strong!” he remarked; and, +his artistic sense growing more powerful than his appetite, he poured +about a quarter of the licorice water into the smallpox medicine. + +“What you doin'?” protested Penrod. “What you want to waste that +lickrish water for? We ought to keep it to drink when we're tired.” + +“I guess I got a right to use my own lickrish water any way I want to,” + replied the prescription clerk. “I tell you, you can't get smallpox +medicine too strong. Look at her now!” He held the bottle up admiringly. +“She's as black as lickrish. I bet you she's strong all right!” + +“I wonder how she tastes?” said Penrod thoughtfully. + +“Don't smell so awful much,” observed Sam, sniffing the bottle--“a good +deal, though!” + +“I wonder if it'd make us sick to drink it?” said Penrod. + +Sam looked at the bottle thoughtfully; then his eye, wandering, fell +upon Duke, placidly curled up near the door, and lighted with the advent +of an idea new to him, but old, old in the world--older than Egypt! + +“Let's give Duke some!” he cried. + +That was the spark. They acted immediately; and a minute later Duke, +released from custody with a competent potion of the smallpox medicine +inside him, settled conclusively their doubts concerning its effect. The +patient animal, accustomed to expect the worst at all times, walked out +of the door, shaking his head with an air of considerable annoyance, +opening and closing his mouth with singular energy--and so repeatedly +that they began to count the number of times he did it. Sam thought it +was thirty-nine times, but Penrod had counted forty-one before other and +more striking symptoms appeared. + +All things come from Mother Earth and must return--Duke restored much +at this time. Afterward, he ate heartily of grass; and then, over his +shoulder, he bent upon his master one inscrutable look and departed +feebly to the front yard. + +The two boys had watched the process with warm interest. “I told you she +was strong!” said Mr. Williams proudly. + +“Yes, sir--she is!” Penrod was generous enough to admit. “I expect she's +strong enough----” He paused in thought, and added: + +“We haven't got a horse any more.” + +“I bet you she'd fix him if you had!” said Sam. And it may be that this +was no idle boast. + +The pharmaceutical game was not resumed; the experiment upon Duke had +made the drug store commonplace and stimulated the appetite for stronger +meat. Lounging in the doorway, the near-vivisectionists sipped licorice +water alternately and conversed. + +“I bet some of our smallpox medicine would fix ole P'fessor Bartet all +right!” quoth Penrod. “I wish he'd come along and ask us for some.” + +“We could tell him it was lickrish water,” added Sam, liking the idea. +“The two bottles look almost the same.” + +“Then we wouldn't have to go to his ole cotillon this afternoon,” Penrod +sighed. “There wouldn't be any!” + +“Who's your partner, Pen?” + +“Who's yours?” + +“Who's yours? I just ast you.” + +“Oh, she's all right!” And Penrod smiled boastfully. + +“I bet you wanted to dance with Marjorie!” said his friend. + +“Me? I wouldn't dance with that girl if she begged me to! I wouldn't +dance with her to save her from drowning! I wouldn't da----” + +“Oh, no--you wouldn't!” interrupted Mr. Williams skeptically. + +Penrod changed his tone and became persuasive. + +“Looky here, Sam,” he said confidentially. “I've got 'a mighty nice +partner, but my mother don't like her mother; and so I've been thinking +I better not dance with her. I'll tell you what I'll do; I've got a +mighty good sling in the house, and I'll give it to you if you'll change +partners.” + +“You want to change and you don't even know who mine is!” said Sam, and +he made the simple though precocious deduction: “Yours must be a lala! +Well, I invited Mabel Rorebeck, and she wouldn't let me change if +I wanted to. Mabel Rorebeck'd rather dance with me,” he continued +serenely, “than anybody; and she said she was awful afraid you'd ast +her. But I ain't goin' to dance with Mabel after all, because this +morning she sent me a note about her uncle died last night--and P'fessor +Bartet'll have to find me a partner after I get there. Anyway I bet you +haven't got any sling--and I bet your partner's Baby Rennsdale!” + +“What if she is?” said Penrod. “She's good enough for ME!” This speech +held not so much modesty in solution as intended praise of the lady. +Taken literally, however, it was an understatement of the facts and +wholly insincere. + +“Yay!” jeered Mr. Williams, upon whom his friend's hypocrisy was quite +wasted. “How can your mother not like her mother? Baby Rennsdale hasn't +got any mother! You and her'll be a sight!” + +That was Penrod's own conviction; and with this corroboration of it +he grew so spiritless that he could offer no retort. He slid to a +despondent sitting posture upon the door sill and gazed wretchedly upon +the ground, while his companion went to replenish the licorice water at +the hydrant--enfeebling the potency of the liquor no doubt, but making +up for that in quantity. + +“Your mother goin' with you to the cotillon?” asked Sam when he +returned. + +“No. She's goin' to meet me there. She's goin' somewhere first.” + +“So's mine,” said Sam. “I'll come by for you.” + +“All right.” + +“I better go before long. Noon whistles been blowin'.” + +“All right,” Penrod repeated dully. + +Sam turned to go, but paused. A new straw hat was peregrinating along +the fence near the two boys. This hat belonged to someone passing upon +the sidewalk of the cross-street; and the someone was Maurice Levy. +Even as they stared, he halted and regarded them over the fence with two +small, dark eyes. + +Fate had brought about this moment and this confrontation. + + + +CHAPTER XIV MAURICE LEVY'S CONSTITUTION + +“Lo, Sam!” said Maurice cautiously. “What you doin'?” + +Penrod at that instant had a singular experience--an intellectual shock +like a flash of fire in the brain. Sitting in darkness, a great light +flooded him with wild brilliance. He gasped! + +“What you doin'?” repeated Mr. Levy. + +Penrod sprang to his feet, seized the licorice bottle, shook it with +stoppering thumb, and took a long drink with histrionic unction. + +“What you doin'?” asked Maurice for the third time, Sam Williams not +having decided upon a reply. + +It was Penrod who answered. + +“Drinkin' lickrish water,” he said simply, and wiped his mouth with such +delicious enjoyment that Sam's jaded thirst was instantly stimulated. He +took the bottle eagerly from Penrod. + +“A-a-h!” exclaimed Penrod, smacking his lips. “That was a good un!” + +The eyes above the fence glistened. + +“Ask him if he don't want some,” Penrod whispered urgently. “Quit +drinkin' it! It's no good any more. Ask him!” + +“What for?” demanded the practical Sam. + +“Go on and ask him!” whispered Penrod fiercely. + +“Say, M'rice!” Sam called, waving the bottle. “Want some?” + +“Bring it here!” Mr. Levy requested. + +“Come on over and get some,” returned Sam, being prompted. + +“I can't. Penrod Schofield's after me.” + +“No, I'm not,” said Penrod reassuringly. “I won't touch you, M'rice. +I made up with you yesterday afternoon--don't you remember? You're all +right with me, M'rice.” + +Maurice looked undecided. But Penrod had the delectable bottle again, +and tilting it above his lips, affected to let the cool liquid purl +enrichingly into him, while with his right hand he stroked his middle +facade ineffably. Maurice's mouth watered. + +“Here!” cried Sam, stirred again by the superb manifestations of his +friend. “Gimme that!” + +Penrod brought the bottle down, surprisingly full after so much gusto, +but withheld it from Sam; and the two scuffled for its possession. +Nothing in the world could have so worked upon the desire of the +yearning observer beyond the fence. + +“Honest, Penrod--you ain't goin' to touch me if I come in your yard?” he +called. “Honest?” + +“Cross my heart!” answered Penrod, holding the bottle away from Sam. +“And we'll let you drink all you want.” + +Maurice hastily climbed the fence, and while he was thus occupied Mr. +Samuel Williams received a great enlightenment. With startling rapidity +Penrod, standing just outside the storeroom door, extended his arm +within the room, deposited the licorice water upon the counter of the +drug store, seized in its stead the bottle of smallpox medicine, and +extended it cordially toward the advancing Maurice. + +Genius is like that--great, simple, broad strokes! + +Dazzled, Mr. Samuel Williams leaned against the wall. He had +the sensations of one who comes suddenly into the presence of a +chef-d'oeuvre. Perhaps his first coherent thought was that almost +universal one on such huge occasions: “Why couldn't _I_ have done that!” + +Sam might have been even more dazzled had he guessed that he figured not +altogether as a spectator in the sweeping and magnificent conception of +the new Talleyrand. Sam had no partner for the cotillon. If Maurice +was to be absent from that festivity--as it began to seem he might +be--Penrod needed a male friend to take care of Miss Rennsdale and he +believed he saw his way to compel Mr. Williams to be that male friend. +For this he relied largely upon the prospective conduct of Miss +Rennsdale when he should get the matter before her--he was inclined to +believe she would favour the exchange. As for Talleyrand Penrod himself, +he was going to dance that cotillon with Marjorie Jones! + +“You can have all you can drink at one pull, M'rice,” said Penrod +kindly. + +“You said I could have all I want!” protested Maurice, reaching for the +bottle. + +“No, I didn't,” returned Penrod quickly, holding it away from the eager +hand. + +“He did, too! Didn't he, Sam?” + +Sam could not reply; his eyes, fixed upon the bottle, protruded +strangely. + +“You heard him--didn't you, Sam?” + +“Well, if I did say it I didn't mean it!” said Penrod hastily, quoting +from one of the authorities. “Looky here, M'rice,” he continued, +assuming a more placative and reasoning tone, “that wouldn't be fair to +us. I guess we want some of our own lickrish water, don't we? The bottle +ain't much over two-thirds full anyway. What I meant was, you can have +all you can drink at one pull.” + +“How do you mean?” + +“Why, this way: you can gulp all you want, so long as you keep +swallering; but you can't take the bottle out of your mouth and commence +again. Soon's you quit swallering it's Sam's turn.” + +“No; you can have next, Penrod,” said Sam. + +“Well, anyway, I mean M'rice has to give the bottle up the minute he +stops swallering.” + +Craft appeared upon the face of Maurice, like a poster pasted on a wall. + +“I can drink so long I don't stop swallering?” + +“Yes; that's it.” + +“All right!” he cried. “Gimme the bottle!” + +And Penrod placed it in his hand. + +“You promise to let me drink until I quit swallering?” Maurice insisted. + +“Yes!” said both boys together. + +With that, Maurice placed the bottle to his lips and began to drink. +Penrod and Sam leaned forward in breathless excitement. They had feared +Maurice might smell the contents of the bottle; but that danger was +past--this was the crucial moment. Their fondest hope was that he would +make his first swallow a voracious one--it was impossible to imagine a +second. They expected one big, gulping swallow and then an explosion, +with fountain effects. + +Little they knew the mettle of their man! Maurice swallowed once; he +swallowed twice--and thrice--and he continued to swallow! No Adam's +apple was sculptured on that juvenile throat, but the internal progress +of the liquid was not a whit the less visible. His eyes gleamed with +cunning and malicious triumph, sidewise, at the stunned conspirators; +he was fulfilling the conditions of the draught, not once breaking the +thread of that marvelous swallering. + +His audience stood petrified. Already Maurice had swallowed more than +they had given Duke and still the liquor receded in the uplifted bottle! +And now the clear glass gleamed above the dark contents full half the +vessel's length--and Maurice went on drinking! Slowly the clear glass +increased in its dimensions--slowly the dark diminished. + +Sam Williams made a horrified movement to check him--but Maurice +protested passionately with his disengaged arm, and made vehement vocal +noises remindful of the contract; whereupon Sam desisted and watched the +continuing performance in a state of grisly fascination. + +Maurice drank it all! He drained the last drop and threw the bottle in +the air, uttering loud ejaculations of triumph and satisfaction. + +“Hah!” he cried, blowing out his cheeks, inflating his chest, squaring +his shoulders, patting his stomach, and wiping his mouth contentedly. +“Hah! Aha! Waha! Wafwah! But that was good!” + +The two boys stood looking at him in stupor. + +“Well, I gotta say this,” said Maurice graciously: “You stuck to your +bargain all right and treated me fair.” + +Stricken with a sudden horrible suspicion, Penrod entered the storeroom +in one stride and lifted the bottle of licorice water to his nose--then +to his lips. It was weak, but good; he had made no mistake. And Maurice +had really drained--to the dregs--the bottle of old hair tonics, dead +catsups, syrups of undesirable preserves, condemned extracts of +vanilla and lemon, decayed chocolate, ex-essence of beef, mixed dental +preparations, aromatic spirits of ammonia, spirits of nitre, alcohol, +arnica, quinine, ipecac, sal volatile, nux vomica and licorice water-- +with traces of arsenic, belladonna and strychnine. + +Penrod put the licorice water out of sight and turned to face the +others. Maurice was seating himself on a box just outside the door and +had taken a package of cigarettes from his pocket. + +“Nobody can see me from here, can they?” he said, striking a match. “You +fellers smoke?” + +“No,” said Sam, staring at him haggardly. + +“No,” said Penrod in a whisper. + +Maurice lit his cigarette and puffed showily. + +“Well, sir,” he remarked, “you fellers are certainly square--I gotta +say that much. Honest, Penrod, I thought you was after me! I did +think so,” he added sunnily; “but now I guess you like me, or else +you wouldn't of stuck to it about lettin' me drink it all if I kept on +swallering.” + +He chatted on with complete geniality, smoking his cigarette in content. +And as he ran from one topic to another his hearers stared at him in a +kind of torpor. Never once did they exchange a glance with each other; +their eyes were frozen to Maurice. The cheerful conversationalist made +it evident that he was not without gratitude. + +“Well,” he said as he finished his cigarette and rose to go, “you +fellers have treated me nice and some day you come over to my yard; I'd +like to run with you fellers. You're the kind of fellers I like.” + +Penrod's jaw fell; Sam's mouth had been open all the time. Neither +spoke. + +“I gotta go,” observed Maurice, consulting a handsome watch. “Gotta get +dressed for the cotillon right after lunch. Come on, Sam. Don't you have +to go, too?” + +Sam nodded dazedly. + +“Well, good-bye, Penrod,” said Maurice cordially. “I'm glad you like me +all right. Come on, Sam.” + +Penrod leaned against the doorpost and with fixed and glazing eyes +watched the departure of his two visitors. Maurice was talking volubly, +with much gesticulation, as they went; but Sam walked mechanically +and in silence, staring at his brisk companion and keeping at a little +distance from him. + +They passed from sight, Maurice still conversing gayly--and Penrod +slowly betook himself into the house, his head bowed upon his chest. + + +Some three hours later, Mr. Samuel Williams, waxen clean and in sweet +raiment, made his reappearance in Penrod's yard, yodelling a code-signal +to summon forth his friend. He yodelled loud, long, and frequently, +finally securing a faint response from the upper air. + +“Where are you?” shouted Mr. Williams, his roving glance searching +ambient heights. Another low-spirited yodel reaching his ear, he +perceived the head and shoulders of his friend projecting above the +roofridge of the stable. The rest of Penrod's body was concealed from +view, reposing upon the opposite slant of the gable and precariously +secured by the crooking of his elbows over the ridge. + +“Yay! What you doin' up there?” + +“Nothin'.” + +“You better be careful!” Sam called. “You'll slide off and fall down in +the alley if you don't look out. I come pert' near it last time we was +up there. Come on down! Ain't you goin' to the cotillon?” + +Penrod made no reply. Sam came nearer. + +“Say,” he called up in a guarded voice, “I went to our telephone a while +ago and ast him how he was feelin', and he said he felt fine!” + +“So did I,” said Penrod. “He told me he felt bully!” + +Sam thrust his hands in his pockets and brooded. The opening of the +kitchen door caused a diversion. It was Della. + +“Mister Penrod,” she bellowed forthwith, “come ahn down fr'm up there! +Y'r mamma's at the dancin' class waitin' fer ye, an' she's telephoned +me they're goin' to begin--an' what's the matter with ye? Come ahn down +fr'm up there!” + +“Come on!” urged Sam. “We'll be late. There go Maurice and Marjorie +now.” + +A glittering car spun by, disclosing briefly a genre picture of Marjorie +Jones in pink, supporting a monstrous sheaf of American Beauty roses. +Maurice, sitting shining and joyous beside her, saw both boys and waved +them a hearty greeting as the car turned the corner. + +Penrod uttered some muffled words and then waved both arms--either in +response or as an expression of his condition of mind; it may have +been a gesture of despair. How much intention there was in this +act--obviously so rash, considering the position he occupied--it +is impossible to say. Undeniably there must remain a suspicion of +deliberate purpose. + +Della screamed and Sam shouted. Penrod had disappeared from view. + +The delayed dance was about to begin a most uneven cotillon when Samuel +Williams arrived. + +Mrs. Schofield hurriedly left the ballroom; while Miss Rennsdale, +flushing with sudden happiness, curtsied profoundly to Professor Bartet +and obtained his attention. + +“I have telled you fifty times,” he informed her passionately ere she +spoke, “I cannot make no such changes. If your partner comes you have to +dance with him. You are going to drive me crazy, sure! What is it? What +now? What you want?” + +The damsel curtsied again and handed him the following communication, +addressed to herself: + + +“Dear madam Please excuse me from dancing the cotilon with you +this afternoon as I have fell off the barn + +“Sincerly yours + +“PENROD SCHOFIELD.” + + + +CHAPTER XV THE TWO FAMILIES + +Penrod entered the schoolroom, Monday picturesquely leaning upon a man's +cane shortened to support a cripple approaching the age of twelve. He +arrived about twenty minutes late, limping deeply, his brave young mouth +drawn with pain, and the sensation he created must have been a solace to +him; the only possible criticism of this entrance being that it was just +a shade too heroic. Perhaps for that reason it failed to stagger Miss +Spence, a woman so saturated with suspicion that she penalized Penrod +for tardiness as promptly and as coldly as if he had been a mere, +ordinary, unmutilated boy. Nor would she entertain any discussion of the +justice of her ruling. It seemed, almost, that she feared to argue with +him. + +However, the distinction of cane and limp remained to him, consolations +which he protracted far into the week--until Thursday evening, in fact, +when Mr. Schofield, observing from a window his son's pursuit of Duke +round and round the backyard, confiscated the cane, with the promise +that it should not remain idle if he saw Penrod limping again. Thus, +succeeding a depressing Friday, another Saturday brought the necessity +for new inventions. + +It was a scented morning in apple-blossom time. At about ten of the +clock Penrod emerged hastily from the kitchen door. His pockets bulged +abnormally; so did his checks, and he swallowed with difficulty. A +threatening mop, wielded by a cooklike arm in a checkered sleeve, +followed him through the doorway, and he was preceded by a small, +hurried, wistful dog with a warm doughnut in his mouth. The kitchen door +slammed petulantly, enclosing the sore voice of Della, whereupon Penrod +and Duke seated themselves upon the pleasant sward and immediately +consumed the spoils of their raid. + +From the cross-street which formed the side boundary of the Schofields' +ample yard came a jingle of harness and the cadenced clatter of a pair +of trotting horses, and Penrod, looking up, beheld the passing of a +fat acquaintance, torpid amid the conservative splendours of a rather +old-fashioned victoria. This was Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, a +fellow sufferer at the Friday Afternoon Dancing Class, but otherwise not +often a companion: a home-sheltered lad, tutored privately and preserved +against the coarsening influences of rude comradeship and miscellaneous +information. Heavily overgrown in all physical dimensions, virtuous, +and placid, this cloistered mutton was wholly uninteresting to Penrod +Schofield. Nevertheless, Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, was a +personage on account of the importance of the Magsworth Bitts family; +and it was Penrod's destiny to increase Roderick's celebrity far, far +beyond its present aristocratic limitations. + +The Magsworth Bittses were important because they were impressive; there +was no other reason. And they were impressive because they believed +themselves important. The adults of the family were impregnably formal; +they dressed with reticent elegance, and wore the same nose and the +same expression--an expression which indicated that they knew something +exquisite and sacred which other people could never know. Other people, +in their presence, were apt to feel mysteriously ignoble and to +become secretly uneasy about ancestors, gloves, and pronunciation. The +Magsworth Bitts manner was withholding and reserved, though sometimes +gracious, granting small smiles as great favours and giving off a +chilling kind of preciousness. Naturally, when any citizen of the +community did anything unconventional or improper, or made a mistake, or +had a relative who went wrong, that citizen's first and worst fear +was that the Magsworth Bittses would hear of it. In fact, this painful +family had for years terrorized the community, though the community +had never realized that it was terrorized, and invariably spoke of the +family as the “most charming circle in town.” By common consent, Mrs. +Roderick Magsworth Bitts officiated as the supreme model as well as +critic-in-chief of morals and deportment for all the unlucky people +prosperous enough to be elevated to her acquaintance. + +Magsworth was the important part of the name. Mrs. Roderick Magsworth +Bitts was a Magsworth born, herself, and the Magsworth crest decorated +not only Mrs. Magsworth Bitts' note-paper but was on the china, on the +table linen, on the chimney-pieces, on the opaque glass of the front +door, on the victoria, and on the harness, though omitted from the +garden-hose and the lawn-mower. + +Naturally, no sensible person dreamed of connecting that illustrious +crest with the unfortunate and notorious Rena Magsworth whose name had +grown week by week into larger and larger type upon the front pages of +newspapers, owing to the gradually increasing public and official belief +that she had poisoned a family of eight. However, the statement that no +sensible person could have connected the Magsworth Bitts family with the +arsenical Rena takes no account of Penrod Schofield. + +Penrod never missed a murder, a hanging or an electrocution in the +newspapers; he knew almost as much about Rena Magsworth as her jurymen +did, though they sat in a court-room two hundred miles away, and he had +it in mind--so frank he was--to ask Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, if +the murderess happened to be a relative. + +The present encounter, being merely one of apathetic greeting, did not +afford the opportunity. Penrod took off his cap, and Roderick, seated +between his mother and one of his grown-up sisters, nodded sluggishly, +but neither Mrs. Magsworth Bitts nor her daughter acknowledged the +salutation of the boy in the yard. They disapproved of him as a +person of little consequence, and that little, bad. Snubbed, Penrod +thoughtfully restored his cap to his head. A boy can be cut as +effectually as a man, and this one was chilled to a low temperature. He +wondered if they despised him because they had seen a last fragment of +doughnut in his hand; then he thought that perhaps it was Duke who had +disgraced him. Duke was certainly no fashionable looking dog. + +The resilient spirits of youth, however, presently revived, and +discovering a spider upon one knee and a beetle simultaneously upon the +other, Penrod forgot Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts in the course of +some experiments infringing upon the domain of Doctor Carrel. Penrod's +efforts--with the aid of a pin--to effect a transference of living +organism were unsuccessful; but he convinced himself forever that a +spider cannot walk with a beetle's legs. Della then enhanced zoological +interest by depositing upon the back porch a large rat-trap from the +cellar, the prison of four live rats awaiting execution. + +Penrod at once took possession, retiring to the empty stable, where +he installed the rats in a small wooden box with a sheet of broken +window-glass--held down by a brickbat--over the top. Thus the symptoms +of their agitation, when the box was shaken or hammered upon, could be +studied at leisure. Altogether this Saturday was starting splendidly. + +After a time, the student's attention was withdrawn from his specimens +by a peculiar smell, which, being followed up by a system of selective +sniffing, proved to be an emanation leaking into the stable from the +alley. He opened the back door. + +Across the alley was a cottage which a thrifty neighbour had built on +the rear line of his lot and rented to negroes; and the fact that a +negro family was now in process of “moving in” was manifested by the +presence of a thin mule and a ramshackle wagon, the latter laden +with the semblance of a stove and a few other unpretentious household +articles. + +A very small darky boy stood near the mule. In his hand was a rusty +chain, and at the end of the chain the delighted Penrod perceived the +source of the special smell he was tracing--a large raccoon. Duke, +who had shown not the slightest interest in the rats, set up a frantic +barking and simulated a ravening assault upon the strange animal. It +was only a bit of acting, however, for Duke was an old dog, had suffered +much, and desired no unnecessary sorrow, wherefore he confined his +demonstrations to alarums and excursions, and presently sat down at +a distance and expressed himself by intermittent threatenings in a +quavering falsetto. + +“What's that 'coon's name?” asked Penrod, intending no discourtesy. + +“Aim gommo mame,” said the small darky. + +“What?” + +“Aim gommo mame.” + +“WHAT?” + +The small darky looked annoyed. + +“Aim GOMMO mame, I hell you,” he said impatiently. + +Penrod conceived that insult was intended. + +“What's the matter of you?” he demanded advancing. “You get fresh with +ME, and I'll----” + +“Hyuh, white boy!” A coloured youth of Penrod's own age appeared in +the doorway of the cottage. “You let 'at brothuh mine alone. He ain' do +nothin' to you.” + +“Well, why can't he answer?” + +“He can't. He can't talk no better'n what he WAS talkin'. He +tongue-tie'.” + +“Oh,” said Penrod, mollified. Then, obeying an impulse so universally +aroused in the human breast under like circumstances that it has become +a quip, he turned to the afflicted one. + +“Talk some more,” he begged eagerly. + +“I hoe you ackoom aim gommo mame,” was the prompt response, in which +a slight ostentation was manifest. Unmistakable tokens of vanity had +appeared upon the small, swart countenance. + +“What's he mean?” asked Penrod, enchanted. + +“He say he tole you 'at 'coon ain' got no name.” + +“What's YOUR name?” + +“I'm name Herman.” + +“What's his name?” Penrod pointed to the tongue-tied boy. + +“Verman.” + +“What!” + +“Verman. Was three us boys in ow fam'ly. Ol'est one name Sherman. 'N'en +come me; I'm Herman. 'N'en come him; he Verman. Sherman dead. Verman, he +de littles' one.” + +“You goin' to live here?” + +“Umhuh. Done move in f'm way outen on a fahm.” + +He pointed to the north with his right hand, and Penrod's eyes opened +wide as they followed the gesture. Herman had no forefinger on that +hand. + +“Look there!” exclaimed Penrod. “You haven't got any finger!” + +“_I_ mum map,” said Verman, with egregious pride. + +“HE done 'at,” interpreted Herman, chuckling. “Yessuh; done chop 'er +spang off, long 'go. He's a playin' wif a ax an' I lay my finguh on de +do'-sill an' I say, 'Verman, chop 'er off!' So Verman he chop 'er right +spang off up to de roots! Yessuh.” + +“What FOR?” + +“Jes' fo' nothin'.” + +“He hoe me hoo,” remarked Verman. + +“Yessuh, I tole him to,” said Herman, “an' he chop 'er off, an' ey ain't +airy oth' one evuh grown on wheres de ole one use to grow. Nosuh!” + +“But what'd you tell him to do it for?” + +“Nothin'. I 'es' said it 'at way--an' he jes' chop er off!” + +Both brothers looked pleased and proud. Penrod's profound interest was +flatteringly visible, a tribute to their unusualness. + +“Hem bow goy,” suggested Verman eagerly. + +“Aw ri',” said Herman. “Ow sistuh Queenie, she a growed-up woman; she +got a goituh.” + +“Got a what?” + +“Goituh. Swellin' on her neck--grea' big swellin'. She heppin' mammy +move in now. You look in de front-room winduh wheres she sweepin'; you +kin see it on her.” + +Penrod looked in the window and was rewarded by a fine view of Queenie's +goitre. He had never before seen one, and only the lure of further +conversation on the part of Verman brought him from the window. + +“Verman say tell you 'bout pappy,” explained Herman. “Mammy an' Queenie +move in town an' go git de house all fix up befo' pappy git out.” + +“Out of where?” + +“Jail. Pappy cut a man, an' de police done kep' him in jail evuh sense +Chris'mus-time; but dey goin' tuhn him loose ag'in nex' week.” + +“What'd he cut the other man with?” + +“Wif a pitchfawk.” + +Penrod began to feel that a lifetime spent with this fascinating family +were all too short. The brothers, glowing with amiability, were as +enraptured as he. For the first time in their lives they moved in the +rich glamour of sensationalism. Herman was prodigal of gesture with his +right hand; and Verman, chuckling with delight, talked fluently, +though somewhat consciously. They cheerfully agreed to keep the +raccoon--already beginning to be mentioned as “our 'coon” by Penrod--in +Mr. Schofield's empty stable, and, when the animal had been chained to +the wall near the box of rats and supplied with a pan of fair water, +they assented to their new friend's suggestion (inspired by a fine +sense of the artistic harmonies) that the heretofore nameless pet be +christened Sherman, in honour of their deceased relative. + +At this juncture was heard from the front yard the sound of that +yodelling which is the peculiar accomplishment of those whose voices +have not “changed.” Penrod yodelled a response; and Mr. Samuel Williams +appeared, a large bundle under his arm. + +“Yay, Penrod!” was his greeting, casual enough from without; but, having +entered, he stopped short and emitted a prodigious whistle. “YA-A-AY!” + he then shouted. “Look at the 'coon!” + +“I guess you better say, 'Look at the 'coon!'” Penrod returned proudly. +“They's a good deal more'n him to look at, too. Talk some, Verman.” + Verman complied. + +Sam was warmly interested. “What'd you say his name was?” he asked. + +“Verman.” + +“How d'you spell it?” + +“V-e-r-m-a-n,” replied Penrod, having previously received this +information from Herman. + +“Oh!” said Sam. + +“Point to sumpthing, Herman,” Penrod commanded, and Sam's excitement, +when Herman pointed was sufficient to the occasion. + +Penrod, the discoverer, continued his exploitation of the manifold +wonders of the Sherman, Herman, and Verman collection. With the air of +a proprietor he escorted Sam into the alley for a good look at Queenie +(who seemed not to care for her increasing celebrity) and proceeded to +a dramatic climax--the recital of the episode of the pitchfork and its +consequences. + +The cumulative effect was enormous, and could have but one possible +result. The normal boy is always at least one half Barnum. + +“Let's get up a SHOW!” + +Penrod and Sam both claimed to have said it first, a question left +unsettled in the ecstasies of hurried preparation. The bundle under +Sam's arm, brought with no definite purpose, proved to have been +an inspiration. It consisted of broad sheets of light yellow +wrapping-paper, discarded by Sam's mother in her spring house-cleaning. +There were half-filled cans and buckets of paint in the storeroom +adjoining the carriage-house, and presently the side wall of the stable +flamed information upon the passer-by from a great and spreading poster. + +“Publicity,” primal requisite of all theatrical and amphitheatrical +enterprise thus provided, subsequent arrangements proceeded with a fury +of energy which transformed the empty hayloft. True, it is impossible to +say just what the hay-loft was transformed into, but history warrantably +clings to the statement that it was transformed. Duke and Sherman were +secured to the rear wall at a considerable distance from each other, +after an exhibition of reluctance on the part of Duke, during which he +displayed a nervous energy and agility almost miraculous in so small and +middle-aged a dog. Benches were improvised for spectators; the rats +were brought up; finally the rafters, corn-crib, and hay-chute were +ornamented with flags and strips of bunting from Sam Williams' +attic, Sam returning from the excursion wearing an old silk hat, and +accompanied (on account of a rope) by a fine dachshund encountered on +the highway. In the matter of personal decoration paint was generously +used: an interpretation of the spiral, inclining to whites and greens, +becoming brilliantly effective upon the dark facial backgrounds of +Herman and Verman; while the countenances of Sam and Penrod were each +supplied with the black moustache and imperial, lacking which, no +professional showman can be esteemed conscientious. + +It was regretfully decided, in council, that no attempt be made to add +Queenie to the list of exhibits, her brothers warmly declining to act as +ambassadors in that cause. They were certain Queenie would not like +the idea, they said, and Herman picturesquely described her activity +on occasions when she had been annoyed by too much attention to her +appearance. However, Penrod's disappointment was alleviated by an +inspiration which came to him in a moment of pondering upon the +dachshund, and the entire party went forth to add an enriching line to +the poster. + +They found a group of seven, including two adults, already gathered in +the street to read and admire this work. + + SCHoFiELD & WiLLiAMS + BiG SHOW + ADMiSSioN 1 CENT oR 20 PiNS + MUSUEM oF CURioSiTES + Now GoiNG oN + SHERMAN HERMAN & VERMAN + THiER FATHERS iN JAiL STABED A + MAN WiTH A + PiTCHFORK + SHERMAN THE WiLD ANIMAL + CAPTURED iN AFRiCA + HERMAN THE ONE FiNGERED TATOOD + WILD MAN VERMAN THE SAVAGE TATOOD + WILD BoY TALKS ONLY iN HiS NAiTiVE + LANGUAGS. Do NoT FAIL TO SEE DUKE + THE INDiAN DOG ALSO THE MiCHiGAN + TRAiNED RATS + +A heated argument took place between Sam and Penrod, the point at issue +being settled, finally, by the drawing of straws; whereupon Penrod, with +pardonable self-importance--in the presence of an audience now increased +to nine--slowly painted the words inspired by the dachshund: + + IMPoRTENT Do NoT MISS THE SoUTH + AMERiCAN DoG PART ALLIGATOR. + + + +CHAPTER XVI THE NEW STAR + +Sam, Penrod, Herman, and Verman withdrew in considerable state from +non-paying view, and, repairing to the hay-loft, declared the exhibition +open to the public. Oral proclamation was made by Sam, and then the +loitering multitude was enticed by the seductive strains of a band; the +two partners performing upon combs and paper, Herman and Verman upon tin +pans with sticks. + +The effect was immediate. Visitors appeared upon the stairway and sought +admission. Herman and Verman took position among the exhibits, near +the wall; Sam stood at the entrance, officiating as barker and +ticket-seller; while Penrod, with debonair suavity, acted as curator, +master of ceremonies, and lecturer. He greeted the first to enter with a +courtly bow. They consisted of Miss Rennsdale and her nursery governess, +and they paid spot cash for their admission. + +“Walk in, lay-deeze, walk right in--pray do not obstruck the +passageway,” said Penrod, in a remarkable voice. “Pray be seated; there +is room for each and all.” + +Miss Rennsdale and governess were followed by Mr. Georgie Bassett and +baby sister (which proves the perfection of Georgie's character) and +six or seven other neighbourhood children--a most satisfactory audience, +although, subsequent to Miss Rennsdale and governess, admission was +wholly by pin. + +“GEN-til-mun and LAY-deeze,” shouted Penrod, “I will first call your +at-tain-shon to our genuine South American dog, part alligator!” He +pointed to the dachshund, and added, in his ordinary tone, “That's him.” + Straightway reassuming the character of showman, he bellowed: “NEXT, +you see Duke, the genuine, full-blooded Indian dog from the far Western +Plains and Rocky Mountains. NEXT, the trained Michigan rats, captured +way up there, and trained to jump and run all around the box at the--at +the--at the slightest PRE-text!” He paused, partly to take breath and +partly to enjoy his own surprised discovery that this phrase was in his +vocabulary. + +“At the slightest PRE-text!” he repeated, and continued, suiting the +action to the word: “I will now hammer upon the box and each and all may +see these genuine full-blooded Michigan rats perform at the slightest +PRE-text! There! (That's all they do now, but I and Sam are goin' to +train 'em lots more before this afternoon.) GEN-til-mun and LAY-deeze I +will kindly now call your at-tain-shon to Sherman, the wild animal +from Africa, costing the lives of the wild trapper and many of his +companions. NEXT, let me kindly interodoos Herman and Verman. Their +father got mad and stuck his pitchfork right inside of another man, +exactly as promised upon the advertisements outside the big tent, and +got put in jail. Look at them well, gen-til-mun and lay-deeze, there is +no extra charge, and RE-MEM-BUR you are each and all now looking at two +wild, tattooed men which the father of is in jail. Point, Herman. Each +and all will have a chance to see. Point to sumpthing else, Herman. +This is the only genuine one-fingered tattooed wild man. Last on +the programme, gen-til-mun and lay-deeze, we have Verman, the savage +tattooed wild boy, that can't speak only his native foreign languages. +Talk some, Verman.” + +Verman obliged and made an instantaneous hit. He was encored +rapturously, again and again; and, thrilling with the unique pleasure of +being appreciated and misunderstood at the same time, would have talked +all day but too gladly. Sam Williams, however, with a true showman's +foresight, whispered to Penrod, who rang down on the monologue. + +“GEN-til-mun and LAY-deeze, this closes our pufformance. Pray pass out +quietly and with as little jostling as possible. As soon as you are all +out there's goin' to be a new pufformance, and each and all are welcome +at the same and simple price of admission. Pray pass out quietly and +with as little jostling as possible. RE-MEM-BUR the price is only one +cent, the tenth part of a dime, or twenty pins, no bent ones taken. Pray +pass out quietly and with as little jostling as possible. The Schofield +and Williams Military Band will play before each pufformance, and each +and all are welcome for the same and simple price of admission. Pray +pass out quietly and with as little jostling as possible.” + +Forthwith, the Schofield and Williams Military Band began a second +overture, in which something vaguely like a tune was at times +distinguishable; and all of the first audience returned, most of them +having occupied the interval in hasty excursions for more pins; Miss +Rennsdale and governess, however, again paying coin of the Republic and +receiving deference and the best seats accordingly. And when a third +performance found all of the same inveterate patrons once more crowding +the auditorium, and seven recruits added, the pleasurable excitement of +the partners in their venture will be understood by any one who has seen +a metropolitan manager strolling about the foyer of his theatre some +evening during the earlier stages of an assured “phenomenal run.” + +From the first, there was no question which feature of the entertainment +was the attraction extraordinary: Verman--Verman, the savage tattooed +wild boy, speaking only his native foreign languages--Verman was a +triumph! Beaming, wreathed in smiles, melodious, incredibly fluent, +he had but to open his lips and a dead hush fell upon the audience. +Breathless, they leaned forward, hanging upon his every semi-syllable, +and, when Penrod checked the flow, burst into thunders of applause, +which Verman received with happy laughter. + +Alas! he delayed not o'er long to display all the egregiousness of a +new star; but for a time there was no caprice of his too eccentric to +be forgiven. During Penrod's lecture upon the other curios, the tattooed +wild boy continually stamped his foot, grinned, and gesticulated, +tapping his tiny chest, and pointing to himself as it were to say: “Wait +for Me! I am the Big Show.” So soon they learn; so soon they learn! And +(again alas!) this spoiled darling of public favour, like many another, +was fated to know, in good time, the fickleness of that favour. + +But during all the morning performances he was the idol of his audience +and looked it! The climax of his popularity came during the fifth +overture of the Schofield and Williams Military Band, when the music +was quite drowned in the agitated clamours of Miss Rennsdale, who was +endeavouring to ascend the stairs in spite of the physical dissuasion of +her governess. + +“I WON'T go home to lunch!” screamed Miss Rennsdale, her voice +accompanied by a sound of ripping. “I WILL hear the tattooed wild boy +talk some more! It's lovely--I WILL hear him talk! I WILL! I WILL! I +want to listen to Verman--I WANT to--I WANT to----” + +Wailing, she was borne away--of her sex not the first to be fascinated +by obscurity, nor the last to champion its eloquence. + +Verman was almost unendurable after this, but, like many, many other +managers, Schofield and Williams restrained their choler, and even +laughed fulsomely when their principal attraction essayed the role of a +comedian in private, and capered and squawked in sheer, fatuous vanity. + +The first performance of the afternoon rivalled the successes of the +morning, and although Miss Rennsdale was detained at home, thus drying +up the single source of cash income developed before lunch, Maurice Levy +appeared, escorting Marjorie Jones, and paid coin for two admissions, +dropping the money into Sam's hand with a careless--nay, a +contemptuous--gesture. At sight of Marjorie, Penrod Schofield flushed +under his new moustache (repainted since noon) and lectured as he had +never lectured before. A new grace invested his every gesture; a new +sonorousness rang in his voice; a simple and manly pomposity marked +his very walk as he passed from curio to curio. And when he fearlessly +handled the box of rats and hammered upon it with cool insouciance, he +beheld--for the first time in his life--a purl of admiration eddying in +Marjorie's lovely eye, a certain softening of that eye. And then Verman +spake and Penrod was forgotten. Marjorie's eye rested upon him no more. + +A heavily equipped chauffeur ascended the stairway, bearing the message +that Mrs. Levy awaited her son and his lady. Thereupon, having devoured +the last sound permitted (by the managers) to issue from Verman, Mr. +Levy and Miss Jones departed to a real matinee at a real theatre, the +limpid eyes of Marjorie looking back softly over her shoulder--but only +at the tattooed wild boy. Nearly always it is woman who puts the irony +into life. + +After this, perhaps because of sated curiosity, perhaps on account of a +pin famine, the attendance began to languish. Only four responded to +the next call of the band; the four dwindled to three; finally the +entertainment was given for one blase auditor, and Schofield and +Williams looked depressed. Then followed an interval when the band +played in vain. + +About three o'clock Schofield and Williams were gloomily discussing +various unpromising devices for startling the public into a renewal of +interest, when another patron unexpectedly appeared and paid a cent for +his admission. News of the Big Show and Museum of Curiosities had at +last penetrated the far, cold spaces of interstellar niceness, for this +new patron consisted of no less than Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, +escaped in a white “sailor suit” from the Manor during a period of +severe maternal and tutorial preoccupation. + +He seated himself without parley, and the pufformance was offered for +his entertainment with admirable conscientiousness. True to the Lady +Clara caste and training, Roderick's pale, fat face expressed nothing +except an impervious superiority and, as he sat, cold and unimpressed +upon the front bench, like a large, white lump, it must be said that +he made a discouraging audience “to play to.” He was not, however, +unresponsive--far from it. He offered comment very chilling to the warm +grandiloquence of the orator. + +“That's my uncle Ethelbert's dachshund,” he remarked, at the beginning +of the lecture. “You better take him back if you don't want to get +arrested.” And when Penrod, rather uneasily ignoring the interruption, +proceeded to the exploitation of the genuine, full-blooded Indian dog, +Duke, “Why don't you try to give that old dog away?” asked Roderick. +“You couldn't sell him.” + +“My papa would buy me a lots better 'coon than that,” was the +information volunteered a little later, “only I wouldn't want the nasty +old thing.” + +Herman of the missing finger obtained no greater indulgence. “Pooh!” + said Roderick. “We have two fox-terriers in our stables that took prizes +at the kennel show, and their tails were BIT off. There's a man that +always bites fox-terriers' tails off.” + +“Oh, my gosh, what a lie!” exclaimed Sam Williams ignorantly. + +“Go on with the show whether he likes it or not, Penrod. He's paid his +money.” + +Verman, confident in his own singular powers, chuckled openly at the +failure of the other attractions to charm the frosty visitor, and, +when his turn came, poured forth a torrent of conversation which was +straightway damned. + +“Rotten,” said Mr. Bitts languidly. “Anybody could talk like that. _I_ +could do it if I wanted to.” + +Verman paused suddenly. + +“YES, you could!” exclaimed Penrod, stung. “Let's hear you do it, then.” + +“Yessir!” the other partner shouted. “Let's just hear you DO it!” + +“I said I could if I wanted to,” responded Roderick. “I didn't say I +WOULD.” + +“Yay! Knows he can't!” sneered Sam. + +“I can, too, if I try.” + +“Well, let's hear you try!” + +So challenged, the visitor did try, but, in the absence of an impartial +jury, his effort was considered so pronounced a failure that he was +howled down, derided, and mocked with great clamours. + +“Anyway,” said Roderick, when things had quieted down, “if I couldn't +get up a better show than this I'd sell out and leave town.” + +Not having enough presence of mind to inquire what he would sell out, +his adversaries replied with mere formless yells of scorn. + +“I could get up a better show than this with my left hand,” Roderick +asserted. + +“Well, what would you have in your ole show?” asked Penrod, +condescending to language. + +“That's all right, what I'd HAVE. I'd have enough!” + +“You couldn't get Herman and Verman in your ole show.” + +“No, and I wouldn't want 'em, either!” + +“Well, what WOULD you have?” insisted Penrod derisively. “You'd have to +have SUMPTHING--you couldn't be a show yourself!” + +“How do YOU know?” This was but meandering while waiting for ideas, and +evoked another yell. + +“You think you could be a show all by yourself?” demanded Penrod. + +“How do YOU know I couldn't?” + +Two white boys and two black boys shrieked their scorn of the boaster. + +“I could, too!” Roderick raised his voice to a sudden howl, obtaining a +hearing. + +“Well, why don't you tell us how?” + +“Well, _I_ know HOW, all right,” said Roderick. “If anybody asks you, +you can just tell him I know HOW, all right.” + +“Why, you can't DO anything,” Sam began argumentatively. “You talk +about being a show all by yourself; what could you try to do? Show us +sumpthing you can do.” + +“I didn't say I was going to DO anything,” returned the badgered one, +still evading. + +“Well, then, how'd you BE a show?” Penrod demanded. “WE got a show here, +even if Herman didn't point or Verman didn't talk. Their father stabbed +a man with a pitchfork, I guess, didn't he?” + +“How do _I_ know?” + +“Well, I guess he's in jail, ain't he?” + +“Well, what if their father is in jail? I didn't say he wasn't, did I?” + +“Well, YOUR father ain't in jail, is he?” + +“Well, I never said he was, did I?” + +“Well, then,” continued Penrod, “how could you be a----” He stopped +abruptly, staring at Roderick, the birth of an idea plainly visible in +his altered expression. He had suddenly remembered his intention to +ask Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, about Rena Magsworth, and this +recollection collided in his mind with the irritation produced by +Roderick's claiming some mysterious attainment which would warrant his +setting up as a show in his single person. Penrod's whole manner changed +instantly. + +“Roddy,” he asked, almost overwhelmed by a prescience of something vast +and magnificent, “Roddy, are you any relation of Rena Magsworth?” + +Roderick had never heard of Rena Magsworth, although a concentration +of the sentence yesterday pronounced upon her had burned, black and +horrific, upon the face of every newspaper in the country. He was not +allowed to read the journals of the day and his family's indignation +over the sacrilegious coincidence of the name had not been expressed in +his presence. But he saw that it was an awesome name to Penrod Schofield +and Samuel Williams. Even Herman and Verman, though lacking many +educational advantages on account of a long residence in the country, +were informed on the subject of Rena Magsworth through hearsay, and they +joined in the portentous silence. + +“Roddy,” repeated Penrod, “honest, is Rena Magsworth some relation of +yours?” + +There is no obsession more dangerous to its victims than a conviction +especially an inherited one--of superiority: this world is so full +of Missourians. And from his earliest years Roderick Magsworth Bitts, +Junior, had been trained to believe in the importance of the Magsworth +family. At every meal he absorbed a sense of Magsworth greatness, and +yet, in his infrequent meetings with persons of his own age and sex, +he was treated as negligible. Now, dimly, he perceived that there was +a Magsworth claim of some sort which was impressive, even to boys. +Magsworth blood was the essential of all true distinction in the world, +he knew. Consequently, having been driven into a cul-de-sac, as a result +of flagrant and unfounded boasting, he was ready to take advantage of +what appeared to be a triumphal way out. + +“Roddy,” said Penrod again, with solemnity, “is Rena Magsworth some +relation of yours?” + +“IS she, Roddy?” asked Sam, almost hoarsely. + +“She's my aunt!” shouted Roddy. + +Silence followed. Sam and Penrod, spellbound, gazed upon Roderick +Magsworth Bitts, Junior. So did Herman and Verman. Roddy's staggering +lie had changed the face of things utterly. No one questioned it; no one +realized that it was much too good to be true. + +“Roddy,” said Penrod, in a voice tremulous with hope, “Roddy, will you +join our show?” + +Roddy joined. + +Even he could see that the offer implied his being starred as the +paramount attraction of a new order of things. It was obvious that he +had swelled out suddenly, in the estimation of the other boys, to that +importance which he had been taught to believe his native gift and +natural right. The sensation was pleasant. He had often been treated +with effusion by grown-up callers and by acquaintances of his mothers +and sisters; he had heard ladies speak of him as “charming” and “that +delightful child,” and little girls had sometimes shown him deference, +but until this moment no boy had ever allowed him, for one moment, to +presume even to equality. Now, in a trice, he was not only admitted +to comradeship, but patently valued as something rare and sacred to be +acclaimed and pedestalled. In fact, the very first thing that Schofield +and Williams did was to find a box for him to stand upon. + +The misgivings roused in Roderick's bosom by the subsequent activities +of the firm were not bothersome enough to make him forego his prominence +as Exhibit A. He was not a “quick-minded” boy, and it was long (and +much happened) before he thoroughly comprehended the causes of his new +celebrity. He had a shadowy feeling that if the affair came to be heard +of at home it might not be liked, but, intoxicated by the glamour and +bustle which surround a public character, he made no protest. On the +contrary, he entered whole-heartedly into the preparations for the +new show. Assuming, with Sam's assistance, a blue moustache and +“side-burns,” he helped in the painting of a new poster, which, +supplanting the old one on the wall of the stable facing the +cross-street, screamed bloody murder at the passers in that rather +populous thoroughfare. + + SCHoFiELD & WiLLiAMS + NEW BIG SHoW + RoDERiCK MAGSWoRTH BiTTS JR + ONLY LiViNG NEPHEW + oF + RENA MAGSWORTH + THE FAMOS + MUDERESS GoiNG To BE HUNG + NEXT JULY KiLED EiGHT PEOPLE + PUT ARSiNECK iN THiER MiLK ALSO + SHERMAN HERMAN AND VERMAN + THE MiCHiGAN RATS DOG PART + ALLiGATOR DUKE THE GENUiNE + InDiAN DoG ADMISSioN 1 CENT oR + 20 PINS SAME AS BEFORE Do NoT + MISS THIS CHANSE TO SEE RoDERICK + ONLY LiViNG NEPHEW oF RENA + MAGSWORTH THE GREAT FAMOS + MUDERESS + GoiNG To BE + HUNG + + + +CHAPTER XVII RETIRING FROM THE SHOW-BUSINESS + +Megaphones were constructed out of heavy wrapping-paper, and Penrod, +Sam, and Herman set out in different directions, delivering vocally +the inflammatory proclamation of the poster to a large section of the +residential quarter, and leaving Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, with +Verman in the loft, shielded from all deadhead eyes. Upon the return +of the heralds, the Schofield and Williams Military Band played +deafeningly, and an awakened public once more thronged to fill the +coffers of the firm. + +Prosperity smiled again. The very first audience after the acquisition +of Roderick was larger than the largest of the morning. Master +Bitts--the only exhibit placed upon a box--was a supercurio. All eyes +fastened upon him and remained, hungrily feasting, throughout Penrod's +luminous oration. + +But the glory of one light must ever be the dimming of another. We dwell +in a vale of seesaws--and cobwebs spin fastest upon laurel. Verman, the +tattooed wild boy, speaking only in his native foreign languages, Verman +the gay, Verman the caperer, capered no more; he chuckled no more, he +beckoned no more, nor tapped his chest, nor wreathed his idolatrous face +in smiles. Gone, all gone, were his little artifices for attracting the +general attention to himself; gone was every engaging mannerism which +had endeared him to the mercurial public. He squatted against the wall +and glowered at the new sensation. It was the old story--the old, +old story of too much temperament: Verman was suffering from artistic +jealousy. + +The second audience contained a cash-paying adult, a spectacled young +man whose poignant attention was very flattering. He remained after the +lecture, and put a few questions to Roddy, which were answered rather +confusedly upon promptings from Penrod. The young man went away without +having stated the object of his interrogations, but it became quite +plain, later in the day. This same object caused the spectacled young +man to make several brief but stimulating calls directly after leaving +the Schofield and Williams Big Show, and the consequences thereof +loitered not by the wayside. + +The Big Show was at high tide. Not only was the auditorium filled +and throbbing; there was an indubitable line--by no means wholly +juvenile--waiting for admission to the next pufformance. A group stood +in the street examining the poster earnestly as it glowed in the long, +slanting rays of the westward sun, and people in automobiles and other +vehicles had halted wheel in the street to read the message so piquantly +given to the world. These were the conditions when a crested victoria +arrived at a gallop, and a large, chastely magnificent and highly +flushed woman descended, and progressed across the yard with an air of +violence. + +At sight of her, the adults of the waiting line hastily disappeared, +and most of the pausing vehicles moved instantly on their way. She was +followed by a stricken man in livery. + +The stairs to the auditorium were narrow and steep; Mrs. Roderick +Magsworth Bitts was of a stout favour; and the voice of Penrod was +audible during the ascent. + +“RE-MEM-BUR, gentilmun and lay-deeze, each and all are now gazing upon +Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, the only living nephew of the great +Rena Magsworth. She stuck ars'nic in the milk of eight separate and +distinck people to put in their coffee and each and all of 'em died. The +great ars'nic murderess, Rena Magsworth, gentilmun and lay-deeze, +and Roddy's her only living nephew. She's a relation of all the Bitts +family, but he's her one and only living nephew. RE-MEM-BUR! Next July +she's goin' to be hung, and, each and all, you now see before you----” + +Penrod paused abruptly, seeing something before himself--the august and +awful presence which filled the entryway. And his words (it should be +related) froze upon his lips. + +Before HERSELF, Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts saw her son--her +scion--wearing a moustache and sideburns of blue, and perched upon a box +flanked by Sherman and Verman, the Michigan rats, the Indian dog Duke, +Herman, and the dog part alligator. + +Roddy, also, saw something before himself. It needed no prophet to +read the countenance of the dread apparition in the entryway. His mouth +opened--remained open--then filled to capacity with a calamitous sound +of grief not unmingled with apprehension. + +Penrod's reason staggered under the crisis. For a horrible moment he saw +Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts approaching like some fatal mountain in +avalanche. She seemed to grow larger and redder; lightnings played about +her head; he had a vague consciousness of the audience spraying out +in flight, of the squealings, tramplings and dispersals of a stricken +field. The mountain was close upon him---- + +He stood by the open mouth of the hay-chute which went through the floor +to the manger below. Penrod also went through the floor. He propelled +himself into the chute and shot down, but not quite to the manger, for +Mr. Samuel Williams had thoughtfully stepped into the chute a moment in +advance of his partner. Penrod lit upon Sam. + +Catastrophic noises resounded in the loft; volcanoes seemed to romp upon +the stairway. + +There ensued a period when only a shrill keening marked the passing of +Roderick as he was borne to the tumbril. Then all was silence. + + +. . . Sunset, striking through a western window, rouged the walls of +the Schofields' library, where gathered a joint family council and +court martial of four--Mrs. Schofield, Mr. Schofield, and Mr. and Mrs. +Williams, parents of Samuel of that ilk. Mr. Williams read aloud a +conspicuous passage from the last edition of the evening paper: + +“Prominent people here believed close relations of woman sentenced to +hang. Angry denial by Mrs. R. Magsworth Bitts. Relationship admitted by +younger member of family. His statement confirmed by boy-friends----” + +“Don't!” said Mrs. Williams, addressing her husband vehemently. “We've +all read it a dozen times. We've got plenty of trouble on our hands +without hearing THAT again!” + +Singularly enough, Mrs. Williams did not look troubled; she looked as +if she were trying to look troubled. Mrs. Schofield wore a similar +expression. So did Mr. Schofield. So did Mr. Williams. + +“What did she say when she called YOU up?” Mrs. Schofield inquired +breathlessly of Mrs. Williams. + +“She could hardly speak at first, and then when she did talk, she talked +so fast I couldn't understand most of it, and----” + +“It was just the same when she tried to talk to me,” said Mrs. +Schofield, nodding. + +“I never did hear any one in such a state before,” continued Mrs. +Williams. “So furious----” + +“Quite justly, of course,” said Mrs. Schofield. + +“Of course. And she said Penrod and Sam had enticed Roderick away from +home--usually he's not allowed to go outside the yard except with his +tutor or a servant--and had told him to say that horrible creature was +his aunt----” + +“How in the world do you suppose Sam and Penrod ever thought of such +a thing as THAT!” exclaimed Mrs. Schofield. “It must have been made up +just for their 'show.' Della says there were just STREAMS going in and +out all day. Of course it wouldn't have happened, but this was the day +Margaret and I spend every month in the country with Aunt Sarah, and I +didn't DREAM----” + +“She said one thing I thought rather tactless,” interrupted Mrs. +Williams. “Of course we must allow for her being dreadfully excited and +wrought up, but I do think it wasn't quite delicate in her, and she's +usually the very soul of delicacy. She said that Roderick had NEVER been +allowed to associate with--common boys----” + +“Meaning Sam and Penrod,” said Mrs. Schofield. “Yes, she said that to +me, too.” + +“She said that the most awful thing about it,” Mrs. Williams went on, +“was that, though she's going to prosecute the newspapers, many people +would always believe the story, and----” + +“Yes, I imagine they will,” said Mrs. Schofield musingly. “Of course you +and I and everybody who really knows the Bitts and Magsworth families +understand the perfect absurdity of it; but I suppose there are ever so +many who'll believe it, no matter what the Bittses and Magsworths say.” + +“Hundreds and hundreds!” said Mrs. Williams. “I'm afraid it will be a +great come-down for them.” + +“I'm afraid so,” said Mrs. Schofield gently. “A very great one--yes, a +very, very great one.” + +“Well,” observed Mrs. Williams, after a thoughtful pause, “there's only +one thing to be done, and I suppose it had better be done right away.” + +She glanced toward the two gentlemen. + +“Certainly,” Mr. Schofield agreed. “But where ARE they?” + +“Have you looked in the stable?” asked his wife. + +“I searched it. They've probably started for the far West.” + +“Did you look in the sawdust-box?” + +“No, I didn't.” + +“Then that's where they are.” + +Thus, in the early twilight, the now historic stable was approached by +two fathers charged to do the only thing to be done. They entered the +storeroom. + +“Penrod!” said Mr. Schofield. + +“Sam!” said Mr. Williams. + +Nothing disturbed the twilight hush. + +But by means of a ladder, brought from the carriage-house, Mr. Schofield +mounted to the top of the sawdust-box. He looked within, and discerned +the dim outlines of three quiet figures, the third being that of a small +dog. + +The two boys rose, upon command, descended the ladder after Mr. +Schofield, bringing Duke with them, and stood before the authors of +their being, who bent upon them sinister and threatening brows. With +hanging heads and despondent countenances, each still ornamented with a +moustache and an imperial, Penrod and Sam awaited sentence. + +This is a boy's lot: anything he does, anything whatever, may afterward +turn out to have been a crime--he never knows. + +And punishment and clemency are alike inexplicable. + +Mr. Williams took his son by the ear. + +“You march home!” he commanded. + +Sam marched, not looking back, and his father followed the small figure +implacably. + +“You goin' to whip me?” quavered Penrod, alone with Justice. + +“Wash your face at that hydrant,” said his father sternly. + +About fifteen minutes later, Penrod, hurriedly entering the corner drug +store, two blocks distant, was astonished to perceive a familiar form at +the soda counter. + +“Yay, Penrod,” said Sam Williams. “Want some sody? Come on. He didn't +lick me. He didn't do anything to me at all. He gave me a quarter.” + +“So'd mine,” said Penrod. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII MUSIC + +Boyhood is the longest time in life for a boy. The last term of the +school-year is made of decades, not of weeks, and living through them is +like waiting for the millennium. But they do pass, somehow, and at last +there came a day when Penrod was one of a group that capered out +from the gravelled yard of “Ward School, Nomber Seventh,” carolling a +leave-taking of the institution, of their instructress, and not even +forgetting Mr. Capps, the janitor. + +“Good-bye, teacher! Good-bye, school! Good-bye, Cappsie, dern ole fool!” + +Penrod sang the loudest. For every boy, there is an age when he “finds +his voice.” Penrod's had not “changed,” but he had found it. Inevitably +that thing had come upon his family and the neighbours; and his father, +a somewhat dyspeptic man, quoted frequently the expressive words of +the “Lady of Shalott,” but there were others whose sufferings were as +poignant. + +Vacation-time warmed the young of the world to pleasant languor; and +a morning came that was like a brightly coloured picture in a child's +fairy story. Miss Margaret Schofield, reclining in a hammock upon the +front porch, was beautiful in the eyes of a newly made senior, well +favoured and in fair raiment, beside her. A guitar rested lightly upon +his knee, and he was trying to play--a matter of some difficulty, as +the floor of the porch also seemed inclined to be musical. From directly +under his feet came a voice of song, shrill, loud, incredibly piercing +and incredibly flat, dwelling upon each syllable with incomprehensible +reluctance to leave it. + + “I have lands and earthly pow-wur. + I'd give all for a now-wur, + Whi-ilst setting at MY-Y-Y dear old mother's knee-ee, + So-o-o rem-mem-bur whilst you're young----” + +Miss Schofield stamped heartily upon the musical floor. + +“It's Penrod,” she explained. “The lattice at the end of the porch is +loose, and he crawls under and comes out all bugs. He's been having +a dreadful singing fit lately--running away to picture shows and +vaudeville, I suppose.” + +Mr. Robert Williams looked upon her yearningly. He touched a thrilling +chord on his guitar and leaned nearer. “But you said you have missed +me,” he began. “I----” + +The voice of Penrod drowned all other sounds. + + “So-o-o rem-mem-bur, whi-i-ilst you're young, + That the day-a-ys to you will come, + When you're o-o-old and only in the way, + Do not scoff at them BEE-cause----” + +“PENROD!” Miss Schofield stamped again. + +“You DID say you'd missed me,” said Mr. Robert Williams, seizing +hurriedly upon the silence. “Didn't you say----” + +A livelier tune rose upward. + + “Oh, you talk about your fascinating beauties, + Of your dem-O-zells, your belles, + But the littil dame I met, while in the city, + She's par excellaws the queen of all the swells. + She's sweeter far----” + +Margaret rose and jumped up and down repeatedly in a well-calculated +area, whereupon the voice of Penrod cried chokedly, “QUIT that!” and +there were subterranean coughings and sneezings. + +“You want to choke a person to death?” he inquired severely, appearing +at the end of the porch, a cobweb upon his brow. And, continuing, he +put into practice a newly acquired phrase, “You better learn to be more +considerick of other people's comfort.” + +Slowly and grievedly he withdrew, passed to the sunny side of the house, +reclined in the warm grass beside his wistful Duke, and presently sang +again. + + “She's sweeter far than the flower I named her after, + And the memery of her smile it haunts me YET! + When in after years the moon is soffly beamun' + And at eve I smell the smell of mignonette + I will re-CALL that----” + +“Pen-ROD!” + +Mr. Schofield appeared at an open window upstairs, a book in his hand. + +“Stop it!” he commanded. “Can't I stay home with a headache ONE morning +from the office without having to listen to--I never DID hear such +squawking!” He retired from the window, having too impulsively called +upon his Maker. Penrod, shocked and injured, entered the house, but +presently his voice was again audible as far as the front porch. He was +holding converse with his mother, somewhere in the interior. + +“Well, what of it? Sam Williams told me his mother said if Bob ever did +think of getting married to Margaret, his mother said she'd like to know +what in the name o' goodness they expect to----” + +Bang! Margaret thought it better to close the front door. + +The next minute Penrod opened it. “I suppose you want the whole family +to get a sunstroke,” he said reprovingly. “Keepin' every breath of air +out o' the house on a day like this!” + +And he sat down implacably in the doorway. + +The serious poetry of all languages has omitted the little brother; +and yet he is one of the great trials of love--the immemorial burden of +courtship. Tragedy should have found place for him, but he has been left +to the haphazard vignettist of Grub Street. He is the grave and +real menace of lovers; his head is sacred and terrible, his power +illimitable. There is one way--only one--to deal with him; but Robert +Williams, having a brother of Penrod's age, understood that way. + +Robert had one dollar in the world. He gave it to Penrod immediately. + +Enslaved forever, the new Rockefeller rose and went forth upon the +highway, an overflowing heart bursting the floodgates of song. + + “In her eyes the light of love was soffly gleamun', + So sweetlay, + So neatlay. + On the banks the moon's soff light was brightly streamun', + Words of love I then spoke TO her. + She was purest of the PEW-er: + 'Littil sweetheart, do not sigh, + Do not weep and do not cry. + I will build a littil cottige just for yew-EW-EW and I.'” + +In fairness, it must be called to mind that boys older than Penrod have +these wellings of pent melody; a wife can never tell when she is to +undergo a musical morning, and even the golden wedding brings her no +security, a man of ninety is liable to bust-loose in song, any time. + +Invalids murmured pitifully as Penrod came within hearing; and people +trying to think cursed the day that they were born, when he went +shrilling by. His hands in his pockets, his shining face uplifted to the +sky of June, he passed down the street, singing his way into the heart's +deepest hatred of all who heard him. + + “One evuning I was sturow-ling + Midst the city of the DEAD, + I viewed where all a-round me + Their PEACE-full graves was SPREAD. + But that which touched me mostlay----” + +He had reached his journey's end, a junk-dealer's shop wherein lay +the long-desired treasure of his soul--an accordion which might +have possessed a high quality of interest for an antiquarian, being +unquestionably a ruin, beautiful in decay, and quite beyond the +sacrilegious reach of the restorer. But it was still able to disgorge +sounds--loud, strange, compelling sounds, which could be heard for a +remarkable distance in all directions; and it had one rich calf-like +tone that had gone to Penrod's heart. He obtained the instrument for +twenty-two cents, a price long since agreed upon with the junk-dealer, +who falsely claimed a loss of profit, Shylock that he was! He had found +the wreck in an alley. + +With this purchase suspended from his shoulder by a faded green cord, +Penrod set out in a somewhat homeward direction, but not by the route +he had just travelled, though his motive for the change was not +humanitarian. It was his desire to display himself thus troubadouring +to the gaze of Marjorie Jones. Heralding his advance by continuous +experiments in the music of the future, he pranced upon his blithesome +way, the faithful Duke at his heels. (It was easier for Duke than it +would have been for a younger dog, because, with advancing age, he had +begun to grow a little deaf.) + +Turning the corner nearest to the glamoured mansion of the Joneses, +the boy jongleur came suddenly face to face with Marjorie, and, in +the delicious surprise of the encounter, ceased to play, his hands, in +agitation, falling from the instrument. + +Bareheaded, the sunshine glorious upon her amber curls, Marjorie was +strolling hand-in-hand with her baby brother, Mitchell, four years +old. She wore pink that day--unforgettable pink, with a broad, black +patent-leather belt, shimmering reflections dancing upon its surface. +How beautiful she was! How sacred the sweet little baby brother, whose +privilege it was to cling to that small hand, delicately powdered with +freckles. + +“Hello, Marjorie,” said Penrod, affecting carelessness. + +“Hello!” said Marjorie, with unexpected cordiality. She bent over her +baby brother with motherly affectations. “Say 'howdy' to the gentymuns, +Mitchy-Mitch,” she urged sweetly, turning him to face Penrod. + +“WON'T!” said Mitchy-Mitch, and, to emphasize his refusal, kicked the +gentymuns upon the shin. + +Penrod's feelings underwent instant change, and in the sole occupation +of disliking Mitchy-Mitch, he wasted precious seconds which might have +been better employed in philosophic consideration of the startling +example, just afforded, of how a given law operates throughout the +universe in precisely the same manner perpetually. Mr. Robert Williams +would have understood this, easily. + +“Oh, oh!” Marjorie cried, and put Mitchy-Mitch behind her with too much +sweetness. “Maurice Levy's gone to Atlantic City with his mamma,” she +remarked conversationally, as if the kicking incident were quite closed. + +“That's nothin',” returned Penrod, keeping his eye uneasily +upon Mitchy-Mitch. “I know plenty people been better places than +that--Chicago and everywhere.” + +There was unconscious ingratitude in his low rating of Atlantic City, +for it was largely to the attractions of that resort he owed Miss Jones' +present attitude of friendliness. + +Of course, too, she was curious about the accordion. It would be +dastardly to hint that she had noticed a paper bag which bulged +the pocket of Penrod's coat, and yet this bag was undeniably +conspicuous--“and children are very like grown people sometimes!” + +Penrod brought forth the bag, purchased on the way at a drug store, and +till this moment UNOPENED, which expresses in a word the depth of his +sentiment for Marjorie. It contained an abundant fifteen-cents' worth of +lemon drops, jaw-breakers, licorice sticks, cinnamon drops, and shopworn +choclate creams. + +“Take all you want,” he said, with off-hand generosity. + +“Why, Penrod Schofield,” exclaimed the wholly thawed damsel, “you nice +boy!” + +“Oh, that's nothin',” he returned airily. “I got a good deal of money, +nowadays.” + +“Where from?” + +“Oh--just around.” With a cautious gesture he offered a jaw-breaker to +Mitchy-Mitch, who snatched it indignantly and set about its absorption +without delay. + +“Can you play on that?” asked Marjorie, with some difficulty, her cheeks +being rather too hilly for conversation. + +“Want to hear me?” + +She nodded, her eyes sweet with anticipation. + +This was what he had come for. He threw back his head, lifted his eyes +dreamily, as he had seen real musicians lift theirs, and distended the +accordion preparing to produce the wonderful calf-like noise which was +the instrument's great charm. + +But the distention evoked a long wail which was at once drowned in +another one. + +“Ow! Owowaoh! Wowohah! WaowWOW!” shrieked Mitchy-Mitch and the accordion +together. + +Mitchy-Mitch, to emphasize his disapproval of the accordion, opening his +mouth still wider, lost therefrom the jaw-breaker, which rolled in the +dust. Weeping, he stooped to retrieve it, and Marjorie, to prevent him, +hastily set her foot upon it. Penrod offered another jaw-breaker; but +Mitchy-Mitch struck it from his hand, desiring the former, which had +convinced him of its sweetness. + +Marjorie moved inadvertently; whereupon Mitchy-Mitch pounced upon the +remains of his jaw-breaker and restored them, with accretions, to his +mouth. His sister, uttering a cry of horror, sprang to the rescue, +assisted by Penrod, whom she prevailed upon to hold Mitchy-Mitch's mouth +open while she excavated. This operation being completed, and Penrod's +right thumb severely bitten, Mitchy-Mitch closed his eyes tightly, +stamped, squealed, bellowed, wrung his hands, and then, unexpectedly, +kicked Penrod again. + +Penrod put a hand in his pocket and drew forth a copper two-cent piece, +large, round, and fairly bright. + +He gave it to Mitchy-Mitch. + +Mitchy-Mitch immediately stopped crying and gazed upon his benefactor +with the eyes of a dog. + +This world! + +Thereafter did Penrod--with complete approval from Mitchy-Mitch--play +the accordion for his lady to his heart's content, and hers. Never had +he so won upon her; never had she let him feel so close to her before. +They strolled up and down upon the sidewalk, eating, one thought between +them, and soon she had learned to play the accordion almost as well as +he. So passed a happy hour, which the Good King Rene of Anjou would have +envied them, while Mitchy-Mitch made friends with Duke, romped about his +sister and her swain, and clung to the hand of the latter, at intervals, +with fondest affection and trust. + +The noon whistles failed to disturb this little Arcady; only the +sound of Mrs. Jones' voice for the third time summoning Marjorie and +Mitchy-Mitch to lunch--sent Penrod on his way. + +“I could come back this afternoon, I guess,” he said, in parting. + +“I'm not goin' to be here. I'm goin' to Baby Rennsdale's party.” + +Penrod looked blank, as she intended he should. Having thus satisfied +herself, she added: + +“There aren't goin' to be any boys there.” + +He was instantly radiant again. + +“Marjorie----” + +“Hum?” + +“Do you wish I was goin' to be there?” + +She looked shy, and turned away her head. + +“MARJORIE JONES!” (This was a voice from home.) “HOW MANY MORE TIMES +SHALL I HAVE TO CALL YOU?” + +Marjorie moved away, her face still hidden from Penrod. + +“Do you?” he urged. + +At the gate, she turned quickly toward him, and said over her shoulder, +all in a breath: “Yes! Come again to-morrow morning and I'll be on the +corner. Bring your 'cordion!” + +And she ran into the house, Mitchy-Mitch waving a loving hand to the boy +on the sidewalk until the front door closed. + + + +CHAPTER XIX THE INNER BOY + +Penrod went home in splendour, pretending that he and Duke were a long +procession; and he made enough noise to render the auricular part of the +illusion perfect. His own family were already at the lunch-table when he +arrived, and the parade halted only at the door of the dining-room. + +“Oh SOMETHING!” shouted Mr. Schofield, clasping his bilious brow with +both hands. “Stop that noise! Isn't it awful enough for you to SING? Sit +DOWN! Not with that thing on! Take that green rope off your shoulder! +Now take that thing out of the dining-room and throw it in the ash-can! +Where did you get it?” + +“Where did I get what, papa?” asked Penrod meekly, depositing the +accordion in the hall just outside the dining-room door. + +“That da--that third-hand concertina.” + +“It's a 'cordian,” said Penrod, taking his place at the table, and +noticing that both Margaret and Mr. Robert Williams (who happened to be +a guest) were growing red. + +“I don't care what you call it,” said Mr. Schofield irritably. “I want +to know where you got it.” + +Penrod's eyes met Margaret's: hers had a strained expression. + +She very slightly shook her head. Penrod sent Mr. Williams a grateful +look, and might have been startled if he could have seen himself in a +mirror at that moment; for he regarded Mitchy-Mitch with concealed but +vigorous aversion and the resemblance would have horrified him. + +“A man gave it to me,” he answered gently, and was rewarded by the +visibly regained ease of his patron's manner, while Margaret leaned back +in her chair and looked at her brother with real devotion. + +“I should think he'd have been glad to,” said Mr. Schofield. “Who was +he?” + +“Sir?” In spite of the candy which he had consumed in company with +Marjorie and Mitchy-Mitch, Penrod had begun to eat lobster croquettes +earnestly. + +“Who WAS he?” + +“Who do you mean, papa?” + +“The man that gave you that ghastly Thing!” + +“Yessir. A man gave it to me.” + +“I say, Who WAS he?” shouted Mr. Schofield. + +“Well, I was just walking along, and the man came up to me--it was right +down in front of Colgate's, where most of the paint's rubbed off the +fence----” + +“Penrod!” The father used his most dangerous tone. + +“Sir?” + +“Who was the man that gave you the concertina?” + +“I don't know. I was walking along----” + +“You never saw him before?” + +“No, sir. I was just walk----” + +“That will do,” said Mr. Schofield, rising. “I suppose every family has +its secret enemies and this was one of ours. I must ask to be excused!” + +With that, he went out crossly, stopping in the hall a moment before +passing beyond hearing. And, after lunch, Penrod sought in vain for his +accordion; he even searched the library where his father sat reading, +though, upon inquiry, Penrod explained that he was looking for a +misplaced schoolbook. He thought he ought to study a little every day, +he said, even during vacation-time. Much pleased, Mr. Schofield rose and +joined the search, finding the missing work on mathematics with singular +ease--which cost him precisely the price of the book the following +September. + +Penrod departed to study in the backyard. There, after a cautious survey +of the neighbourhood, he managed to dislodge the iron cover of the +cistern, and dropped the arithmetic within. A fine splash rewarded his +listening ear. Thus assured that when he looked for that book again no +one would find it for him, he replaced the cover, and betook himself +pensively to the highway, discouraging Duke from following by repeated +volleys of stones, some imaginary and others all too real. + +Distant strains of brazen horns and the throbbing of drums were borne to +him upon the kind breeze, reminding him that the world was made for joy, +and that the Barzee and Potter Dog and Pony Show was exhibiting in a +banlieue not far away. So, thither he bent his steps--the plentiful +funds in his pocket burning hot holes all the way. He had paid +twenty-two cents for the accordion, and fifteen for candy; he had bought +the mercenary heart of Mitchy-Mitch for two: it certainly follows that +there remained to him of his dollar, sixty-one cents--a fair fortune, +and most unusual. + +Arrived upon the populous and festive scene of the Dog and Pony Show, +he first turned his attention to the brightly decorated booths which +surrounded the tent. The cries of the peanut vendors, of the popcorn +men, of the toy-balloon sellers, the stirring music of the band, playing +before the performance to attract a crowd, the shouting of excited +children and the barking of the dogs within the tent, all sounded +exhilaratingly in Penrod's ears and set his blood a-tingle. +Nevertheless, he did not squander his money or fling it to the winds in +one grand splurge. Instead, he began cautiously with the purchase of an +extraordinarily large pickle, which he obtained from an aged negress for +his odd cent, too obvious a bargain to be missed. At an adjacent stand +he bought a glass of raspberry lemonade (so alleged) and sipped it as he +ate the pickle. He left nothing of either. + +Next, he entered a small restaurant-tent and for a modest nickel was +supplied with a fork and a box of sardines, previously opened, it is +true, but more than half full. He consumed the sardines utterly, but +left the tin box and the fork, after which he indulged in an inexpensive +half-pint of lukewarm cider, at one of the open booths. Mug in hand, +a gentle glow radiating toward his surface from various centres of +activity deep inside him, he paused for breath--and the cool, sweet +cadences of the watermelon man fell delectably upon his ear: + +“Ice-cole WATER-melon; ice-cole water-MELON; the biggest slice of +ICE-cole, ripe, red, ICE-cole, rich an' rare; the biggest slice of +ice-cole watermelon ever cut by the hand of man! BUY our ICE-cole +water-melon?” + +Penrod, having drained the last drop of cider, complied with the +watermelon man's luscious entreaty, and received a round slice of +the fruit, magnificent in circumference and something over an inch in +thickness. Leaving only the really dangerous part of the rind behind +him, he wandered away from the vicinity of the watermelon man and +supplied himself with a bag of peanuts, which, with the expenditure of a +dime for admission, left a quarter still warm in his pocket. However, he +managed to “break” the coin at a stand inside the tent, where a large, +oblong paper box of popcorn was handed him, with twenty cents change. +The box was too large to go into his pocket, but, having seated himself +among some wistful Polack children, he placed it in his lap and devoured +the contents at leisure during the performance. The popcorn was heavily +larded with partially boiled molasses, and Penrod sandwiched mouthfuls +of peanuts with gobs of this mass until the peanuts were all gone. After +that, he ate with less avidity; a sense almost of satiety beginning +to manifest itself to him, and it was not until the close of the +performance that he disposed of the last morsel. + +He descended a little heavily to the outflowing crowd in the arena, and +bought a caterwauling toy balloon, but showed no great enthusiasm in +manipulating it. Near the exit, as he came out, was a hot-waffle stand +which he had overlooked, and a sense of duty obliged him to consume the +three waffles, thickly powdered with sugar, which the waffle man cooked +for him upon command. + +They left a hottish taste in his mouth; they had not been quite up to +his anticipation, indeed, and it was with a sense of relief that he +turned to the “hokey-pokey” cart which stood close at hand, laden with +square slabs of “Neapolitan ice-cream” wrapped in paper. He thought the +ice-cream would be cooling, but somehow it fell short of the desired +effect, and left a peculiar savour in his throat. + +He walked away, too languid to blow his balloon, and passed a +fresh-taffy booth with strange indifference. A bare-armed man was +manipulating the taffy over a hook, pulling a great white mass to the +desired stage of “candying,” but Penrod did not pause to watch the +operation; in fact, he averted his eyes (which were slightly glazed) in +passing. He did not analyze his motives: simply, he was conscious that +he preferred not to look at the mass of taffy. + +For some reason, he put a considerable distance between himself and the +taffy-stand, but before long halted in the presence of a red-faced man +who flourished a long fork over a small cooking apparatus and shouted +jovially: “Winnies! HERE'S your hot winnies! Hot winny-WURST! Food for +the over-worked brain, nourishing for the weak stummick, entertaining +for the tired business man! HERE'S your hot winnies, three for a nickel, +a half-a-dime, the twentieth-pot-of-a-dollah!” + +This, above all nectar and ambrosia, was the favourite dish of Penrod +Schofield. Nothing inside him now craved it--on the contrary! But +memory is the great hypnotist; his mind argued against his inwards that +opportunity knocked at his door: “winny-wurst” was rigidly forbidden by +the home authorities. Besides, there was a last nickel in his pocket; +and nature protested against its survival. Also, the redfaced man had +himself proclaimed his wares nourishing for the weak stummick. + +Penrod placed the nickel in the red hand of the red-faced man. + +He ate two of the three greasy, cigarlike shapes cordially pressed upon +him in return. The first bite convinced him that he had made a mistake; +these winnies seemed of a very inferior flavour, almost unpleasant, in +fact. But he felt obliged to conceal his poor opinion of them, for fear +of offending the red-faced man. He ate without haste or eagerness--so +slowly, indeed, that he began to think the redfaced man might dislike +him, as a deterrent of trade. Perhaps Penrod's mind was not working +well, for he failed to remember that no law compelled him to remain +under the eye of the red-faced man, but the virulent repulsion excited +by his attempt to take a bite of the third sausage inspired him with at +least an excuse for postponement. + +“Mighty good,” he murmured feebly, placing the sausage in the pocket +of his jacket with a shaking hand. “Guess I'll save this one to eat at +home, after--after dinner.” + +He moved sluggishly away, wishing he had not thought of dinner. A +side-show, undiscovered until now, failed to arouse his interest, not +even exciting a wish that he had known of its existence when he had +money. For a time he stared without attraction; the weather-worn colours +conveying no meaning to comprehension at a huge canvas poster depicting +the chief his torpid eye. Then, little by little, the poster became more +vivid to his consciousness. There was a greenish-tinted person in the +tent, it seemed, who thrived upon a reptilian diet. + +Suddenly, Penrod decided that it was time to go home. + + + +CHAPTER XX BROTHERS OF ANGELS + +“Indeed, doctor,” said Mrs. Schofield, with agitation and profound +conviction, just after eight o'clock that evening, “I shall ALWAYS +believe in mustard plasters--mustard plasters and hot--water bags. If +it hadn't been for them I don't believed he'd have LIVED till you got +here--I do NOT!” + +“Margaret,” called Mr. Schofield from the open door of a bedroom, +“Margaret, where did you put that aromatic ammonia? Where's Margaret?” + +But he had to find the aromatic spirits of ammonia himself, for Margaret +was not in the house. She stood in the shadow beneath a maple tree +near the street corner, a guitar-case in her hand; and she scanned with +anxiety a briskly approaching figure. The arc light, swinging above, +revealed this figure as that of him she awaited. He was passing toward +the gate without seeing her, when she arrested him with a fateful +whisper. + +“BOB!” + +Mr. Robert Williams swung about hastily. “Why, Margaret!” + +“Here, take your guitar,” she whispered hurriedly. “I was afraid if +father happened to find it he'd break it all to pieces!” + +“What for?” asked the startled Robert. + +“Because I'm sure he knows it's yours.” “But what----” + +“Oh, Bob,” she moaned, “I was waiting here to tell you. I was so afraid +you'd try to come in----” + +“TRY!” exclaimed the unfortunate young man, quite dumfounded. “TRY to +come----” + +“Yes, before I warned you. I've been waiting here to tell you, Bob, you +mustn't come near the house if I were you I'd stay away from even this +neighbourhood--far away! For a while I don't think it would be actually +SAFE for----” + +“Margaret, will you please----” + +“It's all on account of that dollar you gave Penrod this morning,” she +walled. “First, he bought that horrible concertina that made papa so +furious--” + +“But Penrod didn't tell that I----” + +“Oh, wait!” she cried lamentably. “Listen! He didn't tell at lunch, but +he got home about dinner-time in the most--well! I've seen pale people +before, but nothing like Penrod. Nobody could IMAGINE it--not unless +they'd seen him! And he looked, so STRANGE, and kept making such +unnatural faces, and at first all he would say was that he'd eaten a +little piece of apple and thought it must have some microbes on it. But +he got sicker and sicker, and we put him to bed--and then we all thought +he was going to die--and, of COURSE, no little piece of apple would +have--well, and he kept getting worse and then he said he'd had a +dollar. He said he'd spent it for the concertina, and watermelon, and +chocolate-creams, and licorice sticks, and lemon-drops, and peanuts, +and jaw-breakers, and sardines, and raspberry lemonade, and pickles, and +popcorn, and ice-cream, and cider, and sausage--there was sausage in +his pocket, and mamma says his jacket is ruined--and cinnamon drops--and +waffles--and he ate four or five lobster croquettes at lunch--and papa +said, 'Who gave you that dollar?' Only he didn't say 'WHO'--he said +something horrible, Bob! And Penrod thought he was going to die, and he +said you gave it to him, and oh! it was just pitiful to hear the poor +child, Bob, because he thought he was dying, you see, and he blamed you +for the whole thing. He said if you'd only let him alone and not given +it to him, he'd have grown up to be a good man--and now he couldn't! I +never heard anything so heart-rending--he was so weak he could hardly +whisper, but he kept trying to talk, telling us over and over it was all +your fault.” + +In the darkness Mr. Williams' facial expression could not be seen, but +his voice sounded hopeful. + +“Is he--is he still in a great deal of pain?” + +“They say the crisis is past,” said Margaret, “but the doctor's still +up there. He said it was the acutest case of indigestion he had ever +treated in the whole course of his professional practice.” + +“Of course _I_ didn't know what he'd do with the dollar,” said Robert. + +She did not reply. + +He began plaintively, “Margaret, you don't----” + +“I've never seen papa and mamma so upset about anything,” she said, +rather primly. + +“You mean they're upset about ME?” + +“We ARE all very much upset,” returned Margaret, more starch in her tone +as she remembered not only Penrod's sufferings but a duty she had vowed +herself to perform. + +“Margaret! YOU don't----” + +“Robert,” she said firmly and, also, with a rhetorical complexity which +breeds a suspicion of pre-rehearsal--“Robert, for the present I can only +look at it in one way: when you gave that money to Penrod you put into +the hands of an unthinking little child a weapon which might be, and, +indeed was, the means of his undoing. Boys are not respon----” + +“But you saw me give him the dollar, and you didn't----” + +“Robert!” she checked him with increasing severity. “I am only a woman +and not accustomed to thinking everything out on the spur of the moment; +but I cannot change my mind. Not now, at least.” + +“And you think I'd better not come in to-night?” + +“To-night!” she gasped. “Not for WEEKS! Papa would----” + +“But Margaret,” he urged plaintively, “how can you blame me for----” + +“I have not used the word 'blame,'” she interrupted. “But I must insist +that for your carelessness to--to wreak such havoc--cannot fail to--to +lessen my confidence in your powers of judgment. I cannot change my +convictions in this matter--not to-night--and I cannot remain here +another instant. The poor child may need me. Robert, good-night.” + +With chill dignity she withdrew, entered the house, and returned to the +sick-room, leaving the young man in outer darkness to brood upon his +crime--and upon Penrod. + + +That sincere invalid became convalescent upon the third day; and a +week elapsed, then, before he found an opportunity to leave the house +unaccompanied--save by Duke. But at last he set forth and approached the +Jones neighbourhood in high spirits, pleasantly conscious of his pallor, +hollow cheeks, and other perquisites of illness provocative of interest. + +One thought troubled him a little because it gave him a sense of +inferiority to a rival. He believed, against his will, that Maurice +Levy could have successfully eaten chocolate-creams, licorice sticks, +lemon-drops, jaw-breakers, peanuts, waffles, lobster croquettes, +sardines, cinnamon-drops, watermelon, pickles, popcorn, ice-cream +and sausage with raspberry lemonade and cider. Penrod had admitted to +himself that Maurice could do it and afterward attend to business, or +pleasure, without the slightest discomfort; and this was probably no +more than a fair estimate of one of the great constitutions of all time. +As a digester, Maurice Levy would have disappointed a Borgia. + +Fortunately, Maurice was still at Atlantic City--and now the +convalescent's heart leaped. In the distance he saw Marjorie coming--in +pink again, with a ravishing little parasol over her head. And alone! No +Mitchy-Mitch was to mar this meeting. + +Penrod increased the feebleness of his steps, now and then leaning upon +the fence as if for support. + +“How do you do, Marjorie?” he said, in his best sick-room voice, as she +came near. + +To his pained amazement, she proceeded on her way, her nose at a +celebrated elevation--an icy nose. + +She cut him dead. + +He threw his invalid's airs to the winds, and hastened after her. + +“Marjorie,” he pleaded, “what's the matter? Are you mad? Honest, that +day you said to come back next morning, and you'd be on the corner, +I was sick. Honest, I was AWFUL sick, Marjorie! I had to have the +doctor----” + +“DOCTOR!” She whirled upon him, her lovely eyes blazing. + +“I guess WE'VE had to have the doctor enough at OUR house, thanks to +you, Mister Penrod Schofield. Papa says you haven't got NEAR sense +enough to come in out of the rain, after what you did to poor little +Mitchy-Mitch----” + +“What?” + +“Yes, and he's sick in bed YET!” Marjorie went on, with unabated fury. +“And papa says if he ever catches you in this part of town----” + +“WHAT'D I do to Mitchy-Mitch?” gasped Penrod. + +“You know well enough what you did to Mitchy-Mitch!” she cried. “You +gave him that great, big, nasty two-cent piece!” + +“Well, what of it?” + +“Mitchy-Mitch swallowed it!” + +“What!” + +“And papa says if he ever just lays eyes on you, once, in this +neighbourhood----” + +But Penrod had started for home. + +In his embittered heart there was increasing a critical disapproval of +the Creator's methods. When He made pretty girls, thought Penrod, why +couldn't He have left out their little brothers! + + + +CHAPTER XXI RUPE COLLINS + +For several days after this, Penrod thought of growing up to be a +monk, and engaged in good works so far as to carry some kittens (that +otherwise would have been drowned) and a pair of Margaret's outworn +dancing-slippers to a poor, ungrateful old man sojourning in a shed +up the alley. And although Mr. Robert Williams, after a very short +interval, began to leave his guitar on the front porch again, exactly as +if he thought nothing had happened, Penrod, with his younger vision of +a father's mood, remained coldly distant from the Jones neighbourhood. +With his own family his manner was gentle, proud and sad, but not for +long enough to frighten them. The change came with mystifying abruptness +at the end of the week. + +It was Duke who brought it about. + +Duke could chase a much bigger dog out of the Schofields' yard and far +down the street. This might be thought to indicate unusual valour on +the part of Duke and cowardice on that of the bigger dogs whom he +undoubtedly put to rout. On the contrary, all such flights were founded +in mere superstition, for dogs are even more superstitious than boys +and coloured people; and the most firmly established of all dog +superstitions is that any dog--be he the smallest and feeblest in the +world--can whip any trespasser whatsoever. + +A rat-terrier believes that on his home grounds he can whip an elephant. +It follows, of course, that a big dog, away from his own home, will run +from a little dog in the little dog's neighbourhood. Otherwise, the big +dog must face a charge of inconsistency, and dogs are as consistent as +they are superstitious. A dog believes in war, but he is convinced +that there are times when it is moral to run; and the thoughtful +physiognomist, seeing a big dog fleeing out of a little dog's yard, must +observe that the expression of the big dog's face is more conscientious +than alarmed: it is the expression of a person performing a duty to +himself. + +Penrod understood these matters perfectly; he knew that the gaunt brown +hound Duke chased up the alley had fled only out of deference to a +custom, yet Penrod could not refrain from bragging of Duke to the +hound's owner, a fat-faced stranger of twelve or thirteen, who had +wandered into the neighbourhood. + +“You better keep that ole yellow dog o' yours back,” said Penrod +ominously, as he climbed the fence. “You better catch him and hold him +till I get mine inside the yard again. Duke's chewed up some pretty bad +bulldogs around here.” + +The fat-faced boy gave Penrod a fishy stare. “You'd oughta learn him not +to do that,” he said. “It'll make him sick.” + +“What will?” + +The stranger laughed raspingly and gazed up the alley, where the hound, +having come to a halt, now coolly sat down, and, with an expression of +roguish benevolence, patronizingly watched the tempered fury of Duke, +whose assaults and barkings were becoming perfunctory. + +“What'll make Duke sick?” Penrod demanded. + +“Eatin' dead bulldogs people leave around here.” + +This was not improvisation but formula, adapted from other occasions to +the present encounter; nevertheless, it was new to Penrod, and he was +so taken with it that resentment lost itself in admiration. Hastily +committing the gem to memory for use upon a dog-owning friend, he +inquired in a sociable tone: + +“What's your dog's name?” + +“Dan. You better call your ole pup, 'cause Dan eats LIVE dogs.” + +Dan's actions poorly supported his master's assertion, for, upon Duke's +ceasing to bark, Dan rose and showed the most courteous interest in +making the little, old dog's acquaintance. Dan had a great deal of +manner, and it became plain that Duke was impressed favourably in spite +of former prejudice, so that presently the two trotted amicably back to +their masters and sat down with the harmonious but indifferent air of +having known each other intimately for years. + +They were received without comment, though both boys looked at them +reflectively for a time. It was Penrod who spoke first. + +“What number you go to?” (In an “oral lesson in English,” Penrod had +been instructed to put this question in another form: “May I ask which +of our public schools you attend?”) + +“Me? What number do I go to?” said the stranger, contemptuously. “I +don't go to NO number in vacation!” + +“I mean when it ain't.” + +“Third,” returned the fat-faced boy. “I got 'em ALL scared in THAT +school.” + +“What of?” innocently asked Penrod, to whom “the Third”--in a distant +part of town--was undiscovered country. + +“What of? I guess you'd soon see what of, if you ever was in that school +about one day. You'd be lucky if you got out alive!” + +“Are the teachers mean?” + +The other boy frowned with bitter scorn. “Teachers! Teachers don't order +ME around, I can tell you! They're mighty careful how they try to run +over Rupe Collins.” + +“Who's Rupe Collins?” + +“Who is he?” echoed the fat-faced boy incredulously. “Say, ain't you got +ANY sense?” + +“What?” + +“Say, wouldn't you be just as happy if you had SOME sense?” + +“Ye-es.” Penrod's answer, like the look he lifted to the impressive +stranger, was meek and placative. “Rupe Collins is the principal at your +school, guess.” + +The other yelled with jeering laughter, and mocked Penrod's manner and +voice. “'Rupe Collins is the principal at your school, I guess!'” He +laughed harshly again, then suddenly showed truculence. “Say, 'bo, +whyn't you learn enough to go in the house when it rains? What's the +matter of you, anyhow?” + +“Well,” urged Penrod timidly, “nobody ever TOLD me who Rupe Collins is: +I got a RIGHT to think he's the principal, haven't I?” + +The fat-faced boy shook his head disgustedly. “Honest, you make me +sick!” + +Penrod's expression became one of despair. “Well, who IS he?” he cried. + +“'Who IS he?'” mocked the other, with a scorn that withered. “'Who IS +he?' ME!” + +“Oh!” Penrod was humiliated but relieved: he felt that he had proved +himself criminally ignorant, yet a peril seemed to have passed. “Rupe +Collins is your name, then, I guess. I kind of thought it was, all the +time.” + +The fat-faced boy still appeared embittered, burlesquing this speech in +a hateful falsetto. “'Rupe Collins is YOUR name, then, I guess!' Oh, you +'kind of thought it was, all the time,' did you?” Suddenly concentrating +his brow into a histrionic scowl he thrust his face within an inch of +Penrod's. “Yes, sonny, Rupe Collins is my name, and you better look +out what you say when he's around or you'll get in big trouble! YOU +UNDERSTAND THAT, 'BO?” + +Penrod was cowed but fascinated: he felt that there was something +dangerous and dashing about this newcomer. + +“Yes,” he said, feebly, drawing back. “My name's Penrod Schofield.” + +“Then I reckon your father and mother ain't got good sense,” said Mr. +Collins promptly, this also being formula. + +“Why?” + +“'Cause if they had they'd of give you a good name!” And the agreeable +youth instantly rewarded himself for the wit with another yell of +rasping laughter, after which he pointed suddenly at Penrod's right +hand. + +“Where'd you get that wart on your finger?” he demanded severely. + +“Which finger?” asked the mystified Penrod, extending his hand. + +“The middle one.” + +“Where?” + +“There!” exclaimed Rupe Collins, seizing and vigorously twisting the +wartless finger naively offered for his inspection. + +“Quit!” shouted Penrod in agony. “QUEE-yut!” + +“Say your prayers!” commanded Rupe, and continued to twist the luckless +finger until Penrod writhed to his knees. + +“OW!” The victim, released, looked grievously upon the still painful +finger. + +At this Rupe's scornful expression altered to one of contrition. “Well, +I declare!” he exclaimed remorsefully. “I didn't s'pose it would hurt. +Turn about's fair play; so now you do that to me.” + +He extended the middle finger of his left hand and Penrod promptly +seized it, but did not twist it, for he was instantly swung round with +his back to his amiable new acquaintance: Rupe's right hand operated +upon the back of Penrod's slender neck; Rupe's knee tortured the small +of Penrod's back. + +“OW!” Penrod bent far forward involuntarily and went to his knees again. + +“Lick dirt,” commanded Rupe, forcing the captive's face to the sidewalk; +and the suffering Penrod completed this ceremony. + +Mr. Collins evinced satisfaction by means of his horse laugh. + +“You'd last jest about one day up at the Third!” he said. “You'd come +runnin' home, yellin' 'MOM-MUH, MOM-muh,' before recess was over!” + +“No, I wouldn't,” Penrod protested rather weakly, dusting his knees. + +“You would, too!” + +“No, I w---- + +“Looky here,” said the fat-faced boy, darkly, “what you mean, +counterdicking me?” + +He advanced a step and Penrod hastily qualified his contradiction. + +“I mean, I don't THINK I would. I----” + +“You better look out!” Rupe moved closer, and unexpectedly grasped the +back of Penrod's neck again. “Say, 'I WOULD run home yellin' “MOM-muh!”'” + +“Ow! I WOULD run home yellin' 'Mom-muh.'” + +“There!” said Rupe, giving the helpless nape a final squeeze. “That's +the way we do up at the Third.” + +Penrod rubbed his neck and asked meekly: + +“Can you do that to any boy up at the Third?” + +“See here now,” said Rupe, in the tone of one goaded beyond all +endurance, “YOU say if I can! You better say it quick, or----” + +“I knew you could,” Penrod interposed hastily, with the pathetic +semblance of a laugh. “I only said that in fun.” + +“In 'fun'!” repeated Rupe stormily. “You better look out how you----” + +“Well, I SAID I wasn't in earnest!” Penrod retreated a few steps. “_I_ +knew you could, all the time. I expect _I_ could do it to some of the +boys up at the Third, myself. Couldn't I?” + +“No, you couldn't.” + +“Well, there must be SOME boy up there that I could----” + +“No, they ain't! You better----” + +“I expect not, then,” said Penrod, quickly. + +“You BETTER 'expect not.' Didn't I tell you once you'd never get back +alive if you ever tried to come up around the Third? You want me to SHOW +you how we do up there, 'bo?” + +He began a slow and deadly advance, whereupon Penrod timidly offered a +diversion: + +“Say, Rupe, I got a box of rats in our stable under a glass cover, so +you can watch 'em jump around when you hammer on the box. Come on and +look at 'em.” + +“All right,” said the fat-faced boy, slightly mollified. “We'll let Dan +kill 'em.” + +“No, SIR! I'm goin' to keep 'em. They're kind of pets; I've had 'em all +summer--I got names for em, and----” + +“Looky here, 'bo. Did you hear me say we'll let 'Dan kill 'em?” + +“Yes, but I won't----” + +“WHAT won't you?” Rupe became sinister immediately. “It seems to me +you're gettin' pretty fresh around here.” + +“Well, I don't want----” + +Mr. Collins once more brought into play the dreadful eye-to-eye scowl as +practised “up at the Third,” and, sometimes, also by young leading +men upon the stage. Frowning appallingly, and thrusting forward his +underlip, he placed his nose almost in contact with the nose of Penrod, +whose eyes naturally became crossed. + +“Dan kills the rats. See?” hissed the fat-faced boy, maintaining the +horrible juxtaposition. + +“Well, all right,” said Penrod, swallowing. “I don't want 'em much.” + And when the pose had been relaxed, he stared at his new friend for a +moment, almost with reverence. Then he brightened. + +“Come on, Rupe!” he cried enthusiastically, as he climbed the fence. +“We'll give our dogs a little live meat--'bo!” + + + +CHAPTER XXII THE IMITATOR + +At the dinner-table, that evening, Penrod Surprised his family by +remarking, in a voice they had never heard him attempt--a law-giving +voice of intentional gruffness: + +“Any man that's makin' a hunderd dollars a month is makin' good money.” + +“What?” asked Mr. Schofield, staring, for the previous conversation had +concerned the illness of an infant relative in Council Bluffs. + +“Any man that's makin' a hunderd dollars a month is makin' good money.” + +“What IS he talking about!” Margaret appealed to the invisible. + +“Well,” said Penrod, frowning, “that's what foremen at the ladder works +get.” + +“How in the world do you know?” asked his mother. + +“Well, I KNOW it! A hunderd dollars a month is good money, I tell you!” + +“Well, what of it?” said the father, impatiently. + +“Nothin'. I only said it was good money.” + +Mr. Schofield shook his head, dismissing the subject; and here he made +a mistake: he should have followed up his son's singular contribution +to the conversation. That would have revealed the fact that there was a +certain Rupe Collins whose father was a foreman at the ladder works. All +clues are important when a boy makes his first remark in a new key. + +“'Good money'?” repeated Margaret, curiously. “What is 'good' money?” + +Penrod turned upon her a stern glance. “Say, wouldn't you be just as +happy if you had SOME sense?” + +“Penrod!” shouted his father. But Penrod's mother gazed with dismay at +her son: he had never before spoken like that to his sister. + +Mrs. Schofield might have been more dismayed than she was, if she had +realized that it was the beginning of an epoch. After dinner, Penrod was +slightly scalded in the back as the result of telling Della, the cook, +that there was a wart on the middle finger of her right hand. Della thus +proving poor material for his new manner to work upon, he approached +Duke, in the backyard, and, bending double, seized the lowly animal by +the forepaws. + +“I let you know my name's Penrod Schofield,” hissed the boy. He +protruded his underlip ferociously, scowled, and thrust forward his head +until his nose touched the dog's. “And you better look out when Penrod +Schofield's around, or you'll get in big trouble! YOU UNDERSTAN' THAT, +'BO?” + +The next day, and the next, the increasing change in Penrod puzzled and +distressed his family, who had no idea of its source. + +How might they guess that hero-worship takes such forms? They were +vaguely conscious that a rather shabby boy, not of the neighbourhood, +came to “play” with Penrod several times; but they failed to connect +this circumstance with the peculiar behaviour of the son of the house, +whose ideals (his father remarked) seemed to have suddenly become +identical with those of Gyp the Blood. + +Meanwhile, for Penrod himself, “life had taken on new meaning, new +richness.” He had become a fighting man--in conversation at least. “Do +you want to know how I do when they try to slip up on me from behind?” + he asked Della. And he enacted for her unappreciative eye a scene of +fistic manoeuvres wherein he held an imaginary antagonist helpless in a +net of stratagems. + +Frequently, when he was alone, he would outwit, and pummel this same +enemy, and, after a cunning feint, land a dolorous stroke full upon a +face of air. “There! I guess you'll know better next time. That's the +way we do up at the Third!” + +Sometimes, in solitary pantomime, he encountered more than one opponent +at a time, for numbers were apt to come upon him treacherously, +especially at a little after his rising hour, when he might be caught at +a disadvantage--perhaps standing on one leg to encase the other in his +knickerbockers. Like lightning, he would hurl the trapping garment from +him, and, ducking and pivoting, deal great sweeping blows among the +circle of sneaking devils. (That was how he broke the clock in his +bedroom.) And while these battles were occupying his attention, it was +a waste of voice to call him to breakfast, though if his mother, losing +patience, came to his room, she would find him seated on the bed pulling +at a stocking. “Well, ain't I coming fast as I CAN?” + +At the table and about the house generally he was bumptious, loud with +fatuous misinformation, and assumed a domineering tone, which neither +satire nor reproof seemed able to reduce: but it was among his own +intimates that his new superiority was most outrageous. He twisted the +fingers and squeezed the necks of all the boys of the neighbourhood, +meeting their indignation with a hoarse and rasping laugh he had +acquired after short practice in the stable, where he jeered and taunted +the lawn-mower, the garden-scythe and the wheelbarrow quite out of +countenance. + +Likewise he bragged to the other boys by the hour, Rupe Collins being +the chief subject of encomium--next to Penrod himself. “That's the +way we do up at the Third,” became staple explanation of violence, for +Penrod, like Tartarin, was plastic in the hands of his own imagination, +and at times convinced himself that he really was one of those dark +and murderous spirits exclusively of whom “the Third” was +composed--according to Rupe Collins. + +Then, when Penrod had exhausted himself repeating to nausea accounts of +the prowess of himself and his great friend, he would turn to two other +subjects for vainglory. These were his father and Duke. + +Mothers must accept the fact that between babyhood and manhood their +sons do not boast of them. The boy, with boys, is a Choctaw; and either +the influence or the protection of women is shameful. “Your mother won't +let you,” is an insult. But, “My father won't let me,” is a dignified +explanation and cannot be hooted. A boy is ruined among his fellows if +he talks much of his mother or sisters; and he must recognize it as +his duty to offer at least the appearance of persecution to all things +ranked as female, such as cats and every species of fowl. But he must +champion his father and his dog, and, ever, ready to pit either against +any challenger, must picture both as ravening for battle and absolutely +unconquerable. + +Penrod, of course, had always talked by the code, but, under the new +stimulus, Duke was represented virtually as a cross between Bob, Son of +Battle, and a South American vampire; and this in spite of the fact that +Duke himself often sat close by, a living lie, with the hope of peace +in his heart. As for Penrod's father, that gladiator was painted as of +sentiments and dimensions suitable to a super-demon composed of equal +parts of Goliath, Jack Johnson and the Emperor Nero. + +Even Penrod's walk was affected; he adopted a gait which was a kind of +taunting swagger; and, when he passed other children on the street, he +practised the habit of feinting a blow; then, as the victim dodged, +he rasped the triumphant horse laugh which he gradually mastered to +horrible perfection. He did this to Marjorie Jones--ay! this was +their next meeting, and such is Eros, young! What was even worse, in +Marjorie's opinion, he went on his way without explanation, and left +her standing on the corner talking about it, long after he was out of +hearing. + +Within five days from his first encounter with Rupe Collins, Penrod had +become unbearable. He even almost alienated Sam Williams, who for a time +submitted to finger twisting and neck squeezing and the new style of +conversation, but finally declared that Penrod made him “sick.” He made +the statement with fervour, one sultry afternoon, in Mr. Schofield's +stable, in the presence of Herman and Verman. + +“You better look out, 'bo,” said Penrod, threateningly. “I'll show you a +little how we do up at the Third.” + +“Up at the Third!” Sam repeated with scorn. “You haven't ever been up +there.” + +“I haven't?” cried Penrod. “I HAVEN'T?” + +“No, you haven't!” + +“Looky here!” Penrod, darkly argumentative, prepared to perform the +eye-to-eye business. “When haven't I been up there?” + +“You haven't NEVER been up there!” In spite of Penrod's closely +approaching nose Sam maintained his ground, and appealed for +confirmation. “Has he, Herman?” + +“I don' reckon so,” said Herman, laughing. + +“WHAT!” Penrod transferred his nose to the immediate vicinity of +Herman's nose. “You don't reckon so, 'bo, don't you? You better look out +how you reckon around here! YOU UNDERSTAN' THAT, 'BO?” + +Herman bore the eye-to-eye very well; indeed, it seemed to please +him, for he continued to laugh while Verman chuckled delightedly. The +brothers had been in the country picking berries for a week, and it +happened that this was their first experience of the new manifestation +of Penrod. + +“HAVEN'T I been up at the Third?” the sinister Penrod demanded. + +“I don' reckon so. How come you ast ME?” + +“Didn't you just hear me SAY I been up there?” + +“Well,” said Herman mischievously, “hearin' ain't believin'!” + +Penrod clutched him by the back of the neck, but Herman, laughing +loudly, ducked and released himself at once, retreating to the wall. + +“You take that back!” Penrod shouted, striking out wildly. + +“Don' git mad,” begged the small darky, while a number of blows falling +upon his warding arms failed to abate his amusement, and a sound one +upon the cheek only made him laugh the more unrestrainedly. He behaved +exactly as if Penrod were tickling him, and his brother, Verman, rolled +with joy in a wheelbarrow. Penrod pummelled till he was tired, and +produced no greater effect. + +“There!” he panted, desisting finally. “NOW I reckon you know whether I +been up there or not!” + +Herman rubbed his smitten cheek. “Pow!” he exclaimed. “Pow-ee! You +cert'ny did lan' me good one NAT time! Oo-ee! she HURT!” + +“You'll get hurt worse'n that,” Penrod assured him, “if you stay around +here much. Rupe Collins is comin' this afternoon, he said. We're goin' +to make some policemen's billies out of the rake handle.” + +“You go' spoil new rake you' pa bought?” + +“What do WE care? I and Rupe got to have billies, haven't we?” + +“How you make 'em?” + +“Melt lead and pour in a hole we're goin' to make in the end of 'em. +Then we're goin' to carry 'em in our pockets, and if anybody says +anything to us--OH, oh! look out! They won't get a crack on the +head--OH, no!” + +“When's Rupe Collins coming?” Sam Williams inquired rather uneasily. +He had heard a great deal too much of this personage, but as yet the +pleasure of actual acquaintance had been denied him. + +“He's liable to be here any time,” answered Penrod. “You better look +out. You'll be lucky if you get home alive, if you stay till HE comes.” + +“I ain't afraid of him,” Sam returned, conventionally. + +“You are, too!” (There was some truth in the retort.) “There ain't any +boy in this part of town but me that wouldn't be afraid of him. You'd be +afraid to talk to him. You wouldn't get a word out of your mouth before +old Rupie'd have you where you'd wished you never come around HIM, +lettin' on like you was so much! YOU wouldn't run home yellin' 'Mom-muh' +or nothin'! OH, no!” + +“Who Rupe Collins?” asked Herman. + +“'Who Rupe Collins?'” Penrod mocked, and used his rasping laugh, but, +instead of showing fright, Herman appeared to think he was meant to +laugh, too; and so he did, echoed by Verman. “You just hang around here +a little while longer,” Penrod added, grimly, “and you'll find out who +Rupe Collins is, and I pity YOU when you do!” + +“What he go' do?” + +“You'll see; that's all! You just wait and----” + +At this moment a brown hound ran into the stable through the alley door, +wagged a greeting to Penrod, and fraternized with Duke. The fat-faced +boy appeared upon the threshold and gazed coldly about the little +company in the carriage-house, whereupon the coloured brethren, ceasing +from merriment, were instantly impassive, and Sam Williams moved a +little nearer the door leading into the yard. + +Obviously, Sam regarded the newcomer as a redoubtable if not ominous +figure. He was a head taller than either Sam or Penrod; head and +shoulders taller than Herman, who was short for his age; and Verman +could hardly be used for purposes of comparison at all, being a mere +squat brown spot, not yet quite nine years on this planet. And to +Sam's mind, the aspect of Mr. Collins realized Penrod's portentous +foreshadowings. Upon the fat face there was an expression of truculent +intolerance which had been cultivated by careful habit to such +perfection that Sam's heart sank at sight of it. A somewhat enfeebled +twin to this expression had of late often decorated the visage of +Penrod, and appeared upon that ingenuous surface now, as he advanced to +welcome the eminent visitor. + +The host swaggered toward the door with a great deal of shoulder +movement, carelessly feinting a slap at Verman in passing, and creating +by various means the atmosphere of a man who has contemptuously amused +himself with underlings while awaiting an equal. + +“Hello, 'bo!” Penrod said in the deepest voice possible to him. + +“Who you callin' 'bo?” was the ungracious response, accompanied by +immediate action of a similar nature. Rupe held Penrod's head in the +crook of an elbow and massaged his temples with a hard-pressing knuckle. + +“I was only in fun, Rupie,” pleaded the sufferer, and then, being set +free, “Come here, Sam,” he said. + +“What for?” + +Penrod laughed pityingly. “Pshaw, I ain't goin' to hurt you. Come on.” + Sam, maintaining his position near the other door, Penrod went to him +and caught him round the neck. + +“Watch me, Rupie!” Penrod called, and performed upon Sam the knuckle +operation which he had himself just undergone, Sam submitting +mechanically, his eyes fixed with increasing uneasiness upon Rupe +Collins. Sam had a premonition that something even more painful than +Penrod's knuckle was going to be inflicted upon him. + +“THAT don' hurt,” said Penrod, pushing him away. + +“Yes, it does, too!” Sam rubbed his temple. + +“Puh! It didn't hurt me, did it, Rupie? Come on in, Rupe: show this baby +where he's got a wart on his finger.” + +“You showed me that trick,” Sam objected. “You already did that to +me. You tried it twice this afternoon and I don't know how many times +before, only you weren't strong enough after the first time. Anyway, I +know what it is, and I don't----” + +“Come on, Rupe,” said Penrod. “Make the baby lick dirt.” + +At this bidding, Rupe approached, while Sam, still protesting, moved to +the threshold of the outer door; but Penrod seized him by the shoulders +and swung him indoors with a shout. + +“Little baby wants to run home to its Mom-muh! Here he is, Rupie.” + +Thereupon was Penrod's treachery to an old comrade properly rewarded, +for as the two struggled, Rupe caught each by the back of the neck, +simultaneously, and, with creditable impartiality, forced both boys to +their knees. + +“Lick dirt!” he commanded, forcing them still forward, until their faces +were close to the stable floor. + +At this moment he received a real surprise. With a loud whack something +struck the back of his head, and, turning, he beheld Verman in the act +of lifting a piece of lath to strike again. + +“Em moys ome!” said Verman, the Giant Killer. + +“He tongue-tie',” Herman explained. “He say, let 'em boys alone.” + +Rupe addressed his host briefly: + +“Chase them nigs out o' here!” + +“Don' call me nig,” said Herman. “I mine my own biznuss. You let 'em +boys alone.” + +Rupe strode across the still prostrate Sam, stepped upon Penrod, and, +equipping his countenance with the terrifying scowl and protruded jaw, +lowered his head to the level of Herman's. + +“Nig, you'll be lucky if you leave here alive!” And he leaned forward +till his nose was within less than an inch of Herman's nose. + +It could be felt that something awful was about to happen, and Penrod, +as he rose from the floor, suffered an unexpected twinge of apprehension +and remorse: he hoped that Rupe wouldn't REALLY hurt Herman. A sudden +dislike of Rupe and Rupe's ways rose within him, as he looked at the big +boy overwhelming the little darky with that ferocious scowl. Penrod, +all at once, felt sorry about something indefinable; and, with equal +vagueness, he felt foolish. “Come on, Rupe,” he suggested, feebly, “let +Herman go, and let's us make our billies out of the rake handle.” + +The rake handle, however, was not available, if Rupe had inclined to +favour the suggestion. Verman had discarded his lath for the rake, which +he was at this moment lifting in the air. + +“You ole black nigger,” the fat-faced boy said venomously to Herman, +“I'm agoin' to----” + +But he had allowed his nose to remain too long near Herman's. + +Penrod's familiar nose had been as close with only a ticklish spinal +effect upon the not very remote descendant of Congo man-eaters. The +result produced by the glare of Rupe's unfamiliar eyes, and by +the dreadfully suggestive proximity of Rupe's unfamiliar nose, was +altogether different. Herman's and Verman's Bangala great-grandfathers +never considered people of their own jungle neighbourhood proper +material for a meal, but they looked upon strangers especially truculent +strangers--as distinctly edible. + +Penrod and Sam heard Rupe suddenly squawk and bellow; saw him writhe and +twist and fling out his arms like flails, though without removing his +face from its juxtaposition; indeed, for a moment, the two heads seemed +even closer. + +Then they separated--and battle was on! + + + +CHAPTER XXIII COLOURED TROOPS IN ACTION + +How neat and pure is the task of the chronicler who has the tale to tell +of a “good rousing fight” between boys or men who fight in the “good old +English way,” according to a model set for fights in books long before +Tom Brown went to Rugby. There are seconds and rounds and rules of +fair-play, and always there is great good feeling in the end--though +sometimes, to vary the model, “the Butcher” defeats the hero--and the +chronicler who stencils this fine old pattern on his page is certain of +applause as the stirrer of “red blood.” There is no surer recipe. + +But when Herman and Verman set to 't the record must be no more than a +few fragments left by the expurgator. It has been perhaps sufficiently +suggested that the altercation in Mr. Schofield's stable opened with +mayhem in respect to the aggressor's nose. Expressing vocally his +indignation and the extremity of his pained surprise, Mr. Collins +stepped backward, holding his left hand over his nose, and striking at +Herman with his right. Then Verman hit him with the rake. + +Verman struck from behind. He struck as hard as he could. And he struck +with the tines down--For, in his simple, direct African way he wished to +kill his enemy, and he wished to kill him as soon as possible. That was +his single, earnest purpose. + +On this account, Rupe Collins was peculiarly unfortunate. He was plucky +and he enjoyed conflict, but neither his ambitions nor his anticipations +had ever included murder. He had not learned that an habitually +aggressive person runs the danger of colliding with beings in one of +those lower stages of evolution wherein theories about “hitting below +the belt” have not yet made their appearance. + +The rake glanced from the back of Rupe's head to his shoulder, but it +felled him. Both darkies jumped full upon him instantly, and the three +rolled and twisted upon the stable-floor, unloosing upon the air sincere +maledictions closely connected with complaints of cruel and unusual +treatment; while certain expressions of feeling presently emanating from +Herman and Verman indicated that Rupe Collins, in this extremity, was +proving himself not too slavishly addicted to fighting by rule. Dan and +Duke, mistaking all for mirth, barked gayly. + +From the panting, pounding, yelling heap issued words and phrases +hitherto quite unknown to Penrod and Sam; also, a hoarse repetition +in the voice of Rupe concerning his ear left it not to be doubted +that additional mayhem was taking place. Appalled, the two spectators +retreated to the doorway nearest the yard, where they stood dumbly +watching the cataclysm. + +The struggle increased in primitive simplicity: time and again the +howling Rupe got to his knees only to go down again as the earnest +brothers, in their own way, assisted him to a more reclining position. +Primal forces operated here, and the two blanched, slightly higher +products of evolution, Sam and Penrod, no more thought of interfering +than they would have thought of interfering with an earthquake. + +At last, out of the ruck rose Verman, disfigured and maniacal. With a +wild eye he looked about him for his trusty rake; but Penrod, in horror, +had long since thrown the rake out into the yard. Naturally, it had not +seemed necessary to remove the lawn-mower. + +The frantic eye of Verman fell upon the lawn-mower, and instantly +he leaped to its handle. Shrilling a wordless war-cry, he charged, +propelling the whirling, deafening knives straight upon the prone +legs of Rupe Collins. The lawn-mower was sincerely intended to pass +longitudinally over the body of Mr. Collins from heel to head; and it +was the time for a death-song. Black Valkyrie hovered in the shrieking +air. + +“Cut his gizzud out!” shrieked Herman, urging on the whirling knives. + +They touched and lacerated the shin of Rupe, as, with the supreme agony +of effort a creature in mortal peril puts forth before succumbing, he +tore himself free of Herman and got upon his feet. + +Herman was up as quickly. He leaped to the wall and seized the +garden-scythe that hung there. + +“I'm go to cut you' gizzud out,” he announced definitely, “an' eat it!” + +Rupe Collins had never run from anybody (except his father) in his life; +he was not a coward; but the present situation was very, very unusual. +He was already in a badly dismantled condition, and yet Herman and +Verman seemed discontented with their work: Verman was swinging the +grass-cutter about for a new charge, apparently still wishing to mow +him, and Herman had made a quite plausible statement about what he +intended to do with the scythe. + +Rupe paused but for an extremely condensed survey of the horrible +advance of the brothers, and then, uttering a blood-curdled scream of +fear, ran out of the stable and up the alley at a speed he had never +before attained, so that even Dan had hard work to keep within barking +distance. And a 'cross-shoulder glance, at the corner, revealing Verman +and Herman in pursuit, the latter waving his scythe overhead, Mr. +Collins slackened not his gait, but, rather, out of great anguish, +increased it; the while a rapidly developing purpose became firm in his +mind--and ever after so remained--not only to refrain from visiting that +neighbourhood again, but never by any chance to come within a mile of +it. + +From the alley door, Penrod and Sam watched the flight, and were without +words. When the pursuit rounded the corner, the two looked wanly at +each other, but neither spoke until the return of the brothers from the +chase. + +Herman and Verman came back, laughing and chuckling. + +“Hiyi!” cackled Herman to Verman, as they came, “See 'at ole boy run!” + +“Who-ee!” Verman shouted in ecstasy. + +“Nev' did see boy run so fas'!” Herman continued, tossing the scythe +into the wheelbarrow. “I bet he home in bed by viss time!” + +Verman roared with delight, appearing to be wholly unconscious that the +lids of his right eye were swollen shut and that his attire, not too +finical before the struggle, now entitled him to unquestioned rank as a +sansculotte. Herman was a similar ruin, and gave as little heed to his +condition. + +Penrod looked dazedly from Herman to Verman and back again. So did Sam +Williams. + +“Herman,” said Penrod, in a weak voice, “you wouldn't HONEST of cut his +gizzard out, would you?” + +“Who? Me? I don' know. He mighty mean ole boy!” Herman shook his head +gravely, and then, observing that Verman was again convulsed with +unctuous merriment, joined laughter with his brother. “Sho'! I guess I +uz dess TALKIN' whens I said 'at! Reckon he thought I meant it, f'm de +way he tuck an' run. Hiyi! Reckon he thought ole Herman bad man! No, +suh! I uz dess talkin', 'cause I nev' would cut NObody! I ain' tryin' +git in no jail--NO, suh!” + +Penrod looked at the scythe: he looked at Herman. He looked at the +lawn-mower, and he looked at Verman. Then he looked out in the yard at +the rake. So did Sam Williams. + +“Come on, Verman,” said Herman. “We ain' go' 'at stove-wood f' supper +yit.” + +Giggling reminiscently, the brothers disappeared leaving silence behind +them in the carriage-house. Penrod and Sam retired slowly into the +shadowy interior, each glancing, now and then, with a preoccupied air, +at the open, empty doorway where the late afternoon sunshine was growing +ruddy. At intervals one or the other scraped the floor reflectively +with the side of his shoe. Finally, still without either having made +any effort at conversation, they went out into the yard and stood, +continuing their silence. + +“Well,” said Sam, at last, “I guess it's time I better be gettin' home. +So long, Penrod!” + +“So long, Sam,” said Penrod, feebly. + +With a solemn gaze he watched his friend out of sight. Then he went +slowly into the house, and after an interval occupied in a unique +manner, appeared in the library, holding a pair of brilliantly gleaming +shoes in his hand. + +Mr. Schofield, reading the evening paper, glanced frowningly over it at +his offspring. + +“Look, papa,” said Penrod. “I found your shoes where you'd taken 'em +off in your room, to put on your slippers, and they were all dusty. So I +took 'em out on the back porch and gave 'em a good blacking. They shine +up fine, don't they?” + +“Well, I'll be d-dud-dummed!” said the startled Mr. Schofield. + +Penrod was zigzagging back to normal. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV “LITTLE GENTLEMAN” + +The midsummer sun was stinging hot outside the little barber-shop next +to the corner drug store and Penrod, undergoing a toilette preliminary +to his very slowly approaching twelfth birthday, was adhesive enough to +retain upon his face much hair as it fell from the shears. There is a +mystery here: the tonsorial processes are not unagreeable to manhood; in +truth, they are soothing; but the hairs detached from a boy's head get +into his eyes, his ears, his nose, his mouth, and down his neck, and he +does everywhere itch excruciatingly. Wherefore he blinks, winks, weeps, +twitches, condenses his countenance, and squirms; and perchance the +barber's scissors clip more than intended--belike an outlying flange of +ear. + +“Um--muh--OW!” said Penrod, this thing having happened. + +“D' I touch y' up a little?” inquired the barber, smiling falsely. + +“Ooh--UH!” The boy in the chair offered inarticulate protest, as the +wound was rubbed with alum. + +“THAT don't hurt!” said the barber. “You WILL get it, though, if you +don't sit stiller,” he continued, nipping in the bud any attempt on the +part of his patient to think that he already had “it.” + +“Pfuff!” said Penrod, meaning no disrespect, but endeavoring to dislodge +a temporary moustache from his lip. + +“You ought to see how still that little Georgie Bassett sits,” the +barber went on, reprovingly. “I hear everybody says he's the best boy in +town.” + +“Pfuff! PHIRR!” There was a touch of intentional contempt in this. + +“I haven't heard nobody around the neighbourhood makin' no such +remarks,” added the barber, “about nobody of the name of Penrod +Schofield.” + +“Well,” said Penrod, clearing his mouth after a struggle, “who wants 'em +to? Ouch!” + +“I hear they call Georgie Bassett the 'little gentleman,'” ventured the +barber, provocatively, meeting with instant success. + +“They better not call ME that,” returned Penrod truculently. “I'd like +to hear anybody try. Just once, that's all! I bet they'd never try it +ag----OUCH!” + +“Why? What'd you do to 'em?” + +“It's all right what I'd DO! I bet they wouldn't want to call me that +again long as they lived!” + +“What'd you do if it was a little girl? You wouldn't hit her, would +you?” + +“Well, I'd----Ouch!” + +“You wouldn't hit a little girl, would you?” the barber persisted, +gathering into his powerful fingers a mop of hair from the top of +Penrod's head and pulling that suffering head into an unnatural +position. “Doesn't the Bible say it ain't never right to hit the weak +sex?” + +“Ow! SAY, look OUT!” + +“So you'd go and punch a pore, weak, little girl, would you?” said the +barber, reprovingly. + +“Well, who said I'd hit her?” demanded the chivalrous Penrod. “I bet I'd +FIX her though, all right. She'd see!” + +“You wouldn't call her names, would you?” + +“No, I wouldn't! What hurt is it to call anybody names?” + +“Is that SO!” exclaimed the barber. “Then you was intending what I heard +you hollering at Fisher's grocery delivery wagon driver fer a favour, +the other day when I was goin' by your house, was you? I reckon I better +tell him, because he says to me after-WERDS if he ever lays eyes on you +when you ain't in your own yard, he's goin' to do a whole lot o' things +you ain't goin' to like! Yessir, that's what he says to ME!” + +“He better catch me first, I guess, before he talks so much.” + +“Well,” resumed the barber, “that ain't sayin' what you'd do if a young +lady ever walked up and called you a little gentleman. _I_ want to hear +what you'd do to her. I guess I know, though--come to think of it.” + +“What?” demanded Penrod. + +“You'd sick that pore ole dog of yours on her cat, if she had one, I +expect,” guessed the barber derisively. + +“No, I would not!” + +“Well, what WOULD you do?” + +“I'd do enough. Don't worry about that!” + +“Well, suppose it was a boy, then: what'd you do if a boy come up to you +and says, 'Hello, little gentleman'?” + +“He'd be lucky,” said Penrod, with a sinister frown, “if he got home +alive.” + +“Suppose it was a boy twice your size?” + +“Just let him try,” said Penrod ominously. “You just let him try. He'd +never see daylight again; that's all!” + +The barber dug ten active fingers into the helpless scalp before him +and did his best to displace it, while the anguished Penrod, becoming +instantly a seething crucible of emotion, misdirected his natural +resentment into maddened brooding upon what he would do to a boy “twice +his size” who should dare to call him “little gentleman.” The barber +shook him as his father had never shaken him; the barber buffeted him, +rocked him frantically to and fro; the barber seemed to be trying to +wring his neck; and Penrod saw himself in staggering zigzag pictures, +destroying large, screaming, fragmentary boys who had insulted him. + +The torture stopped suddenly; and clenched, weeping eyes began to see +again, while the barber applied cooling lotions which made Penrod smell +like a coloured housemaid's ideal. + +“Now what,” asked the barber, combing the reeking locks gently, “what +would it make you so mad fer, to have somebody call you a little +gentleman? It's a kind of compliment, as it were, you might say. What +would you want to hit anybody fer THAT fer?” + +To the mind of Penrod, this question was without meaning or +reasonableness. It was within neither his power nor his desire to +analyze the process by which the phrase had become offensive to him, +and was now rapidly assuming the proportions of an outrage. He knew only +that his gorge rose at the thought of it. + +“You just let 'em try it!” he said threateningly, as he slid down from +the chair. And as he went out of the door, after further conversation +on the same subject, he called back those warning words once more: “Just +let 'em try it! Just once--that's all _I_ ask 'em to. They'll find out +what they GET!” + +The barber chuckled. Then a fly lit on the barber's nose and he slapped +at it, and the slap missed the fly but did not miss the nose. The barber +was irritated. At this moment his birdlike eye gleamed a gleam as it +fell upon customers approaching: the prettiest little girl in the world, +leading by the hand her baby brother, Mitchy-Mitch, coming to have +Mitchy-Mitch's hair clipped, against the heat. + +It was a hot day and idle, with little to feed the mind--and the barber +was a mischievous man with an irritated nose. He did his worst. + +Meanwhile, the brooding Penrod pursued his homeward way; no great +distance, but long enough for several one-sided conflicts with malign +insulters made of thin air. “You better NOT call me that!” he muttered. +“You just try it, and you'll get what other people got when THEY tried +it. You better not ack fresh with ME! Oh, you WILL, will you?” He +delivered a vicious kick full upon the shins of an iron fence-post, +which suffered little, though Penrod instantly regretted his +indiscretion. “Oof!” he grunted, hopping; and went on after bestowing a +look of awful hostility upon the fence-post. “I guess you'll know better +next time,” he said, in parting, to this antagonist. “You just let me +catch you around here again and I'll----” His voice sank to inarticulate +but ominous murmurings. He was in a dangerous mood. + +Nearing home, however, his belligerent spirit was diverted to happier +interests by the discovery that some workmen had left a caldron of tar +in the cross-street, close by his father's stable. He tested it, but +found it inedible. Also, as a substitute for professional chewing-gum +it was unsatisfactory, being insufficiently boiled down and too thin, +though of a pleasant, lukewarm temperature. But it had an excess of one +quality--it was sticky. It was the stickiest tar Penrod had ever used +for any purposes whatsoever, and nothing upon which he wiped his hands +served to rid them of it; neither his polka-dotted shirt waist nor his +knickerbockers; neither the fence, nor even Duke, who came unthinkingly +wagging out to greet him, and retired wiser. + +Nevertheless, tar is tar. Much can be done with it, no matter what its +condition; so Penrod lingered by the caldron, though from a neighbouring +yard could be heard the voices of comrades, including that of Sam +Williams. On the ground about the caldron were scattered chips and +sticks and bits of wood to the number of a great multitude. Penrod mixed +quantities of this refuse into the tar, and interested himself in +seeing how much of it he could keep moving in slow swirls upon the ebon +surface. + +Other surprises were arranged for the absent workmen. The caldron was +almost full, and the surface of the tar near the rim. + +Penrod endeavoured to ascertain how many pebbles and brickbats, dropped +in, would cause an overflow. Labouring heartily to this end, he +had almost accomplished it, when he received the suggestion for an +experiment on a much larger scale. Embedded at the corner of a +grassplot across the street was a whitewashed stone, the size of a small +watermelon and serving no purpose whatever save the questionable one of +decoration. It was easily pried up with a stick; though getting it to +the caldron tested the full strength of the ardent labourer. Instructed +to perform such a task, he would have sincerely maintained its +impossibility but now, as it was unbidden, and promised rather +destructive results, he set about it with unconquerable energy, feeling +certain that he would be rewarded with a mighty splash. Perspiring, +grunting vehemently, his back aching and all muscles strained, he +progressed in short stages until the big stone lay at the base of the +caldron. He rested a moment, panting, then lifted the stone, and was +bending his shoulders for the heave that would lift it over the rim, +when a sweet, taunting voice, close behind him, startled him cruelly. + +“How do you do, LITTLE GENTLEMAN!” + +Penrod squawked, dropped the stone, and shouted, “Shut up, you dern +fool!” purely from instinct, even before his about-face made him aware +who had so spitefully addressed him. + +It was Marjorie Jones. Always dainty, and prettily dressed, she was in +speckless and starchy white to-day, and a refreshing picture she made, +with the new-shorn and powerfully scented Mitchy-Mitch clinging to +her hand. They had stolen up behind the toiler, and now stood laughing +together in sweet merriment. Since the passing of Penrod's Rupe Collins +period he had experienced some severe qualms at the recollection of his +last meeting with Marjorie and his Apache behaviour; in truth, his heart +instantly became as wax at sight of her, and he would have offered +her fair speech; but, alas! in Marjorie's wonderful eyes there shone +a consciousness of new powers for his undoing, and she denied him +opportunity. + +“Oh, OH!” she cried, mocking his pained outcry. “What a way for a LITTLE +GENTLEMAN to talk! Little gentleman don't say wicked----” + +“Marjorie!” Penrod, enraged and dismayed, felt himself stung beyond all +endurance. Insult from her was bitterer to endure than from any other. +“Don't you call me that again!” + +“Why not, LITTLE GENTLEMAN?” + +He stamped his foot. “You better stop!” + +Marjorie sent into his furious face her lovely, spiteful laughter. + +“Little gentleman, little gentleman, little gentleman!” she said +deliberately. “How's the little gentleman, this afternoon? Hello, little +gentleman!” + +Penrod, quite beside himself, danced eccentrically. “Dry up!” he howled. +“Dry up, dry up, dry up, dry UP!” + +Mitchy-Mitch shouted with delight and applied a finger to the side +of the caldron--a finger immediately snatched away and wiped upon a +handkerchief by his fastidious sister. + +“'Ittle gellamun!” said Mitchy-Mitch. + +“You better look out!” Penrod whirled upon this small offender with +grim satisfaction. Here was at least something male that could without +dishonour be held responsible. “You say that again, and I'll give you +the worst----” + +“You will NOT!” snapped Marjorie, instantly vitriolic. “He'll say just +whatever he wants to, and he'll say it just as MUCH as he wants to. Say +it again, Mitchy-Mitch!” + +“'Ittle gellamun!” said Mitchy-Mitch promptly. + +“Ow-YAH!” Penrod's tone-production was becoming affected by his mental +condition. “You say that again, and I'll----” + +“Go on, Mitchy-Mitch,” cried Marjorie. “He can't do a thing. He don't +DARE! Say it some more, Mitchy-Mitch--say it a whole lot!” + +Mitchy-Mitch, his small, fat face shining with confidence in his +immunity, complied. + +“'Ittle gellamun!” he squeaked malevolently. “'Ittle gellamun! 'Ittle +gellamun! 'Ittle gellamun!” + +The desperate Penrod bent over the whitewashed rock, lifted it, and +then--outdoing Porthos, John Ridd, and Ursus in one miraculous burst of +strength--heaved it into the air. + +Marjorie screamed. + +But it was too late. The big stone descended into the precise midst of +the caldron and Penrod got his mighty splash. It was far, far beyond his +expectations. + +Spontaneously there were grand and awful effects--volcanic spectacles of +nightmare and eruption. A black sheet of eccentric shape rose out of the +caldron and descended upon the three children, who had no time to evade +it. + +After it fell, Mitchy-Mitch, who stood nearest the caldron, was the +thickest, though there was enough for all. Br'er Rabbit would have fled +from any of them. + + + +CHAPTER XXV TAR + +When Marjorie and Mitchy-Mitch got their breath, they used it vocally; +and seldom have more penetrating sounds issued from human throats. +Coincidentally, Marjorie, quite baresark, laid hands upon the largest +stick within reach and fell upon Penrod with blind fury. He had the +presence of mind to flee, and they went round and round the caldron, +while Mitchy-Mitch feebly endeavoured to follow--his appearance, in +this pursuit, being pathetically like that of a bug fished out of an +ink-well, alive but discouraged. + +Attracted by the riot, Samuel Williams made his appearance, vaulting a +fence, and was immediately followed by Maurice Levy and Georgie Bassett. +They stared incredulously at the extraordinary spectacle before them. + +“Little GEN-TIL-MUN!” shrieked Marjorie, with a wild stroke that landed +full upon Penrod's tarry cap. + +“OOOCH!” bleated Penrod. + +“It's Penrod!” shouted Sam Williams, recognizing him by the voice. For +an instant he had been in some doubt. + +“Penrod Schofield!” exclaimed Georgie Bassett. “WHAT does this mean?” + That was Georgie's style, and had helped to win him his title. + +Marjorie leaned, panting, upon her stick. “I cu-called--uh-- +him--oh!” she sobbed--“I called him a lul-little--oh--gentleman! +And oh--lul-look!--oh! lul-look at my du-dress! Lul-look at +Mumitchy--oh--Mitch--oh!” + +Unexpectedly, she smote again--with results--and then, seizing the +indistinguishable hand of Mitchy-Mitch, she ran wailing homeward down +the street. + +“'Little gentleman'?” said Georgie Bassett, with some evidences of +disturbed complacency. “Why, that's what they call ME!” + +“Yes, and you ARE one, too!” shouted the maddened Penrod. “But you +better not let anybody call ME that! I've stood enough around here for +one day, and you can't run over ME, Georgie Bassett. Just you put that +in your gizzard and smoke it!” + +“Anybody has a perfect right,” said Georgie, with, dignity, “to call a +person a little gentleman. There's lots of names nobody ought to call, +but this one's a NICE----” + +“You better look out!” + +Unavenged bruises were distributed all over Penrod, both upon his body +and upon his spirit. Driven by subtle forces, he had dipped his hands in +catastrophe and disaster: it was not for a Georgie Bassett to beard him. +Penrod was about to run amuck. + +“I haven't called you a little gentleman, yet,” said Georgie. “I only +said it. Anybody's got a right to SAY it.” + +“Not around ME! You just try it again and----” + +“I shall say it,” returned Georgie, “all I please. Anybody in this town +has a right to SAY 'little gentleman'----” + +Bellowing insanely, Penrod plunged his right hand into the caldron, +rushed upon Georgie and made awful work of his hair and features. + +Alas, it was but the beginning! Sam Williams and Maurice Levy screamed +with delight, and, simultaneously infected, danced about the struggling +pair, shouting frantically: + +“Little gentleman! Little gentleman! Sick him, Georgie! Sick him, little +gentleman! Little gentleman! Little gentleman!” + +The infuriated outlaw turned upon them with blows and more tar, which +gave Georgie Bassett his opportunity and later seriously impaired the +purity of his fame. Feeling himself hopelessly tarred, he dipped both +hands repeatedly into the caldron and applied his gatherings to Penrod. +It was bringing coals to Newcastle, but it helped to assuage the just +wrath of Georgie. + +The four boys gave a fine imitation of the Laocoon group complicated +by an extra figure frantic splutterings and chokings, strange cries and +stranger words issued from this tangle; hands dipped lavishly into the +inexhaustible reservoir of tar, with more and more picturesque results. +The caldron had been elevated upon bricks and was not perfectly +balanced; and under a heavy impact of the struggling group it lurched +and went partly over, pouring forth a Stygian tide which formed a deep +pool in the gutter. + +It was the fate of Master Roderick Bitts, that exclusive and immaculate +person, to make his appearance upon the chaotic scene at this juncture. +All in the cool of a white “sailor suit,” he turned aside from the path +of duty--which led straight to the house of a maiden aunt--and paused +to hop with joy upon the sidewalk. A repeated epithet continuously half +panted, half squawked, somewhere in the nest of gladiators, caught his +ear, and he took it up excitedly, not knowing why. + +“Little gentleman!” shouted Roderick, jumping up and down in childish +glee. “Little gentleman! Little gentleman! Lit----” + +A frightful figure tore itself free from the group, encircled this +innocent bystander with a black arm, and hurled him headlong. Full +length and flat on his face went Roderick into the Stygian pool. The +frightful figure was Penrod. + +Instantly, the pack flung themselves upon him again, and, carrying +them with him, he went over upon Roderick, who from that instant was as +active a belligerent as any there. + +Thus began the Great Tar Fight, the origin of which proved, afterward, +so difficult for parents to trace, owing to the opposing accounts of +the combatants. Marjorie said Penrod began it; Penrod said Mitchy-Mitch +began it; Sam Williams said Georgie Bassett began it; Georgie and +Maurice Levy said Penrod began it; Roderick Bitts, who had not +recognized his first assailant, said Sam Williams began it. + +Nobody thought of accusing the barber. But the barber did not begin it; +it was the fly on the barber's nose that began it--though, of course, +something else began the fly. Somehow, we never manage to hang the real +offender. + +The end came only with the arrival of Penrod's mother, who had been +having a painful conversation by telephone with Mrs. Jones, the mother +of Marjorie, and came forth to seek an errant son. It is a mystery how +she was able to pick out her own, for by the time she got there his +voice was too hoarse to be recognizable. Mr. Schofield's version of +things was that Penrod was insane. “He's a stark, raving lunatic!” + declared the father, descending to the library from a before-dinner +interview with the outlaw, that evening. “I'd send him to military +school, but I don't believe they'd take him. Do you know WHY he says all +that awfulness happened?” + +“When Margaret and I were trying to scrub him,” responded Mrs. Schofield +wearily, “he said 'everybody' had been calling him names.” + +“'Names!'” snorted her husband. “'Little gentleman!' THAT'S the vile +epithet they called him! And because of it he wrecks the peace of six +homes!” + +“SH! Yes; he told us about it,” said Mrs. Schofield, moaning. “He told +us several hundred times, I should guess, though I didn't count. He's +got it fixed in his head, and we couldn't get it out. All we could do +was to put him in the closet. He'd have gone out again after those boys +if we hadn't. I don't know WHAT to make of him!” + +“He's a mystery to ME!” said her husband. “And he refuses to explain +why he objects to being called 'little gentleman.' Says he'd do the same +thing--and worse--if anybody dared to call him that again. He said if +the President of the United States called him that he'd try to whip him. +How long did you have him locked up in the closet?” + +“SH!” said Mrs. Schofield warningly. “About two hours; but I don't think +it softened his spirit at all, because when I took him to the barber's +to get his hair clipped again, on account of the tar in it, Sammy +Williams and Maurice Levy were there for the same reason, and they just +WHISPERED 'little gentleman,' so low you could hardly hear them--and +Penrod began fighting with them right before me, and it was really all +the barber and I could do to drag him away from them. The barber was +very kind about it, but Penrod----” + +“I tell you he's a lunatic!” Mr. Schofield would have said the same +thing of a Frenchman infuriated by the epithet “camel.” The philosophy +of insult needs expounding. + +“SH!” said Mrs. Schofield. “It does seem a kind of frenzy.” + +“Why on earth should any sane person mind being called----” + +“SH!” said Mrs. Schofield. “It's beyond ME!” + +“What are you SH-ing me for?” demanded Mr. Schofield explosively. + +“SH!” said Mrs. Schofield. “It's Mr. Kinosling, the new rector of Saint +Joseph's.” + +“Where?” + +“SH! On the front porch with Margaret; he's going to stay for dinner. I +do hope----” + +“Bachelor, isn't he?” + +“Yes.” + +“OUR old minister was speaking of him the other day,” said Mr. +Schofield, “and he didn't seem so terribly impressed.” + +“SH! Yes; about thirty, and of course so superior to most of Margaret's +friends--boys home from college. She thinks she likes young Robert +Williams, I know--but he laughs so much! Of course there isn't any +comparison. Mr. Kinosling talks so intellectually; it's a good thing for +Margaret to hear that kind of thing, for a change and, of course, he's +very spiritual. He seems very much interested in her.” She paused to +muse. “I think Margaret likes him; he's so different, too. It's the +third time he's dropped in this week, and I----” + +“Well,” said Mr. Schofield grimly, “if you and Margaret want him to come +again, you'd better not let him see Penrod.” + +“But he's asked to see him; he seems interested in meeting all the +family. And Penrod nearly always behaves fairly well at table.” + She paused, and then put to her husband a question referring to his +interview with Penrod upstairs. “Did you--did you--do it?” + +“No,” he answered gloomily. “No, I didn't, but----” He was interrupted +by a violent crash of china and metal in the kitchen, a shriek from +Della, and the outrageous voice of Penrod. The well-informed Della, +ill-inspired to set up for a wit, had ventured to address the scion of +the house roguishly as “little gentleman,” and Penrod, by means of the +rapid elevation of his right foot, had removed from her supporting +hands a laden tray. Both parents, started for the kitchen, Mr. Schofield +completing his interrupted sentence on the way. + +“But I will, now!” + +The rite thus promised was hastily but accurately performed in that +apartment most distant from the front porch; and, twenty minutes later, +Penrod descended to dinner. The Rev. Mr. Kinosling had asked for the +pleasure of meeting him, and it had been decided that the only course +possible was to cover up the scandal for the present, and to offer an +undisturbed and smiling family surface to the gaze of the visitor. + +Scorched but not bowed, the smouldering Penrod was led forward for the +social formulae simultaneously with the somewhat bleak departure of +Robert Williams, who took his guitar with him, this time, and went in +forlorn unconsciousness of the powerful forces already set in secret +motion to be his allies. + +The punishment just undergone had but made the haughty and unyielding +soul of Penrod more stalwart in revolt; he was unconquered. Every time +the one intolerable insult had been offered him, his resentment had +become the hotter, his vengeance the more instant and furious. And, +still burning with outrage, but upheld by the conviction of right, he +was determined to continue to the last drop of his blood the defense +of his honour, whenever it should be assailed, no matter how mighty or +august the powers that attacked it. In all ways, he was a very sore boy. + +During the brief ceremony of presentation, his usually inscrutable +countenance wore an expression interpreted by his father as one of +insane obstinacy, while Mrs. Schofield found it an incentive to inward +prayer. The fine graciousness of Mr. Kinosling, however, was unimpaired +by the glare of virulent suspicion given him by this little brother: Mr. +Kinosling mistook it for a natural curiosity concerning one who might +possibly become, in time, a member of the family. He patted Penrod upon +the head, which was, for many reasons, in no condition to be patted with +any pleasure to the patter. Penrod felt himself in the presence of a new +enemy. + +“How do you do, my little lad,” said Mr. Kinosling. “I trust we shall +become fast friends.” + +To the ear of his little lad, it seemed he said, “A trost we shall +bick-home fawst frainds.” Mr. Kinosling's pronunciation was, in fact, +slightly precious; and, the little lad, simply mistaking it for some +cryptic form of mockery of himself, assumed a manner and expression +which argued so ill for the proposed friendship that Mrs. Schofield +hastily interposed the suggestion of dinner, and the small procession +went in to the dining-room. + +“It has been a delicious day,” said Mr. Kinosling, presently; “warm but +balmy.” With a benevolent smile he addressed Penrod, who sat opposite +him. “I suppose, little gentleman, you have been indulging in the usual +outdoor sports of vacation?” + +Penrod laid down his fork and glared, open-mouthed at Mr. Kinosling. + +“You'll have another slice of breast of the chicken?” Mr. Schofield +inquired, loudly and quickly. + +“A lovely day!” exclaimed Margaret, with equal promptitude and emphasis. +“Lovely, oh, lovely! Lovely!” + +“Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!” said Mrs. Schofield, and after a +glance at Penrod which confirmed her impression that he intended to +say something, she continued, “Yes, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, +beautiful, beautiful beautiful!” + +Penrod closed his mouth and sank back in his chair--and his relatives +took breath. + +Mr. Kinosling looked pleased. This responsive family, with its ready +enthusiasm, made the kind of audience he liked. He passed a delicate +white hand gracefully over his tall, pale forehead, and smiled +indulgently. + +“Youth relaxes in summer,” he said. “Boyhood is the age of relaxation; +one is playful, light, free, unfettered. One runs and leaps and enjoys +one's self with one's companions. It is good for the little lads to play +with their friends; they jostle, push, and wrestle, and simulate little, +happy struggles with one another in harmless conflict. The young muscles +are toughening. It is good. Boyish chivalry develops, enlarges, expands. +The young learn quickly, intuitively, spontaneously. They perceive the +obligations of noblesse oblige. They begin to comprehend the necessity +of caste and its requirements. They learn what birth means--ah,--that +is, they learn what it means to be well born. They learn courtesy in +their games; they learn politeness, consideration for one another in +their pastimes, amusements, lighter occupations. I make it my pleasure +to join them often, for I sympathize with them in all their wholesome +joys as well as in their little bothers and perplexities. I understand +them, you see; and let me tell you it is no easy matter to understand +the little lads and lassies.” He sent to each listener his beaming +glance, and, permitting it to come to rest upon Penrod, inquired: + +“And what do you say to that, little gentleman?” + +Mr. Schofield uttered a stentorian cough. “More? You'd better have some +more chicken! More! Do!” + +“More chicken!” urged Margaret simultaneously. “Do please! Please! More! +Do! More!” + +“Beautiful, beautiful,” began Mrs. Schofield. “Beautiful, beautiful, +beautiful, beautiful----” + +It is not known in what light Mr. Kinosling viewed the expression of +Penrod's face. Perhaps he mistook it for awe; perhaps he received +no impression at all of its extraordinary quality. He was a rather +self-engrossed young man, just then engaged in a double occupation, for +he not only talked, but supplied from his own consciousness a critical +though favourable auditor as well, which of course kept him quite busy. +Besides, it is oftener than is expected the case that extremely peculiar +expressions upon the countenances of boys are entirely overlooked, +and suggest nothing to the minds of people staring straight at them. +Certainly Penrod's expression--which, to the perception of his family, +was perfectly horrible--caused not the faintest perturbation in the +breast of Mr. Kinosling. + +Mr. Kinosling waived the chicken, and continued to talk. “Yes, I think +I may claim to understand boys,” he said, smiling thoughtfully. “One +has been a boy one's self. Ah, it is not all playtime! I hope our young +scholar here does not overwork himself at his Latin, at his classics, +as I did, so that at the age of eight years I was compelled to wear +glasses. He must be careful not to strain the little eyes at his +scholar's tasks, not to let the little shoulders grow round over his +scholar's desk. Youth is golden; we should keep it golden, bright, +glistening. Youth should frolic, should be sprightly; it should play its +cricket, its tennis, its hand-ball. It should run and leap; it should +laugh, should sing madrigals and glees, carol with the lark, ring out in +chanties, folk-songs, ballads, roundelays----” + +He talked on. At any instant Mr. Schofield held himself ready to cough +vehemently and shout, “More chicken,” to drown out Penrod in case the +fatal words again fell from those eloquent lips; and Mrs. Schofield and +Margaret kept themselves prepared at all times to assist him. So passed +a threatening meal, which Mrs. Schofield hurried, by every means with +decency, to its conclusion. She felt that somehow they would all be +safer out in the dark of the front porch, and led the way thither as +soon as possible. + +“No cigar, I thank you.” Mr. Kinosling, establishing himself in a wicker +chair beside Margaret, waved away her father's proffer. “I do not smoke. +I have never tasted tobacco in any form.” Mrs. Schofield was confirmed +in her opinion that this would be an ideal son-in-law. Mr. Schofield was +not so sure. + +“No,” said Mr. Kinosling. “No tobacco for me. No cigar, no pipe, no +cigarette, no cheroot. For me, a book--a volume of poems, perhaps. +Verses, rhymes, lines metrical and cadenced--those are my dissipation. +Tennyson by preference: 'Maud,' or 'Idylls of the King'--poetry of the +sound Victorian days; there is none later. Or Longfellow will rest me +in a tired hour. Yes; for me, a book, a volume in the hand, held lightly +between the fingers.” + +Mr. Kinosling looked pleasantly at his fingers as he spoke, waving his +hand in a curving gesture which brought it into the light of a window +faintly illumined from the interior of the house. Then he passed those +graceful fingers over his hair, and turned toward Penrod, who was +perched upon the railing in a dark corner. + +“The evening is touched with a slight coolness,” said Mr. Kinosling. +“Perhaps I may request the little gentleman----” + +“B'gr-r-RUFF!” coughed Mr. Schofield. “You'd better change your mind +about a cigar.” + +“No, I thank you. I was about to request the lit----” + +“DO try one,” Margaret urged. “I'm sure papa's are nice ones. Do +try----” + +“No, I thank you. I remarked a slight coolness in the air, and my hat is +in the hallway. I was about to request----” + +“I'll get it for you,” said Penrod suddenly. + +“If you will be so good,” said Mr. Kinosling. “It is a black bowler hat, +little gentleman, and placed upon a table in the hall.” + +“I know where it is.” Penrod entered the door, and a feeling of relief, +mutually experienced, carried from one to another of his three relatives +their interchanged congratulations that he had recovered his sanity. + +“'The day is done, and the darkness,'” began Mr. Kinosling--and recited +that poem entire. He followed it with “The Children's Hour,” and after a +pause, at the close, to allow his listeners time for a little reflection +upon his rendition, he passed his handagain over his head, and called, +in the direction of the doorway: + +“I believe I will take my hat now, little gentleman.” + +“Here it is,” said Penrod, unexpectedly climbing over the porch railing, +in the other direction. His mother and father and Margaret had supposed +him to be standing in the hallway out of deference, and because he +thought it tactful not to interrupt the recitations. All of them +remembered, later, that this supposed thoughtfulness on his part struck +them as unnatural. + +“Very good, little gentleman!” said Mr. Kinosling, and being somewhat +chilled, placed the hat firmly upon his head, pulling it down as far +as it would go. It had a pleasant warmth, which he noticed at once. The +next instant, he noticed something else, a peculiar sensation of the +scalp--a sensation which he was quite unable to define. He lifted his +hand to take the hat off, and entered upon a strange experience: his hat +seemed to have decided to remain where it was. + +“Do you like Tennyson as much as Longfellow, Mr. Kinosling?” inquired +Margaret. + +“I--ah--I cannot say,” he returned absently. “I--ah--each has his +own--ugh! flavour and savour, each his--ah--ah----” + +Struck by a strangeness in his tone, she peered at him curiously through +the dusk. His outlines were indistinct, but she made out that his arms +were, uplifted in a singular gesture. He seemed to be wrenching at his +head. + +“Is--is anything the matter?” she asked anxiously. “Mr. Kinosling, are +you ill?” + +“Not at--ugh!--all,” he replied, in the same odd tone. “I--ah--I +believe--UGH!” + +He dropped his hands from his hat, and rose. His manner was +slightly agitated. “I fear I may have taken a trifling--ah--cold. +I should--ah--perhaps be--ah--better at home. I will--ah--say +good-night.” + +At the steps, he instinctively lifted his hand to remove his hat, +but did not do so, and, saying “Goodnight,” again in a frigid voice, +departed with visible stiffness from that house, to return no more. + +“Well, of all----!” cried Mrs. Schofield, astounded. “What was the +matter? He just went--like that!” She made a flurried gesture. “In +heaven's name, Margaret, what DID you say to him?” + +“_I_!” exclaimed Margaret indignantly. “Nothing! He just WENT!” + +“Why, he didn't even take off his hat when he said good-night!” said +Mrs. Schofield. + +Margaret, who had crossed to the doorway, caught the ghost of a whisper +behind her, where stood Penrod. + +“YOU BET HE DIDN'T!” + +He knew not that he was overheard. + +A frightful suspicion flashed through Margaret's mind--a suspicion that +Mr. Kinosling's hat would have to be either boiled off or shaved off. +With growing horror she recalled Penrod's long absence when he went to +bring the hat. + +“Penrod,” she cried, “let me see your hands!” + +She had toiled at those hands herself late that afternoon, nearly +scalding her own, but at last achieving a lily purity. + +“Let me see your hands!” + +She seized them. + +Again they were tarred! + + + +CHAPTER XXVI THE QUIET AFTERNOON + +Perhaps middle-aged people might discern Nature's real intentions in the +matter of pain if they would examine a boy's punishments and sorrows, +for he prolongs neither beyond their actual duration. With a boy, +trouble must be of Homeric dimensions to last overnight. To him, every +next day is really a new day. Thus, Penrod woke, next morning, with +neither the unspared rod, nor Mr. Kinosling in his mind. Tar, itself, +so far as his consideration of it went, might have been an undiscovered +substance. His mood was cheerful and mercantile; some process having +worked mysteriously within him, during the night, to the result that +his first waking thought was of profits connected with the sale of old +iron--or perhaps a ragman had passed the house, just before he woke. + +By ten o'clock he had formed a partnership with the indeed amiable Sam, +and the firm of Schofield and Williams plunged headlong into commerce. +Heavy dealings in rags, paper, old iron and lead gave the firm a balance +of twenty-two cents on the evening of the third day; but a venture in +glassware, following, proved disappointing on account of the scepticism +of all the druggists in that part of town, even after seven laborious +hours had been spent in cleansing a wheelbarrow-load of old medicine +bottles with hydrant water and ashes. Likewise, the partners were +disheartened by their failure to dispose of a crop of “greens,” although +they had uprooted specimens of that decorative and unappreciated flower, +the dandelion, with such persistence and energy that the Schofields' and +Williams' lawns looked curiously haggard for the rest of that summer. + +The fit passed: business languished; became extinct. The dog-days had +set in. + +One August afternoon was so hot that even boys sought indoor shade. In +the dimness of the vacant carriage-house of the stable, lounged Masters +Penrod Schofield, Samuel Williams, Maurice Levy, Georgie Bassett, and +Herman. They sat still and talked. It is a hot day, in rare truth, when +boys devote themselves principally to conversation, and this day was +that hot. + +Their elders should beware such days. Peril hovers near when the +fierceness of weather forces inaction and boys in groups are quiet. +The more closely volcanoes, Western rivers, nitroglycerin, and boys +are pent, the deadlier is their action at the point of outbreak. Thus, +parents and guardians should look for outrages of the most singular +violence and of the most peculiar nature during the confining weather of +February and August. + +The thing which befell upon this broiling afternoon began to brew and +stew peacefully enough. All was innocence and languor; no one could have +foretold the eruption. + +They were upon their great theme: “When I get to be a man!” Being human, +though boys, they considered their present estate too commonplace to be +dwelt upon. So, when the old men gather, they say: “When I was a boy!” + It really is the land of nowadays that we never discover. + +“When I'm a man,” said Sam Williams, “I'm goin' to hire me a couple of +coloured waiters to swing me in a hammock and keep pourin' ice-water on +me all day out o' those waterin'-cans they sprinkle flowers from. I'll +hire you for one of 'em, Herman.” + +“No; you ain' goin' to,” said Herman promptly. “You ain' no flowuh. +But nev' min' nat, anyway. Ain' nobody goin' haih me whens _I_'m a man. +Goin' be my own boss. _I_'m go' be a rai'road man!” + +“You mean like a superintendent, or sumpthing like that, and sell +tickets?” asked Penrod. + +“Sup'in--nev' min' nat! Sell ticket? NO suh! Go' be a PO'tuh! My uncle a +po'tuh right now. Solid gole buttons--oh, oh!” + +“Generals get a lot more buttons than porters,” said Penrod. +“Generals----” + +“Po'tuhs make the bes' l'vin',” Herman interrupted. “My uncle spen' mo' +money 'n any white man n'is town.” + +“Well, I rather be a general,” said Penrod, “or a senator, or sumpthing +like that.” + +“Senators live in Warshington,” Maurice Levy contributed the +information. “I been there. Warshington ain't so much; Niag'ra Falls is +a hundred times as good as Warshington. So's 'Tlantic City, I was there, +too. I been everywhere there is. I----” + +“Well, anyway,” said Sam Williams, raising his voice in order to obtain +the floor, “anyway, I'm goin' to lay in a hammock all day, and have +ice-water sprinkled on top o' me, and I'm goin' to lay there all night, +too, and the next day. I'm goin' to lay there a couple o' years, maybe.” + +“I bet you don't!” exclaimed Maurice. “What'd you do in winter?” + +“What?” + +“What you goin' to do when it's winter, out in a hammock with water +sprinkled on top o' you all day? I bet you----” + +“I'd stay right there,” Sam declared, with strong conviction, blinking +as he looked out through the open doors at the dazzling lawn and trees, +trembling in the heat. “They couldn't sprinkle too much for ME!” + +“It'd make icicles all over you, and----” + +“I wish it would,” said Sam. “I'd eat 'em up.” + +“And it'd snow on you----” + +“Yay! I'd swaller it as fast as it'd come down. I wish I had a BARREL +o' snow right now. I wish this whole barn was full of it. I wish they +wasn't anything in the whole world except just good ole snow.” + +Penrod and Herman rose and went out to the hydrant, where they drank +long and ardently. Sam was still talking about snow when they returned. + +“No, I wouldn't just roll in it. I'd stick it all round inside my +clo'es, and fill my hat. No, I'd freeze a big pile of it all hard, and +I'd roll her out flat and then I'd carry her down to some ole tailor's +and have him make me a SUIT out of her, and----” + +“Can't you keep still about your ole snow?” demanded Penrod petulantly. +“Makes me so thirsty I can't keep still, and I've drunk so much now I +bet I bust. That ole hydrant water's mighty near hot anyway.” + +“I'm goin' to have a big store, when I grow up,” volunteered Maurice. + +“Candy store?” asked Penrod. + +“NO, sir! I'll have candy in it, but not to eat, so much. It's goin' to +be a deportment store: ladies' clothes, gentlemen's clothes, neckties, +china goods, leather goods, nice lines in woollings and lace goods----” + +“Yay! I wouldn't give a five-for-a-cent marble for your whole store,” + said Sam. “Would you, Penrod?” + +“Not for ten of 'em; not for a million of 'em! _I_'m goin' to have----” + +“Wait!” clamoured Maurice. “You'd be foolish, because they'd be a toy +deportment in my store where they'd be a hunderd marbles! So, how much +would you think your five-for-a-cent marble counts for? And when I'm +keepin' my store I'm goin' to get married.” + +“Yay!” shrieked Sam derisively. “MARRIED! Listen!” Penrod and Herman +joined in the howl of contempt. + +“Certumly I'll get married,” asserted Maurice stoutly. “I'll get married +to Marjorie Jones. She likes me awful good, and I'm her beau.” + +“What makes you think so?” inquired Penrod in a cryptic voice. + +“Because she's my beau, too,” came the prompt answer. “I'm her beau +because she's my beau; I guess that's plenty reason! I'll get married to +her as soon as I get my store running nice.” + +Penrod looked upon him darkly, but, for the moment, held his peace. + +“Married!” jeered Sam Williams. “Married to Marjorie Jones! You're the +only boy I ever heard say he was going to get married. I wouldn't +get married for--why, I wouldn't for--for----” Unable to think of +any inducement the mere mention of which would not be ridiculously +incommensurate, he proceeded: “I wouldn't do it! What you want to get +married for? What do married people do, except just come home tired, and +worry around and kind of scold? You better not do it, M'rice; you'll be +mighty sorry.” + +“Everybody gets married,” stated Maurice, holding his ground. + +“They gotta.” + +“I'll bet _I_ don't!” Sam returned hotly. “They better catch me before +they tell ME I have to. Anyway, I bet nobody has to get married unless +they want to.” + +“They do, too,” insisted Maurice. “They GOTTA!” + +“Who told you?” + +“Look at what my own papa told me!” cried Maurice, heated with argument. +“Didn't he tell me your papa had to marry your mamma, or else he +never'd got to handle a cent of her money? Certumly, people gotta marry. +Everybody. You don't know anybody over twenty years old that isn't +married--except maybe teachers.” + +“Look at policemen!” shouted Sam triumphantly. “You don't s'pose anybody +can make policemen get married, I reckon, do you?” + +“Well, policemen, maybe,” Maurice was forced to admit. “Policemen and +teachers don't, but everybody else gotta.” + +“Well, I'll be a policeman,” said Sam. “THEN I guess they won't come +around tellin' me I have to get married. What you goin' to be, Penrod?” + +“Chief police,” said the laconic Penrod. + +“What you?” Sam inquired of quiet Georgie Bassett. + +“I am going to be,” said Georgie, consciously, “a minister.” + +This announcement created a sensation so profound that it was followed +by silence. Herman was the first to speak. + +“You mean preachuh?” he asked incredulously. “You go' PREACH?” + +“Yes,” answered Georgie, looking like Saint Cecilia at the organ. + +Herman was impressed. “You know all 'at preachuh talk?” + +“I'm going to learn it,” said Georgie simply. + +“How loud kin you holler?” asked Herman doubtfully. + +“He can't holler at all,” Penrod interposed with scorn. “He hollers like +a girl. He's the poorest hollerer in town!” + +Herman shook his head. Evidently he thought Georgie's chance of being +ordained very slender. Nevertheless, a final question put to the +candidate by the coloured expert seemed to admit one ray of hope. + +“How good kin you clim a pole?” + +“He can't climb one at all,” Penrod answered for Georgie. “Over at Sam's +turning-pole you ought to see him try to----” + +“Preachers don't have to climb poles,” Georgie said with dignity. + +“GOOD ones do,” declared Herman. “Bes' one ev' _I_ hear, he clim up an' +down same as a circus man. One n'em big 'vivals outen whens we livin' on +a fahm, preachuh clim big pole right in a middle o' the church, what +was to hol' roof up. He clim way high up, an' holler: 'Goin' to heavum, +goin' to heavum, goin' to heavum NOW. Hallelujah, praise my Lawd!' An' +he slide down little, an' holler: 'Devil's got a hol' o' my coat-tails; +devil tryin' to drag me down! Sinnuhs, take wawnun! Devil got a hol' o' +my coat-tails; I'm a-goin' to hell, oh Lawd!' Nex', he clim up little +mo', an' yell an' holler: 'Done shuck ole devil loose; goin' straight to +heavum agin! Goin' to heavum, goin' to heavum, my Lawd!' Nex', he slide +down some mo' an' holler, 'Leggo my coat-tails, ole devil! Goin' to +hell agin, sinnuhs! Goin' straight to hell, my Lawd!' An' he clim an' he +slide, an' he slide, an' he clim, an' all time holler: 'Now 'm a-goin' +to heavum; now 'm a-goin' to hell! Goin'to heavum, heavum, heavum, my +Lawd!' Las' he slide all a-way down, jes' a-squallin' an' a-kickin' an' +a-rarin' up an' squealin', 'Goin' to hell. Goin' to hell! Ole Satum got +my soul! Goin' to hell! Goin' to hell! Goin' to hell, hell, hell!” + +Herman possessed that extraordinary facility for vivid acting which is +the great native gift of his race, and he enchained his listeners. They +sat fascinated and spellbound. + +“Herman, tell that again!” said Penrod, breathlessly. + +Herman, nothing loath, accepted the encore and repeated the Miltonic +episode, expanding it somewhat, and dwelling with a fine art upon those +portions of the narrative which he perceived to be most exciting to his +audience. Plainly, they thrilled less to Paradise gained than to its +losing, and the dreadful climax of the descent into the Pit was the +greatest treat of all. + +The effect was immense and instant. Penrod sprang to his feet. + +“Georgie Bassett couldn't do that to save his life,” he declared. “_I_'m +goin' to be a preacher! I'D be all right for one, wouldn't I, Herman?” + +“So am I!” Sam Williams echoed loudly. “I guess I can do it if YOU can. +I'd be better'n Penrod, wouldn't I, Herman?” + +“I am, too!” Maurice shouted. “I got a stronger voice than anybody here, +and I'd like to know what----” + +The three clamoured together indistinguishably, each asserting his +qualifications for the ministry according to Herman's theory, which had +been accepted by these sudden converts without question. + +“Listen to ME!” Maurice bellowed, proving his claim to at least the +voice by drowning the others. “Maybe I can't climb a pole so good, but +who can holler louder'n this? Listen to ME-E-E!” + +“Shut up!” cried Penrod, irritated. “Go to heaven; go to hell!” + +“Oo-o-oh!” exclaimed Georgie Bassett, profoundly shocked. + +Sam and Maurice, awed by Penrod's daring, ceased from turmoil, staring +wide-eyed. + +“You cursed and swore!” said Georgie. + +“I did not!” cried Penrod, hotly. “That isn't swearing.” + +“You said, 'Go to a big H'!” said Georgie. + +“I did not! I said, 'Go to heaven,' before I said a big H. That isn't +swearing, is it, Herman? It's almost what the preacher said, ain't it, +Herman? It ain't swearing now, any more--not if you put 'go to heaven' +with it, is it, Herman? You can say it all you want to, long as you +say 'go to heaven' first, CAN'T you, Herman? Anybody can say it if +the preacher says it, can't they, Herman? I guess I know when I ain't +swearing, don't I, Herman?” + +Judge Herman ruled for the defendant, and Penrod was considered to have +carried his point. With fine consistency, the conclave established +that it was proper for the general public to “say it,” provided “go to +heaven” should in all cases precede it. This prefix was pronounced a +perfect disinfectant, removing all odour of impiety or insult; and, with +the exception of Georgie Bassett (who maintained that the minister's +words were “going” and “gone,” not “go”), all the boys proceeded to +exercise their new privilege so lavishly that they tired of it. + +But there was no diminution of evangelical ardour; again were heard the +clamours of dispute as to which was the best qualified for the ministry, +each of the claimants appealing passionately to Herman, who, pleased but +confused, appeared to be incapable of arriving at a decision. + +During a pause, Georgie Bassett asserted his prior rights. “Who said +it first, I'd like to know?” he demanded. “I was going to be a minister +from long back of to-day, I guess. And I guess I said I was going to be +a minister right to-day before any of you said anything at all. DIDN'T +I, Herman? YOU heard me, didn't you, Herman? That's the very thing +started you talking about it, wasn't it, Herman?” + +“You' right,” said Herman. “You the firs' one to say it.” + +Penrod, Sam, and Maurice immediately lost faith in Herman. + +“What if you did say it first?” Penrod shouted. “You couldn't BE a +minister if you were a hunderd years old!” + +“I bet his mother wouldn't let him be one,” said Sam. “She never lets +him do anything.” + +“She would, too,” retorted Georgie. “Ever since I was little, she----” + +“He's too sissy to be a preacher!” cried Maurice. “Listen at his squeaky +voice!” + +“I'm going to be a better minister,” shouted Georgie, “than all three of +you put together. I could do it with my left hand!” + +The three laughed bitingly in chorus. They jeered, derided, scoffed, +and raised an uproar which would have had its effect upon much stronger +nerves than Georgie's. For a time he contained his rising choler and +chanted monotonously, over and over: “I COULD! I COULD, TOO! I COULD! +I COULD, TOO!” But their tumult wore upon him, and he decided to avail +himself of the recent decision whereby a big H was rendered innocuous +and unprofane. Having used the expression once, he found it comforting, +and substituted it for: “I could! I could, too!” + +But it relieved him only temporarily. His tormentors were unaffected +by it and increased their howlings, until at last Georgie lost his head +altogether. Badgered beyond bearing, his eyes shining with a wild light, +he broke through the besieging trio, hurling little Maurice from his +path with a frantic hand. + +“I'll show you!” he cried, in this sudden frenzy. “You give me a chance, +and I'll prove it right NOW!” + +“That's talkin' business!” shouted Penrod. “Everybody keep still a +minute. Everybody!” + +He took command of the situation at once, displaying a fine capacity for +organization and system. It needed only a few minutes to set order in +the place of confusion and to determine, with the full concurrence of +all parties, the conditions under which Georgie Bassett was to defend +his claim by undergoing what may be perhaps intelligibly defined as the +Herman test. Georgie declared he could do it easily. He was in a state +of great excitement and in no condition to think calmly or, probably, he +would not have made the attempt at all. Certainly he was overconfident. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII CONCLUSION OF THE QUIET AFTERNOON + +It was during the discussion of the details of this enterprise that +Georgie's mother, a short distance down the street, received a few +female callers, who came by appointment to drink a glass of iced tea +with her, and to meet the Rev. Mr. Kinosling. Mr. Kinosling was proving +almost formidably interesting to the women and girls of his own +and other flocks. What favour of his fellow clergymen a slight +precociousness of manner and pronunciation cost him was more than +balanced by the visible ecstasies of ladies. They blossomed at his +touch. + +He had just entered Mrs. Bassett's front door, when the son of the +house, followed by an intent and earnest company of four, opened the +alley gate and came into the yard. The unconscious Mrs. Bassett was +about to have her first experience of a fatal coincidence. It was her +first, because she was the mother of a boy so well behaved that he had +become a proverb of transcendency. Fatal coincidences were plentiful +in the Schofield and Williams families, and would have been familiar to +Mrs. Bassett had Georgie been permitted greater intimacy with Penrod and +Sam. + +Mr. Kinosling sipped his iced tea and looked about, him approvingly. +Seven ladies leaned forward, for it was to be seen that he meant to +speak. + +“This cool room is a relief,” he said, waving a graceful hand in +a neatly limited gesture, which everybody's eyes followed, his own +included. “It is a relief and a retreat. The windows open, the blinds +closed--that is as it should be. It is a retreat, a fastness, a bastion +against the heat's assault. For me, a quiet room--a quiet room and a +book, a volume in the hand, held lightly between the fingers. A volume +of poems, lines metrical and cadenced; something by a sound Victorian. +We have no later poets.” + +“Swinburne?” suggested Miss Beam, an eager spinster. “Swinburne, Mr. +Kinosling? Ah, SWINBURNE!” + +“Not Swinburne,” said Mr. Kinosling chastely. “No.” + +That concluded all the remarks about Swinburne. + + +Miss Beam retired in confusion behind another lady; and somehow there +became diffused an impression that Miss Beam was erotic. + +“I do not observe your manly little son,” Mr. Kinosling addressed his +hostess. + +“He's out playing in the yard,” Mrs. Bassett returned. “I heard his +voice just now, I think.” + +“Everywhere I hear wonderful report of him,” said Mr. Kinosling. “I +may say that I understand boys, and I feel that he is a rare, a fine, a +pure, a lofty spirit. I say spirit, for spirit is the word I hear spoken +of him.” + +A chorus of enthusiastic approbation affirmed the accuracy of this +proclamation, and Mrs. Bassett flushed with pleasure. Georgie's +spiritual perfection was demonstrated by instances of it, related by +the visitors; his piety was cited, and wonderful things he had said were +quoted. + +“Not all boys are pure, of fine spirit, of high mind,” said Mr. +Kinosling, and continued with true feeling: “You have a neighbour, dear +Mrs. Bassett, whose household I indeed really feel it quite impossible +to visit until such time when better, firmer, stronger handed, more +determined discipline shall prevail. I find Mr. and Mrs. Schofield and +their daughter charming----” + +Three or four ladies said “Oh!” and spoke a name simultaneously. It was +as if they had said, “Oh, the bubonic plague!” + +“Oh! Penrod Schofield!” + +“Georgie does not play with him,” said Mrs. Bassett quickly--“that +is, he avoids him as much as he can without hurting Penrod's feelings. +Georgie is very sensitive to giving pain. I suppose a mother should not +tell these things, and I know people who talk about their own children +are dreadful bores, but it was only last Thursday night that Georgie +looked up in my face so sweetly, after he had said his prayers and his +little cheeks flushed, as he said: 'Mamma, I think it would be right for +me to go more with Penrod. I think it would make him a better boy.'” + +A sibilance went about the room. “Sweet! How sweet! The sweet little +soul! Ah, SWEET!” + +“And that very afternoon,” continued Mrs. Bassett, “he had come home in +a dreadful state. Penrod had thrown tar all over him.” + +“Your son has a forgiving spirit!” said Mr. Kinosling with vehemence. “A +too forgiving spirit, perhaps.” He set down his glass. “No more, I thank +you. No more cake, I thank you. Was it not Cardinal Newman who said----” + +He was interrupted by the sounds of an altercation just outside the +closed blinds of the window nearest him. + +“Let him pick his tree!” It was the voice of Samuel Williams. “Didn't we +come over here to give him one of his own trees? Give him a fair show, +can't you?” + +“The little lads!” Mr. Kinosling smiled. “They have their games, their +outdoor sports, their pastimes. The young muscles are toughening. The +sun will not harm them. They grow; they expand; they learn. They learn +fair play, honour, courtesy, from one another, as pebbles grow round +in the brook. They learn more from themselves than from us. They take +shape, form, outline. Let them.” + +“Mr. Kinosling!” Another spinster--undeterred by what had happened +to Miss Beam--leaned fair forward, her face shining and ardent. “Mr. +Kinosling, there's a question I DO wish to ask you.” + +“My dear Miss Cosslit,” Mr. Kinosling responded, again waving his hand +and watching it, “I am entirely at your disposal.” + +“WAS Joan of Arc,” she asked fervently, “inspired by spirits?” + +He smiled indulgently. “Yes--and no,” he said. “One must give both +answers. One must give the answer, yes; one must give the answer, no.” + +“Oh, THANK you!” said Miss Cosslit, blushing. + +“She's one of my great enthusiasms, you know.” + +“And I have a question, too,” urged Mrs. Lora Rewbush, after a moment's +hasty concentration. “'I've never been able to settle it for myself, but +NOW----” + +“Yes?” said Mr. Kinosling encouragingly. + +“Is--ah--is--oh, yes: Is Sanskrit a more difficult language than +Spanish, Mr. Kinosling?” + +“It depends upon the student,” replied the oracle smiling. “One must not +look for linguists everywhere. In my own especial case--if one may cite +one's self as an example--I found no great, no insurmountable difficulty +in mastering, in conquering either.” + +“And may _I_ ask one?” ventured Mrs. Bassett. “Do you think it is right +to wear egrets?” + +“There are marks of quality, of caste, of social distinction,” Mr. +Kinosling began, “which must be permitted, allowed, though perhaps +regulated. Social distinction, one observes, almost invariably +implies spiritual distinction as well. Distinction of circumstances +is accompanied by mental distinction. Distinction is hereditary; it +descends from father to son, and if there is one thing more true +than 'Like father, like son,' it is--” he bowed gallantly to Mrs. +Bassett--“it is, 'Like mother, like son.' What these good ladies have +said this afternoon of YOUR----” + +This was the fatal instant. There smote upon all ears the voice of +Georgie, painfully shrill and penetrating--fraught with protest and +protracted, strain. His plain words consisted of the newly sanctioned +and disinfected curse with a big H. + +With an ejaculation of horror, Mrs. Bassett sprang to the window and +threw open the blinds. + +Georgie's back was disclosed to the view of the tea-party. He was +endeavouring to ascend a maple tree about twelve feet from the window. +Embracing the trunk with arms and legs, he had managed to squirm to a +point above the heads of Penrod and Herman, who stood close by, watching +him earnestly--Penrod being obviously in charge of the performance. +Across the yard were Sam Williams and Maurice Levy, acting as a jury on +the question of voice-power, and it was to a complaint of theirs that +Georgie had just replied. + +“That's right, Georgie,” said Penrod encouragingly. “They can, too, hear +you. Let her go!” + +“Going to heaven!” shrieked Georgie, squirming up another inch. “Going +to heaven, heaven, heaven!” + +His mother's frenzied attempts to attract his attention failed utterly. +Georgie was using the full power of his lungs, deafening his own ears to +all other sounds. Mrs. Bassett called in vain; while the tea-party stood +petrified in a cluster about the window. + +“Going to heaven!” Georgie bellowed. “Going to heaven! Going to heaven, +my Lord! Going to heaven, heaven, heaven!” + +He tried to climb higher, but began to slip downward, his exertions +causing damage to his apparel. A button flew into the air, and his +knickerbockers and his waistband severed relations. + +“Devil's got my coat-tails, sinners! Old devil's got my coat-tails!” he +announced appropriately. Then he began to slide. + +He relaxed his clasp of the tree and slid to the ground. + +“Going to hell!” shrieked Georgie, reaching a high pitch of enthusiasm +in this great climax. “Going to hell! Going to hell! I'm gone to hell, +hell, hell!” + +With a loud scream, Mrs. Bassett threw herself out of the window, +alighting by some miracle upon her feet with ankles unsprained. + +Mr. Kinosling, feeling that his presence as spiritual adviser was +demanded in the yard, followed with greater dignity through the front +door. At the corner of the house a small departing figure collided with +him violently. It was Penrod, tactfully withdrawing from what promised +to be a family scene of unusual painfulness. + +Mr. Kinosling seized him by the shoulders and, giving way to emotion, +shook him viciously. + +“You horrible boy!” exclaimed Mr. Kinosling. “You ruffianly creature! Do +you know what's going to happen to you when you grow up? Do you realize +what you're going to BE!” + +With flashing eyes, the indignant boy made know his unshaken purpose. He +shouted the reply: + +“A minister!” + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII TWELVE + +This busy globe which spawns us is as incapable of flattery and as +intent upon its own affair, whatever that is, as a gyroscope; it keeps +steadily whirling along its lawful track, and, thus far seeming to hold +a right of way, spins doggedly on, with no perceptible diminution of +speed to mark the most gigantic human events--it did not pause to pant +and recuperate even when what seemed to Penrod its principal purpose +was accomplished, and an enormous shadow, vanishing westward over its +surface, marked the dawn of his twelfth birthday. + +To be twelve is an attainment worth the struggle. A boy, just twelve, is +like a Frenchman just elected to the Academy. + +Distinction and honour wait upon him. Younger boys show deference to a +person of twelve: his experience is guaranteed, his judgment, therefore, +mellow; consequently, his influence is profound. Eleven is not quite +satisfactory: it is only an approach. Eleven has the disadvantage of +six, of nineteen, of forty-four, and of sixty-nine. But, like twelve, +seven is an honourable age, and the ambition to attain it is laudable. +People look forward to being seven. Similarly, twenty is worthy, and so, +arbitrarily, is twenty-one; forty-five has great solidity; seventy is +most commendable and each year thereafter an increasing honour. Thirteen +is embarrassed by the beginnings of a new colthood; the child becomes a +youth. But twelve is the very top of boyhood. + +Dressing, that morning, Penrod felt that the world was changed from the +world of yesterday. For one thing, he seemed to own more of it; this +day was HIS day. And it was a day worth owning; the midsummer sunshine, +pouring gold through his window, came from a cool sky, and a breeze +moved pleasantly in his hair as he leaned from the sill to watch the +tribe of clattering blackbirds take wing, following their leader +from the trees in the yard to the day's work in the open country. The +blackbirds were his, as the sunshine and the breeze were his, for they +all belonged to the day which was his birthday and therefore most surely +his. Pride suffused him: he was twelve! + +His father and his mother and Margaret seemed to understand the +difference between to-day and yesterday. They were at the table when +he descended, and they gave him a greeting which of itself marked the +milestone. Habitually, his entrance into a room where his elders sat +brought a cloud of apprehension: they were prone to look up in pathetic +expectancy, as if their thought was, “What new awfulness is he going to +start NOW?” But this morning they laughed; his mother rose and kissed +him twelve times, so did Margaret; and his father shouted, “Well, well! +How's the MAN?” + +Then his mother gave him a Bible and “The Vicar of Wakefield”; Margaret +gave him a pair of silver-mounted hair brushes; and his father gave him +a “Pocket Atlas” and a small compass. + +“And now, Penrod,” said his mother, after breakfast, “I'm going to +take you out in the country to pay your birthday respects to Aunt Sarah +Crim.” + +Aunt Sarah Crim, Penrod's great-aunt, was his oldest living relative. +She was ninety, and when Mrs. Schofield and Penrod alighted from a +carriage at her gate they found her digging with a spade in the garden. + +“I'm glad you brought him,” she said, desisting from labour. “Jinny's +baking a cake I'm going to send for his birthday party. Bring him in the +house. I've got something for him.” + +She led the way to her “sitting-room,” which had a pleasant smell, +unlike any other smell, and, opening the drawer of a shining old +what-not, took therefrom a boy's “sling-shot,” made of a forked stick, +two strips of rubber and a bit of leather. + +“This isn't for you,” she said, placing it in Penrod's eager hand. +“No. It would break all to pieces the first time you tried to shoot +it, because it is thirty-five years old. I want to send it back to your +father. I think it's time. You give it to him from me, and tell him +I say I believe I can trust him with it now. I took it away from him +thirty-five years ago, one day after he'd killed my best hen with +it, accidentally, and broken a glass pitcher on the back porch with +it--accidentally. He doesn't look like a person who's ever done things +of that sort, and I suppose he's forgotten it so well that he believes +he never DID, but if you give it to him from me I think he'll remember. +You look like him, Penrod. He was anything but a handsome boy.” + +After this final bit of reminiscence--probably designed to be repeated +to Mr. Schofield--she disappeared in the direction of the kitchen, +and returned with a pitcher of lemonade and a blue china dish sweetly +freighted with flat ginger cookies of a composition that was her own +secret. Then, having set this collation before her guests, she presented +Penrod with a superb, intricate, and very modern machine of destructive +capacities almost limitless. She called it a pocket-knife. + +“I suppose you'll do something horrible with it,” she said, composedly. +“I hear you do that with everything, anyhow, so you might as well do it +with this, and have more fun out of it. They tell me you're the Worst +Boy in Town.” + +“Oh, Aunt Sarah!” Mrs. Schofield lifted a protesting hand. + +“Nonsense!” said Mrs. Crim. + +“But on his birthday!” + +“That's the time to say it. Penrod, aren't you the Worst Boy in Town?” + +Penrod, gazing fondly upon his knife and eating cookies rapidly, +answered as a matter of course, and absently, “Yes'm.” + +“Certainly!” said Mrs. Crim. “Once you accept a thing about yourself +as established and settled, it's all right. Nobody minds. Boys are just +people, really.” + +“No, no!” Mrs. Schofield cried, involuntarily. + +“Yes, they are,” returned Aunt Sarah. “Only they're not quite so awful, +because they haven't learned to cover themselves all over with little +pretences. When Penrod grows up he'll be just the same as he is now, +except that whenever he does what he wants to do he'll tell himself and +other people a little story about it to make his reason for doing it +seem nice and pretty and noble.” + +“No, I won't!” said Penrod suddenly. + +“There's one cookie left,” observed Aunt Sarah. “Are you going to eat +it?” + +“Well,” said her great-nephew, thoughtfully, “I guess I better.” + +“Why?” asked the old lady. “Why do you guess you'd 'better'?” + +“Well,” said Penrod, with a full mouth, “it might get all dried up if +nobody took it, and get thrown out and wasted.” + +“You're beginning finely,” Mrs. Crim remarked. “A year ago you'd have +taken the cookie without the same sense of thrift.” + +“Ma'am?” + +“Nothing. I see that you're twelve years old, that's all. There are more +cookies, Penrod.” She went away, returning with a fresh supply and the +observation, “Of course, you'll be sick before the day's over; you might +as well get a good start.” + +Mrs. Schofield looked thoughtful. “Aunt Sarah,” she ventured, “don't you +really think we improve as we get older?” + +“Meaning,” said the old lady, “that Penrod hasn't much chance to escape +the penitentiary if he doesn't? Well, we do learn to restrain ourselves +in some things; and there are people who really want someone else to +take the last cookie, though they aren't very common. But it's all +right, the world seems to be getting on.” She gazed whimsically upon her +great-nephew and added, “Of course, when you watch a boy and think about +him, it doesn't seem to be getting on very fast.” + +Penrod moved uneasily in his chair; he was conscious that he was her +topic but unable to make out whether or not her observations were +complimentary; he inclined to think they were not. Mrs. Crim settled the +question for him. + +“I suppose Penrod is regarded as the neighbourhood curse?” + +“Oh, no,” cried Mrs. Schofield. “He----” + +“I dare say the neighbours are right,” continued the old lady placidly. +“He's had to repeat the history of the race and go through all the +stages from the primordial to barbarism. You don't expect boys to be +civilized, do you?” + +“Well, I----” + +“You might as well expect eggs to crow. No; you've got to take boys as +they are, and learn to know them as they are.” + +“Naturally, Aunt Sarah,” said Mrs. Schofield, “I KNOW Penrod.” + +Aunt Sarah laughed heartily. “Do you think his father knows him, too?” + +“Of course, men are different,” Mrs. Schofield returned, apologetically. +“But a mother knows----” + +“Penrod,” said Aunt Sarah, solemnly, “does your father understand you?” + +“Ma'am?” + +“About as much as he'd understand Sitting Bull!” she laughed. + +“And I'll tell you what your mother thinks you are, Penrod. Her real +belief is that you're a novice in a convent.” + +“Ma'am?” + +“Aunt Sarah!” + +“I know she thinks that, because whenever you don't behave like a novice +she's disappointed in you. And your father really believes that you're +a decorous, well-trained young business man, and whenever you don't +live up to that standard you get on his nerves and he thinks you need a +walloping. I'm sure a day very seldom passes without their both saying +they don't know what on earth to do with you. Does whipping do you any +good, Penrod?” + +“Ma'am?” + +“Go on and finish the lemonade; there's about glassful left. Oh, take +it, take it; and don't say why! Of COURSE you're a little pig.” + +Penrod laughed gratefully, his eyes fixed upon her over the rim of his +uptilted glass. + +“Fill yourself up uncomfortably,” said the old lady. “You're twelve +years old, and you ought to be happy--if you aren't anything else. It's +taken over nineteen hundred years of Christianity and some hundreds of +thousands of years of other things to produce you, and there you sit!” + +“Ma'am?” + +“It'll be your turn to struggle and muss things up, for the betterment +of posterity, soon enough,” said Aunt Sarah Crim. “Drink your lemonade!” + + +CHAPTER XXIX FANCHON + +“Aunt Sarah's a funny old lady,” Penrod observed, on the way back to the +town. “What's she want me to give papa this old sling for? Last thing +she said was to be sure not to forget to give it to him. HE don't want +it; and she said, herself, it ain't any good. She's older than you or +papa, isn't she?” + +“About fifty years older,” answered Mrs. Schofield, turning upon him a +stare of perplexity. “Don't cut into the leather with your new knife, +dear; the livery man might ask us to pay if----No. I wouldn't scrape +the paint off, either--nor whittle your shoe with it. COULDN'T you put +it up until we get home?” + +“We goin' straight home?” + +“No. We're going to stop at Mrs. Gelbraith's and ask a strange little +girl to come to your party, this afternoon.” + +“Who?” + +“Her name is Fanchon. She's Mrs. Gelbraith's little niece.” + +“What makes her so queer?” + +“I didn't say she's queer.” + +“You said----” + +“No; I mean that she is a stranger. She lives in New York and has come +to visit here.” + +“What's she live in New York for?” + +“Because her parents live there. You must be very nice to her, Penrod; +she has been very carefully brought up. Besides, she doesn't know the +children here, and you must help to keep her from feeling lonely at your +party.” + +“Yes'm.” + +When they reached Mrs. Gelbraith's, Penrod sat patiently humped upon a +gilt chair during the lengthy exchange of greetings between his mother. +and Mrs. Gelbraith. That is one of the things a boy must learn to bear: +when his mother meets a compeer there is always a long and dreary wait +for him, while the two appear to be using strange symbols of speech, +talking for the greater part, it seems to him, simultaneously, and +employing a wholly incomprehensible system of emphasis at other times +not in vogue. Penrod twisted his legs, his cap and his nose. + +“Here she is!” Mrs. Gelbraith cried, unexpectedly, and a dark-haired, +demure person entered the room wearing a look of gracious social +expectancy. In years she was eleven, in manner about sixty-five, +and evidently had lived much at court. She performed a curtsey in +acknowledgment of Mrs. Schofield's greeting, and bestowed her hand +upon Penrod, who had entertained no hope of such an honour, showed his +surprise that it should come to him, and was plainly unable to decide +what to do about it. + +“Fanchon, dear,” said Mrs. Gelbraith, “take Penrod out in the yard for a +while, and play.” + +“Let go the little girl's hand, Penrod,” Mrs. Schofield laughed, as the +children turned toward the door. + +Penrod hastily dropped the small hand, and exclaiming, with simple +honesty, “Why, _I_ don't want it!” followed Fanchon out into the +sunshiny yard, where they came to a halt and surveyed each other. + +Penrod stared awkwardly at Fanchon, no other occupation suggesting +itself to him, while Fanchon, with the utmost coolness, made a very +thorough visual examination of Penrod, favouring him with an estimating +scrutiny which lasted until he literally wiggled. Finally, she spoke. + +“Where do you buy your ties?” she asked. + +“What?” + +“Where do you buy your neckties? Papa gets his at Skoone's. You ought to +get yours there. I'm sure the one you're wearing isn't from Skoone's.” + +“Skoone's?” Penrod repeated. “Skoone's?” + +“On Fifth Avenue,” said Fanchon. “It's a very smart shop, the men say.” + +“Men?” echoed Penrod, in a hazy whisper. “Men?” + +“Where do your people go in summer?” inquired the lady. “WE go to Long +Shore, but so many middle-class people have begun coming there, mamma +thinks of leaving. The middle classes are simply awful, don't you +think?” + +“What?” + +“They're so boorjaw. You speak French, of course?” + +“Me?” + +“We ran over to Paris last year. It's lovely, don't you think? Don't you +LOVE the Rue de la Paix?” + +Penrod wandered in a labyrinth. This girl seemed to be talking, but her +words were dumfounding, and of course there was no way for him to know +that he was really listening to her mother. It was his first meeting +with one of those grown-up little girls, wonderful product of the winter +apartment and summer hotel; and Fanchon, an only child, was a star of +the brand. He began to feel resentful. + +“I suppose,” she went on, “I'll find everything here fearfully Western. +Some nice people called yesterday, though. Do you know the Magsworth +Bittses? Auntie says they're charming. Will Roddy be at your party?” + +“I guess he will,” returned Penrod, finding this intelligible. “The +mutt!” + +“Really!” Fanchon exclaimed airily. “Aren't you great pals with him?” + +“What's 'pals'?” + +“Good heavens! Don't you know what it means to say you're 'great pals' +with any one? You ARE an odd child!” + +It was too much. + +“Oh, Bugs!” said Penrod. + +This bit of ruffianism had a curious effect. Fanchon looked upon him +with sudden favour. + +“I like you, Penrod!” she said, in an odd way, and, whatever else there +may have been in her manner, there certainly was no shyness. + +“Oh, Bugs!” This repetition may have lacked gallantry, but it was +uttered in no very decided tone. Penrod was shaken. + +“Yes, I do!” She stepped closer to him, smiling. “Your hair is ever so +pretty.” + +Sailors' parrots swear like mariners, they say; and gay mothers ought to +realize that all children are imitative, for, as the precocious Fanchon +leaned toward Penrod, the manner in which she looked into his eyes might +have made a thoughtful observer wonder where she had learned her pretty +ways. + +Penrod was even more confused than he had been by her previous +mysteries: but his confusion was of a distinctly pleasant and alluring +nature: he wanted more of it. Looking intentionally into another +person's eyes is an act unknown to childhood; and Penrod's discovery +that it could be done was sensational. He had never thought of looking +into the eyes of Marjorie Jones. + +Despite all anguish, contumely, tar, and Maurice Levy, he still secretly +thought of Marjorie, with pathetic constancy, as his “beau”--though that +is not how he would have spelled it. Marjorie was beautiful; her +curls were long and the colour of amber; her nose was straight and +her freckles were honest; she was much prettier than this accomplished +visitor. But beauty is not all. + +“I do!” breathed Fanchon, softly. + +She seemed to him a fairy creature from some rosier world than this. So +humble is the human heart, it glorifies and makes glamorous almost any +poor thing that says to it: “I like you!” + +Penrod was enslaved. He swallowed, coughed, scratched the back of his +neck, and said, disjointedly: + +“Well--I don't care if you want to. I just as soon.” + +“We'll dance together,” said Fanchon, “at your party.” + +“I guess so. I just as soon.” + +“Don't you want to, Penrod?” + +“Well, I'm willing to.” + +“No. Say you WANT to!” + +“Well----” + +He used his toe as a gimlet, boring into the ground, his wide open eyes +staring with intense vacancy at a button on his sleeve. + +His mother appeared upon the porch in departure, calling farewells over +her shoulder to Mrs. Gelbraith, who stood in the doorway. + +“Say it!” whispered Fanchon. + +“Well, I just as SOON.” + +She seemed satisfied. + + + +CHAPTER XXX THE BIRTHDAY PARTY + +A dancing floor had been laid upon a platform in the yard, when Mrs. +Schofield and her son arrived at their own abode; and a white and +scarlet striped canopy was in process of erection overhead, to shelter +the dancers from the sun. Workmen were busy everywhere under the +direction of Margaret, and the smitten heart of Penrod began to beat +rapidly. All this was for him; he was Twelve! + +After lunch, he underwent an elaborate toilette and murmured not. For +the first time in his life he knew the wish to be sand-papered, waxed, +and polished to the highest possible degree. And when the operation was +over, he stood before the mirror in new bloom, feeling encouraged to +hope that his resemblance to his father was not so strong as Aunt Sarah +seemed to think. + +The white gloves upon his hands had a pleasant smell, he found; and, as +he came down the stairs, he had great content in the twinkling of his +new dancing slippers. He stepped twice on each step, the better to enjoy +their effect and at the same time he deeply inhaled the odour of the +gloves. In spite of everything, Penrod had his social capacities. +Already it is to be perceived that there were in him the makings of a +cotillon leader. + +Then came from the yard a sound of tuning instruments, squeak of fiddle, +croon of 'cello, a falling triangle ringing and tinkling to the floor; +and he turned pale. + +Chosen guests began to arrive, while Penrod, suffering from stage-fright +and perspiration, stood beside his mother, in the “drawing-room,” + to receive them. He greeted unfamiliar acquaintances and intimate +fellow-criminals with the same frigidity, murmuring: “'M glad to see +y',” to all alike, largely increasing the embarrassment which always +prevails at the beginning of children's festivities. His unnatural pomp +and circumstance had so thoroughly upset him, in truth, that Marjorie +Jones received a distinct shock, now to be related. Doctor Thrope, the +kind old clergyman who had baptized Penrod, came in for a moment to +congratulate the boy, and had just moved away when it was Marjorie's +turn, in the line of children, to speak to Penrod. She gave him what she +considered a forgiving look, and, because of the occasion, addressed him +in a perfectly courteous manner. + +“I wish you many happy returns of the day, Penrod.” + +“Thank you, sir!” he returned, following Dr. Thrope with a glassy +stare in which there was absolutely no recognition of Marjorie. Then he +greeted Maurice Levy, who was next to Marjorie: “'M glad to see y'!” + +Dumfounded, Marjorie turned aside, and stood near, observing Penrod with +gravity. It was the first great surprise of her life. Customarily, +she had seemed to place his character somewhere between that of the +professional rioter and that of the orang-outang; nevertheless, her +manner at times just hinted a consciousness that this Caliban was her +property. Wherefore, she stared at him incredulously as his head bobbed +up and down, in the dancing-school bow, greeting his guests. Then she +heard an adult voice, near her, exclaim: + +“What an exquisite child!” + +Mariorie galanced up--a little consciously, though she was used to +it--naturally curious to ascertain who was speaking of her. It was Sam +Williams' mother addressing Mrs. Bassett, both being present to help +Mrs. Schofield make the festivities festive. + +“Exquisite!” + +Here was a second heavy surprise for Marjorie: they were not looking +at her. They were looking with beaming approval at a girl she had never +seen; a dark and modish stranger of singularly composed and yet modest +aspect. Her downcast eyes, becoming in one thus entering a crowded room, +were all that produced the effect of modesty, counteracting something +about her which might have seemed too assured. She was very slender, +very dainty, and her apparel was disheartening to the other girls; it +was of a knowing picturesqueness wholly unfamiliar to them. There was +a delicate trace of powder upon the lobe of Fanchon's left ear, and +the outlines of her eyelids, if very closely scrutinized, would have +revealed successful experimentation with a burnt match. + +Marjorie's lovely eyes dilated: she learned the meaning of hatred at +first sight. Observing the stranger with instinctive suspicion, all +at once she seemed, to herself, awkward. Poor Marjorie underwent that +experience which hearty, healthy, little girls and big girls undergo at +one time or another--from heels to head she felt herself, somehow, too +THICK. + +Fanchon leaned close to Penrod and whispered in his ear: + +“Don't you forget!” + +Penrod blushed. + +Marjorie saw the blush. Her lovely eyes opened even wider, and in them +there began to grow a light. It was the light of indignation;--at least, +people whose eyes glow with that light always call it indignation. + +Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, approached Fanchon, when she had made +her courtesy to Mrs. Schofield. Fanchon whispered in Roderick's ear +also. + +“Your hair is pretty, Roddy! Don't forget what you said yesterday!” + +Roderick likewise blushed. + +Maurice Levy, captivated by the newcomer's appearance, pressed close to +Roderick. + +“Give us an intaduction, Roddy?” + +Roddy being either reluctant or unable to perform the rite, Fanchon took +matters into her own hands, and was presently favourably impressed with +Maurice, receiving the information that his tie had been brought to him +by his papa from Skoone's, whereupon she privately informed him that she +liked wavy hair, and arranged to dance with him. Fanchon also thought +sandy hair attractive, Sam Williams discovered, a few minutes later, and +so catholic was her taste that a ring of boys quite encircled her before +the musicians in the yard struck up their thrilling march, and Mrs. +Schofield brought Penrod to escort the lady from out-of-town to the +dancing pavilion. + +Headed by this pair, the children sought partners and paraded solemnly +out of the front door and round a corner of the house. There they found +the gay marquee; the small orchestra seated on the lawn at one side +of it, and a punch bowl of lemonade inviting attention, under a tree. +Decorously the small couples stepped upon the platform, one after +another, and began to dance. + +“It's not much like a children's party in our day,” Mrs. Williams said +to Penrod's mother. “We'd have been playing 'Quaker-meeting,' 'Clap-in, +Clap-out,' or 'Going to Jerusalem,' I suppose.” + +“Yes, or 'Post-office' and 'Drop-the-handkerchief,'” said Mrs. +Schofield. “Things change so quickly. Imagine asking little Fanchon +Gelbraith to play 'London Bridge'! Penrod seems to be having a difficult +time with her, poor boy; he wasn't a shining light in the dancing +class.” + +However, Penrod's difficulty was not precisely of the kind his mother +supposed. Fanchon was showing him a new step, which she taught her +next partner in turn, continuing instructions during the dancing. The +children crowded the floor, and in the kaleidoscopic jumble of bobbing +heads and intermingling figures her extremely different style of +motion was unobserved by the older people, who looked on, nodding time +benevolently. + +Fanchon fascinated girls as well as boys. Many of the former eagerly +sought her acquaintance and thronged about her between the dances, when, +accepting the deference due a cosmopolitan and an oracle of the mode, +she gave demonstrations of the new step to succeeding groups, professing +astonishment to find it unknown: it had been “all the go,” she +explained, at the Long Shore Casino for fully two seasons. She +pronounced “slow” a “Fancy Dance” executed during an intermission by +Baby Rennsdale and Georgie Bassett, giving it as her opinion that Miss +Rennsdale and Mr. Bassett were “dead ones”; and she expressed surprise +that the punch bowl contained lemonade and not champagne. + +The dancing continued, the new step gaining instantly in popularity, +fresh couples adventuring with every number. The word “step” is somewhat +misleading, nothing done with the feet being vital to the evolutions +introduced by Fanchon. Fanchon's dance came from the Orient by a +roundabout way; pausing in Spain, taking on a Gallic frankness in +gallantry at the Bal Bullier in Paris, combining with a relative from +the South Seas encountered in San Francisco, flavouring itself with +a carefree negroid abandon in New Orleans, and, accumulating, too, +something inexpressible from Mexico and South America, it kept, +throughout its travels, to the underworld, or to circles where nature +is extremely frank and rank, until at last it reached the dives of New +York, when it immediately broke out in what is called civilized +society. Thereafter it spread, in variously modified forms--some of +them disinfected--to watering-places, and thence, carried by hundreds of +older male and female Fanchons, over the country, being eagerly adopted +everywhere and made wholly pure and respectable by the supreme moral +axiom that anything is all right if enough people do it. Everybody was +doing it. + +Not quite everybody. It was perhaps some test of this dance that earth +could furnish no more grotesque sight than that of children doing it. + +Earth, assisted by Fanchon, was furnishing this sight at Penrod's party. +By the time ice-cream and cake arrived, about half the guests had +either been initiated into the mysteries by Fanchon or were learning +by imitation, and the education of the other half was resumed with the +dancing, when the attendant ladies, unconscious of what was happening, +withdrew into the house for tea. + +“That orchestra's a dead one,” Fanchon remarked to Penrod. “We ought to +liven them up a little!” + +She approached the musicians. + +“Don't you know,” she asked the leader, “the Slingo Sligo Slide?” + +The leader giggled, nodded, rapped with his bow upon his violin; and +Penrod, following Fanchon back upon the dancing floor, blindly brushed +with his elbow a solitary little figure standing aloof on the lawn at +the edge of the platform. + +It was Marjorie. + +In no mood to approve of anything introduced by Fanchon, she had +scornfully refused, from the first, to dance the new “step,” and, +because of its bonfire popularity, found herself neglected in a society +where she had reigned as beauty and belle. Faithless Penrod, dazed by +the sweeping Fanchon, had utterly forgotten the amber curls; he had not +once asked Marjorie to dance. All afternoon the light of indignation had +been growing brighter in her eyes, though Maurice Levy's defection +to the lady from New York had not fanned this flame. From the moment +Fanchon had whispered familiarly in Penrod's ear, and Penrod had +blushed, Marjorie had been occupied exclusively with resentment against +that guilty pair. It seemed to her that Penrod had no right to allow a +strange girl to whisper in his ear; that his blushing, when the strange +girl did it, was atrocious; and that the strange girl, herself, ought to +be arrested. + +Forgotten by the merrymakers, Marjorie stood alone upon the lawn, +clenching her small fists, watching the new dance at its high tide, +and hating it with a hatred that made every inch of her tremble. And, +perhaps because jealousy is a great awakener of the virtues, she had +a perception of something in it worse than lack of dignity--something +vaguely but outrageously reprehensible. Finally, when Penrod brushed by +her, touched her with his elbow, and, did not even see her, Marjorie's +state of mind (not unmingled with emotion!) became dangerous. In fact, a +trained nurse, chancing to observe her at this juncture, would probably +have advised that she be taken home and put to bed. Marjorie was on the +verge of hysterics. + +She saw Fanchon and Penrod assume the double embrace required by the +dance; the “Slingo Sligo Slide” burst from the orchestra like the +lunatic shriek of a gin-maddened nigger; and all the little couples +began to bob and dip and sway. + +Marjorie made a scene. She sprang upon the platform and stamped her +foot. + +“Penrod Schofield!” she shouted. “You BEHAVE yourself!” + +The remarkable girl took Penrod by the ear. By his ear she swung him +away from Fanchon and faced him toward the lawn. + +“You march straight out of here!” she commanded. + +Penrod marched. + +He was stunned; obeyed automatically, without question, and had very +little realization of what was happening to him. Altogether, and without +reason, he was in precisely the condition of an elderly spouse detected +in flagrant misbehaviour. Marjorie, similarly, was in precisely the +condition of the party who detects such misbehaviour. It may be added +that she had acted with a promptness, a decision and a disregard of +social consequences all to be commended to the attention of ladies in +like predicament. + +“You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” she raged, when they reached the +lawn. “Aren't you ashamed of yourself?” + +“What for?” he inquired, helplessly. + +“You be quiet!” + +“But what'd _I_ do, Marjorie? _I_ haven't done anything to you,” he +pleaded. “I haven't even seen you, all aftern----” + +“You be quiet!” she cried, tears filling her eyes. “Keep still! You ugly +boy! Shut up!” + +She slapped him. + +He should have understood from this how much she cared for him. But he +rubbed his cheek and declared ruefully: + +“I'll never speak to you again!” + +“You will, too!” she sobbed, passionately. + +“I will not!” + +He turned to leave her, but paused. + +His mother, his sister Margaret, and their grownup friends had finished +their tea and were approaching from the house. Other parents and +guardians were with them, coming for their children; and there were +carriages and automobiles waiting in the street. But the “Slingo Slide” + went on, regardless. + +The group of grown-up people hesitated and came to a halt, gazing at the +pavilion. + +“What are they doing?” gasped Mrs. Williams, blushing deeply. “What is +it? What IS it?” + +“WHAT IS IT?” Mrs. Gelbraith echoed in a frightened whisper. “WHAT----” + +“They're Tangoing!” cried Margaret Schofield. “Or Bunny Hugging or +Grizzly Bearing, or----” + +“They're only Turkey Trotting,” said Robert Williams. + +With fearful outcries the mothers, aunts, and sisters rushed upon the +pavilion. + +“Of course it was dreadful,” said Mrs. Schofield, an hour later, +rendering her lord an account of the day, “but it was every bit the +fault of that one extraordinary child. And of all the quiet, demur +little things--that is, I mean, when she first came. We all spoke of how +exquisite she seemed--so well trained, so finished! Eleven years old! I +never saw anything like her in my life!” + +“I suppose it's the New Child,” her husband grunted. + +“And to think of her saying there ought to have been champagne in the +lemonade!” + +“Probably she'd forgotten to bring her pocket flask,” he suggested +musingly. + +“But aren't you proud of Penrod?” cried Penrod's mother. “It was just as +I told you: he was standing clear outside the pavilion----” + +“I never thought to see the day! And Penrod was the only boy not doing +it, the only one to refuse? ALL the others were----” + +“Every one!” she returned triumphantly. “Even Georgie Bassett!” + +“Well,” said Mr. Schofield, patting her on the shoulder. “I guess we can +hold up our heads at last.” + + + +CHAPTER XXXI OVER THE FENCE + +Penrod was out in the yard, staring at the empty marquee. The sun was on +the horizon line, so far behind the back fence, and a western window of +the house blazed in gold unbearable to the eye: his day was nearly +over. He sighed, and took from the inside pocket of his new jacket the +“sling-shot” aunt Sarah Crim had given him that morning. + +He snapped the rubbers absently. They held fast; and his next impulse +was entirely irresistible. He found a shapely stone, fitted it to the +leather, and drew back the ancient catapult for a shot. A sparrow hopped +upon a branch between him and the house, and he aimed at the sparrow, +but the reflection from the dazzling window struck in his eyes as he +loosed the leather. + +He missed the sparrow, but not the window. There was a loud crash, +and to his horror he caught a glimpse of his father, stricken in +mid-shaving, ducking a shower of broken glass, glittering razor +flourishing wildly. Words crashed with the glass, stentorian words, +fragmentary but collossal. + +Penrod stood petrified, a broken sling in his hand. He could hear his +parent's booming descent of the back stairs, instant and furious; and +then, red-hot above white lather, Mr. Schofield burst out of the kitchen +door and hurtled forth upon his son. + +“What do you mean?” he demanded, shaking Penrod by the shoulder. “Ten +minutes ago, for the very first time in our lives, your mother and I +were saying we were proud of you, and here you go and throw a rock at me +through the window when I'm shaving for dinner!” + +“I didn't!” Penrod quavered. “I was shooting at a sparrow, and the sun +got in his eyes, and the sling broke----” + +“What sling?” + +“This'n.” + +“Where'd you get that devilish thing? Don't you know I've forbidden you +a thousand times----” + +“It ain't mine,” said Penrod. “It's yours.” + +“What?” + +“Yes, sir,” said the boy meekly. “Aunt Sarah Crim gave it to me this +morning and told me to give it back to you. She said she took it away +from you thirty-five years ago. You killed her hen, she said. She told +me some more to tell you, but I've forgotten.” + +“Oh!” said Mr. Schofield. + +He took the broken sling in his hand, looked at it long and +thoughtfully--and he looked longer, and quite as thoughtfully, at +Penrod. Then he turned away, and walked toward the house. + +“I'm sorry, papa,” said Penrod. + +Mr. Schofield coughed, and, as he reached the door, called back, but +without turning his head. + +“Never mind, little boy. A broken window isn't much harm.” + +When he had gone in, Penrod wandered down the yard to the back fence, +climbed upon it, and sat in reverie there. + +A slight figure appeared, likewise upon a fence, beyond two neighbouring +yards. + +“Yay, Penrod!” called comrade Sam Williams. + +“Yay!” returned Penrod, mechanically. + +“I caught Billy Blue Hill!” shouted Sam, describing retribution in a +manner perfectly clear to his friend. “You were mighty lucky to get out +of it.” + +“I know that!” + +“You wouldn't of, if it hadn't been for Marjorie.” + +“Well, don't I know that?” Penrod shouted, with heat. + +“Well, so long!” called Sam, dropping from his fence; and the friendly +voice came then, more faintly, “Many happy returns of the day, Penrod!” + +And now, a plaintive little whine sounded from below Penrod's feet, and, +looking down, he saw that Duke, his wistful, old, scraggly dog sat in +the grass, gazing seekingly up at him. + +The last shaft of sunshine of that day fell graciously and like a +blessing upon the boy sitting on the fence. Years afterward, a quiet +sunset would recall to him sometimes the gentle evening of his twelfth +birthday, and bring him the picture of his boy self, sitting in rosy +light upon the fence, gazing pensively down upon his wistful, scraggly, +little old dog, Duke. But something else, surpassing, he would remember +of that hour, for, in the side street, close by, a pink skirt flickered +from behind a shade tree to the shelter of the fence, there was a gleam +of amber curls, and Penrod started, as something like a tiny white wing +fluttered by his head, and there came to his ears the sound of a light +laugh and of light footsteps departing, the laughter tremulous, the +footsteps fleet. + +In the grass, between Duke's forepaws, there lay a white note, folded in +the shape of a cocked hat, and the sun sent forth a final amazing glory +as Penrod opened it and read: + +“Your my bow.” + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Penrod, by Booth Tarkington + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PENROD *** + +***** This file should be named 402-0.txt or 402-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/402/ + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” + or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project +Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.” + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +“Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right +of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/402-0.zip b/402-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0b41d07 --- /dev/null +++ b/402-0.zip diff --git a/402-h.zip b/402-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..608c7a1 --- /dev/null +++ b/402-h.zip diff --git a/402-h/402-h.htm b/402-h/402-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6547f15 --- /dev/null +++ b/402-h/402-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,9742 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + Penrod, by Booth Tarkington + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Penrod, by Booth Tarkington + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Penrod + +Author: Booth Tarkington + +Release Date: March 14, 2006 [EBook #402] +Last Updated: March 3, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PENROD *** + + + + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h1> + PENROD + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Booth Tarkington + </h2> + <h4> + To <br />John, Donald And Booth Jameson <br /> From A Grateful Uncle + </h4> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a> A BOY AND HIS + DOG <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a> ROMANCE + <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a> THE + COSTUME <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a> DESPERATION + <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a> THE + PAGEANT OF THE TABLE ROUND <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER + VI </a> EVENING <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER + VII </a> EVILS OF DRINK <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0008"> + CHAPTER VIII </a> SCHOOL <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0009"> + CHAPTER IX </a> SOARING <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0010"> + CHAPTER X </a> UNCLE JOHN <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0011"> + CHAPTER XI </a> FIDELITY OF A LITTLE DOG <br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII </a> MISS RENNSDALE ACCEPTS + <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII </a> THE + SMALLPOX MEDICINE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV </a> MAURICE + LEVY'S CONSTITUTION <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV </a> THE + TWO FAMILIES <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI </a> THE + NEW STAR <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII </a> RETIRING + FROM THE SHOW BUSINESS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII + </a> MUSIC <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX + </a> THE INNER BOY <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0020"> + CHAPTER XX </a> BROTHERS OF ANGELS <br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI </a> RUPE COLLINS <br /><br /> + <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII </a> THE IMITATOR <br /><br /> + <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII </a> COLOURED TROOPS + IN ACTION <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV </a> "LITTLE + GENTLEMAN” <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV </a> TAR + <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI </a> THE + QUIET AFTERNOON <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII </a> CONCLUSION + OF THE QUIET AFTERNOON <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER + XXVIII </a> TWELVE <br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX </a> FANCHON <br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX </a> THE BIRTHDAY PARTY + <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER XXXI </a> OVER + THE FENCE <br /><br /> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + CHAPTER I A BOY AND HIS DOG + </h2> + <p> + Penrod sat morosely upon the back fence and gazed with envy at Duke, his + wistful dog. + </p> + <p> + A bitter soul dominated the various curved and angular surfaces known by a + careless world as the face of Penrod Schofield. Except in solitude, that + face was almost always cryptic and emotionless; for Penrod had come into + his twelfth year wearing an expression carefully trained to be + inscrutable. Since the world was sure to misunderstand everything, mere + defensive instinct prompted him to give it as little as possible to lay + hold upon. Nothing is more impenetrable than the face of a boy who has + learned this, and Penrod's was habitually as fathomless as the depth of + his hatred this morning for the literary activities of Mrs. Lora Rewbush—an + almost universally respected fellow citizen, a lady of charitable and + poetic inclinations, and one of his own mother's most intimate friends. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Lora Rewbush had written something which she called “The Children's + Pageant of the Table Round,” and it was to be performed in public that + very afternoon at the Women's Arts and Guild Hall for the benefit of the + Coloured Infants' Betterment Society. And if any flavour of sweetness + remained in the nature of Penrod Schofield after the dismal trials of the + school-week just past, that problematic, infinitesimal remnant was made + pungent acid by the imminence of his destiny to form a prominent feature + of the spectacle, and to declaim the loathsome sentiments of a character + named upon the programme the Child Sir Lancelot. + </p> + <p> + After each rehearsal he had plotted escape, and only ten days earlier + there had been a glimmer of light: Mrs. Lora Rewbush caught a very bad + cold, and it was hoped it might develop into pneumonia; but she recovered + so quickly that not even a rehearsal of the Children's Pageant was + postponed. Darkness closed in. Penrod had rather vaguely debated plans for + a self-mutilation such as would make his appearance as the Child Sir + Lancelot inexpedient on public grounds; it was a heroic and attractive + thought, but the results of some extremely sketchy preliminary experiments + caused him to abandon it. + </p> + <p> + There was no escape; and at last his hour was hard upon him. Therefore he + brooded on the fence and gazed with envy at his wistful Duke. + </p> + <p> + The dog's name was undescriptive of his person, which was obviously the + result of a singular series of mesalliances. He wore a grizzled moustache + and indefinite whiskers; he was small and shabby, and looked like an old + postman. Penrod envied Duke because he was sure Duke would never be + compelled to be a Child Sir Lancelot. He thought a dog free and unshackled + to go or come as the wind listeth. Penrod forgot the life he led Duke. + </p> + <p> + There was a long soliloquy upon the fence, a plaintive monologue without + words: the boy's thoughts were adjectives, but they were expressed by a + running film of pictures in his mind's eye, morbidly prophetic of the + hideosities before him. Finally he spoke aloud, with such spleen that Duke + rose from his haunches and lifted one ear in keen anxiety. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “'I hight Sir Lancelot du Lake, the Child, + Gentul-hearted, meek, and mild. + What though I'm <i>but </i>a littul child, + Gentul-hearted, meek, and——' <i>oof</i>!” + </pre> + <p> + All of this except “oof” was a quotation from the Child Sir Lancelot, as + conceived by Mrs. Lora Rewbush. Choking upon it, Penrod slid down from the + fence, and with slow and thoughtful steps entered a one-storied wing of + the stable, consisting of a single apartment, floored with cement and used + as a storeroom for broken bric-a-brac, old paint-buckets, decayed + garden-hose, worn-out carpets, dead furniture, and other condemned odds + and ends not yet considered hopeless enough to be given away. + </p> + <p> + In one corner stood a large box, a part of the building itself: it was + eight feet high and open at the top, and it had been constructed as a + sawdust magazine from which was drawn material for the horse's bed in a + stall on the other side of the partition. The big box, so high and + towerlike, so commodious, so suggestive, had ceased to fulfil its + legitimate function; though, providentially, it had been at least half + full of sawdust when the horse died. Two years had gone by since that + passing; an interregnum in transportation during which Penrod's father was + “thinking” (he explained sometimes) of an automobile. Meanwhile, the + gifted and generous sawdust-box had served brilliantly in war and peace: + it was Penrod's stronghold. + </p> + <p> + There was a partially defaced sign upon the front wall of the box; the + donjon-keep had known mercantile impulses: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The O. K. RaBiT Co. + PENROD ScHoFiELD AND CO. + iNQuiRE FOR PRicEs +</pre> + <p> + This was a venture of the preceding vacation, and had netted, at one time, + an accrued and owed profit of $1.38. Prospects had been brightest on the + very eve of cataclysm. The storeroom was locked and guarded, but + twenty-seven rabbits and Belgian hares, old and young, had perished here + on a single night—through no human agency, but in a foray of cats, + the besiegers treacherously tunnelling up through the sawdust from the + small aperture which opened into the stall beyond the partition. Commerce + has its martyrs. + </p> + <p> + Penrod climbed upon a barrel, stood on tiptoe, grasped the rim of the box; + then, using a knot-hole as a stirrup, threw one leg over the top, drew + himself up, and dropped within. Standing upon the packed sawdust, he was + just tall enough to see over the top. + </p> + <p> + Duke had not followed him into the storeroom, but remained near the open + doorway in a concave and pessimistic attitude. Penrod felt in a dark + corner of the box and laid hands upon a simple apparatus consisting of an + old bushel-basket with a few yards of clothes-line tied to each of its + handles. He passed the ends of the lines over a big spool, which revolved + upon an axle of wire suspended from a beam overhead, and, with the aid of + this improvised pulley, lowered the empty basket until it came to rest in + an upright position upon the floor of the storeroom at the foot of the + sawdust-box. + </p> + <p> + “Eleva-ter!” shouted Penrod. “Ting-ting!” + </p> + <p> + Duke, old and intelligently apprehensive, approached slowly, in a + semicircular manner, deprecatingly, but with courtesy. He pawed the basket + delicately; then, as if that were all his master had expected of him, + uttered one bright bark, sat down, and looked up triumphantly. His + hypocrisy was shallow: many a horrible quarter of an hour had taught him + his duty in this matter. + </p> + <p> + “El-e-<i>vay</i>-ter!” shouted Penrod sternly. “You want me to come down + there to you?” + </p> + <p> + Duke looked suddenly haggard. He pawed the basket feebly again and, upon + another outburst from on high, prostrated himself flat. Again threatened, + he gave a superb impersonation of a worm. + </p> + <p> + “You get in that el-e-<i>vay</i>-ter!” + </p> + <p> + Reckless with despair, Duke jumped into the basket, landing in a + dishevelled posture, which he did not alter until he had been drawn up and + poured out upon the floor of sawdust with the box. There, shuddering, he + lay in doughnut shape and presently slumbered. + </p> + <p> + It was dark in the box, a condition that might have been remedied by + sliding back a small wooden panel on runners, which would have let in + ample light from the alley; but Penrod Schofield had more interesting + means of illumination. He knelt, and from a former soap-box, in a corner, + took a lantern, without a chimney, and a large oil-can, the leak in the + latter being so nearly imperceptible that its banishment from household + use had seemed to Penrod as inexplicable as it was providential. + </p> + <p> + He shook the lantern near his ear: nothing splashed; there was no sound + but a dry clinking. But there was plenty of kerosene in the can; and he + filled the lantern, striking a match to illumine the operation. Then he + lit the lantern and hung it upon a nail against the wall. The sawdust + floor was slightly impregnated with oil, and the open flame quivered in + suggestive proximity to the side of the box; however, some rather deep + charrings of the plank against which the lantern hung offered evidence + that the arrangement was by no means a new one, and indicated at least a + possibility of no fatality occurring this time. + </p> + <p> + Next, Penrod turned up the surface of the sawdust in another corner of the + floor, and drew forth a cigar-box in which were half a dozen cigarettes, + made of hayseed and thick brown wrapping paper, a lead-pencil, an eraser, + and a small note-book, the cover of which was labelled in his own + handwriting: + </p> + <p> + “English Grammar. Penrod Schofield. Room 6, Ward School Nomber Seventh.” + </p> + <p> + The first page of this book was purely academic; but the study of English + undefiled terminated with a slight jar at the top of the second: “Nor must + an adverb be used to modif——” + </p> + <p> + Immediately followed: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “HARoLD RAMoREZ THE RoADAGENT + OR WiLD LiFE AMoNG THE + ROCKY MTS.” + </pre> + <p> + And the subsequent entries in the book appeared to have little concern + with Room 6, Ward School Nomber Seventh. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II ROMANCE + </h2> + <p> + The author of “Harold Ramorez,” etc., lit one of the hayseed cigarettes, + seated himself comfortably, with his back against the wall and his right + shoulder just under the lantern, elevated his knees to support the + note-book, turned to a blank page, and wrote, slowly and earnestly: + </p> + <p> + “CHAPITER THE SIXTH” + </p> + <p> + He took a knife from his pocket, and, broodingly, his eyes upon the inward + embryos of vision, sharpened his pencil. After that, he extended a foot + and meditatively rubbed Duke's back with the side of his shoe. Creation, + with Penrod, did not leap, full-armed, from the brain; but finally he + began to produce. He wrote very slowly at first, and then with increasing + rapidity; faster and faster, gathering momentum and growing more and more + fevered as he sped, till at last the true fire came, without which no lamp + of real literature may be made to burn. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Wilson reched for his gun but our hero had him covred and soon said + Well I guess you don't come any of that on me my freind. + </p> + <p> + Well what makes you so sure about it sneered the other bitting his lip so + savageley that the blood ran. You are nothing but a common Roadagent any + way and I do not propose to be bafled by such, Ramorez laughed at this and + kep Mr. Wilson covred by his ottomatick. + </p> + <p> + Soon the two men were struggling together in the death-roes but soon Mr + Wilson got him bound and gaged his mouth and went away for awhile leavin + our hero, it was dark and he writhd at his bonds writhing on the floor + wile the rats came out of their holes and bit him and vernim got all over + him from the floor of that helish spot but soon he managed to push the gag + out of his mouth with the end of his toungeu and got all his bonds off. + </p> + <p> + Soon Mr Wilson came back to tant him with his helpless condition flowed by + his gang of detectives and they said Oh look at Ramorez sneering at his + plight and tanted him with his helpless condition because Ramorez had put + the bonds back sos he would look the same but could throw them off him + when he wanted to Just look at him now sneered they. To hear him talk you + would thought he was hot stuff and they said Look at him now, him that was + going to do so much, Oh I would not like to be in his fix. + </p> + <p> + Soon Harold got mad at this and jumped up with blasing eyes throwin off + his bonds like they were air Ha Ha sneered he I guess you better not talk + so much next time. Soon there flowed another awful struggle and siezin his + ottomatick back from Mr Wilson he shot two of the detectives through the + heart Bing Bing went the ottomatick and two more went to meet their Maker + only two detectives left now and so he stabbed one and the scondrel went + to meet his Maker for now our hero was fighting for his very life. It was + dark in there now for night had falen and a terrible view met the eye + Blood was just all over everything and the rats were eatin the dead men. + </p> + <p> + Soon our hero manged to get his back to the wall for he was fighting for + his very life now and shot Mr Wilson through the abodmen Oh said Mr Wilson + you—— —— —— (The dashes are Penrod's.) + </p> + <p> + Mr Wilson stagerd back vile oaths soilin his lips for he was in pain Why + you—— ——you sneered he I will get you yet—— + ——you Harold Ramorez + </p> + <p> + The remainin scondrel had an ax which he came near our heros head with but + missed him and ramand stuck in the wall Our heros amunition was exhaused + what was he to do, the remanin scondrel would soon get his ax lose so our + hero sprung forward and bit him till his teeth met in the flech for now + our hero was fighting for his very life. At this the remanin scondrel also + cursed and swore vile oaths. Oh sneered he—— —— + ——you Harold Ramorez what did you bite me for Yes sneered Mr + Wilson also and he has shot me in the abdomen too the—— + </p> + <p> + Soon they were both cursin and reviln him together Why you—— + —— —— —— ——sneered they + what did you want to injure us for——you Harold Ramorez you + have not got any sence and you think you are so much but you are no better + than anybody else and you are a—— —— —— + —— —— —— + </p> + <p> + Soon our hero could stand this no longer. If you could learn to act like + gentlmen said he I would not do any more to you now and your low vile + exppresions have not got any effect on me only to injure your own self + when you go to meet your Maker Oh I guess you have had enogh for one day + and I think you have learned a lesson and will not soon atemp to beard + Harold Ramorez again so with a tantig laugh he cooly lit a cigarrete and + takin the keys of the cell from Mr Wilson poket went on out. + </p> + <p> + Soon Mr Wilson and the wonded detective manged to bind up their wonds and + got up off the floor—— ——it I will have that + dasstads life now sneered they if we have to swing for it—— + —— —— ——him he shall not eccape us + again the low down—— —— —— —— + —— + </p> + <p> + Chapiter seventh + </p> + <p> + A mule train of heavily laden burros laden with gold from the mines was to + be seen wondering among the highest clifts and gorgs of the Rocky Mts and + a tall man with a long silken mustash and a cartigde belt could be heard + cursin vile oaths because he well knew this was the lair of Harold Ramorez + Why—— —— ——you you—— + —— —— —— mules you sneered he because + the poor mules were not able to go any quicker —— you I will + show you Why—— —— —— —— + —— ——it sneered he his oaths growing viler and + viler I will whip you—— —— —— —— + —— —— ——you sos you will not be able + to walk for a week—— ——you you mean old—— + —— —— —— —— —— + —— —— ——mules you + </p> + <p> + Scarcly had the vile words left his lips when—— + </p> + <p> + “PENROD!” + </p> + <p> + It was his mother's voice, calling from the back porch. + </p> + <p> + Simultaneously, the noon whistles began to blow, far and near; and the + romancer in the sawdust-box, summoned prosaically from steep mountain + passes above the clouds, paused with stubby pencil halfway from lip to + knee. His eyes were shining: there was a rapt sweetness in his gaze. As he + wrote, his burden had grown lighter; thoughts of Mrs. Lora Rewbush had + almost left him; and in particular as he recounted (even by the chaste + dash) the annoyed expressions of Mr. Wilson, the wounded detective, and + the silken moustached mule-driver, he had felt mysteriously relieved + concerning the Child Sir Lancelot. Altogether he looked a better and a + brighter boy. + </p> + <p> + “Pen-<i>rod</i>!” + </p> + <p> + The rapt look faded slowly. He sighed, but moved not. + </p> + <p> + “Penrod! We're having lunch early just on your account, so you'll have + plenty of time to be dressed for the pageant. Hurry!” + </p> + <p> + There was silence in Penrod's aerie. + </p> + <p> + “<i>Pen</i>-rod!” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Schofields voice sounded nearer, indicating a threatened approach. + Penrod bestirred himself: he blew out the lantern, and shouted + plaintively: + </p> + <p> + “Well, ain't I coming fast's I can?” + </p> + <p> + “Do hurry,” returned the voice, withdrawing; and the kitchen door could be + heard to close. + </p> + <p> + Languidly, Penrod proceeded to set his house in order. + </p> + <p> + Replacing his manuscript and pencil in the cigar-box, he carefully buried + the box in the sawdust, put the lantern and oil-can back in the soap-box, + adjusted the elevator for the reception of Duke, and, in no uncertain + tone, invited the devoted animal to enter. + </p> + <p> + Duke stretched himself amiably, affecting not to hear; and when this + pretence became so obvious that even a dog could keep it up no longer, sat + down in a corner, facing it, his back to his master, and his head + perpendicular, nose upward, supported by the convergence of the two walls. + This, from a dog, is the last word, the comble of the immutable. Penrod + commanded, stormed, tried gentleness; persuaded with honeyed words and + pictured rewards. Duke's eyes looked backward; otherwise he moved not. + Time elapsed. Penrod stooped to flattery, finally to insincere caresses; + then, losing patience spouted sudden threats. + </p> + <p> + Duke remained immovable, frozen fast to his great gesture of implacable + despair. + </p> + <p> + A footstep sounded on the threshold of the store-room. + </p> + <p> + “Penrod, come down from that box this instant!” + </p> + <p> + “Ma'am?” + </p> + <p> + “Are you up in that sawdust-box again?” As Mrs. Schofield had just heard + her son's voice issue from the box, and also, as she knew he was there + anyhow, her question must have been put for oratorical purposes only. + “Because if you are,” she continued promptly, “I'm going to ask your papa + not to let you play there any——” + </p> + <p> + Penrod's forehead, his eyes, the tops of his ears, and most of his hair, + became visible to her at the top of the box. “I ain't 'playing!'” he said + indignantly. + </p> + <p> + “Well, what <i>are </i>you doing?” + </p> + <p> + “Just coming down,” he replied, in a grieved but patient tone. + </p> + <p> + “Then why don't you <i>come</i>?” + </p> + <p> + “I got Duke here. I got to get him <i>down</i>, haven't I? You don't + suppose I want to leave a poor dog in here to starve, do you?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, hand him down over the side to me. Let me——” + </p> + <p> + “I'll get him down all right,” said Penrod. “I got him up here, and I + guess I can get him down!” + </p> + <p> + “Well then, <i>do</i> it!” + </p> + <p> + “I will if you'll let me alone. If you'll go on back to the house I + promise to be there inside of two minutes. Honest!” + </p> + <p> + He put extreme urgency into this, and his mother turned toward the house. + “If you're not there in two minutes——” + </p> + <p> + “I will be!” + </p> + <p> + After her departure, Penrod expended some finalities of eloquence upon + Duke, then disgustedly gathered him up in his arms, dumped him into the + basket and, shouting sternly, “All in for the ground floor—step back + there, madam—all ready, Jim!” lowered dog and basket to the floor of + the storeroom. Duke sprang out in tumultuous relief, and bestowed frantic + affection upon his master as the latter slid down from the box. + </p> + <p> + Penrod dusted himself sketchily, experiencing a sense of satisfaction, + dulled by the overhanging afternoon, perhaps, but perceptible: he had the + feeling of one who has been true to a cause. The operation of the elevator + was unsinful and, save for the shock to Duke's nervous system, it was + harmless; but Penrod could not possibly have brought himself to exhibit it + in the presence of his mother or any other grown person in the world. The + reasons for secrecy were undefined; at least, Penrod did not define them. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III THE COSTUME + </h2> + <p> + After lunch his mother and his sister Margaret, a pretty girl of nineteen, + dressed him for the sacrifice. They stood him near his mother's bedroom + window and did what they would to him. + </p> + <p> + During the earlier anguishes of the process he was mute, exceeding the + pathos of the stricken calf in the shambles; but a student of eyes might + have perceived in his soul the premonitory symptoms of a sinister + uprising. At a rehearsal (in citizens' clothes) attended by mothers and + grown-up sisters, Mrs. Lora Rewbush had announced that she wished the + costuming to be “as medieval and artistic as possible.” Otherwise, and as + to details, she said, she would leave the costumes entirely to the good + taste of the children's parents. Mrs. Schofield and Margaret were no + archeologists, but they knew that their taste was as good as that of other + mothers and sisters concerned; so with perfect confidence they had planned + and executed a costume for Penrod; and the only misgiving they felt was + connected with the tractability of the Child Sir Lancelot himself. + </p> + <p> + Stripped to his underwear, he had been made to wash himself vehemently; + then they began by shrouding his legs in a pair of silk stockings, once + blue but now mostly whitish. Upon Penrod they visibly surpassed mere + ampleness; but they were long, and it required only a rather loose + imagination to assume that they were tights. + </p> + <p> + The upper part of his body was next concealed from view by a garment so + peculiar that its description becomes difficult. In 1886, Mrs. Schofield, + then unmarried, had worn at her “coming-out party” a dress of vivid salmon + silk which had been remodelled after her marriage to accord with various + epochs of fashion until a final, unskilful campaign at a dye-house had + left it in a condition certain to attract much attention to the wearer. + Mrs. Schofield had considered giving it to Della, the cook; but had + decided not to do so, because you never could tell how Della was going to + take things, and cooks were scarce. + </p> + <p> + It may have been the word “medieval” (in Mrs. Lora Rewbush's rich phrase) + which had inspired the idea for a last conspicuous usefulness; at all + events, the bodice of that once salmon dress, somewhat modified and + moderated, now took a position, for its farewell appearance in society, + upon the back, breast, and arms of the Child Sir Lancelot. + </p> + <p> + The area thus costumed ceased at the waist, leaving a Jaeger-like and + unmedieval gap thence to the tops of the stockings. The inventive genius + of woman triumphantly bridged it, but in a manner which imposes upon + history almost insuperable delicacies of narration. Penrod's father was an + old-fashioned man: the twentieth century had failed to shake his faith in + red flannel for cold weather; and it was while Mrs. Schofield was putting + away her husband's winter underwear that she perceived how hopelessly one + of the elder specimens had dwindled; and simultaneously she received the + inspiration which resulted in a pair of trunks for the Child Sir Lancelot, + and added an earnest bit of colour, as well as a genuine touch of the + Middle Ages, to his costume. Reversed, fore to aft, with the greater part + of the legs cut off, and strips of silver braid covering the seams, this + garment, she felt, was not traceable to its original source. + </p> + <p> + When it had been placed upon Penrod, the stockings were attached to it by + a system of safety-pins, not very perceptible at a distance. Next, after + being severely warned against stooping, Penrod got his feet into the + slippers he wore to dancing-school—“patent-leather pumps” now + decorated with large pink rosettes. + </p> + <p> + “If I can't stoop,” he began, smolderingly, “I'd like to know how'm I + goin' to kneel in the pag——” + </p> + <p> + “You must <i>manage</i>!” This, uttered through pins, was evidently + thought to be sufficient. + </p> + <p> + They fastened some ruching about his slender neck, pinned ribbons at + random all over him, and then Margaret thickly powdered his hair. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes, that's all right,” she said, replying to a question put by her + mother. “They always powdered their hair in Colonial times.” + </p> + <p> + “It doesn't seem right to me—exactly,” objected Mrs. Schofield, + gently. “Sir Lancelot must have been ever so long before Colonial times.” + </p> + <p> + “That doesn't matter,” Margaret reassured her. “Nobody'll know the + difference—Mrs. Lora Rewbush least of all. I don't think she knows a + thing about it, though, of course, she does write splendidly and the words + of the pageant are just beautiful. Stand still, Penrod!” (The author of + “Harold Ramorez” had moved convulsively.) “Besides, powdered hair's always + becoming. Look at him. You'd hardly know it was Penrod!” + </p> + <p> + The pride and admiration with which she pronounced this undeniable truth + might have been thought tactless, but Penrod, not analytical, found his + spirits somewhat elevated. No mirror was in his range of vision and, + though he had submitted to cursory measurements of his person a week + earlier, he had no previous acquaintance with the costume. He began to + form a not unpleasing mental picture of his appearance, something + somewhere between the portraits of George Washington and a vivid memory of + Miss Julia Marlowe at a matinee of “Twelfth Night.” + </p> + <p> + He was additionally cheered by a sword which had been borrowed from a + neighbor, who was a Knight of Pythias. Finally there was a mantle, an old + golf cape of Margaret's. Fluffy polka-dots of white cotton had been sewed + to it generously; also it was ornamented with a large cross of red + flannel, suggested by the picture of a Crusader in a newspaper + advertisement. The mantle was fastened to Penrod's shoulder (that is, to + the shoulder of Mrs. Schofield's ex-bodice) by means of large safety-pins, + and arranged to hang down behind him, touching his heels, but obscuring + nowise the glory of his facade. Then, at last, he was allowed to step + before a mirror. + </p> + <p> + It was a full-length glass, and the worst immediately happened. It might + have been a little less violent, perhaps, if Penrod's expectations had not + been so richly and poetically idealized; but as things were, the revolt + was volcanic. + </p> + <p> + Victor Hugo's account of the fight with the devil-fish, in “Toilers of the + Sea,” encourages a belief that, had Hugo lived and increased in power, he + might have been equal to a proper recital of the half hour which followed + Penrod's first sight of himself as the Child Sir Lancelot. But Mr. Wilson + himself, dastard but eloquent foe of Harold Ramorez, could not have + expressed, with all the vile dashes at his command, the sentiments which + animated Penrod's bosom when the instantaneous and unalterable conviction + descended upon him that he was intended by his loved ones to make a public + spectacle of himself in his sister's stockings and part of an old dress of + his mother's. + </p> + <p> + To him these familiar things were not disguised at all; there seemed no + possibility that the whole world would not know them at a glance. The + stockings were worse than the bodice. He had been assured that these could + not be recognized, but, seeing them in the mirror, he was sure that no + human eye could fail at first glance to detect the difference between + himself and the former purposes of these stockings. Fold, wrinkle, and + void shrieked their history with a hundred tongues, invoking earthquake, + eclipse, and blue ruin. The frantic youth's final submission was obtained + only after a painful telephonic conversation between himself and his + father, the latter having been called up and upon, by the exhausted Mrs. + Schofield, to subjugate his offspring by wire. + </p> + <p> + The two ladies made all possible haste, after this, to deliver Penrod into + the hands of Mrs. Lora Rewbush; nevertheless, they found opportunity to + exchange earnest congratulations upon his not having recognized the humble + but serviceable paternal garment now brilliant about the Lancelotish + middle. Altogether, they felt that the costume was a success. Penrod + looked like nothing ever remotely imagined by Sir Thomas Malory or Alfred + Tennyson;—for that matter, he looked like nothing ever before seen + on earth; but as Mrs. Schofield and Margaret took their places in the + audience at the Women's Arts and Guild Hall, the anxiety they felt + concerning Penrod's elocutionary and gesticular powers, so soon to be put + to public test, was pleasantly tempered by their satisfaction that, owing + to their efforts, his outward appearance would be a credit to the family. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV DESPERATION + </h2> + <p> + The Child Sir Lancelot found himself in a large anteroom behind the stage—a + room crowded with excited children, all about equally medieval and + artistic. Penrod was less conspicuous than he thought himself, but he was + so preoccupied with his own shame, steeling his nerves to meet the first + inevitable taunting reference to his sister's stockings, that he failed to + perceive there were others present in much of his own unmanned condition. + Retiring to a corner, immediately upon his entrance, he managed to + unfasten the mantle at the shoulders, and, drawing it round him, pinned it + again at his throat so that it concealed the rest of his costume. This + permitted a temporary relief, but increased his horror of the moment when, + in pursuance of the action of the “pageant,” the sheltering garment must + be cast aside. + </p> + <p> + Some of the other child knights were also keeping their mantles close + about them. A few of the envied opulent swung brilliant fabrics from their + shoulders, airily, showing off hired splendours from a professional + costumer's stock, while one or two were insulting examples of parental + indulgence, particularly little Maurice Levy, the Child Sir Galahad. This + shrinking person went clamorously about, making it known everywhere that + the best tailor in town had been dazzled by a great sum into constructing + his costume. It consisted of blue velvet knickerbockers, a white satin + waistcoat, and a beautifully cut little swallow-tailed coat with pearl + buttons. The medieval and artistic triumph was completed by a mantle of + yellow velvet, and little white boots, sporting gold tassels. + </p> + <p> + All this radiance paused in a brilliant career and addressed the Child Sir + Lancelot, gathering an immediately formed semicircular audience of little + girls. Woman was ever the trailer of magnificence. + </p> + <p> + “What <i>you </i>got on?” inquired Mr. Levy, after dispensing information. + “What you got on under that ole golf cape?” + </p> + <p> + Penrod looked upon him coldly. At other times his questioner would have + approached him with deference, even with apprehension. But to-day the + Child Sir Galahad was somewhat intoxicated with the power of his own + beauty. + </p> + <p> + “What <i>you</i> got on?” he repeated. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, nothin',” said Penrod, with an indifference assumed at great cost to + his nervous system. + </p> + <p> + The elate Maurice was inspired to set up as a wit. “Then you're nakid!” he + shouted exultantly. “Penrod Schofield says he hasn't got nothin' on under + that ole golf cape! He's nakid! He's nakid.” + </p> + <p> + The indelicate little girls giggled delightedly, and a javelin pierced the + inwards of Penrod when he saw that the Child Elaine, amber-curled and + beautiful Marjorie Jones, lifted golden laughter to the horrid jest. + </p> + <p> + Other boys and girls came flocking to the uproar. “He's nakid, he's + nakid!” shrieked the Child Sir Galahad. “Penrod Schofield's nakid! He's <i>na-a-a-kid</i>!” + </p> + <p> + “Hush, hush!” said Mrs. Lora Rewbush, pushing her way into the group. + “Remember, we are all little knights and ladies to-day. Little knights and + ladies of the Table Round would not make so much noise. Now children, we + must begin to take our places on the stage. Is everybody here?” + </p> + <p> + Penrod made his escape under cover of this diversion: he slid behind Mrs. + Lora Rewbush, and being near a door, opened it unnoticed and went out + quickly, closing it behind him. He found himself in a narrow and vacant + hallway which led to a door marked “Janitor's Room.” + </p> + <p> + Burning with outrage, heart-sick at the sweet, cold-blooded laughter of + Marjorie Jones, Penrod rested his elbows upon a window-sill and speculated + upon the effects of a leap from the second story. One of the reasons he + gave it up was his desire to live on Maurice Levy's account: already he + was forming educational plans for the Child Sir Galahad. + </p> + <p> + A stout man in blue overalls passed through the hallway muttering to + himself petulantly. “I reckon they'll find that hall hot enough <i>now</i>!” + he said, conveying to Penrod an impression that some too feminine women + had sent him upon an unreasonable errand to the furnace. He went into the + Janitor's Room and, emerging a moment later, minus the overalls, passed + Penrod again with a bass rumble—“Dern 'em!” it seemed he said—and + made a gloomy exit by the door at the upper end of the hallway. + </p> + <p> + The conglomerate and delicate rustle of a large, mannerly audience was + heard as the janitor opened and closed the door; and stage-fright seized + the boy. The orchestra began an overture, and, at that, Penrod, trembling + violently, tiptoed down the hall into the Janitor's Room. It was a + cul-de-sac: There was no outlet save by the way he had come. + </p> + <p> + Despairingly he doffed his mantle and looked down upon himself for a last + sickening assurance that the stockings were as obviously and disgracefully + Margaret's as they had seemed in the mirror at home. For a moment he was + encouraged: perhaps he was no worse than some of the other boys. Then he + noticed that a safety-pin had opened; one of those connecting the + stockings with his trunks. He sat down to fasten it and his eye fell for + the first time with particular attention upon the trunks. Until this + instant he had been preoccupied with the stockings. + </p> + <p> + Slowly recognition dawned in his eyes. + </p> + <p> + The Schofields' house stood on a corner at the intersection of two + main-travelled streets; the fence was low, and the publicity obtained by + the washable portion of the family apparel, on Mondays, had often been + painful to Penrod; for boys have a peculiar sensitiveness in these + matters. A plain, matter-of-fact washerwoman' employed by Mrs. Schofield, + never left anything to the imagination of the passer-by; and of all her + calm display the scarlet flaunting of his father's winter wear had most + abashed Penrod. One day Marjorie Jones, all gold and starch, had passed + when the dreadful things were on the line: Penrod had hidden himself, + shuddering. The whole town, he was convinced, knew these garments + intimately and derisively. + </p> + <p> + And now, as he sat in the janitor's chair, the horrible and paralyzing + recognition came. He had not an instant's doubt that every fellow actor, + as well as every soul in the audience, would recognize what his mother and + sister had put upon him. For as the awful truth became plain to himself it + seemed blazoned to the world; and far, far louder than the stockings, the + trunks did fairly bellow the grisly secret: <i>whose </i>they were and <i>what + </i>they were! + </p> + <p> + Most people have suffered in a dream the experience of finding themselves + very inadequately clad in the midst of a crowd of well-dressed people, and + such dreamers' sensations are comparable to Penrod's, though faintly, + because Penrod was awake and in much too full possession of the most + active capacities for anguish. + </p> + <p> + A human male whose dress has been damaged, or reveals some vital lack, + suffers from a hideous and shameful loneliness which makes every second + absolutely unbearable until he is again as others of his sex and species; + and there is no act or sin whatever too desperate for him in his struggle + to attain that condition. Also, there is absolutely no embarrassment + possible to a woman which is comparable to that of a man under + corresponding circumstances and in this a boy is a man. Gazing upon the + ghastly trunks, the stricken Penrod felt that he was a degree worse then + nude; and a great horror of himself filled his soul. + </p> + <p> + “Penrod Schofield!” + </p> + <p> + The door into the hallway opened, and a voice demanded him. He could not + be seen from the hallway, but the hue and the cry was up; and he knew he + must be taken. It was only a question of seconds. He huddled in his chair. + </p> + <p> + “Penrod Schofield!” cried Mrs. Lora Rewbush angrily. + </p> + <p> + The distracted boy rose and, as he did so, a long pin sank deep into his + back. He extracted it frenziedly, which brought to his ears a protracted + and sonorous ripping, too easily located by a final gesture of horror. + </p> + <p> + “Penrod Schofield!” Mrs. Lora Rewbush had come out into the hallway. + </p> + <p> + And now, in this extremity, when all seemed lost indeed, particularly + including honour, the dilating eye of the outlaw fell upon the blue + overalls which the janitor had left hanging upon a peg. + </p> + <p> + Inspiration and action were almost simultaneous. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V THE PAGEANT OF THE TABLE ROUND + </h2> + <p> + “Penrod!” Mrs. Lora Rewbush stood in the doorway, indignantly gazing upon + a Child Sir Lancelot mantled to the heels. “Do you know that you have kept + an audience of five hundred people waiting for ten minutes?” She, also, + detained the five hundred while she spake further. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Penrod contentedly, as he followed her toward the buzzing + stage, “I was just sitting there thinking.” + </p> + <p> + Two minutes later the curtain rose on a medieval castle hall richly done + in the new stage-craft made in Germany and consisting of pink and blue + cheesecloth. The Child King Arthur and the Child Queen Guinevere were + disclosed upon thrones, with the Child Elaine and many other celebrities + in attendance; while about fifteen Child Knights were seated at a + dining-room table round, which was covered with a large Oriental rug, and + displayed (for the knights' refreshment) a banquet service of silver + loving-cups and trophies, borrowed from the Country Club and some local + automobile manufacturers. + </p> + <p> + In addition to this splendour, potted plants and palms have seldom been + more lavishly used in any castle on the stage or off. + </p> + <p> + The footlights were aided by a “spot-light” from the rear of the hall; and + the children were revealed in a blaze of glory. + </p> + <p> + A hushed, multitudinous “O-OH” of admiration came from the decorous and + delighted audience. Then the children sang feebly: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Chuldrun of the Tabul Round, + Lit-tul knights and ladies we. + Let our voy-siz all resound + Faith and hope and charitee!” + </pre> + <p> + The Child King Arthur rose, extended his sceptre with the decisive gesture + of a semaphore, and spake: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Each littul knight and lady born + Has noble deeds <i>to </i>perform + In <i>thee </i>child-world of shivullree, + No matter how small his share may be. + Let each advance and tell in turn + What claim has each to knighthood earn.” + </pre> + <p> + The Child Sir Mordred, the villain of this piece, rose in his place at the + table round, and piped the only lines ever written by Mrs. Lora Rewbush + which Penrod Schofield could have pronounced without loathing. Georgie + Bassett, a really angelic boy, had been selected for the role of Mordred. + His perfect conduct had earned for him the sardonic sobriquet, “The Little + Gentleman,” among his boy acquaintances. (Naturally he had no friends.) + Hence the other boys supposed that he had been selected for the wicked + Mordred as a reward of virtue. He declaimed serenely: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “I hight Sir Mordred the Child, and I teach + Lessons of selfishest evil, and reach + Out into darkness. Thoughtless, unkind, + And ruthless is Mordred, and unrefined.” + </pre> + <p> + The Child Mordred was properly rebuked and denied the accolade, though, + like the others, he seemed to have assumed the title already. He made a + plotter's exit. Whereupon Maurice Levy rose, bowed, announced that he + highted the Child Sir Galahad, and continued with perfect sang-froid: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “I am the purest of the pure. + I have but kindest thoughts each day. + I give my riches to the poor, + And follow in the Master's way.” + </pre> + <p> + This elicited tokens of approval from the Child King Arthur, and he bade + Maurice “stand forth” and come near the throne, a command obeyed with the + easy grace of conscious merit. + </p> + <p> + It was Penrod's turn. He stepped back from his chair, the table between + him and the audience, and began in a high, breathless monotone: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “I hight Sir Lancelot du Lake, the Child, + Gentul-hearted, meek, and mild. + What though I'm <i>but </i>a littul child, + Gentul-heartud, meek, and mild, + I do my share though but—though but——” + </pre> + <p> + Penrod paused and gulped. The voice of Mrs. Lora Rewbush was heard from + the wings, prompting irritably, and the Child. Sir Lancelot repeated: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “I do my share though but—though but a tot, + I pray you knight Sir Lancelot!” + </pre> + <p> + This also met the royal favour, and Penrod was bidden to join Sir Galahad + at the throne. As he crossed the stage, Mrs. Schofield whispered to + Margaret: + </p> + <p> + “That boy! He's unpinned his mantle and fixed it to cover his whole + costume. After we worked so hard to make it becoming!” + </p> + <p> + “Never mind; he'll have to take the cape off in a minute,” returned + Margaret. She leaned forward suddenly, narrowing her eyes to see better. + “What <i>is</i> that thing hanging about his left ankle?” she whispered + uneasily. “How queer! He must have got tangled in something.” + </p> + <p> + “Where?” asked Mrs. Schofield, in alarm. + </p> + <p> + “His left foot. It makes him stumble. Don't you see? It looks—it + looks like an elephant's foot!” + </p> + <p> + The Child Sir Lancelot and the Child Sir Galahad clasped hands before + their Child King. Penrod was conscious of a great uplift; in a moment he + would have to throw aside his mantle, but even so he was protected and + sheltered in the human garment of a man. His stage-fright had passed, for + the audience was but an indistinguishable blur of darkness beyond the + dazzling lights. His most repulsive speech (that in which he proclaimed + himself a “tot”) was over and done with; and now at last the small, moist + hand of the Child Sir Galahad lay within his own. Craftily his brown + fingers stole from Maurice's palm to the wrist. The two boys declaimed in + concert: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “We are two chuldrun of the Tabul Round + Strewing kindness all a-round. + With love and good deeds striving ever for the best, + May our littul efforts e'er be blest. + Two littul hearts we offer. See + United in love, faith, hope, and char—OW!” + </pre> + <p> + The conclusion of the duet was marred. The Child Sir Galahad suddenly + stiffened, and, uttering an irrepressible shriek of anguish, gave a brief + exhibition of the contortionist's art. (“HE'S TWISTIN' MY WRIST! DERN YOU, + LEGGO!”) + </p> + <p> + The voice of Mrs. Lora Rewbush was again heard from the wings; it sounded + bloodthirsty. Penrod released his victim; and the Child King Arthur, + somewhat disconcerted, extended his sceptre and, with the assistance of + the enraged prompter, said: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Sweet child-friends of the Tabul Round, + In brotherly love and kindness abound, + Sir Lancelot, you have spoken well, + Sir Galahad, too, as clear as bell. + So now pray doff your mantles gay. + You shall be knighted this very day.” + </pre> + <p> + And Penrod doffed his mantle. + </p> + <p> + Simultaneously, a thick and vasty gasp came from the audience, as from + five hundred bathers in a wholly unexpected surf. This gasp was punctuated + irregularly, over the auditorium, by imperfectly subdued screams both of + dismay and incredulous joy, and by two dismal shrieks. Altogether it was + an extraordinary sound, a sound never to be forgotten by any one who heard + it. It was almost as unforgettable as the sight which caused it; the word + “sight” being here used in its vernacular sense, for Penrod, standing + unmantled and revealed in all the medieval and artistic glory of the + janitor's blue overalls, falls within its meaning. + </p> + <p> + The janitor was a heavy man, and his overalls, upon Penrod, were merely + oceanic. The boy was at once swaddled and lost within their blue gulfs and + vast saggings; and the left leg, too hastily rolled up, had descended with + a distinctively elephantine effect, as Margaret had observed. Certainly, + the Child Sir Lancelot was at least a sight. + </p> + <p> + It is probable that a great many in that hall must have had, even then, a + consciousness that they were looking on at History in the Making. A + supreme act is recognizable at sight: it bears the birthmark of + immortality. But Penrod, that marvellous boy, had begun to declaim, even + with the gesture of flinging off his mantle for the accolade: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “I first, the Child Sir Lancelot du Lake, + Will volunteer to knighthood take, + And kneeling here before your throne + I vow to——” + </pre> + <p> + He finished his speech unheard. The audience had recovered breath, but had + lost self-control, and there ensued something later described by a + participant as a sort of cultured riot. + </p> + <p> + The actors in the “pageant” were not so dumfounded by Penrod's costume as + might have been expected. A few precocious geniuses perceived that the + overalls were the Child Lancelot's own comment on maternal intentions; and + these were profoundly impressed: they regarded him with the grisly + admiration of young and ambitious criminals for a jail-mate about to be + distinguished by hanging. But most of the children simply took it to be + the case (a little strange, but not startling) that Penrod's mother had + dressed him like that—which is pathetic. They tried to go on with + the “pageant.” + </p> + <p> + They made a brief, manful effort. But the irrepressible outbursts from the + audience bewildered them; every time Sir Lancelot du Lake the Child opened + his mouth, the great, shadowy house fell into an uproar, and the children + into confusion. Strong women and brave girls in the audience went out into + the lobby, shrieking and clinging to one another. Others remained, rocking + in their seats, helpless and spent. The neighbourhood of Mrs. Schofield + and Margaret became, tactfully, a desert. Friends of the author went + behind the scenes and encountered a hitherto unknown phase of Mrs. Lora + Rewbush; they said, afterward, that she hardly seemed to know what she was + doing. She begged to be left alone somewhere with Penrod Schofield, for + just a little while. + </p> + <p> + They led her away. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VI EVENING + </h2> + <p> + The sun was setting behind the back fence (though at a considerable + distance) as Penrod Schofield approached that fence and looked + thoughtfully up at the top of it, apparently having in mind some purpose + to climb up and sit there. Debating this, he passed his fingers gently up + and down the backs of his legs; and then something seemed to decide him + not to sit anywhere. He leaned against the fence, sighed profoundly, and + gazed at Duke, his wistful dog. + </p> + <p> + The sigh was reminiscent: episodes of simple pathos were passing before + his inward eye. About the most painful was the vision of lovely Marjorie + Jones, weeping with rage as the Child Sir Lancelot was dragged, insatiate, + from the prostrate and howling Child Sir Galahad, after an onslaught + delivered the precise instant the curtain began to fall upon the + demoralized “pageant.” And then—oh, pangs! oh, woman!—she + slapped at the ruffian's cheek, as he was led past her by a resentful + janitor; and turning, flung her arms round the Child Sir Galahad's neck. + </p> + <p> + “PENROD SCHOFIELD, DON'T YOU DARE EVER SPEAK TO ME AGAIN AS LONG AS YOU + LIVE!” Maurice's little white boots and gold tassels had done their work. + </p> + <p> + At home the late Child Sir Lancelot was consigned to a locked + clothes-closet pending the arrival of his father. Mr. Schofield came and, + shortly after, there was put into practice an old patriarchal custom. It + is a custom of inconceivable antiquity: probably primordial, certainly + prehistoric, but still in vogue in some remaining citadels of the ancient + simplicities of the Republic. + </p> + <p> + And now, therefore, in the dusk, Penrod leaned against the fence and + sighed. + </p> + <p> + His case is comparable to that of an adult who could have survived a + similar experience. Looking back to the sawdust-box, fancy pictures this + comparable adult a serious and inventive writer engaged in congenial + literary activities in a private retreat. We see this period marked by the + creation of some of the most virile passages of a Work dealing exclusively + in red corpuscles and huge primal impulses. We see this thoughtful man + dragged from his calm seclusion to a horrifying publicity; forced to adopt + the stage and, himself a writer, compelled to exploit the repulsive + sentiments of an author not only personally distasteful to him but whose + whole method and school in belles lettres he despises. + </p> + <p> + We see him reduced by desperation and modesty to stealing a pair of + overalls. We conceive him to have ruined, then, his own reputation, and to + have utterly disgraced his family; next, to have engaged in the duello and + to have been spurned by his lady-love, thus lost to him (according to her + own declaration) forever. Finally, we must behold: imprisonment by the + authorities; the third degree and flagellation. + </p> + <p> + We conceive our man decided that his career had been perhaps too eventful. + Yet Penrod had condensed all of it into eight hours. + </p> + <p> + It appears that he had at least some shadowy perception of a recent + fulness of life, for, as he leaned against the fence, gazing upon his + wistful Duke, he sighed again and murmured aloud: + </p> + <p> + “WELL, HASN'T THIS BEEN A DAY!” + </p> + <p> + But in a little while a star came out, freshly lighted, from the highest + part of the sky, and Penrod, looking up, noticed it casually and a little + drowsily. He yawned. Then he sighed once more, but not reminiscently: + evening had come; the day was over. It was a sigh of pure ennui. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VII EVILS OF DRINK + </h2> + <p> + Next day, Penrod acquired a dime by a simple and antique process which was + without doubt sometimes practised by the boys of Babylon. When the teacher + of his class in Sunday-school requested the weekly contribution, Penrod, + fumbling honestly (at first) in the wrong pockets, managed to look so + embarrassed that the gentle lady told him not to mind, and said she was + often forgetful herself. She was so sweet about it that, looking into the + future, Penrod began to feel confident of a small but regular income. + </p> + <p> + At the close of the afternoon services he did not go home, but proceeded + to squander the funds just withheld from China upon an orgy of the most + pungently forbidden description. In a Drug Emporium, near the church, he + purchased a five-cent sack of candy consisting for the most part of the + heavily flavoured hoofs of horned cattle, but undeniably substantial, and + so generously capable of resisting solution that the purchaser must needs + be avaricious beyond reason who did not realize his money's worth. + </p> + <p> + Equipped with this collation, Penrod contributed his remaining nickel to a + picture show, countenanced upon the seventh day by the legal but not the + moral authorities. Here, in cozy darkness, he placidly insulted his liver + with jaw-breaker upon jaw-breaker from the paper sack, and in a surfeit of + content watched the silent actors on the screen. + </p> + <p> + One film made a lasting impression upon him. It depicted with relentless + pathos the drunkard's progress; beginning with his conversion to beer in + the company of loose travelling men; pursuing him through an inexplicable + lapse into evening clothes and the society of some remarkably painful + ladies, next, exhibiting the effects of alcohol on the victim's domestic + disposition, the unfortunate man was seen in the act of striking his wife + and, subsequently, his pleading baby daughter with an abnormally heavy + walking-stick. Their flight—through the snow—to seek the + protection of a relative was shown, and finally, the drunkard's + picturesque behaviour at the portals of a madhouse. + </p> + <p> + So fascinated was Penrod that he postponed his departure until this film + came round again, by which time he had finished his unnatural repast and + almost, but not quite, decided against following the profession of a + drunkard when he grew up. + </p> + <p> + Emerging, satiated, from the theatre, a public timepiece before a + jeweller's shop confronted him with an unexpected dial and imminent + perplexities. How was he to explain at home these hours of dalliance? + There was a steadfast rule that he return direct from Sunday-school; and + Sunday rules were important, because on that day there was his father, + always at home and at hand, perilously ready for action. One of the + hardest conditions of boyhood is the almost continuous strain put upon the + powers of invention by the constant and harassing necessity for + explanations of every natural act. + </p> + <p> + Proceeding homeward through the deepening twilight as rapidly as possible, + at a gait half skip and half canter, Penrod made up his mind in what + manner he would account for his long delay, and, as he drew nearer, + rehearsed in words the opening passage of his defence. + </p> + <p> + “Now see here,” he determined to begin; “I do not wished to be blamed for + things I couldn't help, nor any other boy. I was going along the street by + a cottage and a lady put her head out of the window and said her husband + was drunk and whipping her and her little girl, and she asked me wouldn't + I come in and help hold him. So I went in and tried to get hold of this + drunken lady's husband where he was whipping their baby daughter, but he + wouldn't pay any attention, and I TOLD her I ought to be getting home, but + she kep' on askin' me to stay——” + </p> + <p> + At this point he reached the corner of his own yard, where a coincidence + not only checked the rehearsal of his eloquence but happily obviated all + occasion for it. A cab from the station drew up in front of the gate, and + there descended a troubled lady in black and a fragile little girl about + three. Mrs. Schofield rushed from the house and enfolded both in + hospitable arms. + </p> + <p> + They were Penrod's Aunt Clara and cousin, also Clara, from Dayton, + Illinois, and in the flurry of their arrival everybody forgot to put + Penrod to the question. It is doubtful, however, if he felt any relief; + there may have been even a slight, unconscious disappointment not + altogether dissimilar to that of an actor deprived of a good part. + </p> + <p> + In the course of some really necessary preparations for dinner he stepped + from the bathroom into the pink-and-white bedchamber of his sister, and + addressed her rather thickly through a towel. + </p> + <p> + “When'd mamma find out Aunt Clara and Cousin Clara were coming?” + </p> + <p> + “Not till she saw them from the window. She just happened to look out as + they drove up. Aunt Clara telegraphed this morning, but it wasn't + delivered.” + </p> + <p> + “How long they goin' to stay?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know.” + </p> + <p> + Penrod ceased to rub his shining face, and thoughtfully tossed the towel + through the bathroom door. “Uncle John won't try to make 'em come back + home, I guess, will he?” (Uncle John was Aunt Clara's husband, a + successful manufacturer of stoves, and his lifelong regret was that he had + not entered the Baptist ministry.) “He'll let 'em stay here quietly, won't + he?” + </p> + <p> + “What ARE you talking about?” demanded Margaret, turning from her mirror. + “Uncle John sent them here. Why shouldn't he let them stay?” + </p> + <p> + Penrod looked crestfallen. “Then he hasn't taken to drink?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly not!” She emphasized the denial with a pretty peal of soprano + laughter. + </p> + <p> + “Then why,” asked her brother gloomily, “why did Aunt Clara look so + worried when she got here?” + </p> + <p> + “Good gracious! Don't people worry about anything except somebody's + drinking? Where did you get such an idea?” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” he persisted, “you don't KNOW it ain't that.” + </p> + <p> + She laughed again, wholeheartedly. “Poor Uncle John! He won't even allow + grape juice or ginger ale in his house. They came because they were afraid + little Clara might catch the measles. She's very delicate, and there's + such an epidemic of measles among the children over in Dayton the schools + had to be closed. Uncle John got so worried that last night he dreamed + about it; and this morning he couldn't stand it any longer and packed them + off over here, though he thinks its wicked to travel on Sunday. And Aunt + Clara was worried when she got here because they'd forgotten to check her + trunk and it will have to be sent by express. Now what in the name of the + common sense put it into your head that Uncle John had taken to——” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, nothing.” He turned lifelessly away and went downstairs, a new-born + hope dying in his bosom. Life seems so needlessly dull sometimes. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VIII SCHOOL + </h2> + <p> + Next morning, when he had once more resumed the dreadful burden of + education, it seemed infinitely duller. And yet what pleasanter sight is + there than a schoolroom well filled with children of those sprouting years + just before the 'teens? The casual visitor, gazing from the teacher's + platform upon these busy little heads, needs only a blunted memory to + experience the most agreeable and exhilarating sensations. Still, for the + greater part, the children are unconscious of the happiness of their + condition; for nothing is more pathetically true than that we “never know + when we are well off.” The boys in a public school are less aware of their + happy state than are the girls; and of all the boys in his room, probably + Penrod himself had the least appreciation of his felicity. + </p> + <p> + He sat staring at an open page of a textbook, but not studying; not even + reading; not even thinking. Nor was he lost in a reverie: his mind's eye + was shut, as his physical eye might well have been, for the optic nerve, + flaccid with ennui, conveyed nothing whatever of the printed page upon + which the orb of vision was partially focused. Penrod was doing something + very unusual and rare, something almost never accomplished except by + coloured people or by a boy in school on a spring day: he was doing really + nothing at all. He was merely a state of being. + </p> + <p> + From the street a sound stole in through the open window, and abhorring + Nature began to fill the vacuum called Penrod Schofield; for the sound was + the spring song of a mouth-organ, coming down the sidewalk. The windows + were intentionally above the level of the eyes of the seated pupils; but + the picture of the musician was plain to Penrod, painted for him by a + quality in the runs and trills, partaking of the oboe, of the calliope, + and of cats in anguish; an excruciating sweetness obtained only by the + wallowing, walloping yellow-pink palm of a hand whose back was Congo black + and shiny. The music came down the street and passed beneath the window, + accompanied by the care-free shuffling of a pair of old shoes scuffing + syncopations on the cement sidewalk. It passed into the distance; became + faint and blurred; was gone. Emotion stirred in Penrod a great and + poignant desire, but (perhaps fortunately) no fairy godmother made her + appearance. + </p> + <p> + Otherwise Penrod would have gone down the street in a black skin, playing + the mouth-organ, and an unprepared coloured youth would have found himself + enjoying educational advantages for which he had no ambition whatever. + </p> + <p> + Roused from perfect apathy, the boy cast about the schoolroom an eye + wearied to nausea by the perpetual vision of the neat teacher upon the + platform, the backs of the heads of the pupils in front of him, and the + monotonous stretches of blackboard threateningly defaced by arithmetical + formulae and other insignia of torture. Above the blackboard, the walls of + the high room were of white plaster—white with the qualified + whiteness of old snow in a soft coal town. This dismal expanse was broken + by four lithographic portraits, votive offerings of a thoughtful + publisher. The portraits were of good and great men, kind men; men who + loved children. Their faces were noble and benevolent. But the lithographs + offered the only rest for the eyes of children fatigued by the everlasting + sameness of the schoolroom. Long day after long day, interminable week in + and interminable week out, vast month on vast month, the pupils sat with + those four portraits beaming kindness down upon them. The faces became + permanent in the consciousness of the children; they became an obsession—in + and out of school the children were never free of them. The four faces + haunted the minds of children falling asleep; they hung upon the minds of + children waking at night; they rose forebodingly in the minds of children + waking in the morning; they became monstrously alive in the minds of + children lying sick of fever. Never, while the children of that schoolroom + lived, would they be able to forget one detail of the four lithographs: + the hand of Longfellow was fixed, for them, forever, in his beard. And by + a simple and unconscious association of ideas, Penrod Schofield was + accumulating an antipathy for the gentle Longfellow and for James Russell + Lowell and for Oliver Wendell Holmes and for John Greenleaf Whittier, + which would never permit him to peruse a work of one of those great New + Englanders without a feeling of personal resentment. + </p> + <p> + His eyes fell slowly and inimically from the brow of Whittier to the braid + of reddish hair belonging to Victorine Riordan, the little octoroon girl + who sat directly in front of him. Victorine's back was as familiar to + Penrod as the necktie of Oliver Wendell Holmes. So was her gayly coloured + plaid waist. He hated the waist as he hated Victorine herself, without + knowing why. Enforced companionship in large quantities and on an equal + basis between the sexes appears to sterilize the affections, and + schoolroom romances are few. + </p> + <p> + Victorine's hair was thick, and the brickish glints in it were beautiful, + but Penrod was very tired of it. A tiny knot of green ribbon finished off + the braid and kept it from unravelling; and beneath the ribbon there was a + final wisp of hair which was just long enough to repose upon Penrod's desk + when Victorine leaned back in her seat. It was there now. Thoughtfully, he + took the braid between thumb and forefinger, and, without disturbing + Victorine, dipped the end of it and the green ribbon into the inkwell of + his desk. He brought hair and ribbon forth dripping purple ink, and + partially dried them on a blotter, though, a moment later when Victorine + leaned forward, they were still able to add a few picturesque touches to + the plaid waist. + </p> + <p> + Rudolph Krauss, across the aisle from Penrod, watched the operation with + protuberant eyes, fascinated. Inspired to imitation, he took a piece of + chalk from his pocket and wrote “RATS” across the shoulder-blades of the + boy in front of him, then looked across appealingly to Penrod for tokens + of congratulation. Penrod yawned. It may not be denied that at times he + appeared to be a very self-centred boy. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IX SOARING + </h2> + <p> + Half the members of the class passed out to a recitation-room, the + empurpled Victorine among them, and Miss Spence started the remaining half + through the ordeal of trial by mathematics. Several boys and girls were + sent to the blackboard, and Penrod, spared for the moment, followed their + operations a little while with his eyes, but not with his mind; then, + sinking deeper in his seat, limply abandoned the effort. His eyes remained + open, but saw nothing; the routine of the arithmetic lesson reached his + ears in familiar, meaningless sounds, but he heard nothing; and yet, this + time, he was profoundly occupied. He had drifted away from the painful + land of facts, and floated now in a new sea of fancy which he had just + discovered. + </p> + <p> + Maturity forgets the marvellous realness of a boy's day-dreams, how + colourful they glow, rosy and living, and how opaque the curtain closing + down between the dreamer and the actual world. That curtain is almost + sound-proof, too, and causes more throat-trouble among parents than is + suspected. + </p> + <p> + The nervous monotony of the schoolroom inspires a sometimes unbearable + longing for something astonishing to happen, and as every boy's + fundamental desire is to do something astonishing himself, so as to be the + centre of all human interest and awe, it was natural that Penrod should + discover in fancy the delightful secret of self-levitation. He found, in + this curious series of imaginings, during the lesson in arithmetic, that + the atmosphere may be navigated as by a swimmer under water, but with + infinitely greater ease and with perfect comfort in breathing. In his mind + he extended his arms gracefully, at a level with his shoulders, and + delicately paddled the air with his hands, which at once caused him to be + drawn up out of his seat and elevated gently to a position about midway + between the floor and the ceiling, where he came to an equilibrium and + floated; a sensation not the less exquisite because of the screams of his + fellow pupils, appalled by the miracle. Miss Spence herself was amazed and + frightened, but he only smiled down carelessly upon her when she commanded + him to return to earth; and then, when she climbed upon a desk to pull him + down, he quietly paddled himself a little higher, leaving his toes just + out of her reach. Next, he swam through a few slow somersaults to show his + mastery of the new art, and, with the shouting of the dumfounded scholars + ringing in his ears, turned on his side and floated swiftly out of the + window, immediately rising above the housetops, while people in the street + below him shrieked, and a trolley car stopped dead in wonder. + </p> + <p> + With almost no exertion he paddled himself, many yards at a stroke, to the + girls' private school where Marjorie Jones was a pupil—Marjorie + Jones of the amber curls and the golden voice! Long before the “Pageant of + the Table Round,” she had offered Penrod a hundred proofs that she + considered him wholly undesirable and ineligible. At the Friday Afternoon + Dancing Class she consistently incited and led the laughter at him + whenever Professor Bartet singled him out for admonition in matters of + feet and decorum. And but yesterday she had chid him for his slavish lack + of memory in daring to offer her a greeting on the way to Sunday-school. + “Well! I expect you must forgot I told you never to speak to me again! If + I was a boy, I'd be too proud to come hanging around people that don't + speak to me, even if I WAS the Worst Boy in Town!” So she flouted him. But + now, as he floated in through the window of her classroom and swam gently + along the ceiling like an escaped toy balloon, she fell upon her knees + beside her little desk, and, lifting up her arms toward him, cried with + love and admiration: + </p> + <p> + “Oh, PENrod!” + </p> + <p> + He negligently kicked a globe from the high chandelier, and, smiling + coldly, floated out through the hall to the front steps of the school, + while Marjorie followed, imploring him to grant her one kind look. + </p> + <p> + In the street an enormous crowd had gathered, headed by Miss Spence and a + brass band; and a cheer from a hundred thousand throats shook the very + ground as Penrod swam overhead. Marjorie knelt upon the steps and watched + adoringly while Penrod took the drum-major's baton and, performing sinuous + evolutions above the crowd, led the band. Then he threw the baton so high + that it disappeared from sight; but he went swiftly after it, a double + delight, for he had not only the delicious sensation of rocketing safely + up and up into the blue sky, but also that of standing in the crowd below, + watching and admiring himself as he dwindled to a speck, disappeared and + then, emerging from a cloud, came speeding down, with the baton in his + hand, to the level of the treetops, where he beat time for the band and + the vast throng and Marjorie Jones, who all united in the “Star-spangled + Banner” in honour of his aerial achievements. It was a great moment. + </p> + <p> + It was a great moment, but something seemed to threaten it. The face of + Miss Spence looking up from the crowd grew too vivid—unpleasantly + vivid. She was beckoning him and shouting, “Come down, Penrod Schofield! + Penrod Schofield, come down here!” + </p> + <p> + He could hear her above the band and the singing of the multitude; she + seemed intent on spoiling everything. Marjorie Jones was weeping to show + how sorry she was that she had formerly slighted him, and throwing kisses + to prove that she loved him; but Miss Spence kept jumping between him and + Marjorie, incessantly calling his name. + </p> + <p> + He grew more and more irritated with her; he was the most important person + in the world and was engaged in proving it to Marjorie Jones and the whole + city, and yet Miss Spence seemed to feel she still had the right to order + him about as she did in the old days when he was an ordinary schoolboy. He + was furious; he was sure she wanted him to do something disagreeable. It + seemed to him that she had screamed “Penrod Schofield!” thousands of + times. + </p> + <p> + From the beginning of his aerial experiments in his own schoolroom, he had + not opened his lips, knowing somehow that one of the requirements for air + floating is perfect silence on the part of the floater; but, finally, + irritated beyond measure by Miss Spence's clamorous insistence, he was + unable to restrain an indignant rebuke and immediately came to earth with + a frightful bump. + </p> + <p> + Miss Spence—in the flesh—had directed toward the physical body + of the absent Penrod an inquiry as to the fractional consequences of + dividing seventeen apples, fairly, among three boys, and she was surprised + and displeased to receive no answer although to the best of her knowledge + and belief, he was looking fixedly at her. She repeated her question + crisply, without visible effect; then summoned him by name with increasing + asperity. Twice she called him, while all his fellow pupils turned to + stare at the gazing boy. She advanced a step from the platform. + </p> + <p> + “Penrod Schofield!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, my goodness!” he shouted suddenly. “Can't you keep still a MINUTE?” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER X UNCLE JOHN + </h2> + <h3> + Miss Spence gasped. So did the pupils. + </h3> + <p> + The whole room filled with a swelling conglomerate “O-O-O-O-H!” + </p> + <p> + As for Penrod himself, the walls reeled with the shock. He sat with his + mouth open, a mere lump of stupefaction. For the appalling words that he + had hurled at the teacher were as inexplicable to him as to any other who + heard them. + </p> + <p> + Nothing is more treacherous than the human mind; nothing else so loves to + play the Iscariot. Even when patiently bullied into a semblance of order + and training, it may prove but a base and shifty servant. And Penrod's + mind was not his servant; it was a master, with the April wind's whims; + and it had just played him a diabolical trick. The very jolt with which he + came back to the schoolroom in the midst of his fancied flight jarred his + day-dream utterly out of him; and he sat, open-mouthed in horror at what + he had said. + </p> + <p> + The unanimous gasp of awe was protracted. Miss Spence, however, finally + recovered her breath, and, returning deliberately to the platform, faced + the school. “And then for a little while,” as pathetic stories sometimes + recount, “everything was very still.” It was so still, in fact, that + Penrod's newborn notoriety could almost be heard growing. This grisly + silence was at last broken by the teacher. + </p> + <p> + “Penrod Schofield, stand up!” + </p> + <p> + The miserable child obeyed. + </p> + <p> + “What did you mean by speaking to me in that way?” + </p> + <p> + He hung his head, raked the floor with the side of his shoe, swayed, + swallowed, looked suddenly at his hands with the air of never having seen + them before, then clasped them behind him. The school shivered in ecstatic + horror, every fascinated eye upon him; yet there was not a soul in the + room but was profoundly grateful to him for the sensation—including + the offended teacher herself. Unhappily, all this gratitude was + unconscious and altogether different from the kind which, results in + testimonials and loving-cups. On the contrary! + </p> + <p> + “Penrod Schofield!” + </p> + <p> + He gulped. + </p> + <p> + “Answer me at once! Why did you speak to me like that?” + </p> + <p> + “I was——” He choked, unable to continue. + </p> + <p> + “Speak out!” + </p> + <p> + “I was just—thinking,” he managed to stammer. + </p> + <p> + “That will not do,” she returned sharply. “I wish to know immediately why + you spoke as you did.” + </p> + <p> + The stricken Penrod answered helplessly: + </p> + <p> + “Because I was just thinking.” + </p> + <p> + Upon the very rack he could have offered no ampler truthful explanation. + It was all he knew about it. + </p> + <p> + “Thinking what?” + </p> + <p> + “Just thinking.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Spence's expression gave evidence that her power of self-restraint + was undergoing a remarkable test. However, after taking counsel with + herself, she commanded: + </p> + <p> + “Come here!” + </p> + <p> + He shuffled forward, and she placed a chair upon the platform near her + own. + </p> + <p> + “Sit there!” + </p> + <p> + Then (but not at all as if nothing had happened), she continued the lesson + in arithmetic. Spiritually the children may have learned a lesson in very + small fractions indeed as they gazed at the fragment of sin before them on + the stool of penitence. They all stared at him attentively with hard and + passionately interested eyes, in which there was never one trace of pity. + It cannot be said with precision that he writhed; his movement was more a + slow, continuous squirm, effected with a ghastly assumption of languid + indifference; while his gaze, in the effort to escape the marble-hearted + glare of his schoolmates, affixed itself with apparent permanence to the + waistcoat button of James Russell Lowell just above the “U” in “Russell.” + </p> + <p> + Classes came and classes went, grilling him with eyes. Newcomers received + the story of the crime in darkling whispers; and the outcast sat and sat + and sat, and squirmed and squirmed and squirmed. (He did one or two things + with his spine which a professional contortionist would have observed with + real interest.) And all this while of freezing suspense was but the + criminal's detention awaiting trial. A known punishment may be anticipated + with some measure of equanimity; at least, the prisoner may prepare + himself to undergo it; but the unknown looms more monstrous for every + attempt to guess it. Penrod's crime was unique; there were no rules to aid + him in estimating the vengeance to fall upon him for it. What seemed most + probable was that he would be expelled from the schools in the presence of + his family, the mayor, and council, and afterward whipped by his father + upon the State House steps, with the entire city as audience by invitation + of the authorities. + </p> + <p> + Noon came. The rows of children filed out, every head turning for a last + unpleasingly speculative look at the outlaw. Then Miss Spence closed the + door into the cloakroom and that into the big hall, and came and sat at + her desk, near Penrod. The tramping of feet outside, the shrill calls and + shouting and the changing voices of the older boys ceased to be heard—and + there was silence. Penrod, still affecting to be occupied with Lowell, was + conscious that Miss Spence looked at him intently. + </p> + <p> + “Penrod,” she said gravely, “what excuse have you to offer before I report + your case to the principal?” + </p> + <p> + The word “principal” struck him to the vitals. Grand Inquisitor, Grand + Khan, Sultan, Emperor, Tsar, Caesar Augustus—these are comparable. + He stopped squirming instantly, and sat rigid. + </p> + <p> + “I want an answer. Why did you shout those words at me?” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” he murmured, “I was just—thinking.” + </p> + <p> + “Thinking what?” she asked sharply. + </p> + <p> + “I don't know.” + </p> + <p> + “That won't do!” + </p> + <p> + He took his left ankle in his right hand and regarded it helplessly. + </p> + <p> + “That won't do, Penrod Schofield,” she repeated severely. “If that is all + the excuse you have to offer I shall report your case this instant!” + </p> + <p> + And she rose with fatal intent. + </p> + <p> + But Penrod was one of those whom the precipice inspires. “Well, I HAVE got + an excuse.” + </p> + <p> + “Well”—she paused impatiently—“what is it?” + </p> + <p> + He had not an idea, but he felt one coming, and replied automatically, in + a plaintive tone: + </p> + <p> + “I guess anybody that had been through what I had to go through, last + night, would think they had an excuse.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Spence resumed her seat, though with the air of being ready to leap + from it instantly. + </p> + <p> + “What has last night to do with your insolence to me this morning?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I guess you'd see,” he returned, emphasizing the plaintive note, + “if you knew what I know.” + </p> + <p> + “Now, Penrod,” she said, in a kinder voice, “I have a high regard for your + mother and father, and it would hurt me to distress them, but you must + either tell me what was the matter with you or I'll have to take you to + Mrs. Houston.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, ain't I going to?” he cried, spurred by the dread name. “It's + because I didn't sleep last night.” + </p> + <p> + “Were you ill?” The question was put with some dryness. + </p> + <p> + He felt the dryness. “No'm; <i>I</i> wasn't.” + </p> + <p> + “Then if someone in your family was so ill that even you were kept up all + night, how does it happen they let you come to school this morning?” + </p> + <p> + “It wasn't illness,” he returned, shaking his head mournfully. “It was + lots worse'n anybody's being sick. It was—it was—well, it was + jest awful.” + </p> + <p> + “WHAT was?” He remarked with anxiety the incredulity in her tone. + </p> + <p> + “It was about Aunt Clara,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Your Aunt Clara!” she repeated. “Do you mean your mother's sister who + married Mr. Farry of Dayton, Illinois?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—Uncle John,” returned Penrod sorrowfully. “The trouble was + about him.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Spence frowned a frown which he rightly interpreted as one of + continued suspicion. “She and I were in school together,” she said. “I + used to know her very well, and I've always heard her married life was + entirely happy. I don't——” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, it was,” he interrupted, “until last year when Uncle John took to + running with travelling men——” + </p> + <p> + “What?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes'm.” He nodded solemnly. “That was what started it. At first he was a + good, kind husband, but these travelling men would coax him into a saloon + on his way home from work, and they got him to drinking beer and then + ales, wines, liquors, and cigars——” + </p> + <p> + “Penrod!” + </p> + <p> + “Ma'am?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm not inquiring into your Aunt Clara's private affairs; I'm asking you + if you have anything to say which would palliate——” + </p> + <p> + “That's what I'm tryin' to TELL you about, Miss Spence,” he pleaded,—“if + you'd jest only let me. When Aunt Clara and her little baby daughter got + to our house last night——” + </p> + <p> + “You say Mrs. Farry is visiting your mother?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes'm—not just visiting—you see, she HAD to come. Well of + course, little baby Clara, she was so bruised up and mauled, where he'd + been hittin' her with his cane——” + </p> + <p> + “You mean that your uncle had done such a thing as THAT!” exclaimed Miss + Spence, suddenly disarmed by this scandal. + </p> + <p> + “Yes'm, and mamma and Margaret had to sit up all night nursin' little + Clara—and AUNT Clara was in such a state SOMEBODY had to keep + talkin' to HER, and there wasn't anybody but me to do it, so I——” + </p> + <p> + “But where was your father?” she cried. + </p> + <p> + “Ma'am?” + </p> + <p> + “Where was your father while——” + </p> + <p> + “Oh—papa?” Penrod paused, reflected; then brightened. “Why, he was + down at the train, waitin' to see if Uncle John would try to follow 'em + and make 'em come home so's he could persecute 'em some more. I wanted to + do that, but they said if he did come I mightn't be strong enough to hold + him and——” The brave lad paused again, modestly. Miss Spence's + expression was encouraging. Her eyes were wide with astonishment, and + there may have been in them, also, the mingled beginnings of admiration + and self-reproach. Penrod, warming to his work, felt safer every moment. + </p> + <p> + “And so,” he continued, “I had to sit up with Aunt Clara. She had some + pretty big bruises, too, and I had to——” + </p> + <p> + “But why didn't they send for a doctor?” However, this question was only a + flicker of dying incredulity. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, they didn't want any DOCTOR,” exclaimed the inspired realist + promptly. “They don't want anybody to HEAR about it because Uncle John + might reform—and then where'd he be if everybody knew he'd been a + drunkard and whipped his wife and baby daughter?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” said Miss Spence. + </p> + <p> + “You see, he used to be upright as anybody,” he went on explanatively. “It + all begun——” + </p> + <p> + “Began, Penrod.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes'm. It all commenced from the first day he let those travelling men + coax him into the saloon.” Penrod narrated the downfall of his Uncle John + at length. In detail he was nothing short of plethoric; and incident + followed incident, sketched with such vividness, such abundance of colour, + and such verisimilitude to a drunkard's life as a drunkard's life should + be, that had Miss Spence possessed the rather chilling attributes of + William J. Burns himself, the last trace of skepticism must have vanished + from her mind. Besides, there are two things that will be believed of any + man whatsoever, and one of them is that he has taken to drink. And in + every sense it was a moving picture which, with simple but eloquent words, + the virtuous Penrod set before his teacher. + </p> + <p> + His eloquence increased with what it fed on; and as with the eloquence so + with self-reproach in the gentle bosom of the teacher. She cleared her + throat with difficulty once or twice, during his description of his + ministering night with Aunt Clara. “And I said to her, 'Why, Aunt Clara, + what's the use of takin' on so about it?' And I said, 'Now, Aunt Clara, + all the crying in the world can't make things any better.' And then she'd + just keep catchin' hold of me, and sob and kind of holler, and I'd say, + 'DON'T cry, Aunt Clara—PLEASE don't cry.”' + </p> + <p> + Then, under the influence of some fragmentary survivals of the respectable + portion of his Sunday adventures, his theme became more exalted; and, only + partially misquoting a phrase from a psalm, he related how he had made it + of comfort to Aunt Clara, and how he had besought her to seek Higher + guidance in her trouble. + </p> + <p> + The surprising thing about a structure such as Penrod was erecting is that + the taller it becomes the more ornamentation it will stand. Gifted boys + have this faculty of building magnificence upon cobwebs—and Penrod + was gifted. Under the spell of his really great performance, Miss Spence + gazed more and more sweetly upon the prodigy of spiritual beauty and + goodness before her, until at last, when Penrod came to the explanation of + his “just thinking,” she was forced to turn her head away. + </p> + <p> + “You mean, dear,” she said gently, “that you were all worn out and hardly + knew what you were saying?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes'm.” + </p> + <p> + “And you were thinking about all those dreadful things so hard that you + forgot where you were?” + </p> + <p> + “I was thinking,” he said simply, “how to save Uncle John.” + </p> + <p> + And the end of it for this mighty boy was that the teacher kissed him! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XI FIDELITY OF A LITTLE DOG + </h2> + <p> + The returning students, that afternoon, observed that Penrod's desk was + vacant—and nothing could have been more impressive than that + sinister mere emptiness. The accepted theory was that Penrod had been + arrested. How breathtaking, then, the sensation when, at the beginning of + the second hour, he strolled—in with inimitable carelessness and, + rubbing his eyes, somewhat noticeably in the manner of one who has + snatched an hour of much needed sleep, took his place as if nothing in + particular had happened. This, at first supposed to be a superhuman + exhibition of sheer audacity, became but the more dumfounding when Miss + Spence—looking up from her desk—greeted him with a pleasant + little nod. Even after school, Penrod gave numerous maddened investigators + no relief. All he would consent to say was: + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I just TALKED to her.” + </p> + <p> + A mystification not entirely unconnected with the one thus produced was + manifested at his own family dinner-table the following evening. Aunt + Clara had been out rather late, and came to the table after the rest were + seated. She wore a puzzled expression. + </p> + <p> + “Do you ever see Mary Spence nowadays?” she inquired, as she unfolded her + napkin, addressing Mrs. Schofield. Penrod abruptly set down his soup-spoon + and gazed at his aunt with flattering attention. + </p> + <p> + “Yes; sometimes,” said Mrs. Schofield. “She's Penrod's teacher.” + </p> + <p> + “Is she?” said Mrs. Farry. “Do you—” She paused. “Do people think + her a little—queer, these days?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, no,” returned her sister. “What makes you say that?” + </p> + <p> + “She has acquired a very odd manner,” said Mrs. Farry decidedly. “At + least, she seemed odd to ME. I met her at the corner just before I got to + the house, a few minutes ago, and after we'd said howdy-do to each other, + she kept hold of my hand and looked as though she was going to cry. She + seemed to be trying to say something, and choking——” + </p> + <p> + “But I don't think that's so very queer, Clara. She knew you in school, + didn't she?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but——” + </p> + <p> + “And she hadn't seen you for so many years, I think it's perfectly natural + she——” + </p> + <p> + “Wait! She stood there squeezing my hand, and struggling to get her voice—and + I got really embarrassed—and then finally she said, in a kind of + tearful whisper, 'Be of good cheer—this trial will pass!'” + </p> + <p> + “How queer!” exclaimed Margaret. + </p> + <p> + Penrod sighed, and returned somewhat absently to his soup. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I don't know,” said Mrs. Schofield thoughtfully. “Of course she's + heard about the outbreak of measles in Dayton, since they had to close the + schools, and she knows you live there——” + </p> + <p> + “But doesn't it seem a VERY exaggerated way,” suggested Margaret, “to talk + about measles?” + </p> + <p> + “Wait!” begged Aunt Clara. “After she said that, she said something even + queerer, and then put her handkerchief to her eyes and hurried away.” + </p> + <p> + Penrod laid down his spoon again and moved his chair slightly back from + the table. A spirit of prophecy was upon him: he knew that someone was + going to ask a question which he felt might better remain unspoken. + </p> + <p> + “What WAS the other thing she said?” Mr. Schofield inquired, thus + immediately fulfilling his son's premonition. + </p> + <p> + “She said,” returned Mrs. Farry slowly, looking about the table, “she + said, 'I know that Penrod is a great, great comfort to you!'” + </p> + <p> + There was a general exclamation of surprise. It was a singular thing, and + in no manner may it be considered complimentary to Penrod, that this + speech of Miss Spence's should have immediately confirmed Mrs. Farry's + doubts about her in the minds of all his family. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Schofield shook his head pityingly. + </p> + <p> + “I'm afraid she's a goner,” he went so far as to say. + </p> + <p> + “Of all the weird ideas!” cried Margaret. + </p> + <p> + “I never heard anything like it in my life!” Mrs. Schofield exclaimed. + “Was that ALL she said?” + </p> + <p> + “Every word!” + </p> + <p> + Penrod again resumed attention to his soup. His mother looked at him + curiously, and then, struck by a sudden thought, gathered the glances of + the adults of the table by a significant movement of the head, and, by + another, conveyed an admonition to drop the subject until later. Miss + Spence was Penrod's teacher: it was better, for many reasons, not to + discuss the subject of her queerness before him. This was Mrs. Schofield's + thought at the time. Later she had another, and it kept her awake. + </p> + <p> + The next afternoon, Mr. Schofield, returning at five o'clock from the + cares of the day, found the house deserted, and sat down to read his + evening paper in what appeared to be an uninhabited apartment known to its + own world as the “drawing-room.” A sneeze, unexpected both to him and the + owner, informed him of the presence of another person. + </p> + <p> + “Where are you, Penrod?” the parent asked, looking about. + </p> + <p> + “Here,” said Penrod meekly. + </p> + <p> + Stooping, Mr. Schofield discovered his son squatting under the piano, near + an open window—his wistful Duke lying beside him. + </p> + <p> + “What are you doing there?” + </p> + <p> + “Me?” + </p> + <p> + “Why under the piano?” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” the boy returned, with grave sweetness, “I was just kind of + sitting here—thinking.” + </p> + <p> + “All right.” Mr. Schofield, rather touched, returned to the digestion of a + murder, his back once more to the piano; and Penrod silently drew from + beneath his jacket (where he had slipped it simultaneously with the + sneeze) a paper-backed volume entitled: “Slimsy, the Sioux City Squealer, + or, 'Not Guilty, Your Honor.'” + </p> + <p> + In this manner the reading-club continued in peace, absorbed, contented, + the world well forgot—until a sudden, violently irritated slam-bang + of the front door startled the members; and Mrs. Schofield burst into the + room and threw herself into a chair, moaning. + </p> + <p> + “What's the matter, mamma?” asked her husband laying aside his paper. + </p> + <p> + “Henry Passloe Schofield,” returned the lady, “I don't know what IS to be + done with that boy; I do NOT!” + </p> + <p> + “You mean Penrod?” + </p> + <p> + “Who else could I mean?” She sat up, exasperated, to stare at him. “Henry + Passloe Schofield, you've got to take this matter in your hands—it's + beyond me!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, what has he——” + </p> + <p> + “Last night I got to thinking,” she began rapidly, “about what Clara told + us—thank Heaven she and Margaret and little Clara have gone to tea + at Cousin Charlotte's!—but they'll be home soon—about what she + said about Miss Spence——” + </p> + <p> + “You mean about Penrod's being a comfort?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, and I kept thinking and thinking and thinking about it till I + couldn't stand it any——” + </p> + <p> + “By GEORGE!” shouted Mr. Schofield startlingly, stooping to look under the + piano. A statement that he had suddenly remembered his son's presence + would be lacking in accuracy, for the highly sensitized Penrod was, in + fact, no longer present. No more was Duke, his faithful dog. + </p> + <p> + “What's the matter?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing,” he returned, striding to the open window and looking out. “Go + on.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” she moaned, “it must be kept from Clara—and I'll never hold up + my head again if John Farry ever hears of it!” + </p> + <p> + “Hears of WHAT?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I just couldn't stand it, I got so curious; and I thought of course + if Miss Spence HAD become a little unbalanced it was my duty to know it, + as Penrod's mother and she his teacher; so I thought I would just call on + her at her apartment after school and have a chat and see and I did and—oh——” + </p> + <p> + “Well?” + </p> + <p> + “I've just come from there, and she told me—she told me! Oh, I've + NEVER known anything like this!” + </p> + <p> + “WHAT did she tell you?” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Schofield, making a great effort, managed to assume a temporary + appearance of calm. “Henry,” she said solemnly, “bear this in mind: + whatever you do to Penrod, it must be done in some place when Clara won't + hear it. But the first thing to do is to find him.” + </p> + <p> + Within view of the window from which Mr. Schofield was gazing was the + closed door of the storeroom in the stable, and just outside this door + Duke was performing a most engaging trick. + </p> + <p> + His young master had taught Duke to “sit up and beg” when he wanted + anything, and if that didn't get it, to “speak.” Duke was facing the + closed door and sitting up and begging, and now he also spoke—in a + loud, clear bark. + </p> + <p> + There was an open transom over the door, and from this descended—hurled + by an unseen agency—a can half filled with old paint. + </p> + <p> + It caught the small besieger of the door on his thoroughly surprised right + ear, encouraged him to some remarkable acrobatics, and turned large + portions of him a dull blue. Allowing only a moment to perplexity, and + deciding, after a single and evidently unappetizing experiment, not to + cleanse himself of paint, the loyal animal resumed his quaint, upright + posture. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Schofield seated himself on the window-sill, whence he could keep in + view that pathetic picture of unrequited love. + </p> + <p> + “Go on with your story, mamma,” he said. “I think I can find Penrod when + we want him.” + </p> + <p> + And a few minutes later he added, “And I think I know the place to do it + in.” + </p> + <p> + Again the faithful voice of Duke was heard, pleading outside the bolted + door. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XII MISS RENNSDALE ACCEPTS + </h2> + <p> + “One-two-three; one-two-three—glide!” said Professor Bartet, + emphasizing his instructions by a brisk collision of his palms at “glide.” + “One-two-three; one-two-three—glide!” + </p> + <p> + The school week was over, at last, but Penrod's troubles were not. + </p> + <p> + Round and round the ballroom went the seventeen struggling little couples + of the Friday Afternoon Dancing Class. Round and round went their + reflections with them, swimming rhythmically in the polished, dark floor—white + and blue and pink for the girls; black, with dabs of white, for the + white-collared, white-gloved boys; and sparks and slivers of high light + everywhere as the glistening pumps flickered along the surface like a + school of flying fish. Every small pink face—with one exception—was + painstaking and set for duty. It was a conscientious little + merry-go-round. + </p> + <p> + “One-two-three; one-two-three—glide! One-two-three; one-two-three—glide! + One-two-th—Ha! Mister Penrod Schofield, you lose the step. Your left + foot! No, no! This is the left! See—like me! Now again! + One-two-three; one-two-three—glide! Better! Much better! Again! + One-two-three; one-two-three—gl—Stop! Mr. Penrod Schofield, + this dancing class is provided by the kind parents of the pupilses as much + to learn the mannerss of good societies as to dance. You think you shall + ever see a gentleman in good societies to tickle his partner in the dance + till she say Ouch? Never! I assure you it is not done. Again! Now then! + Piano, please! One-two-three; one-two-three—glide! Mr. Penrod + Schofield, your right foot—your right foot! No, no! Stop!” + </p> + <p> + The merry-go-round came to a standstill. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Penrod Schofield and partner”—Professor Bartet wiped his brow—“will + you kindly observe me? One-two-three—glide! So! Now then—no; + you will please keep your places, ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Penrod + Schofield, I would puttickly like your attention, this is for you!” + </p> + <p> + “Pickin' on me again!” murmured the smouldering Penrod to his small, + unsympathetic partner. “Can't let me alone a minute!” + </p> + <p> + “Mister Georgie Bassett, please step to the centre,” said the professor. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Bassett complied with modest alacrity. + </p> + <p> + “Teacher's pet!” whispered Penrod hoarsely. He had nothing but contempt + for Georgie Bassett. The parents, guardians, aunts, uncles, cousins, + governesses, housemaids, cooks, chauffeurs and coachmen, appertaining to + the members of the dancing class, all dwelt in the same part of town and + shared certain communal theories; and among the most firmly established + was that which maintained Georgie Bassett to be the Best Boy in Town. + Contrariwise, the unfortunate Penrod, largely because of his recent + dazzling but disastrous attempts to control forces far beyond him, had + been given a clear title as the Worst Boy in Town. (Population, 135,000.) + To precisely what degree his reputation was the product of his own + energies cannot be calculated. It was Marjorie Jones who first applied the + description, in its definite simplicity, the day after the “pageant,” and, + possibly, her frequent and effusive repetitions of it, even upon wholly + irrelevant occasions, had something to do with its prompt and quite + perfect acceptance by the community. + </p> + <p> + “Miss Rennsdale will please do me the fafer to be Mr. Georgie Bassett's + partner for one moment,” said Professor Bartet. “Mr. Penrod Schofield will + please give his attention. Miss Rennsdale and Mister Bassett, obliche me, + if you please. Others please watch. Piano, please! Now then!” + </p> + <p> + Miss Rennsdale, aged eight—the youngest lady in the class—and + Mr. Georgie Bassett one-two-three—glided with consummate technique + for the better education of Penrod Schofield. It is possible that + amber-curled, beautiful Marjorie felt that she, rather than Miss + Rennsdale, might have been selected as the example of perfection—or + perhaps her remark was only woman. + </p> + <p> + “Stopping everybody for that boy!” said Marjorie. + </p> + <p> + Penrod, across the circle from her, heard distinctly—nay, he was + obviously intended to hear; but over a scorched heart he preserved a stoic + front. Whereupon Marjorie whispered derisively in the ear of her partner, + Maurice Levy, who wore a pearl pin in his tie. + </p> + <p> + “Again, please, everybody—ladies and gentlemen!” cried Professor + Bartet. “Mister Penrod Schofield, if you please, pay puttickly attention! + Piano, please! Now then!” + </p> + <p> + The lesson proceeded. At the close of the hour Professor Bartet stepped to + the centre of the room and clapped his hands for attention. + </p> + <p> + “Ladies and gentlemen, if you please to seat yourselves quietly,” he said; + “I speak to you now about to-morrow. As you all know—Mister Penrod + Schofield, I am not sticking up in a tree outside that window! If you do + me the fafer to examine I am here, insides of the room. Now then! Piano, + pl—no, I do not wish the piano! As you all know, this is the last + lesson of the season until next October. Tomorrow is our special + afternoon; beginning three o'clock, we dance the cotillon. But this + afternoon comes the test of mannerss. You must see if each know how to + make a little formal call like a grown-up people in good societies. You + have had good, perfect instruction; let us see if we know how to perform + like societies ladies and gentlemen twenty-six years of age. + </p> + <p> + “Now, when you're dismissed each lady will go to her home and prepare to + receive a call. The gentlemen will allow the ladies time to reach their + houses and to prepare to receive callers; then each gentleman will call + upon a lady and beg the pleasure to engage her for a partner in the + cotillon to-morrow. You all know the correct, proper form for these calls, + because didn't I work teaching you last lesson till I thought I would drop + dead? Yes! Now each gentleman, if he reach a lady's house behind + some-other gentleman, then he must go somewhere else to a lady's house, + and keep calling until he secures a partner; so, as there are the same + number of both, everybody shall have a partner. + </p> + <p> + “Now please all remember that if in case—Mister Penrod Schofield, + when you make your call on a lady I beg you to please remember that + gentlemen in good societies do not scratch the back in societies as you + appear to attempt; so please allow the hands to rest carelessly in the + lap. Now please all remember that if in case—Mister Penrod + Schofield, if you please! Gentlemen in societies do not scratch the back + by causing frictions between it and the back of your chair, either! Nobody + else is itching here! <i>I</i> do not itch! I cannot talk if you must + itch! In the name of Heaven, why must you always itch? What was I saying? + Where ah! the cotillon—yes! For the cotillon it is important nobody + shall fail to be here tomorrow; but if any one should be so very ill he + cannot possible come he must write a very polite note of regrets in the + form of good societies to his engaged partner to excuse himself—and + he must give the reason. + </p> + <p> + “I do not think anybody is going to be that sick to-morrow—no; and I + will find out and report to parents if anybody would try it and not be. + But it is important for the cotillon that we have an even number of so + many couples, and if it should happen that someone comes and her partner + has sent her a polite note that he has genuine reasons why he cannot come, + the note must be handed at once to me, so that I arrange some other + partner. Is all understood? Yes. The gentlemen will remember now to allow + the ladies plenty of time to reach their houses and prepare to receive + calls. Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your polite attention.” + </p> + <p> + It was nine blocks to the house of Marjorie Jones; but Penrod did it in + less than seven minutes from a flying start—such was his haste to + lay himself and his hand for the cotillon at the feet of one who had so + recently spoken unamiably of him in public. He had not yet learned that + the only safe male rebuke to a scornful female is to stay away from her—especially + if that is what she desires. However, he did not wish to rebuke her; + simply and ardently he wished to dance the cotillon with her. Resentment + was swallowed up in hope. + </p> + <p> + The fact that Miss Jones' feeling for him bore a striking resemblance to + that of Simon Legree for Uncle Tom, deterred him not at all. Naturally, he + was not wholly unconscious that when he should lay his hand for the + cotillon at her feet it would be her inward desire to step on it; but he + believed that if he were first in the field Marjorie would have to accept. + These things are governed by law. + </p> + <p> + It was his fond intention to reach her house even in advance of herself, + and with grave misgiving he beheld a large automobile at rest before the + sainted gate. Forthwith, a sinking feeling became a portent inside him as + little Maurice Levy emerged from the front door of the house. + </p> + <p> + “'Lo, Penrod!” said Maurice airily. + </p> + <p> + “What you doin' in there?” inquired Penrod. + </p> + <p> + “In where?” + </p> + <p> + “In Marjorie's.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, what shouldn't I be doin' in Marjorie's?” Mr. Levy returned + indignantly. “I was inviting her for my partner in the cotillon—what + you s'pose?” + </p> + <p> + “You haven't got any right to!” Penrod protested hotly. “You can't do it + yet.” + </p> + <p> + “I did do it yet!” said Maurice. + </p> + <p> + “You can't!” insisted Penrod. “You got to allow them time first. He said + the ladies had to be allowed time to prepare.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, ain't she had time to prepare?” + </p> + <p> + “When?” Penrod demanded, stepping close to his rival threateningly. “I'd + like to know when——” + </p> + <p> + “When?” echoed the other with shrill triumph. “When? Why, in mamma's + sixty-horse powder limousine automobile, what Marjorie came home with me + in! I guess that's when!” + </p> + <p> + An impulse in the direction of violence became visible upon the + countenance of Penrod. + </p> + <p> + “I expect you need some wiping down,” he began dangerously. “I'll give you + sumpthing to remem——” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, you will!” Maurice cried with astonishing truculence, contorting + himself into what he may have considered a posture of defense. “Let's see + you try it, you—you itcher!” + </p> + <p> + For the moment, defiance from such a source was dumfounding. Then, + luckily, Penrod recollected something and glanced at the automobile. + </p> + <p> + Perceiving therein not only the alert chauffeur but the magnificent + outlines of Mrs. Levy, his enemy's mother, he manoeuvred his lifted hand + so that it seemed he had but meant to scratch his ear. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I guess I better be goin',” he said casually. “See you tomorrow!” + </p> + <p> + Maurice mounted to the lap of luxury, and Penrod strolled away with an + assumption of careless ease which was put to a severe strain when, from + the rear window of the car, a sudden protuberance in the nature of a + small, dark, curly head shrieked scornfully: + </p> + <p> + “Go on—you big stiff!” + </p> + <p> + The cotillon loomed dismally before Penrod now; but it was his duty to + secure a partner and he set about it with a dreary heart. The delay + occasioned by his fruitless attempt on Marjorie and the altercation with + his enemy at her gate had allowed other ladies ample time to prepare for + callers—and to receive them. Sadly he went from house to house, + finding that he had been preceded in one after the other. Altogether his + hand for the cotillon was declined eleven times that afternoon on the + legitimate ground of previous engagement. This, with Marjorie, scored off + all except five of the seventeen possible partners; and four of the five + were also sealed away from him, as he learned in chance encounters with + other boys upon the street. + </p> + <p> + One lady alone remained; he bowed to the inevitable and entered this lorn + damsel's gate at twilight with an air of great discouragement. The lorn + damsel was Miss Rennsdale, aged eight. + </p> + <p> + We are apt to forget that there are actually times of life when too much + youth is a handicap. Miss Rennsdale was beautiful; she danced like a + premiere; she had every charm but age. On that account alone had she been + allowed so much time to prepare to receive callers that it was only by the + most manful efforts she could keep her lip from trembling. + </p> + <p> + A decorous maid conducted the long-belated applicant to her where she sat + upon a sofa beside a nursery governess. The decorous maid announced him + composedly as he made his entrance. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Penrod Schofield!” + </p> + <p> + Miss Rennsdale suddenly burst into loud sobs. + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” she wailed. “I just knew it would be him!” + </p> + <p> + The decorous maid's composure vanished at once—likewise her decorum. + She clapped her hand over her mouth and fled, uttering sounds. The + governess, however, set herself to comfort her heartbroken charge, and + presently succeeded in restoring Miss Rennsdale to a semblance of that + poise with which a lady receives callers and accepts invitations to dance + cotillons. But she continued to sob at intervals. + </p> + <p> + Feeling himself at perhaps a disadvantage, Penrod made offer of his hand + for the morrow with a little embarrassment. Following the form prescribed + by Professor Bartet, he advanced several paces toward the stricken lady + and bowed formally. + </p> + <p> + “I hope,” he said by rote, “you're well, and your parents also in good + health. May I have the pleasure of dancing the cotillon as your partner + t'-morrow afternoon?” + </p> + <p> + The wet eyes of Miss Rennsdale searched his countenance without pleasure, + and a shudder wrung her small shoulders; but the governess whispered to + her instructively, and she made a great effort. + </p> + <p> + “I thu-thank you fu-for your polite invu-invu-invutation; and I ac——” + Thus far she progressed when emotion overcame her again. She beat + frantically upon the sofa with fists and heels. “Oh, I DID want it to be + Georgie Bassett!” + </p> + <p> + “No, no, no!” said the governess, and whispered urgently, whereupon Miss + Rennsdale was able to complete her acceptance. + </p> + <p> + “And I ac-accept wu-with pu-pleasure!” she moaned, and immediately, + uttering a loud yell, flung herself face downward upon the sofa, clutching + her governess convulsively. + </p> + <p> + Somewhat disconcerted, Penrod bowed again. + </p> + <p> + “I thank you for your polite acceptance,” he murmured hurriedly; “and I + trust—I trust—I forget. Oh, yes—I trust we shall have a + most enjoyable occasion. Pray present my compliments to your parents; and + I must now wish you a very good afternoon.” + </p> + <p> + Concluding these courtly demonstrations with another bow he withdrew in + fair order, though thrown into partial confusion in the hall by a final + wail from his crushed hostess: + </p> + <p> + “Oh! Why couldn't it be anybody but HIM!” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIII THE SMALLPOX MEDICINE + </h2> + <p> + Next morning Penrod woke in profound depression of spirit, the cotillon + ominous before him. He pictured Marjorie Jones and Maurice, graceful and + light-hearted, flitting by him fairylike, loosing silvery laughter upon + him as he engaged in the struggle to keep step with a partner about four + years and two feet his junior. It was hard enough for Penrod to keep step + with a girl of his size. + </p> + <p> + The foreboding vision remained with him, increasing in vividness, + throughout the forenoon. He found himself unable to fix his mind upon + anything else, and, having bent his gloomy footsteps toward the + sawdust-box, after breakfast, presently descended therefrom, abandoning + Harold Ramorez where he had left him the preceding Saturday. Then, as he + sat communing silently with wistful Duke, in the storeroom, coquettish + fortune looked his way. + </p> + <p> + It was the habit of Penrod's mother not to throw away anything whatsoever + until years of storage conclusively proved there would never be a use for + it; but a recent house-cleaning had ejected upon the back porch a great + quantity of bottles and other paraphernalia of medicine, left over from + illnesses in the family during a period of several years. This debris + Della, the cook, had collected in a large market basket, adding to it some + bottles of flavouring extracts that had proved unpopular in the household; + also, old catsup bottles; a jar or two of preserves gone bad; various + rejected dental liquids—and other things. And she carried the basket + out to the storeroom in the stable. + </p> + <p> + Penrod was at first unaware of what lay before him. Chin on palms, he sat + upon the iron rim of a former aquarium and stared morbidly through the + open door at the checkered departing back of Della. It was another who saw + treasure in the basket she had left. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Samuel Williams, aged eleven, and congenial to Penrod in years, sex, + and disposition, appeared in the doorway, shaking into foam a black liquid + within a pint bottle, stoppered by a thumb. + </p> + <p> + “Yay, Penrod!” the visitor gave greeting. + </p> + <p> + “Yay,” said Penrod with slight enthusiasm. “What you got?” + </p> + <p> + “Lickrish water.” + </p> + <p> + “Drinkin's!” demanded Penrod promptly. This is equivalent to the cry of + “Biters” when an apple is shown, and establishes unquestionable title. + </p> + <p> + “Down to there!” stipulated Sam, removing his thumb to affix it firmly as + a mark upon the side of the bottle a check upon gormandizing that remained + carefully in place while Penrod drank. + </p> + <p> + This rite concluded, the visitor's eye fell upon the basket deposited by + Della. He emitted tokens of pleasure. + </p> + <p> + “Looky! Looky! Looky there! That ain't any good pile o' stuff—oh, + no!” + </p> + <p> + “What for?” + </p> + <p> + “Drug store!” shouted Sam. “We'll be partners——” + </p> + <p> + “Or else,” Penrod suggested, “I'll run the drug store and you be a + customer——” + </p> + <p> + “No! Partners!” insisted Sam with such conviction that his host yielded; + and within ten minutes the drug store was doing a heavy business with + imaginary patrons. Improvising counters with boards and boxes, and setting + forth a very druggish-looking stock from the basket, each of the partners + found occupation to his taste—Penrod as salesman and Sam as + prescription clerk. + </p> + <p> + “Here you are, madam!” said Penrod briskly, offering a vial of Sam's + mixing to an invisible matron. “This will cure your husband in a few + minutes. Here's the camphor, mister. Call again! Fifty cents' worth of + pills? Yes, madam. There you are! Hurry up with that dose for the nigger + lady, Bill!” + </p> + <p> + “I'll 'tend to it soon's I get time, Jim,” replied the prescription clerk. + “I'm busy fixin' the smallpox medicine for the sick policeman downtown.” + </p> + <p> + Penrod stopped sales to watch this operation. Sam had found an empty pint + bottle and, with the pursed lips and measuring eye of a great chemist, was + engaged in filling it from other bottles. + </p> + <p> + First, he poured into it some of the syrup from the condemned preserves; + and a quantity of extinct hair oil; next the remaining contents of a dozen + small vials cryptically labelled with physicians' prescriptions; then some + remnants of catsup and essence of beef and what was left in several + bottles of mouthwash; after that a quantity of rejected flavouring extract—topping + off by shaking into the mouth of the bottle various powders from small + pink papers, relics of Mr. Schofield's influenza of the preceding winter. + </p> + <p> + Sam examined the combination with concern, appearing unsatisfied. “We got + to make that smallpox medicine good and strong!” he remarked; and, his + artistic sense growing more powerful than his appetite, he poured about a + quarter of the licorice water into the smallpox medicine. + </p> + <p> + “What you doin'?” protested Penrod. “What you want to waste that lickrish + water for? We ought to keep it to drink when we're tired.” + </p> + <p> + “I guess I got a right to use my own lickrish water any way I want to,” + replied the prescription clerk. “I tell you, you can't get smallpox + medicine too strong. Look at her now!” He held the bottle up admiringly. + “She's as black as lickrish. I bet you she's strong all right!” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder how she tastes?” said Penrod thoughtfully. + </p> + <p> + “Don't smell so awful much,” observed Sam, sniffing the bottle—“a + good deal, though!” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder if it'd make us sick to drink it?” said Penrod. + </p> + <p> + Sam looked at the bottle thoughtfully; then his eye, wandering, fell upon + Duke, placidly curled up near the door, and lighted with the advent of an + idea new to him, but old, old in the world—older than Egypt! + </p> + <p> + “Let's give Duke some!” he cried. + </p> + <p> + That was the spark. They acted immediately; and a minute later Duke, + released from custody with a competent potion of the smallpox medicine + inside him, settled conclusively their doubts concerning its effect. The + patient animal, accustomed to expect the worst at all times, walked out of + the door, shaking his head with an air of considerable annoyance, opening + and closing his mouth with singular energy—and so repeatedly that + they began to count the number of times he did it. Sam thought it was + thirty-nine times, but Penrod had counted forty-one before other and more + striking symptoms appeared. + </p> + <p> + All things come from Mother Earth and must return—Duke restored much + at this time. Afterward, he ate heartily of grass; and then, over his + shoulder, he bent upon his master one inscrutable look and departed feebly + to the front yard. + </p> + <p> + The two boys had watched the process with warm interest. “I told you she + was strong!” said Mr. Williams proudly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir—she is!” Penrod was generous enough to admit. “I expect + she's strong enough——” He paused in thought, and added: + </p> + <p> + “We haven't got a horse any more.” + </p> + <p> + “I bet you she'd fix him if you had!” said Sam. And it may be that this + was no idle boast. + </p> + <p> + The pharmaceutical game was not resumed; the experiment upon Duke had made + the drug store commonplace and stimulated the appetite for stronger meat. + Lounging in the doorway, the near-vivisectionists sipped licorice water + alternately and conversed. + </p> + <p> + “I bet some of our smallpox medicine would fix ole P'fessor Bartet all + right!” quoth Penrod. “I wish he'd come along and ask us for some.” + </p> + <p> + “We could tell him it was lickrish water,” added Sam, liking the idea. + “The two bottles look almost the same.” + </p> + <p> + “Then we wouldn't have to go to his ole cotillon this afternoon,” Penrod + sighed. “There wouldn't be any!” + </p> + <p> + “Who's your partner, Pen?” + </p> + <p> + “Who's yours?” + </p> + <p> + “Who's yours? I just ast you.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, she's all right!” And Penrod smiled boastfully. + </p> + <p> + “I bet you wanted to dance with Marjorie!” said his friend. + </p> + <p> + “Me? I wouldn't dance with that girl if she begged me to! I wouldn't dance + with her to save her from drowning! I wouldn't da——” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no—you wouldn't!” interrupted Mr. Williams skeptically. + </p> + <p> + Penrod changed his tone and became persuasive. + </p> + <p> + “Looky here, Sam,” he said confidentially. “I've got 'a mighty nice + partner, but my mother don't like her mother; and so I've been thinking I + better not dance with her. I'll tell you what I'll do; I've got a mighty + good sling in the house, and I'll give it to you if you'll change + partners.” + </p> + <p> + “You want to change and you don't even know who mine is!” said Sam, and he + made the simple though precocious deduction: “Yours must be a lala! Well, + I invited Mabel Rorebeck, and she wouldn't let me change if I wanted to. + Mabel Rorebeck'd rather dance with me,” he continued serenely, “than + anybody; and she said she was awful afraid you'd ast her. But I ain't + goin' to dance with Mabel after all, because this morning she sent me a + note about her uncle died last night—and P'fessor Bartet'll have to + find me a partner after I get there. Anyway I bet you haven't got any + sling—and I bet your partner's Baby Rennsdale!” + </p> + <p> + “What if she is?” said Penrod. “She's good enough for ME!” This speech + held not so much modesty in solution as intended praise of the lady. Taken + literally, however, it was an understatement of the facts and wholly + insincere. + </p> + <p> + “Yay!” jeered Mr. Williams, upon whom his friend's hypocrisy was quite + wasted. “How can your mother not like her mother? Baby Rennsdale hasn't + got any mother! You and her'll be a sight!” + </p> + <p> + That was Penrod's own conviction; and with this corroboration of it he + grew so spiritless that he could offer no retort. He slid to a despondent + sitting posture upon the door sill and gazed wretchedly upon the ground, + while his companion went to replenish the licorice water at the hydrant—enfeebling + the potency of the liquor no doubt, but making up for that in quantity. + </p> + <p> + “Your mother goin' with you to the cotillon?” asked Sam when he returned. + </p> + <p> + “No. She's goin' to meet me there. She's goin' somewhere first.” + </p> + <p> + “So's mine,” said Sam. “I'll come by for you.” + </p> + <p> + “All right.” + </p> + <p> + “I better go before long. Noon whistles been blowin'.” + </p> + <p> + “All right,” Penrod repeated dully. + </p> + <p> + Sam turned to go, but paused. A new straw hat was peregrinating along the + fence near the two boys. This hat belonged to someone passing upon the + sidewalk of the cross-street; and the someone was Maurice Levy. Even as + they stared, he halted and regarded them over the fence with two small, + dark eyes. + </p> + <p> + Fate had brought about this moment and this confrontation. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIV MAURICE LEVY'S CONSTITUTION + </h2> + <h3> + “Lo, Sam!” said Maurice cautiously. “What you doin'?” + </h3> + <p> + Penrod at that instant had a singular experience—an intellectual + shock like a flash of fire in the brain. Sitting in darkness, a great + light flooded him with wild brilliance. He gasped! + </p> + <p> + “What you doin'?” repeated Mr. Levy. + </p> + <p> + Penrod sprang to his feet, seized the licorice bottle, shook it with + stoppering thumb, and took a long drink with histrionic unction. + </p> + <p> + “What you doin'?” asked Maurice for the third time, Sam Williams not + having decided upon a reply. + </p> + <p> + It was Penrod who answered. + </p> + <p> + “Drinkin' lickrish water,” he said simply, and wiped his mouth with such + delicious enjoyment that Sam's jaded thirst was instantly stimulated. He + took the bottle eagerly from Penrod. + </p> + <p> + “A-a-h!” exclaimed Penrod, smacking his lips. “That was a good un!” + </p> + <p> + The eyes above the fence glistened. + </p> + <p> + “Ask him if he don't want some,” Penrod whispered urgently. “Quit drinkin' + it! It's no good any more. Ask him!” + </p> + <p> + “What for?” demanded the practical Sam. + </p> + <p> + “Go on and ask him!” whispered Penrod fiercely. + </p> + <p> + “Say, M'rice!” Sam called, waving the bottle. “Want some?” + </p> + <p> + “Bring it here!” Mr. Levy requested. + </p> + <p> + “Come on over and get some,” returned Sam, being prompted. + </p> + <p> + “I can't. Penrod Schofield's after me.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I'm not,” said Penrod reassuringly. “I won't touch you, M'rice. I + made up with you yesterday afternoon—don't you remember? You're all + right with me, M'rice.” + </p> + <p> + Maurice looked undecided. But Penrod had the delectable bottle again, and + tilting it above his lips, affected to let the cool liquid purl + enrichingly into him, while with his right hand he stroked his middle + facade ineffably. Maurice's mouth watered. + </p> + <p> + “Here!” cried Sam, stirred again by the superb manifestations of his + friend. “Gimme that!” + </p> + <p> + Penrod brought the bottle down, surprisingly full after so much gusto, but + withheld it from Sam; and the two scuffled for its possession. Nothing in + the world could have so worked upon the desire of the yearning observer + beyond the fence. + </p> + <p> + “Honest, Penrod—you ain't goin' to touch me if I come in your yard?” + he called. “Honest?” + </p> + <p> + “Cross my heart!” answered Penrod, holding the bottle away from Sam. “And + we'll let you drink all you want.” + </p> + <p> + Maurice hastily climbed the fence, and while he was thus occupied Mr. + Samuel Williams received a great enlightenment. With startling rapidity + Penrod, standing just outside the storeroom door, extended his arm within + the room, deposited the licorice water upon the counter of the drug store, + seized in its stead the bottle of smallpox medicine, and extended it + cordially toward the advancing Maurice. + </p> + <p> + Genius is like that—great, simple, broad strokes! + </p> + <p> + Dazzled, Mr. Samuel Williams leaned against the wall. He had the + sensations of one who comes suddenly into the presence of a chef-d'oeuvre. + Perhaps his first coherent thought was that almost universal one on such + huge occasions: “Why couldn't <i>I</i> have done that!” + </p> + <p> + Sam might have been even more dazzled had he guessed that he figured not + altogether as a spectator in the sweeping and magnificent conception of + the new Talleyrand. Sam had no partner for the cotillon. If Maurice was to + be absent from that festivity—as it began to seem he might be—Penrod + needed a male friend to take care of Miss Rennsdale and he believed he saw + his way to compel Mr. Williams to be that male friend. For this he relied + largely upon the prospective conduct of Miss Rennsdale when he should get + the matter before her—he was inclined to believe she would favour + the exchange. As for Talleyrand Penrod himself, he was going to dance that + cotillon with Marjorie Jones! + </p> + <p> + “You can have all you can drink at one pull, M'rice,” said Penrod kindly. + </p> + <p> + “You said I could have all I want!” protested Maurice, reaching for the + bottle. + </p> + <p> + “No, I didn't,” returned Penrod quickly, holding it away from the eager + hand. + </p> + <p> + “He did, too! Didn't he, Sam?” + </p> + <p> + Sam could not reply; his eyes, fixed upon the bottle, protruded strangely. + </p> + <p> + “You heard him—didn't you, Sam?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, if I did say it I didn't mean it!” said Penrod hastily, quoting + from one of the authorities. “Looky here, M'rice,” he continued, assuming + a more placative and reasoning tone, “that wouldn't be fair to us. I guess + we want some of our own lickrish water, don't we? The bottle ain't much + over two-thirds full anyway. What I meant was, you can have all you can + drink at one pull.” + </p> + <p> + “How do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, this way: you can gulp all you want, so long as you keep swallering; + but you can't take the bottle out of your mouth and commence again. Soon's + you quit swallering it's Sam's turn.” + </p> + <p> + “No; you can have next, Penrod,” said Sam. + </p> + <p> + “Well, anyway, I mean M'rice has to give the bottle up the minute he stops + swallering.” + </p> + <p> + Craft appeared upon the face of Maurice, like a poster pasted on a wall. + </p> + <p> + “I can drink so long I don't stop swallering?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; that's it.” + </p> + <p> + “All right!” he cried. “Gimme the bottle!” + </p> + <p> + And Penrod placed it in his hand. + </p> + <p> + “You promise to let me drink until I quit swallering?” Maurice insisted. + </p> + <p> + “Yes!” said both boys together. + </p> + <p> + With that, Maurice placed the bottle to his lips and began to drink. + Penrod and Sam leaned forward in breathless excitement. They had feared + Maurice might smell the contents of the bottle; but that danger was past—this + was the crucial moment. Their fondest hope was that he would make his + first swallow a voracious one—it was impossible to imagine a second. + They expected one big, gulping swallow and then an explosion, with + fountain effects. + </p> + <p> + Little they knew the mettle of their man! Maurice swallowed once; he + swallowed twice—and thrice—and he continued to swallow! No + Adam's apple was sculptured on that juvenile throat, but the internal + progress of the liquid was not a whit the less visible. His eyes gleamed + with cunning and malicious triumph, sidewise, at the stunned conspirators; + he was fulfilling the conditions of the draught, not once breaking the + thread of that marvelous swallering. + </p> + <p> + His audience stood petrified. Already Maurice had swallowed more than they + had given Duke and still the liquor receded in the uplifted bottle! And + now the clear glass gleamed above the dark contents full half the vessel's + length—and Maurice went on drinking! Slowly the clear glass + increased in its dimensions—slowly the dark diminished. + </p> + <p> + Sam Williams made a horrified movement to check him—but Maurice + protested passionately with his disengaged arm, and made vehement vocal + noises remindful of the contract; whereupon Sam desisted and watched the + continuing performance in a state of grisly fascination. + </p> + <p> + Maurice drank it all! He drained the last drop and threw the bottle in the + air, uttering loud ejaculations of triumph and satisfaction. + </p> + <p> + “Hah!” he cried, blowing out his cheeks, inflating his chest, squaring his + shoulders, patting his stomach, and wiping his mouth contentedly. “Hah! + Aha! Waha! Wafwah! But that was good!” + </p> + <p> + The two boys stood looking at him in stupor. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I gotta say this,” said Maurice graciously: “You stuck to your + bargain all right and treated me fair.” + </p> + <p> + Stricken with a sudden horrible suspicion, Penrod entered the storeroom in + one stride and lifted the bottle of licorice water to his nose—then + to his lips. It was weak, but good; he had made no mistake. And Maurice + had really drained—to the dregs—the bottle of old hair tonics, + dead catsups, syrups of undesirable preserves, condemned extracts of + vanilla and lemon, decayed chocolate, ex-essence of beef, mixed dental + preparations, aromatic spirits of ammonia, spirits of nitre, alcohol, + arnica, quinine, ipecac, sal volatile, nux vomica and licorice water— + with traces of arsenic, belladonna and strychnine. + </p> + <p> + Penrod put the licorice water out of sight and turned to face the others. + Maurice was seating himself on a box just outside the door and had taken a + package of cigarettes from his pocket. + </p> + <p> + “Nobody can see me from here, can they?” he said, striking a match. “You + fellers smoke?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Sam, staring at him haggardly. + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Penrod in a whisper. + </p> + <p> + Maurice lit his cigarette and puffed showily. + </p> + <p> + “Well, sir,” he remarked, “you fellers are certainly square—I gotta + say that much. Honest, Penrod, I thought you was after me! I did think + so,” he added sunnily; “but now I guess you like me, or else you wouldn't + of stuck to it about lettin' me drink it all if I kept on swallering.” + </p> + <p> + He chatted on with complete geniality, smoking his cigarette in content. + And as he ran from one topic to another his hearers stared at him in a + kind of torpor. Never once did they exchange a glance with each other; + their eyes were frozen to Maurice. The cheerful conversationalist made it + evident that he was not without gratitude. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” he said as he finished his cigarette and rose to go, “you fellers + have treated me nice and some day you come over to my yard; I'd like to + run with you fellers. You're the kind of fellers I like.” + </p> + <p> + Penrod's jaw fell; Sam's mouth had been open all the time. Neither spoke. + </p> + <p> + “I gotta go,” observed Maurice, consulting a handsome watch. “Gotta get + dressed for the cotillon right after lunch. Come on, Sam. Don't you have + to go, too?” + </p> + <p> + Sam nodded dazedly. + </p> + <p> + “Well, good-bye, Penrod,” said Maurice cordially. “I'm glad you like me + all right. Come on, Sam.” + </p> + <p> + Penrod leaned against the doorpost and with fixed and glazing eyes watched + the departure of his two visitors. Maurice was talking volubly, with much + gesticulation, as they went; but Sam walked mechanically and in silence, + staring at his brisk companion and keeping at a little distance from him. + </p> + <p> + They passed from sight, Maurice still conversing gayly—and Penrod + slowly betook himself into the house, his head bowed upon his chest. + </p> + <p> + Some three hours later, Mr. Samuel Williams, waxen clean and in sweet + raiment, made his reappearance in Penrod's yard, yodelling a code-signal + to summon forth his friend. He yodelled loud, long, and frequently, + finally securing a faint response from the upper air. + </p> + <p> + “Where are you?” shouted Mr. Williams, his roving glance searching ambient + heights. Another low-spirited yodel reaching his ear, he perceived the + head and shoulders of his friend projecting above the roofridge of the + stable. The rest of Penrod's body was concealed from view, reposing upon + the opposite slant of the gable and precariously secured by the crooking + of his elbows over the ridge. + </p> + <p> + “Yay! What you doin' up there?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothin'.” + </p> + <p> + “You better be careful!” Sam called. “You'll slide off and fall down in + the alley if you don't look out. I come pert' near it last time we was up + there. Come on down! Ain't you goin' to the cotillon?” + </p> + <p> + Penrod made no reply. Sam came nearer. + </p> + <p> + “Say,” he called up in a guarded voice, “I went to our telephone a while + ago and ast him how he was feelin', and he said he felt fine!” + </p> + <p> + “So did I,” said Penrod. “He told me he felt bully!” + </p> + <p> + Sam thrust his hands in his pockets and brooded. The opening of the + kitchen door caused a diversion. It was Della. + </p> + <p> + “Mister Penrod,” she bellowed forthwith, “come ahn down fr'm up there! Y'r + mamma's at the dancin' class waitin' fer ye, an' she's telephoned me + they're goin' to begin—an' what's the matter with ye? Come ahn down + fr'm up there!” + </p> + <p> + “Come on!” urged Sam. “We'll be late. There go Maurice and Marjorie now.” + </p> + <p> + A glittering car spun by, disclosing briefly a genre picture of Marjorie + Jones in pink, supporting a monstrous sheaf of American Beauty roses. + Maurice, sitting shining and joyous beside her, saw both boys and waved + them a hearty greeting as the car turned the corner. + </p> + <p> + Penrod uttered some muffled words and then waved both arms—either in + response or as an expression of his condition of mind; it may have been a + gesture of despair. How much intention there was in this act—obviously + so rash, considering the position he occupied—it is impossible to + say. Undeniably there must remain a suspicion of deliberate purpose. + </p> + <p> + Della screamed and Sam shouted. Penrod had disappeared from view. + </p> + <p> + The delayed dance was about to begin a most uneven cotillon when Samuel + Williams arrived. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Schofield hurriedly left the ballroom; while Miss Rennsdale, flushing + with sudden happiness, curtsied profoundly to Professor Bartet and + obtained his attention. + </p> + <p> + “I have telled you fifty times,” he informed her passionately ere she + spoke, “I cannot make no such changes. If your partner comes you have to + dance with him. You are going to drive me crazy, sure! What is it? What + now? What you want?” + </p> + <p> + The damsel curtsied again and handed him the following communication, + addressed to herself: + </p> + <p> + “Dear madam Please excuse me from dancing the cotilon with you this + afternoon as I have fell off the barn + </p> + <p> + “Sincerly yours + </p> + <p> + “PENROD SCHOFIELD.” <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XV THE TWO FAMILIES + </h2> + <p> + Penrod entered the schoolroom, Monday picturesquely leaning upon a man's + cane shortened to support a cripple approaching the age of twelve. He + arrived about twenty minutes late, limping deeply, his brave young mouth + drawn with pain, and the sensation he created must have been a solace to + him; the only possible criticism of this entrance being that it was just a + shade too heroic. Perhaps for that reason it failed to stagger Miss + Spence, a woman so saturated with suspicion that she penalized Penrod for + tardiness as promptly and as coldly as if he had been a mere, ordinary, + unmutilated boy. Nor would she entertain any discussion of the justice of + her ruling. It seemed, almost, that she feared to argue with him. + </p> + <p> + However, the distinction of cane and limp remained to him, consolations + which he protracted far into the week—until Thursday evening, in + fact, when Mr. Schofield, observing from a window his son's pursuit of + Duke round and round the backyard, confiscated the cane, with the promise + that it should not remain idle if he saw Penrod limping again. Thus, + succeeding a depressing Friday, another Saturday brought the necessity for + new inventions. + </p> + <p> + It was a scented morning in apple-blossom time. At about ten of the clock + Penrod emerged hastily from the kitchen door. His pockets bulged + abnormally; so did his checks, and he swallowed with difficulty. A + threatening mop, wielded by a cooklike arm in a checkered sleeve, followed + him through the doorway, and he was preceded by a small, hurried, wistful + dog with a warm doughnut in his mouth. The kitchen door slammed + petulantly, enclosing the sore voice of Della, whereupon Penrod and Duke + seated themselves upon the pleasant sward and immediately consumed the + spoils of their raid. + </p> + <p> + From the cross-street which formed the side boundary of the Schofields' + ample yard came a jingle of harness and the cadenced clatter of a pair of + trotting horses, and Penrod, looking up, beheld the passing of a fat + acquaintance, torpid amid the conservative splendours of a rather + old-fashioned victoria. This was Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, a + fellow sufferer at the Friday Afternoon Dancing Class, but otherwise not + often a companion: a home-sheltered lad, tutored privately and preserved + against the coarsening influences of rude comradeship and miscellaneous + information. Heavily overgrown in all physical dimensions, virtuous, and + placid, this cloistered mutton was wholly uninteresting to Penrod + Schofield. Nevertheless, Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, was a personage + on account of the importance of the Magsworth Bitts family; and it was + Penrod's destiny to increase Roderick's celebrity far, far beyond its + present aristocratic limitations. + </p> + <p> + The Magsworth Bittses were important because they were impressive; there + was no other reason. And they were impressive because they believed + themselves important. The adults of the family were impregnably formal; + they dressed with reticent elegance, and wore the same nose and the same + expression—an expression which indicated that they knew something + exquisite and sacred which other people could never know. Other people, in + their presence, were apt to feel mysteriously ignoble and to become + secretly uneasy about ancestors, gloves, and pronunciation. The Magsworth + Bitts manner was withholding and reserved, though sometimes gracious, + granting small smiles as great favours and giving off a chilling kind of + preciousness. Naturally, when any citizen of the community did anything + unconventional or improper, or made a mistake, or had a relative who went + wrong, that citizen's first and worst fear was that the Magsworth Bittses + would hear of it. In fact, this painful family had for years terrorized + the community, though the community had never realized that it was + terrorized, and invariably spoke of the family as the “most charming + circle in town.” By common consent, Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts + officiated as the supreme model as well as critic-in-chief of morals and + deportment for all the unlucky people prosperous enough to be elevated to + her acquaintance. + </p> + <p> + Magsworth was the important part of the name. Mrs. Roderick Magsworth + Bitts was a Magsworth born, herself, and the Magsworth crest decorated not + only Mrs. Magsworth Bitts' note-paper but was on the china, on the table + linen, on the chimney-pieces, on the opaque glass of the front door, on + the victoria, and on the harness, though omitted from the garden-hose and + the lawn-mower. + </p> + <p> + Naturally, no sensible person dreamed of connecting that illustrious crest + with the unfortunate and notorious Rena Magsworth whose name had grown + week by week into larger and larger type upon the front pages of + newspapers, owing to the gradually increasing public and official belief + that she had poisoned a family of eight. However, the statement that no + sensible person could have connected the Magsworth Bitts family with the + arsenical Rena takes no account of Penrod Schofield. + </p> + <p> + Penrod never missed a murder, a hanging or an electrocution in the + newspapers; he knew almost as much about Rena Magsworth as her jurymen + did, though they sat in a court-room two hundred miles away, and he had it + in mind—so frank he was—to ask Roderick Magsworth Bitts, + Junior, if the murderess happened to be a relative. + </p> + <p> + The present encounter, being merely one of apathetic greeting, did not + afford the opportunity. Penrod took off his cap, and Roderick, seated + between his mother and one of his grown-up sisters, nodded sluggishly, but + neither Mrs. Magsworth Bitts nor her daughter acknowledged the salutation + of the boy in the yard. They disapproved of him as a person of little + consequence, and that little, bad. Snubbed, Penrod thoughtfully restored + his cap to his head. A boy can be cut as effectually as a man, and this + one was chilled to a low temperature. He wondered if they despised him + because they had seen a last fragment of doughnut in his hand; then he + thought that perhaps it was Duke who had disgraced him. Duke was certainly + no fashionable looking dog. + </p> + <p> + The resilient spirits of youth, however, presently revived, and + discovering a spider upon one knee and a beetle simultaneously upon the + other, Penrod forgot Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts in the course of some + experiments infringing upon the domain of Doctor Carrel. Penrod's efforts—with + the aid of a pin—to effect a transference of living organism were + unsuccessful; but he convinced himself forever that a spider cannot walk + with a beetle's legs. Della then enhanced zoological interest by + depositing upon the back porch a large rat-trap from the cellar, the + prison of four live rats awaiting execution. + </p> + <p> + Penrod at once took possession, retiring to the empty stable, where he + installed the rats in a small wooden box with a sheet of broken + window-glass—held down by a brickbat—over the top. Thus the + symptoms of their agitation, when the box was shaken or hammered upon, + could be studied at leisure. Altogether this Saturday was starting + splendidly. + </p> + <p> + After a time, the student's attention was withdrawn from his specimens by + a peculiar smell, which, being followed up by a system of selective + sniffing, proved to be an emanation leaking into the stable from the + alley. He opened the back door. + </p> + <p> + Across the alley was a cottage which a thrifty neighbour had built on the + rear line of his lot and rented to negroes; and the fact that a negro + family was now in process of “moving in” was manifested by the presence of + a thin mule and a ramshackle wagon, the latter laden with the semblance of + a stove and a few other unpretentious household articles. + </p> + <p> + A very small darky boy stood near the mule. In his hand was a rusty chain, + and at the end of the chain the delighted Penrod perceived the source of + the special smell he was tracing—a large raccoon. Duke, who had + shown not the slightest interest in the rats, set up a frantic barking and + simulated a ravening assault upon the strange animal. It was only a bit of + acting, however, for Duke was an old dog, had suffered much, and desired + no unnecessary sorrow, wherefore he confined his demonstrations to alarums + and excursions, and presently sat down at a distance and expressed himself + by intermittent threatenings in a quavering falsetto. + </p> + <p> + “What's that 'coon's name?” asked Penrod, intending no discourtesy. + </p> + <p> + “Aim gommo mame,” said the small darky. + </p> + <p> + “What?” + </p> + <p> + “Aim gommo mame.” + </p> + <p> + “WHAT?” + </p> + <p> + The small darky looked annoyed. + </p> + <p> + “Aim GOMMO mame, I hell you,” he said impatiently. + </p> + <p> + Penrod conceived that insult was intended. + </p> + <p> + “What's the matter of you?” he demanded advancing. “You get fresh with ME, + and I'll——” + </p> + <p> + “Hyuh, white boy!” A coloured youth of Penrod's own age appeared in the + doorway of the cottage. “You let 'at brothuh mine alone. He ain' do + nothin' to you.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, why can't he answer?” + </p> + <p> + “He can't. He can't talk no better'n what he WAS talkin'. He tongue-tie'.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” said Penrod, mollified. Then, obeying an impulse so universally + aroused in the human breast under like circumstances that it has become a + quip, he turned to the afflicted one. + </p> + <p> + “Talk some more,” he begged eagerly. + </p> + <p> + “I hoe you ackoom aim gommo mame,” was the prompt response, in which a + slight ostentation was manifest. Unmistakable tokens of vanity had + appeared upon the small, swart countenance. + </p> + <p> + “What's he mean?” asked Penrod, enchanted. + </p> + <p> + “He say he tole you 'at 'coon ain' got no name.” + </p> + <p> + “What's YOUR name?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm name Herman.” + </p> + <p> + “What's his name?” Penrod pointed to the tongue-tied boy. + </p> + <p> + “Verman.” + </p> + <p> + “What!” + </p> + <p> + “Verman. Was three us boys in ow fam'ly. Ol'est one name Sherman. 'N'en + come me; I'm Herman. 'N'en come him; he Verman. Sherman dead. Verman, he + de littles' one.” + </p> + <p> + “You goin' to live here?” + </p> + <p> + “Umhuh. Done move in f'm way outen on a fahm.” + </p> + <p> + He pointed to the north with his right hand, and Penrod's eyes opened wide + as they followed the gesture. Herman had no forefinger on that hand. + </p> + <p> + “Look there!” exclaimed Penrod. “You haven't got any finger!” + </p> + <p> + “<i>I</i> mum map,” said Verman, with egregious pride. + </p> + <p> + “HE done 'at,” interpreted Herman, chuckling. “Yessuh; done chop 'er spang + off, long 'go. He's a playin' wif a ax an' I lay my finguh on de do'-sill + an' I say, 'Verman, chop 'er off!' So Verman he chop 'er right spang off + up to de roots! Yessuh.” + </p> + <p> + “What FOR?” + </p> + <p> + “Jes' fo' nothin'.” + </p> + <p> + “He hoe me hoo,” remarked Verman. + </p> + <p> + “Yessuh, I tole him to,” said Herman, “an' he chop 'er off, an' ey ain't + airy oth' one evuh grown on wheres de ole one use to grow. Nosuh!” + </p> + <p> + “But what'd you tell him to do it for?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothin'. I 'es' said it 'at way—an' he jes' chop er off!” + </p> + <p> + Both brothers looked pleased and proud. Penrod's profound interest was + flatteringly visible, a tribute to their unusualness. + </p> + <p> + “Hem bow goy,” suggested Verman eagerly. + </p> + <p> + “Aw ri',” said Herman. “Ow sistuh Queenie, she a growed-up woman; she got + a goituh.” + </p> + <p> + “Got a what?” + </p> + <p> + “Goituh. Swellin' on her neck—grea' big swellin'. She heppin' mammy + move in now. You look in de front-room winduh wheres she sweepin'; you kin + see it on her.” + </p> + <p> + Penrod looked in the window and was rewarded by a fine view of Queenie's + goitre. He had never before seen one, and only the lure of further + conversation on the part of Verman brought him from the window. + </p> + <p> + “Verman say tell you 'bout pappy,” explained Herman. “Mammy an' Queenie + move in town an' go git de house all fix up befo' pappy git out.” + </p> + <p> + “Out of where?” + </p> + <p> + “Jail. Pappy cut a man, an' de police done kep' him in jail evuh sense + Chris'mus-time; but dey goin' tuhn him loose ag'in nex' week.” + </p> + <p> + “What'd he cut the other man with?” + </p> + <p> + “Wif a pitchfawk.” + </p> + <p> + Penrod began to feel that a lifetime spent with this fascinating family + were all too short. The brothers, glowing with amiability, were as + enraptured as he. For the first time in their lives they moved in the rich + glamour of sensationalism. Herman was prodigal of gesture with his right + hand; and Verman, chuckling with delight, talked fluently, though somewhat + consciously. They cheerfully agreed to keep the raccoon—already + beginning to be mentioned as “our 'coon” by Penrod—in Mr. + Schofield's empty stable, and, when the animal had been chained to the + wall near the box of rats and supplied with a pan of fair water, they + assented to their new friend's suggestion (inspired by a fine sense of the + artistic harmonies) that the heretofore nameless pet be christened + Sherman, in honour of their deceased relative. + </p> + <p> + At this juncture was heard from the front yard the sound of that yodelling + which is the peculiar accomplishment of those whose voices have not + “changed.” Penrod yodelled a response; and Mr. Samuel Williams appeared, a + large bundle under his arm. + </p> + <p> + “Yay, Penrod!” was his greeting, casual enough from without; but, having + entered, he stopped short and emitted a prodigious whistle. “YA-A-AY!” he + then shouted. “Look at the 'coon!” + </p> + <p> + “I guess you better say, 'Look at the 'coon!'” Penrod returned proudly. + “They's a good deal more'n him to look at, too. Talk some, Verman.” Verman + complied. + </p> + <p> + Sam was warmly interested. “What'd you say his name was?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “Verman.” + </p> + <p> + “How d'you spell it?” + </p> + <p> + “V-e-r-m-a-n,” replied Penrod, having previously received this information + from Herman. + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” said Sam. + </p> + <p> + “Point to sumpthing, Herman,” Penrod commanded, and Sam's excitement, when + Herman pointed was sufficient to the occasion. + </p> + <p> + Penrod, the discoverer, continued his exploitation of the manifold wonders + of the Sherman, Herman, and Verman collection. With the air of a + proprietor he escorted Sam into the alley for a good look at Queenie (who + seemed not to care for her increasing celebrity) and proceeded to a + dramatic climax—the recital of the episode of the pitchfork and its + consequences. + </p> + <p> + The cumulative effect was enormous, and could have but one possible + result. The normal boy is always at least one half Barnum. + </p> + <p> + “Let's get up a SHOW!” + </p> + <p> + Penrod and Sam both claimed to have said it first, a question left + unsettled in the ecstasies of hurried preparation. The bundle under Sam's + arm, brought with no definite purpose, proved to have been an inspiration. + It consisted of broad sheets of light yellow wrapping-paper, discarded by + Sam's mother in her spring house-cleaning. There were half-filled cans and + buckets of paint in the storeroom adjoining the carriage-house, and + presently the side wall of the stable flamed information upon the + passer-by from a great and spreading poster. + </p> + <p> + “Publicity,” primal requisite of all theatrical and amphitheatrical + enterprise thus provided, subsequent arrangements proceeded with a fury of + energy which transformed the empty hayloft. True, it is impossible to say + just what the hay-loft was transformed into, but history warrantably + clings to the statement that it was transformed. Duke and Sherman were + secured to the rear wall at a considerable distance from each other, after + an exhibition of reluctance on the part of Duke, during which he displayed + a nervous energy and agility almost miraculous in so small and middle-aged + a dog. Benches were improvised for spectators; the rats were brought up; + finally the rafters, corn-crib, and hay-chute were ornamented with flags + and strips of bunting from Sam Williams' attic, Sam returning from the + excursion wearing an old silk hat, and accompanied (on account of a rope) + by a fine dachshund encountered on the highway. In the matter of personal + decoration paint was generously used: an interpretation of the spiral, + inclining to whites and greens, becoming brilliantly effective upon the + dark facial backgrounds of Herman and Verman; while the countenances of + Sam and Penrod were each supplied with the black moustache and imperial, + lacking which, no professional showman can be esteemed conscientious. + </p> + <p> + It was regretfully decided, in council, that no attempt be made to add + Queenie to the list of exhibits, her brothers warmly declining to act as + ambassadors in that cause. They were certain Queenie would not like the + idea, they said, and Herman picturesquely described her activity on + occasions when she had been annoyed by too much attention to her + appearance. However, Penrod's disappointment was alleviated by an + inspiration which came to him in a moment of pondering upon the dachshund, + and the entire party went forth to add an enriching line to the poster. + </p> + <p> + They found a group of seven, including two adults, already gathered in the + street to read and admire this work. + </p> + <h4> + SCHoFiELD & WiLLiAMS <br /> BiG SHOW <br /> ADMiSSioN 1 CENT oR 20 PiNS + <br /> MUSUEM oF CURioSiTES <br /> Now GoiNG oN <br /> SHERMAN HERMAN & + VERMAN <br /> THiER FATHERS iN JAiL STABED A <br /> MAN WiTH A <br /> + PiTCHFORK <br /> SHERMAN THE WiLD ANIMAL <br /> CAPTURED iN AFRiCA <br /> + HERMAN THE ONE FiNGERED TATOOD <br /> WILD MAN VERMAN THE SAVAGE TATOOD + <br /> WILD BoY TALKS ONLY iN HiS NAiTiVE <br /> LANGUAGS. Do NoT FAIL TO + SEE DUKE <br /> THE INDiAN DOG ALSO THE MiCHiGAN <br /> TRAiNED RATS <br /> + </h4> + <p> + A heated argument took place between Sam and Penrod, the point at issue + being settled, finally, by the drawing of straws; whereupon Penrod, with + pardonable self-importance—in the presence of an audience now + increased to nine—slowly painted the words inspired by the + dachshund: + </p> + <h4> + IMPoRTENT Do NoT MISS THE SoUTH <br /> AMERiCAN DoG PART ALLIGATOR. + </h4> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVI THE NEW STAR + </h2> + <p> + Sam, Penrod, Herman, and Verman withdrew in considerable state from + non-paying view, and, repairing to the hay-loft, declared the exhibition + open to the public. Oral proclamation was made by Sam, and then the + loitering multitude was enticed by the seductive strains of a band; the + two partners performing upon combs and paper, Herman and Verman upon tin + pans with sticks. + </p> + <p> + The effect was immediate. Visitors appeared upon the stairway and sought + admission. Herman and Verman took position among the exhibits, near the + wall; Sam stood at the entrance, officiating as barker and ticket-seller; + while Penrod, with debonair suavity, acted as curator, master of + ceremonies, and lecturer. He greeted the first to enter with a courtly + bow. They consisted of Miss Rennsdale and her nursery governess, and they + paid spot cash for their admission. + </p> + <p> + “Walk in, lay-deeze, walk right in—pray do not obstruck the + passageway,” said Penrod, in a remarkable voice. “Pray be seated; there is + room for each and all.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Rennsdale and governess were followed by Mr. Georgie Bassett and baby + sister (which proves the perfection of Georgie's character) and six or + seven other neighbourhood children—a most satisfactory audience, + although, subsequent to Miss Rennsdale and governess, admission was wholly + by pin. + </p> + <p> + “GEN-til-mun and LAY-deeze,” shouted Penrod, “I will first call your + at-tain-shon to our genuine South American dog, part alligator!” He + pointed to the dachshund, and added, in his ordinary tone, “That's him.” + Straightway reassuming the character of showman, he bellowed: “NEXT, you + see Duke, the genuine, full-blooded Indian dog from the far Western Plains + and Rocky Mountains. NEXT, the trained Michigan rats, captured way up + there, and trained to jump and run all around the box at the—at the—at + the slightest PRE-text!” He paused, partly to take breath and partly to + enjoy his own surprised discovery that this phrase was in his vocabulary. + </p> + <p> + “At the slightest PRE-text!” he repeated, and continued, suiting the + action to the word: “I will now hammer upon the box and each and all may + see these genuine full-blooded Michigan rats perform at the slightest + PRE-text! There! (That's all they do now, but I and Sam are goin' to train + 'em lots more before this afternoon.) GEN-til-mun and LAY-deeze I will + kindly now call your at-tain-shon to Sherman, the wild animal from Africa, + costing the lives of the wild trapper and many of his companions. NEXT, + let me kindly interodoos Herman and Verman. Their father got mad and stuck + his pitchfork right inside of another man, exactly as promised upon the + advertisements outside the big tent, and got put in jail. Look at them + well, gen-til-mun and lay-deeze, there is no extra charge, and RE-MEM-BUR + you are each and all now looking at two wild, tattooed men which the + father of is in jail. Point, Herman. Each and all will have a chance to + see. Point to sumpthing else, Herman. This is the only genuine + one-fingered tattooed wild man. Last on the programme, gen-til-mun and + lay-deeze, we have Verman, the savage tattooed wild boy, that can't speak + only his native foreign languages. Talk some, Verman.” + </p> + <p> + Verman obliged and made an instantaneous hit. He was encored rapturously, + again and again; and, thrilling with the unique pleasure of being + appreciated and misunderstood at the same time, would have talked all day + but too gladly. Sam Williams, however, with a true showman's foresight, + whispered to Penrod, who rang down on the monologue. + </p> + <p> + “GEN-til-mun and LAY-deeze, this closes our pufformance. Pray pass out + quietly and with as little jostling as possible. As soon as you are all + out there's goin' to be a new pufformance, and each and all are welcome at + the same and simple price of admission. Pray pass out quietly and with as + little jostling as possible. RE-MEM-BUR the price is only one cent, the + tenth part of a dime, or twenty pins, no bent ones taken. Pray pass out + quietly and with as little jostling as possible. The Schofield and + Williams Military Band will play before each pufformance, and each and all + are welcome for the same and simple price of admission. Pray pass out + quietly and with as little jostling as possible.” + </p> + <p> + Forthwith, the Schofield and Williams Military Band began a second + overture, in which something vaguely like a tune was at times + distinguishable; and all of the first audience returned, most of them + having occupied the interval in hasty excursions for more pins; Miss + Rennsdale and governess, however, again paying coin of the Republic and + receiving deference and the best seats accordingly. And when a third + performance found all of the same inveterate patrons once more crowding + the auditorium, and seven recruits added, the pleasurable excitement of + the partners in their venture will be understood by any one who has seen a + metropolitan manager strolling about the foyer of his theatre some evening + during the earlier stages of an assured “phenomenal run.” + </p> + <p> + From the first, there was no question which feature of the entertainment + was the attraction extraordinary: Verman—Verman, the savage tattooed + wild boy, speaking only his native foreign languages—Verman was a + triumph! Beaming, wreathed in smiles, melodious, incredibly fluent, he had + but to open his lips and a dead hush fell upon the audience. Breathless, + they leaned forward, hanging upon his every semi-syllable, and, when + Penrod checked the flow, burst into thunders of applause, which Verman + received with happy laughter. + </p> + <p> + Alas! he delayed not o'er long to display all the egregiousness of a new + star; but for a time there was no caprice of his too eccentric to be + forgiven. During Penrod's lecture upon the other curios, the tattooed wild + boy continually stamped his foot, grinned, and gesticulated, tapping his + tiny chest, and pointing to himself as it were to say: “Wait for Me! I am + the Big Show.” So soon they learn; so soon they learn! And (again alas!) + this spoiled darling of public favour, like many another, was fated to + know, in good time, the fickleness of that favour. + </p> + <p> + But during all the morning performances he was the idol of his audience + and looked it! The climax of his popularity came during the fifth overture + of the Schofield and Williams Military Band, when the music was quite + drowned in the agitated clamours of Miss Rennsdale, who was endeavouring + to ascend the stairs in spite of the physical dissuasion of her governess. + </p> + <p> + “I WON'T go home to lunch!” screamed Miss Rennsdale, her voice accompanied + by a sound of ripping. “I WILL hear the tattooed wild boy talk some more! + It's lovely—I WILL hear him talk! I WILL! I WILL! I want to listen + to Verman—I WANT to—I WANT to——” + </p> + <p> + Wailing, she was borne away—of her sex not the first to be + fascinated by obscurity, nor the last to champion its eloquence. + </p> + <p> + Verman was almost unendurable after this, but, like many, many other + managers, Schofield and Williams restrained their choler, and even laughed + fulsomely when their principal attraction essayed the role of a comedian + in private, and capered and squawked in sheer, fatuous vanity. + </p> + <p> + The first performance of the afternoon rivalled the successes of the + morning, and although Miss Rennsdale was detained at home, thus drying up + the single source of cash income developed before lunch, Maurice Levy + appeared, escorting Marjorie Jones, and paid coin for two admissions, + dropping the money into Sam's hand with a careless—nay, a + contemptuous—gesture. At sight of Marjorie, Penrod Schofield flushed + under his new moustache (repainted since noon) and lectured as he had + never lectured before. A new grace invested his every gesture; a new + sonorousness rang in his voice; a simple and manly pomposity marked his + very walk as he passed from curio to curio. And when he fearlessly handled + the box of rats and hammered upon it with cool insouciance, he beheld—for + the first time in his life—a purl of admiration eddying in + Marjorie's lovely eye, a certain softening of that eye. And then Verman + spake and Penrod was forgotten. Marjorie's eye rested upon him no more. + </p> + <p> + A heavily equipped chauffeur ascended the stairway, bearing the message + that Mrs. Levy awaited her son and his lady. Thereupon, having devoured + the last sound permitted (by the managers) to issue from Verman, Mr. Levy + and Miss Jones departed to a real matinee at a real theatre, the limpid + eyes of Marjorie looking back softly over her shoulder—but only at + the tattooed wild boy. Nearly always it is woman who puts the irony into + life. + </p> + <p> + After this, perhaps because of sated curiosity, perhaps on account of a + pin famine, the attendance began to languish. Only four responded to the + next call of the band; the four dwindled to three; finally the + entertainment was given for one blase auditor, and Schofield and Williams + looked depressed. Then followed an interval when the band played in vain. + </p> + <p> + About three o'clock Schofield and Williams were gloomily discussing + various unpromising devices for startling the public into a renewal of + interest, when another patron unexpectedly appeared and paid a cent for + his admission. News of the Big Show and Museum of Curiosities had at last + penetrated the far, cold spaces of interstellar niceness, for this new + patron consisted of no less than Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, escaped + in a white “sailor suit” from the Manor during a period of severe maternal + and tutorial preoccupation. + </p> + <p> + He seated himself without parley, and the pufformance was offered for his + entertainment with admirable conscientiousness. True to the Lady Clara + caste and training, Roderick's pale, fat face expressed nothing except an + impervious superiority and, as he sat, cold and unimpressed upon the front + bench, like a large, white lump, it must be said that he made a + discouraging audience “to play to.” He was not, however, unresponsive—far + from it. He offered comment very chilling to the warm grandiloquence of + the orator. + </p> + <p> + “That's my uncle Ethelbert's dachshund,” he remarked, at the beginning of + the lecture. “You better take him back if you don't want to get arrested.” + And when Penrod, rather uneasily ignoring the interruption, proceeded to + the exploitation of the genuine, full-blooded Indian dog, Duke, “Why don't + you try to give that old dog away?” asked Roderick. “You couldn't sell + him.” + </p> + <p> + “My papa would buy me a lots better 'coon than that,” was the information + volunteered a little later, “only I wouldn't want the nasty old thing.” + </p> + <p> + Herman of the missing finger obtained no greater indulgence. “Pooh!” said + Roderick. “We have two fox-terriers in our stables that took prizes at the + kennel show, and their tails were BIT off. There's a man that always bites + fox-terriers' tails off.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, my gosh, what a lie!” exclaimed Sam Williams ignorantly. + </p> + <p> + “Go on with the show whether he likes it or not, Penrod. He's paid his + money.” + </p> + <p> + Verman, confident in his own singular powers, chuckled openly at the + failure of the other attractions to charm the frosty visitor, and, when + his turn came, poured forth a torrent of conversation which was + straightway damned. + </p> + <p> + “Rotten,” said Mr. Bitts languidly. “Anybody could talk like that. <i>I</i> + could do it if I wanted to.” + </p> + <p> + Verman paused suddenly. + </p> + <p> + “YES, you could!” exclaimed Penrod, stung. “Let's hear you do it, then.” + </p> + <p> + “Yessir!” the other partner shouted. “Let's just hear you DO it!” + </p> + <p> + “I said I could if I wanted to,” responded Roderick. “I didn't say I + WOULD.” + </p> + <p> + “Yay! Knows he can't!” sneered Sam. + </p> + <p> + “I can, too, if I try.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, let's hear you try!” + </p> + <p> + So challenged, the visitor did try, but, in the absence of an impartial + jury, his effort was considered so pronounced a failure that he was howled + down, derided, and mocked with great clamours. + </p> + <p> + “Anyway,” said Roderick, when things had quieted down, “if I couldn't get + up a better show than this I'd sell out and leave town.” + </p> + <p> + Not having enough presence of mind to inquire what he would sell out, his + adversaries replied with mere formless yells of scorn. + </p> + <p> + “I could get up a better show than this with my left hand,” Roderick + asserted. + </p> + <p> + “Well, what would you have in your ole show?” asked Penrod, condescending + to language. + </p> + <p> + “That's all right, what I'd HAVE. I'd have enough!” + </p> + <p> + “You couldn't get Herman and Verman in your ole show.” + </p> + <p> + “No, and I wouldn't want 'em, either!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, what WOULD you have?” insisted Penrod derisively. “You'd have to + have SUMPTHING—you couldn't be a show yourself!” + </p> + <p> + “How do YOU know?” This was but meandering while waiting for ideas, and + evoked another yell. + </p> + <p> + “You think you could be a show all by yourself?” demanded Penrod. + </p> + <p> + “How do YOU know I couldn't?” + </p> + <p> + Two white boys and two black boys shrieked their scorn of the boaster. + </p> + <p> + “I could, too!” Roderick raised his voice to a sudden howl, obtaining a + hearing. + </p> + <p> + “Well, why don't you tell us how?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, <i>I</i> know HOW, all right,” said Roderick. “If anybody asks you, + you can just tell him I know HOW, all right.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, you can't DO anything,” Sam began argumentatively. “You talk about + being a show all by yourself; what could you try to do? Show us sumpthing + you can do.” + </p> + <p> + “I didn't say I was going to DO anything,” returned the badgered one, + still evading. + </p> + <p> + “Well, then, how'd you BE a show?” Penrod demanded. “WE got a show here, + even if Herman didn't point or Verman didn't talk. Their father stabbed a + man with a pitchfork, I guess, didn't he?” + </p> + <p> + “How do <i>I</i> know?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I guess he's in jail, ain't he?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, what if their father is in jail? I didn't say he wasn't, did I?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, YOUR father ain't in jail, is he?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I never said he was, did I?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, then,” continued Penrod, “how could you be a——” He + stopped abruptly, staring at Roderick, the birth of an idea plainly + visible in his altered expression. He had suddenly remembered his + intention to ask Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, about Rena Magsworth, + and this recollection collided in his mind with the irritation produced by + Roderick's claiming some mysterious attainment which would warrant his + setting up as a show in his single person. Penrod's whole manner changed + instantly. + </p> + <p> + “Roddy,” he asked, almost overwhelmed by a prescience of something vast + and magnificent, “Roddy, are you any relation of Rena Magsworth?” + </p> + <p> + Roderick had never heard of Rena Magsworth, although a concentration of + the sentence yesterday pronounced upon her had burned, black and horrific, + upon the face of every newspaper in the country. He was not allowed to + read the journals of the day and his family's indignation over the + sacrilegious coincidence of the name had not been expressed in his + presence. But he saw that it was an awesome name to Penrod Schofield and + Samuel Williams. Even Herman and Verman, though lacking many educational + advantages on account of a long residence in the country, were informed on + the subject of Rena Magsworth through hearsay, and they joined in the + portentous silence. + </p> + <p> + “Roddy,” repeated Penrod, “honest, is Rena Magsworth some relation of + yours?” + </p> + <p> + There is no obsession more dangerous to its victims than a conviction + especially an inherited one—of superiority: this world is so full of + Missourians. And from his earliest years Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, + had been trained to believe in the importance of the Magsworth family. At + every meal he absorbed a sense of Magsworth greatness, and yet, in his + infrequent meetings with persons of his own age and sex, he was treated as + negligible. Now, dimly, he perceived that there was a Magsworth claim of + some sort which was impressive, even to boys. Magsworth blood was the + essential of all true distinction in the world, he knew. Consequently, + having been driven into a cul-de-sac, as a result of flagrant and + unfounded boasting, he was ready to take advantage of what appeared to be + a triumphal way out. + </p> + <p> + “Roddy,” said Penrod again, with solemnity, “is Rena Magsworth some + relation of yours?” + </p> + <p> + “IS she, Roddy?” asked Sam, almost hoarsely. + </p> + <p> + “She's my aunt!” shouted Roddy. + </p> + <p> + Silence followed. Sam and Penrod, spellbound, gazed upon Roderick + Magsworth Bitts, Junior. So did Herman and Verman. Roddy's staggering lie + had changed the face of things utterly. No one questioned it; no one + realized that it was much too good to be true. + </p> + <p> + “Roddy,” said Penrod, in a voice tremulous with hope, “Roddy, will you + join our show?” + </p> + <p> + Roddy joined. + </p> + <p> + Even he could see that the offer implied his being starred as the + paramount attraction of a new order of things. It was obvious that he had + swelled out suddenly, in the estimation of the other boys, to that + importance which he had been taught to believe his native gift and natural + right. The sensation was pleasant. He had often been treated with effusion + by grown-up callers and by acquaintances of his mothers and sisters; he + had heard ladies speak of him as “charming” and “that delightful child,” + and little girls had sometimes shown him deference, but until this moment + no boy had ever allowed him, for one moment, to presume even to equality. + Now, in a trice, he was not only admitted to comradeship, but patently + valued as something rare and sacred to be acclaimed and pedestalled. In + fact, the very first thing that Schofield and Williams did was to find a + box for him to stand upon. + </p> + <p> + The misgivings roused in Roderick's bosom by the subsequent activities of + the firm were not bothersome enough to make him forego his prominence as + Exhibit A. He was not a “quick-minded” boy, and it was long (and much + happened) before he thoroughly comprehended the causes of his new + celebrity. He had a shadowy feeling that if the affair came to be heard of + at home it might not be liked, but, intoxicated by the glamour and bustle + which surround a public character, he made no protest. On the contrary, he + entered whole-heartedly into the preparations for the new show. Assuming, + with Sam's assistance, a blue moustache and “side-burns,” he helped in the + painting of a new poster, which, supplanting the old one on the wall of + the stable facing the cross-street, screamed bloody murder at the passers + in that rather populous thoroughfare. + </p> + <h4> + SCHoFiELD & WiLLiAMS <br /> NEW BIG SHoW <br /> RoDERiCK MAGSWoRTH BiTTS + JR <br /> ONLY LiViNG NEPHEW <br /> oF <br /> RENA MAGSWORTH <br /> THE FAMOS + <br /> MUDERESS GoiNG To BE HUNG <br /> NEXT JULY KiLED EiGHT PEOPLE <br /> + PUT ARSiNECK iN THiER MiLK ALSO <br /> SHERMAN HERMAN AND VERMAN <br /> THE + MiCHiGAN RATS DOG PART <br /> ALLiGATOR DUKE THE GENUiNE <br /> InDiAN DoG + ADMISSioN 1 CENT oR <br /> 20 PINS SAME AS BEFORE Do NoT <br /> MISS THIS + CHANSE TO SEE RoDERICK <br /> ONLY LiViNG NEPHEW oF RENA <br /> MAGSWORTH + THE GREAT FAMOS <br /> MUDERESS <br /> GoiNG To BE <br /> HUNG + </h4> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVII RETIRING FROM THE SHOW BUSINESS + </h2> + <p> + Megaphones were constructed out of heavy wrapping-paper, and Penrod, Sam, + and Herman set out in different directions, delivering vocally the + inflammatory proclamation of the poster to a large section of the + residential quarter, and leaving Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, with + Verman in the loft, shielded from all deadhead eyes. Upon the return of + the heralds, the Schofield and Williams Military Band played deafeningly, + and an awakened public once more thronged to fill the coffers of the firm. + </p> + <p> + Prosperity smiled again. The very first audience after the acquisition of + Roderick was larger than the largest of the morning. Master Bitts—the + only exhibit placed upon a box—was a supercurio. All eyes fastened + upon him and remained, hungrily feasting, throughout Penrod's luminous + oration. + </p> + <p> + But the glory of one light must ever be the dimming of another. We dwell + in a vale of seesaws—and cobwebs spin fastest upon laurel. Verman, + the tattooed wild boy, speaking only in his native foreign languages, + Verman the gay, Verman the caperer, capered no more; he chuckled no more, + he beckoned no more, nor tapped his chest, nor wreathed his idolatrous + face in smiles. Gone, all gone, were his little artifices for attracting + the general attention to himself; gone was every engaging mannerism which + had endeared him to the mercurial public. He squatted against the wall and + glowered at the new sensation. It was the old story—the old, old + story of too much temperament: Verman was suffering from artistic + jealousy. + </p> + <p> + The second audience contained a cash-paying adult, a spectacled young man + whose poignant attention was very flattering. He remained after the + lecture, and put a few questions to Roddy, which were answered rather + confusedly upon promptings from Penrod. The young man went away without + having stated the object of his interrogations, but it became quite plain, + later in the day. This same object caused the spectacled young man to make + several brief but stimulating calls directly after leaving the Schofield + and Williams Big Show, and the consequences thereof loitered not by the + wayside. + </p> + <p> + The Big Show was at high tide. Not only was the auditorium filled and + throbbing; there was an indubitable line—by no means wholly juvenile—waiting + for admission to the next pufformance. A group stood in the street + examining the poster earnestly as it glowed in the long, slanting rays of + the westward sun, and people in automobiles and other vehicles had halted + wheel in the street to read the message so piquantly given to the world. + These were the conditions when a crested victoria arrived at a gallop, and + a large, chastely magnificent and highly flushed woman descended, and + progressed across the yard with an air of violence. + </p> + <p> + At sight of her, the adults of the waiting line hastily disappeared, and + most of the pausing vehicles moved instantly on their way. She was + followed by a stricken man in livery. + </p> + <p> + The stairs to the auditorium were narrow and steep; Mrs. Roderick + Magsworth Bitts was of a stout favour; and the voice of Penrod was audible + during the ascent. + </p> + <p> + “RE-MEM-BUR, gentilmun and lay-deeze, each and all are now gazing upon + Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, the only living nephew of the great Rena + Magsworth. She stuck ars'nic in the milk of eight separate and distinck + people to put in their coffee and each and all of 'em died. The great + ars'nic murderess, Rena Magsworth, gentilmun and lay-deeze, and Roddy's + her only living nephew. She's a relation of all the Bitts family, but he's + her one and only living nephew. RE-MEM-BUR! Next July she's goin' to be + hung, and, each and all, you now see before you——” + </p> + <p> + Penrod paused abruptly, seeing something before himself—the august + and awful presence which filled the entryway. And his words (it should be + related) froze upon his lips. + </p> + <p> + Before HERSELF, Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts saw her son—her scion—wearing + a moustache and sideburns of blue, and perched upon a box flanked by + Sherman and Verman, the Michigan rats, the Indian dog Duke, Herman, and + the dog part alligator. + </p> + <p> + Roddy, also, saw something before himself. It needed no prophet to read + the countenance of the dread apparition in the entryway. His mouth opened—remained + open—then filled to capacity with a calamitous sound of grief not + unmingled with apprehension. + </p> + <p> + Penrod's reason staggered under the crisis. For a horrible moment he saw + Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts approaching like some fatal mountain in + avalanche. She seemed to grow larger and redder; lightnings played about + her head; he had a vague consciousness of the audience spraying out in + flight, of the squealings, tramplings and dispersals of a stricken field. + The mountain was close upon him—— + </p> + <p> + He stood by the open mouth of the hay-chute which went through the floor + to the manger below. Penrod also went through the floor. He propelled + himself into the chute and shot down, but not quite to the manger, for Mr. + Samuel Williams had thoughtfully stepped into the chute a moment in + advance of his partner. Penrod lit upon Sam. + </p> + <p> + Catastrophic noises resounded in the loft; volcanoes seemed to romp upon + the stairway. + </p> + <p> + There ensued a period when only a shrill keening marked the passing of + Roderick as he was borne to the tumbril. Then all was silence. + </p> + <p> + . . . Sunset, striking through a western window, rouged the walls of the + Schofields' library, where gathered a joint family council and court + martial of four—Mrs. Schofield, Mr. Schofield, and Mr. and Mrs. + Williams, parents of Samuel of that ilk. Mr. Williams read aloud a + conspicuous passage from the last edition of the evening paper: + </p> + <p> + “Prominent people here believed close relations of woman sentenced to + hang. Angry denial by Mrs. R. Magsworth Bitts. Relationship admitted by + younger member of family. His statement confirmed by boy-friends——” + </p> + <p> + “Don't!” said Mrs. Williams, addressing her husband vehemently. “We've all + read it a dozen times. We've got plenty of trouble on our hands without + hearing THAT again!” + </p> + <p> + Singularly enough, Mrs. Williams did not look troubled; she looked as if + she were trying to look troubled. Mrs. Schofield wore a similar + expression. So did Mr. Schofield. So did Mr. Williams. + </p> + <p> + “What did she say when she called YOU up?” Mrs. Schofield inquired + breathlessly of Mrs. Williams. + </p> + <p> + “She could hardly speak at first, and then when she did talk, she talked + so fast I couldn't understand most of it, and——” + </p> + <p> + “It was just the same when she tried to talk to me,” said Mrs. Schofield, + nodding. + </p> + <p> + “I never did hear any one in such a state before,” continued Mrs. + Williams. “So furious——” + </p> + <p> + “Quite justly, of course,” said Mrs. Schofield. + </p> + <p> + “Of course. And she said Penrod and Sam had enticed Roderick away from + home—usually he's not allowed to go outside the yard except with his + tutor or a servant—and had told him to say that horrible creature + was his aunt——” + </p> + <p> + “How in the world do you suppose Sam and Penrod ever thought of such a + thing as THAT!” exclaimed Mrs. Schofield. “It must have been made up just + for their 'show.' Della says there were just STREAMS going in and out all + day. Of course it wouldn't have happened, but this was the day Margaret + and I spend every month in the country with Aunt Sarah, and I didn't DREAM——” + </p> + <p> + “She said one thing I thought rather tactless,” interrupted Mrs. Williams. + “Of course we must allow for her being dreadfully excited and wrought up, + but I do think it wasn't quite delicate in her, and she's usually the very + soul of delicacy. She said that Roderick had NEVER been allowed to + associate with—common boys——” + </p> + <p> + “Meaning Sam and Penrod,” said Mrs. Schofield. “Yes, she said that to me, + too.” + </p> + <p> + “She said that the most awful thing about it,” Mrs. Williams went on, “was + that, though she's going to prosecute the newspapers, many people would + always believe the story, and——” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I imagine they will,” said Mrs. Schofield musingly. “Of course you + and I and everybody who really knows the Bitts and Magsworth families + understand the perfect absurdity of it; but I suppose there are ever so + many who'll believe it, no matter what the Bittses and Magsworths say.” + </p> + <p> + “Hundreds and hundreds!” said Mrs. Williams. “I'm afraid it will be a + great come-down for them.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm afraid so,” said Mrs. Schofield gently. “A very great one—yes, + a very, very great one.” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” observed Mrs. Williams, after a thoughtful pause, “there's only + one thing to be done, and I suppose it had better be done right away.” + </p> + <p> + She glanced toward the two gentlemen. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly,” Mr. Schofield agreed. “But where ARE they?” + </p> + <p> + “Have you looked in the stable?” asked his wife. + </p> + <p> + “I searched it. They've probably started for the far West.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you look in the sawdust-box?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I didn't.” + </p> + <p> + “Then that's where they are.” + </p> + <p> + Thus, in the early twilight, the now historic stable was approached by two + fathers charged to do the only thing to be done. They entered the + storeroom. + </p> + <p> + “Penrod!” said Mr. Schofield. + </p> + <p> + “Sam!” said Mr. Williams. + </p> + <p> + Nothing disturbed the twilight hush. + </p> + <p> + But by means of a ladder, brought from the carriage-house, Mr. Schofield + mounted to the top of the sawdust-box. He looked within, and discerned the + dim outlines of three quiet figures, the third being that of a small dog. + </p> + <p> + The two boys rose, upon command, descended the ladder after Mr. Schofield, + bringing Duke with them, and stood before the authors of their being, who + bent upon them sinister and threatening brows. With hanging heads and + despondent countenances, each still ornamented with a moustache and an + imperial, Penrod and Sam awaited sentence. + </p> + <p> + This is a boy's lot: anything he does, anything whatever, may afterward + turn out to have been a crime—he never knows. + </p> + <p> + And punishment and clemency are alike inexplicable. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Williams took his son by the ear. + </p> + <p> + “You march home!” he commanded. + </p> + <p> + Sam marched, not looking back, and his father followed the small figure + implacably. + </p> + <p> + “You goin' to whip me?” quavered Penrod, alone with Justice. + </p> + <p> + “Wash your face at that hydrant,” said his father sternly. + </p> + <p> + About fifteen minutes later, Penrod, hurriedly entering the corner drug + store, two blocks distant, was astonished to perceive a familiar form at + the soda counter. + </p> + <p> + “Yay, Penrod,” said Sam Williams. “Want some sody? Come on. He didn't lick + me. He didn't do anything to me at all. He gave me a quarter.” + </p> + <p> + “So'd mine,” said Penrod. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVIII MUSIC + </h2> + <p> + Boyhood is the longest time in life for a boy. The last term of the + school-year is made of decades, not of weeks, and living through them is + like waiting for the millennium. But they do pass, somehow, and at last + there came a day when Penrod was one of a group that capered out from the + gravelled yard of “Ward School, Nomber Seventh,” carolling a leave-taking + of the institution, of their instructress, and not even forgetting Mr. + Capps, the janitor. + </p> + <p> + “Good-bye, teacher! Good-bye, school! Good-bye, Cappsie, dern ole fool!” + </p> + <p> + Penrod sang the loudest. For every boy, there is an age when he “finds his + voice.” Penrod's had not “changed,” but he had found it. Inevitably that + thing had come upon his family and the neighbours; and his father, a + somewhat dyspeptic man, quoted frequently the expressive words of the + “Lady of Shalott,” but there were others whose sufferings were as + poignant. + </p> + <p> + Vacation-time warmed the young of the world to pleasant languor; and a + morning came that was like a brightly coloured picture in a child's fairy + story. Miss Margaret Schofield, reclining in a hammock upon the front + porch, was beautiful in the eyes of a newly made senior, well favoured and + in fair raiment, beside her. A guitar rested lightly upon his knee, and he + was trying to play—a matter of some difficulty, as the floor of the + porch also seemed inclined to be musical. From directly under his feet + came a voice of song, shrill, loud, incredibly piercing and incredibly + flat, dwelling upon each syllable with incomprehensible reluctance to + leave it. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “I have lands and earthly pow-wur. + I'd give all for a now-wur, + Whi-ilst setting at MY-Y-Y dear old mother's knee-ee, + So-o-o rem-mem-bur whilst you're young——” + </pre> + <p> + Miss Schofield stamped heartily upon the musical floor. + </p> + <p> + “It's Penrod,” she explained. “The lattice at the end of the porch is + loose, and he crawls under and comes out all bugs. He's been having a + dreadful singing fit lately—running away to picture shows and + vaudeville, I suppose.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Robert Williams looked upon her yearningly. He touched a thrilling + chord on his guitar and leaned nearer. “But you said you have missed me,” + he began. “I——” + </p> + <p> + The voice of Penrod drowned all other sounds. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “So-o-o rem-mem-bur, whi-i-ilst you're young, + That the day-a-ys to you will come, + When you're o-o-old and only in the way, + Do not scoff at them BEE-cause——” + </pre> + <p> + “PENROD!” Miss Schofield stamped again. + </p> + <p> + “You DID say you'd missed me,” said Mr. Robert Williams, seizing hurriedly + upon the silence. “Didn't you say——” + </p> + <p> + A livelier tune rose upward. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Oh, you talk about your fascinating beauties, + Of your dem-O-zells, your belles, + But the littil dame I met, while in the city, + She's par excellaws the queen of all the swells. + She's sweeter far——” + </pre> + <p> + Margaret rose and jumped up and down repeatedly in a well-calculated area, + whereupon the voice of Penrod cried chokedly, “QUIT that!” and there were + subterranean coughings and sneezings. + </p> + <p> + “You want to choke a person to death?” he inquired severely, appearing at + the end of the porch, a cobweb upon his brow. And, continuing, he put into + practice a newly acquired phrase, “You better learn to be more considerick + of other people's comfort.” + </p> + <p> + Slowly and grievedly he withdrew, passed to the sunny side of the house, + reclined in the warm grass beside his wistful Duke, and presently sang + again. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “She's sweeter far than the flower I named her after, + And the memery of her smile it haunts me YET! + When in after years the moon is soffly beamun' + And at eve I smell the smell of mignonette + I will re-CALL that——” + </pre> + <p> + “Pen-ROD!” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Schofield appeared at an open window upstairs, a book in his hand. + </p> + <p> + “Stop it!” he commanded. “Can't I stay home with a headache ONE morning + from the office without having to listen to—I never DID hear such + squawking!” He retired from the window, having too impulsively called upon + his Maker. Penrod, shocked and injured, entered the house, but presently + his voice was again audible as far as the front porch. He was holding + converse with his mother, somewhere in the interior. + </p> + <p> + “Well, what of it? Sam Williams told me his mother said if Bob ever did + think of getting married to Margaret, his mother said she'd like to know + what in the name o' goodness they expect to——” + </p> + <p> + Bang! Margaret thought it better to close the front door. + </p> + <p> + The next minute Penrod opened it. “I suppose you want the whole family to + get a sunstroke,” he said reprovingly. “Keepin' every breath of air out o' + the house on a day like this!” + </p> + <p> + And he sat down implacably in the doorway. + </p> + <p> + The serious poetry of all languages has omitted the little brother; and + yet he is one of the great trials of love—the immemorial burden of + courtship. Tragedy should have found place for him, but he has been left + to the haphazard vignettist of Grub Street. He is the grave and real + menace of lovers; his head is sacred and terrible, his power illimitable. + There is one way—only one—to deal with him; but Robert + Williams, having a brother of Penrod's age, understood that way. + </p> + <p> + Robert had one dollar in the world. He gave it to Penrod immediately. + </p> + <p> + Enslaved forever, the new Rockefeller rose and went forth upon the + highway, an overflowing heart bursting the floodgates of song. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “In her eyes the light of love was soffly gleamun', + So sweetlay, + So neatlay. + On the banks the moon's soff light was brightly streamun', + Words of love I then spoke TO her. + She was purest of the PEW-er: + 'Littil sweetheart, do not sigh, + Do not weep and do not cry. + I will build a littil cottige just for yew-EW-EW and I.'” + </pre> + <p> + In fairness, it must be called to mind that boys older than Penrod have + these wellings of pent melody; a wife can never tell when she is to + undergo a musical morning, and even the golden wedding brings her no + security, a man of ninety is liable to bust-loose in song, any time. + </p> + <p> + Invalids murmured pitifully as Penrod came within hearing; and people + trying to think cursed the day that they were born, when he went shrilling + by. His hands in his pockets, his shining face uplifted to the sky of + June, he passed down the street, singing his way into the heart's deepest + hatred of all who heard him. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “One evuning I was sturow-ling + Midst the city of the DEAD, + I viewed where all a-round me + Their PEACE-full graves was SPREAD. + But that which touched me mostlay——” + </pre> + <p> + He had reached his journey's end, a junk-dealer's shop wherein lay the + long-desired treasure of his soul—an accordion which might have + possessed a high quality of interest for an antiquarian, being + unquestionably a ruin, beautiful in decay, and quite beyond the + sacrilegious reach of the restorer. But it was still able to disgorge + sounds—loud, strange, compelling sounds, which could be heard for a + remarkable distance in all directions; and it had one rich calf-like tone + that had gone to Penrod's heart. He obtained the instrument for twenty-two + cents, a price long since agreed upon with the junk-dealer, who falsely + claimed a loss of profit, Shylock that he was! He had found the wreck in + an alley. + </p> + <p> + With this purchase suspended from his shoulder by a faded green cord, + Penrod set out in a somewhat homeward direction, but not by the route he + had just travelled, though his motive for the change was not humanitarian. + It was his desire to display himself thus troubadouring to the gaze of + Marjorie Jones. Heralding his advance by continuous experiments in the + music of the future, he pranced upon his blithesome way, the faithful Duke + at his heels. (It was easier for Duke than it would have been for a + younger dog, because, with advancing age, he had begun to grow a little + deaf.) + </p> + <p> + Turning the corner nearest to the glamoured mansion of the Joneses, the + boy jongleur came suddenly face to face with Marjorie, and, in the + delicious surprise of the encounter, ceased to play, his hands, in + agitation, falling from the instrument. + </p> + <p> + Bareheaded, the sunshine glorious upon her amber curls, Marjorie was + strolling hand-in-hand with her baby brother, Mitchell, four years old. + She wore pink that day—unforgettable pink, with a broad, black + patent-leather belt, shimmering reflections dancing upon its surface. How + beautiful she was! How sacred the sweet little baby brother, whose + privilege it was to cling to that small hand, delicately powdered with + freckles. + </p> + <p> + “Hello, Marjorie,” said Penrod, affecting carelessness. + </p> + <p> + “Hello!” said Marjorie, with unexpected cordiality. She bent over her baby + brother with motherly affectations. “Say 'howdy' to the gentymuns, + Mitchy-Mitch,” she urged sweetly, turning him to face Penrod. + </p> + <p> + “WON'T!” said Mitchy-Mitch, and, to emphasize his refusal, kicked the + gentymuns upon the shin. + </p> + <p> + Penrod's feelings underwent instant change, and in the sole occupation of + disliking Mitchy-Mitch, he wasted precious seconds which might have been + better employed in philosophic consideration of the startling example, + just afforded, of how a given law operates throughout the universe in + precisely the same manner perpetually. Mr. Robert Williams would have + understood this, easily. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, oh!” Marjorie cried, and put Mitchy-Mitch behind her with too much + sweetness. “Maurice Levy's gone to Atlantic City with his mamma,” she + remarked conversationally, as if the kicking incident were quite closed. + </p> + <p> + “That's nothin',” returned Penrod, keeping his eye uneasily upon + Mitchy-Mitch. “I know plenty people been better places than that—Chicago + and everywhere.” + </p> + <p> + There was unconscious ingratitude in his low rating of Atlantic City, for + it was largely to the attractions of that resort he owed Miss Jones' + present attitude of friendliness. + </p> + <p> + Of course, too, she was curious about the accordion. It would be dastardly + to hint that she had noticed a paper bag which bulged the pocket of + Penrod's coat, and yet this bag was undeniably conspicuous—“and + children are very like grown people sometimes!” + </p> + <p> + Penrod brought forth the bag, purchased on the way at a drug store, and + till this moment UNOPENED, which expresses in a word the depth of his + sentiment for Marjorie. It contained an abundant fifteen-cents' worth of + lemon drops, jaw-breakers, licorice sticks, cinnamon drops, and shopworn + choclate creams. + </p> + <p> + “Take all you want,” he said, with off-hand generosity. + </p> + <p> + “Why, Penrod Schofield,” exclaimed the wholly thawed damsel, “you nice + boy!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that's nothin',” he returned airily. “I got a good deal of money, + nowadays.” + </p> + <p> + “Where from?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh—just around.” With a cautious gesture he offered a jaw-breaker + to Mitchy-Mitch, who snatched it indignantly and set about its absorption + without delay. + </p> + <p> + “Can you play on that?” asked Marjorie, with some difficulty, her cheeks + being rather too hilly for conversation. + </p> + <p> + “Want to hear me?” + </p> + <p> + She nodded, her eyes sweet with anticipation. + </p> + <p> + This was what he had come for. He threw back his head, lifted his eyes + dreamily, as he had seen real musicians lift theirs, and distended the + accordion preparing to produce the wonderful calf-like noise which was the + instrument's great charm. + </p> + <p> + But the distention evoked a long wail which was at once drowned in another + one. + </p> + <p> + “Ow! Owowaoh! Wowohah! WaowWOW!” shrieked Mitchy-Mitch and the accordion + together. + </p> + <p> + Mitchy-Mitch, to emphasize his disapproval of the accordion, opening his + mouth still wider, lost therefrom the jaw-breaker, which rolled in the + dust. Weeping, he stooped to retrieve it, and Marjorie, to prevent him, + hastily set her foot upon it. Penrod offered another jaw-breaker; but + Mitchy-Mitch struck it from his hand, desiring the former, which had + convinced him of its sweetness. + </p> + <p> + Marjorie moved inadvertently; whereupon Mitchy-Mitch pounced upon the + remains of his jaw-breaker and restored them, with accretions, to his + mouth. His sister, uttering a cry of horror, sprang to the rescue, + assisted by Penrod, whom she prevailed upon to hold Mitchy-Mitch's mouth + open while she excavated. This operation being completed, and Penrod's + right thumb severely bitten, Mitchy-Mitch closed his eyes tightly, + stamped, squealed, bellowed, wrung his hands, and then, unexpectedly, + kicked Penrod again. + </p> + <p> + Penrod put a hand in his pocket and drew forth a copper two-cent piece, + large, round, and fairly bright. + </p> + <p> + He gave it to Mitchy-Mitch. + </p> + <p> + Mitchy-Mitch immediately stopped crying and gazed upon his benefactor with + the eyes of a dog. + </p> + <p> + This world! + </p> + <p> + Thereafter did Penrod—with complete approval from Mitchy-Mitch—play + the accordion for his lady to his heart's content, and hers. Never had he + so won upon her; never had she let him feel so close to her before. They + strolled up and down upon the sidewalk, eating, one thought between them, + and soon she had learned to play the accordion almost as well as he. So + passed a happy hour, which the Good King Rene of Anjou would have envied + them, while Mitchy-Mitch made friends with Duke, romped about his sister + and her swain, and clung to the hand of the latter, at intervals, with + fondest affection and trust. + </p> + <p> + The noon whistles failed to disturb this little Arcady; only the sound of + Mrs. Jones' voice for the third time summoning Marjorie and Mitchy-Mitch + to lunch—sent Penrod on his way. + </p> + <p> + “I could come back this afternoon, I guess,” he said, in parting. + </p> + <p> + “I'm not goin' to be here. I'm goin' to Baby Rennsdale's party.” + </p> + <p> + Penrod looked blank, as she intended he should. Having thus satisfied + herself, she added: + </p> + <p> + “There aren't goin' to be any boys there.” + </p> + <p> + He was instantly radiant again. + </p> + <p> + “Marjorie——” + </p> + <p> + “Hum?” + </p> + <p> + “Do you wish I was goin' to be there?” + </p> + <p> + She looked shy, and turned away her head. + </p> + <p> + “MARJORIE JONES!” (This was a voice from home.) “HOW MANY MORE TIMES SHALL + I HAVE TO CALL YOU?” + </p> + <p> + Marjorie moved away, her face still hidden from Penrod. + </p> + <p> + “Do you?” he urged. + </p> + <p> + At the gate, she turned quickly toward him, and said over her shoulder, + all in a breath: “Yes! Come again to-morrow morning and I'll be on the + corner. Bring your 'cordion!” + </p> + <p> + And she ran into the house, Mitchy-Mitch waving a loving hand to the boy + on the sidewalk until the front door closed. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIX THE INNER BOY + </h2> + <p> + Penrod went home in splendour, pretending that he and Duke were a long + procession; and he made enough noise to render the auricular part of the + illusion perfect. His own family were already at the lunch-table when he + arrived, and the parade halted only at the door of the dining-room. + </p> + <p> + “Oh SOMETHING!” shouted Mr. Schofield, clasping his bilious brow with both + hands. “Stop that noise! Isn't it awful enough for you to SING? Sit DOWN! + Not with that thing on! Take that green rope off your shoulder! Now take + that thing out of the dining-room and throw it in the ash-can! Where did + you get it?” + </p> + <p> + “Where did I get what, papa?” asked Penrod meekly, depositing the + accordion in the hall just outside the dining-room door. + </p> + <p> + “That da—that third-hand concertina.” + </p> + <p> + “It's a 'cordian,” said Penrod, taking his place at the table, and + noticing that both Margaret and Mr. Robert Williams (who happened to be a + guest) were growing red. + </p> + <p> + “I don't care what you call it,” said Mr. Schofield irritably. “I want to + know where you got it.” + </p> + <p> + Penrod's eyes met Margaret's: hers had a strained expression. + </p> + <p> + She very slightly shook her head. Penrod sent Mr. Williams a grateful + look, and might have been startled if he could have seen himself in a + mirror at that moment; for he regarded Mitchy-Mitch with concealed but + vigorous aversion and the resemblance would have horrified him. + </p> + <p> + “A man gave it to me,” he answered gently, and was rewarded by the visibly + regained ease of his patron's manner, while Margaret leaned back in her + chair and looked at her brother with real devotion. + </p> + <p> + “I should think he'd have been glad to,” said Mr. Schofield. “Who was he?” + </p> + <p> + “Sir?” In spite of the candy which he had consumed in company with + Marjorie and Mitchy-Mitch, Penrod had begun to eat lobster croquettes + earnestly. + </p> + <p> + “Who WAS he?” + </p> + <p> + “Who do you mean, papa?” + </p> + <p> + “The man that gave you that ghastly Thing!” + </p> + <p> + “Yessir. A man gave it to me.” + </p> + <p> + “I say, Who WAS he?” shouted Mr. Schofield. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I was just walking along, and the man came up to me—it was + right down in front of Colgate's, where most of the paint's rubbed off the + fence——” + </p> + <p> + “Penrod!” The father used his most dangerous tone. + </p> + <p> + “Sir?” + </p> + <p> + “Who was the man that gave you the concertina?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know. I was walking along——” + </p> + <p> + “You never saw him before?” + </p> + <p> + “No, sir. I was just walk——” + </p> + <p> + “That will do,” said Mr. Schofield, rising. “I suppose every family has + its secret enemies and this was one of ours. I must ask to be excused!” + </p> + <p> + With that, he went out crossly, stopping in the hall a moment before + passing beyond hearing. And, after lunch, Penrod sought in vain for his + accordion; he even searched the library where his father sat reading, + though, upon inquiry, Penrod explained that he was looking for a misplaced + schoolbook. He thought he ought to study a little every day, he said, even + during vacation-time. Much pleased, Mr. Schofield rose and joined the + search, finding the missing work on mathematics with singular ease—which + cost him precisely the price of the book the following September. + </p> + <p> + Penrod departed to study in the backyard. There, after a cautious survey + of the neighbourhood, he managed to dislodge the iron cover of the + cistern, and dropped the arithmetic within. A fine splash rewarded his + listening ear. Thus assured that when he looked for that book again no one + would find it for him, he replaced the cover, and betook himself pensively + to the highway, discouraging Duke from following by repeated volleys of + stones, some imaginary and others all too real. + </p> + <p> + Distant strains of brazen horns and the throbbing of drums were borne to + him upon the kind breeze, reminding him that the world was made for joy, + and that the Barzee and Potter Dog and Pony Show was exhibiting in a + banlieue not far away. So, thither he bent his steps—the plentiful + funds in his pocket burning hot holes all the way. He had paid twenty-two + cents for the accordion, and fifteen for candy; he had bought the + mercenary heart of Mitchy-Mitch for two: it certainly follows that there + remained to him of his dollar, sixty-one cents—a fair fortune, and + most unusual. + </p> + <p> + Arrived upon the populous and festive scene of the Dog and Pony Show, he + first turned his attention to the brightly decorated booths which + surrounded the tent. The cries of the peanut vendors, of the popcorn men, + of the toy-balloon sellers, the stirring music of the band, playing before + the performance to attract a crowd, the shouting of excited children and + the barking of the dogs within the tent, all sounded exhilaratingly in + Penrod's ears and set his blood a-tingle. Nevertheless, he did not + squander his money or fling it to the winds in one grand splurge. Instead, + he began cautiously with the purchase of an extraordinarily large pickle, + which he obtained from an aged negress for his odd cent, too obvious a + bargain to be missed. At an adjacent stand he bought a glass of raspberry + lemonade (so alleged) and sipped it as he ate the pickle. He left nothing + of either. + </p> + <p> + Next, he entered a small restaurant-tent and for a modest nickel was + supplied with a fork and a box of sardines, previously opened, it is true, + but more than half full. He consumed the sardines utterly, but left the + tin box and the fork, after which he indulged in an inexpensive half-pint + of lukewarm cider, at one of the open booths. Mug in hand, a gentle glow + radiating toward his surface from various centres of activity deep inside + him, he paused for breath—and the cool, sweet cadences of the + watermelon man fell delectably upon his ear: + </p> + <p> + “Ice-cole WATER-melon; ice-cole water-MELON; the biggest slice of + ICE-cole, ripe, red, ICE-cole, rich an' rare; the biggest slice of + ice-cole watermelon ever cut by the hand of man! BUY our ICE-cole + water-melon?” + </p> + <p> + Penrod, having drained the last drop of cider, complied with the + watermelon man's luscious entreaty, and received a round slice of the + fruit, magnificent in circumference and something over an inch in + thickness. Leaving only the really dangerous part of the rind behind him, + he wandered away from the vicinity of the watermelon man and supplied + himself with a bag of peanuts, which, with the expenditure of a dime for + admission, left a quarter still warm in his pocket. However, he managed to + “break” the coin at a stand inside the tent, where a large, oblong paper + box of popcorn was handed him, with twenty cents change. The box was too + large to go into his pocket, but, having seated himself among some wistful + Polack children, he placed it in his lap and devoured the contents at + leisure during the performance. The popcorn was heavily larded with + partially boiled molasses, and Penrod sandwiched mouthfuls of peanuts with + gobs of this mass until the peanuts were all gone. After that, he ate with + less avidity; a sense almost of satiety beginning to manifest itself to + him, and it was not until the close of the performance that he disposed of + the last morsel. + </p> + <p> + He descended a little heavily to the outflowing crowd in the arena, and + bought a caterwauling toy balloon, but showed no great enthusiasm in + manipulating it. Near the exit, as he came out, was a hot-waffle stand + which he had overlooked, and a sense of duty obliged him to consume the + three waffles, thickly powdered with sugar, which the waffle man cooked + for him upon command. + </p> + <p> + They left a hottish taste in his mouth; they had not been quite up to his + anticipation, indeed, and it was with a sense of relief that he turned to + the “hokey-pokey” cart which stood close at hand, laden with square slabs + of “Neapolitan ice-cream” wrapped in paper. He thought the ice-cream would + be cooling, but somehow it fell short of the desired effect, and left a + peculiar savour in his throat. + </p> + <p> + He walked away, too languid to blow his balloon, and passed a fresh-taffy + booth with strange indifference. A bare-armed man was manipulating the + taffy over a hook, pulling a great white mass to the desired stage of + “candying,” but Penrod did not pause to watch the operation; in fact, he + averted his eyes (which were slightly glazed) in passing. He did not + analyze his motives: simply, he was conscious that he preferred not to + look at the mass of taffy. + </p> + <p> + For some reason, he put a considerable distance between himself and the + taffy-stand, but before long halted in the presence of a red-faced man who + flourished a long fork over a small cooking apparatus and shouted + jovially: “Winnies! HERE'S your hot winnies! Hot winny-WURST! Food for the + over-worked brain, nourishing for the weak stummick, entertaining for the + tired business man! HERE'S your hot winnies, three for a nickel, a + half-a-dime, the twentieth-pot-of-a-dollah!” + </p> + <p> + This, above all nectar and ambrosia, was the favourite dish of Penrod + Schofield. Nothing inside him now craved it—on the contrary! But + memory is the great hypnotist; his mind argued against his inwards that + opportunity knocked at his door: “winny-wurst” was rigidly forbidden by + the home authorities. Besides, there was a last nickel in his pocket; and + nature protested against its survival. Also, the redfaced man had himself + proclaimed his wares nourishing for the weak stummick. + </p> + <p> + Penrod placed the nickel in the red hand of the red-faced man. + </p> + <p> + He ate two of the three greasy, cigarlike shapes cordially pressed upon + him in return. The first bite convinced him that he had made a mistake; + these winnies seemed of a very inferior flavour, almost unpleasant, in + fact. But he felt obliged to conceal his poor opinion of them, for fear of + offending the red-faced man. He ate without haste or eagerness—so + slowly, indeed, that he began to think the redfaced man might dislike him, + as a deterrent of trade. Perhaps Penrod's mind was not working well, for + he failed to remember that no law compelled him to remain under the eye of + the red-faced man, but the virulent repulsion excited by his attempt to + take a bite of the third sausage inspired him with at least an excuse for + postponement. + </p> + <p> + “Mighty good,” he murmured feebly, placing the sausage in the pocket of + his jacket with a shaking hand. “Guess I'll save this one to eat at home, + after—after dinner.” + </p> + <p> + He moved sluggishly away, wishing he had not thought of dinner. A + side-show, undiscovered until now, failed to arouse his interest, not even + exciting a wish that he had known of its existence when he had money. For + a time he stared without attraction; the weather-worn colours conveying no + meaning to comprehension at a huge canvas poster depicting the chief his + torpid eye. Then, little by little, the poster became more vivid to his + consciousness. There was a greenish-tinted person in the tent, it seemed, + who thrived upon a reptilian diet. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly, Penrod decided that it was time to go home. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XX BROTHERS OF ANGELS + </h2> + <p> + “Indeed, doctor,” said Mrs. Schofield, with agitation and profound + conviction, just after eight o'clock that evening, “I shall ALWAYS believe + in mustard plasters—mustard plasters and hot—water bags. If it + hadn't been for them I don't believed he'd have LIVED till you got here—I + do NOT!” + </p> + <p> + “Margaret,” called Mr. Schofield from the open door of a bedroom, + “Margaret, where did you put that aromatic ammonia? Where's Margaret?” + </p> + <p> + But he had to find the aromatic spirits of ammonia himself, for Margaret + was not in the house. She stood in the shadow beneath a maple tree near + the street corner, a guitar-case in her hand; and she scanned with anxiety + a briskly approaching figure. The arc light, swinging above, revealed this + figure as that of him she awaited. He was passing toward the gate without + seeing her, when she arrested him with a fateful whisper. + </p> + <p> + “BOB!” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Robert Williams swung about hastily. “Why, Margaret!” + </p> + <p> + “Here, take your guitar,” she whispered hurriedly. “I was afraid if father + happened to find it he'd break it all to pieces!” + </p> + <p> + “What for?” asked the startled Robert. + </p> + <p> + “Because I'm sure he knows it's yours.” “But what——” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Bob,” she moaned, “I was waiting here to tell you. I was so afraid + you'd try to come in——” + </p> + <p> + “TRY!” exclaimed the unfortunate young man, quite dumfounded. “TRY to come——” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, before I warned you. I've been waiting here to tell you, Bob, you + mustn't come near the house if I were you I'd stay away from even this + neighbourhood—far away! For a while I don't think it would be + actually SAFE for——” + </p> + <p> + “Margaret, will you please——” + </p> + <p> + “It's all on account of that dollar you gave Penrod this morning,” she + walled. “First, he bought that horrible concertina that made papa so + furious—” + </p> + <p> + “But Penrod didn't tell that I——” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, wait!” she cried lamentably. “Listen! He didn't tell at lunch, but he + got home about dinner-time in the most—well! I've seen pale people + before, but nothing like Penrod. Nobody could IMAGINE it—not unless + they'd seen him! And he looked, so STRANGE, and kept making such unnatural + faces, and at first all he would say was that he'd eaten a little piece of + apple and thought it must have some microbes on it. But he got sicker and + sicker, and we put him to bed—and then we all thought he was going + to die—and, of COURSE, no little piece of apple would have—well, + and he kept getting worse and then he said he'd had a dollar. He said he'd + spent it for the concertina, and watermelon, and chocolate-creams, and + licorice sticks, and lemon-drops, and peanuts, and jaw-breakers, and + sardines, and raspberry lemonade, and pickles, and popcorn, and ice-cream, + and cider, and sausage—there was sausage in his pocket, and mamma + says his jacket is ruined—and cinnamon drops—and waffles—and + he ate four or five lobster croquettes at lunch—and papa said, 'Who + gave you that dollar?' Only he didn't say 'WHO'—he said something + horrible, Bob! And Penrod thought he was going to die, and he said you + gave it to him, and oh! it was just pitiful to hear the poor child, Bob, + because he thought he was dying, you see, and he blamed you for the whole + thing. He said if you'd only let him alone and not given it to him, he'd + have grown up to be a good man—and now he couldn't! I never heard + anything so heart-rending—he was so weak he could hardly whisper, + but he kept trying to talk, telling us over and over it was all your + fault.” + </p> + <p> + In the darkness Mr. Williams' facial expression could not be seen, but his + voice sounded hopeful. + </p> + <p> + “Is he—is he still in a great deal of pain?” + </p> + <p> + “They say the crisis is past,” said Margaret, “but the doctor's still up + there. He said it was the acutest case of indigestion he had ever treated + in the whole course of his professional practice.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course <i>I</i> didn't know what he'd do with the dollar,” said + Robert. + </p> + <p> + She did not reply. + </p> + <p> + He began plaintively, “Margaret, you don't——” + </p> + <p> + “I've never seen papa and mamma so upset about anything,” she said, rather + primly. + </p> + <p> + “You mean they're upset about ME?” + </p> + <p> + “We ARE all very much upset,” returned Margaret, more starch in her tone + as she remembered not only Penrod's sufferings but a duty she had vowed + herself to perform. + </p> + <p> + “Margaret! YOU don't——” + </p> + <p> + “Robert,” she said firmly and, also, with a rhetorical complexity which + breeds a suspicion of pre-rehearsal—“Robert, for the present I can + only look at it in one way: when you gave that money to Penrod you put + into the hands of an unthinking little child a weapon which might be, and, + indeed was, the means of his undoing. Boys are not respon——” + </p> + <p> + “But you saw me give him the dollar, and you didn't——” + </p> + <p> + “Robert!” she checked him with increasing severity. “I am only a woman and + not accustomed to thinking everything out on the spur of the moment; but I + cannot change my mind. Not now, at least.” + </p> + <p> + “And you think I'd better not come in to-night?” + </p> + <p> + “To-night!” she gasped. “Not for WEEKS! Papa would——” + </p> + <p> + “But Margaret,” he urged plaintively, “how can you blame me for——” + </p> + <p> + “I have not used the word 'blame,'” she interrupted. “But I must insist + that for your carelessness to—to wreak such havoc—cannot fail + to—to lessen my confidence in your powers of judgment. I cannot + change my convictions in this matter—not to-night—and I cannot + remain here another instant. The poor child may need me. Robert, + good-night.” + </p> + <p> + With chill dignity she withdrew, entered the house, and returned to the + sick-room, leaving the young man in outer darkness to brood upon his crime—and + upon Penrod. + </p> + <p> + That sincere invalid became convalescent upon the third day; and a week + elapsed, then, before he found an opportunity to leave the house + unaccompanied—save by Duke. But at last he set forth and approached + the Jones neighbourhood in high spirits, pleasantly conscious of his + pallor, hollow cheeks, and other perquisites of illness provocative of + interest. + </p> + <p> + One thought troubled him a little because it gave him a sense of + inferiority to a rival. He believed, against his will, that Maurice Levy + could have successfully eaten chocolate-creams, licorice sticks, + lemon-drops, jaw-breakers, peanuts, waffles, lobster croquettes, sardines, + cinnamon-drops, watermelon, pickles, popcorn, ice-cream and sausage with + raspberry lemonade and cider. Penrod had admitted to himself that Maurice + could do it and afterward attend to business, or pleasure, without the + slightest discomfort; and this was probably no more than a fair estimate + of one of the great constitutions of all time. As a digester, Maurice Levy + would have disappointed a Borgia. + </p> + <p> + Fortunately, Maurice was still at Atlantic City—and now the + convalescent's heart leaped. In the distance he saw Marjorie coming—in + pink again, with a ravishing little parasol over her head. And alone! No + Mitchy-Mitch was to mar this meeting. + </p> + <p> + Penrod increased the feebleness of his steps, now and then leaning upon + the fence as if for support. + </p> + <p> + “How do you do, Marjorie?” he said, in his best sick-room voice, as she + came near. + </p> + <p> + To his pained amazement, she proceeded on her way, her nose at a + celebrated elevation—an icy nose. + </p> + <p> + She cut him dead. + </p> + <p> + He threw his invalid's airs to the winds, and hastened after her. + </p> + <p> + “Marjorie,” he pleaded, “what's the matter? Are you mad? Honest, that day + you said to come back next morning, and you'd be on the corner, I was + sick. Honest, I was AWFUL sick, Marjorie! I had to have the doctor——” + </p> + <p> + “DOCTOR!” She whirled upon him, her lovely eyes blazing. + </p> + <p> + “I guess WE'VE had to have the doctor enough at OUR house, thanks to you, + Mister Penrod Schofield. Papa says you haven't got NEAR sense enough to + come in out of the rain, after what you did to poor little Mitchy-Mitch——” + </p> + <p> + “What?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, and he's sick in bed YET!” Marjorie went on, with unabated fury. + “And papa says if he ever catches you in this part of town——” + </p> + <p> + “WHAT'D I do to Mitchy-Mitch?” gasped Penrod. + </p> + <p> + “You know well enough what you did to Mitchy-Mitch!” she cried. “You gave + him that great, big, nasty two-cent piece!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, what of it?” + </p> + <p> + “Mitchy-Mitch swallowed it!” + </p> + <p> + “What!” + </p> + <p> + “And papa says if he ever just lays eyes on you, once, in this + neighbourhood——” + </p> + <p> + But Penrod had started for home. + </p> + <p> + In his embittered heart there was increasing a critical disapproval of the + Creator's methods. When He made pretty girls, thought Penrod, why couldn't + He have left out their little brothers! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXI RUPE COLLINS + </h2> + <p> + For several days after this, Penrod thought of growing up to be a monk, + and engaged in good works so far as to carry some kittens (that otherwise + would have been drowned) and a pair of Margaret's outworn dancing-slippers + to a poor, ungrateful old man sojourning in a shed up the alley. And + although Mr. Robert Williams, after a very short interval, began to leave + his guitar on the front porch again, exactly as if he thought nothing had + happened, Penrod, with his younger vision of a father's mood, remained + coldly distant from the Jones neighbourhood. With his own family his + manner was gentle, proud and sad, but not for long enough to frighten + them. The change came with mystifying abruptness at the end of the week. + </p> + <p> + It was Duke who brought it about. + </p> + <p> + Duke could chase a much bigger dog out of the Schofields' yard and far + down the street. This might be thought to indicate unusual valour on the + part of Duke and cowardice on that of the bigger dogs whom he undoubtedly + put to rout. On the contrary, all such flights were founded in mere + superstition, for dogs are even more superstitious than boys and coloured + people; and the most firmly established of all dog superstitions is that + any dog—be he the smallest and feeblest in the world—can whip + any trespasser whatsoever. + </p> + <p> + A rat-terrier believes that on his home grounds he can whip an elephant. + It follows, of course, that a big dog, away from his own home, will run + from a little dog in the little dog's neighbourhood. Otherwise, the big + dog must face a charge of inconsistency, and dogs are as consistent as + they are superstitious. A dog believes in war, but he is convinced that + there are times when it is moral to run; and the thoughtful physiognomist, + seeing a big dog fleeing out of a little dog's yard, must observe that the + expression of the big dog's face is more conscientious than alarmed: it is + the expression of a person performing a duty to himself. + </p> + <p> + Penrod understood these matters perfectly; he knew that the gaunt brown + hound Duke chased up the alley had fled only out of deference to a custom, + yet Penrod could not refrain from bragging of Duke to the hound's owner, a + fat-faced stranger of twelve or thirteen, who had wandered into the + neighbourhood. + </p> + <p> + “You better keep that ole yellow dog o' yours back,” said Penrod + ominously, as he climbed the fence. “You better catch him and hold him + till I get mine inside the yard again. Duke's chewed up some pretty bad + bulldogs around here.” + </p> + <p> + The fat-faced boy gave Penrod a fishy stare. “You'd oughta learn him not + to do that,” he said. “It'll make him sick.” + </p> + <p> + “What will?” + </p> + <p> + The stranger laughed raspingly and gazed up the alley, where the hound, + having come to a halt, now coolly sat down, and, with an expression of + roguish benevolence, patronizingly watched the tempered fury of Duke, + whose assaults and barkings were becoming perfunctory. + </p> + <p> + “What'll make Duke sick?” Penrod demanded. + </p> + <p> + “Eatin' dead bulldogs people leave around here.” + </p> + <p> + This was not improvisation but formula, adapted from other occasions to + the present encounter; nevertheless, it was new to Penrod, and he was so + taken with it that resentment lost itself in admiration. Hastily + committing the gem to memory for use upon a dog-owning friend, he inquired + in a sociable tone: + </p> + <p> + “What's your dog's name?” + </p> + <p> + “Dan. You better call your ole pup, 'cause Dan eats LIVE dogs.” + </p> + <p> + Dan's actions poorly supported his master's assertion, for, upon Duke's + ceasing to bark, Dan rose and showed the most courteous interest in making + the little, old dog's acquaintance. Dan had a great deal of manner, and it + became plain that Duke was impressed favourably in spite of former + prejudice, so that presently the two trotted amicably back to their + masters and sat down with the harmonious but indifferent air of having + known each other intimately for years. + </p> + <p> + They were received without comment, though both boys looked at them + reflectively for a time. It was Penrod who spoke first. + </p> + <p> + “What number you go to?” (In an “oral lesson in English,” Penrod had been + instructed to put this question in another form: “May I ask which of our + public schools you attend?”) + </p> + <p> + “Me? What number do I go to?” said the stranger, contemptuously. “I don't + go to NO number in vacation!” + </p> + <p> + “I mean when it ain't.” + </p> + <p> + “Third,” returned the fat-faced boy. “I got 'em ALL scared in THAT + school.” + </p> + <p> + “What of?” innocently asked Penrod, to whom “the Third”—in a distant + part of town—was undiscovered country. + </p> + <p> + “What of? I guess you'd soon see what of, if you ever was in that school + about one day. You'd be lucky if you got out alive!” + </p> + <p> + “Are the teachers mean?” + </p> + <p> + The other boy frowned with bitter scorn. “Teachers! Teachers don't order + ME around, I can tell you! They're mighty careful how they try to run over + Rupe Collins.” + </p> + <p> + “Who's Rupe Collins?” + </p> + <p> + “Who is he?” echoed the fat-faced boy incredulously. “Say, ain't you got + ANY sense?” + </p> + <p> + “What?” + </p> + <p> + “Say, wouldn't you be just as happy if you had SOME sense?” + </p> + <p> + “Ye-es.” Penrod's answer, like the look he lifted to the impressive + stranger, was meek and placative. “Rupe Collins is the principal at your + school, guess.” + </p> + <p> + The other yelled with jeering laughter, and mocked Penrod's manner and + voice. “'Rupe Collins is the principal at your school, I guess!'” He + laughed harshly again, then suddenly showed truculence. “Say, 'bo, whyn't + you learn enough to go in the house when it rains? What's the matter of + you, anyhow?” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” urged Penrod timidly, “nobody ever TOLD me who Rupe Collins is: I + got a RIGHT to think he's the principal, haven't I?” + </p> + <p> + The fat-faced boy shook his head disgustedly. “Honest, you make me sick!” + </p> + <p> + Penrod's expression became one of despair. “Well, who IS he?” he cried. + </p> + <p> + “'Who IS he?'” mocked the other, with a scorn that withered. “'Who IS he?' + ME!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” Penrod was humiliated but relieved: he felt that he had proved + himself criminally ignorant, yet a peril seemed to have passed. “Rupe + Collins is your name, then, I guess. I kind of thought it was, all the + time.” + </p> + <p> + The fat-faced boy still appeared embittered, burlesquing this speech in a + hateful falsetto. “'Rupe Collins is YOUR name, then, I guess!' Oh, you + 'kind of thought it was, all the time,' did you?” Suddenly concentrating + his brow into a histrionic scowl he thrust his face within an inch of + Penrod's. “Yes, sonny, Rupe Collins is my name, and you better look out + what you say when he's around or you'll get in big trouble! YOU UNDERSTAND + THAT, 'BO?” + </p> + <p> + Penrod was cowed but fascinated: he felt that there was something + dangerous and dashing about this newcomer. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he said, feebly, drawing back. “My name's Penrod Schofield.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I reckon your father and mother ain't got good sense,” said Mr. + Collins promptly, this also being formula. + </p> + <p> + “Why?” + </p> + <p> + “'Cause if they had they'd of give you a good name!” And the agreeable + youth instantly rewarded himself for the wit with another yell of rasping + laughter, after which he pointed suddenly at Penrod's right hand. + </p> + <p> + “Where'd you get that wart on your finger?” he demanded severely. + </p> + <p> + “Which finger?” asked the mystified Penrod, extending his hand. + </p> + <p> + “The middle one.” + </p> + <p> + “Where?” + </p> + <p> + “There!” exclaimed Rupe Collins, seizing and vigorously twisting the + wartless finger naively offered for his inspection. + </p> + <p> + “Quit!” shouted Penrod in agony. “QUEE-yut!” + </p> + <p> + “Say your prayers!” commanded Rupe, and continued to twist the luckless + finger until Penrod writhed to his knees. + </p> + <p> + “OW!” The victim, released, looked grievously upon the still painful + finger. + </p> + <p> + At this Rupe's scornful expression altered to one of contrition. “Well, I + declare!” he exclaimed remorsefully. “I didn't s'pose it would hurt. Turn + about's fair play; so now you do that to me.” + </p> + <p> + He extended the middle finger of his left hand and Penrod promptly seized + it, but did not twist it, for he was instantly swung round with his back + to his amiable new acquaintance: Rupe's right hand operated upon the back + of Penrod's slender neck; Rupe's knee tortured the small of Penrod's back. + </p> + <p> + “OW!” Penrod bent far forward involuntarily and went to his knees again. + </p> + <p> + “Lick dirt,” commanded Rupe, forcing the captive's face to the sidewalk; + and the suffering Penrod completed this ceremony. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Collins evinced satisfaction by means of his horse laugh. + </p> + <p> + “You'd last jest about one day up at the Third!” he said. “You'd come + runnin' home, yellin' 'MOM-MUH, MOM-muh,' before recess was over!” + </p> + <p> + “No, I wouldn't,” Penrod protested rather weakly, dusting his knees. + </p> + <p> + “You would, too!” + </p> + <p> + “No, I w—— + </p> + <p> + “Looky here,” said the fat-faced boy, darkly, “what you mean, + counterdicking me?” + </p> + <p> + He advanced a step and Penrod hastily qualified his contradiction. + </p> + <p> + “I mean, I don't THINK I would. I——” + </p> + <p> + “You better look out!” Rupe moved closer, and unexpectedly grasped the + back of Penrod's neck again. “Say, 'I WOULD run home yellin' “MOM-muh!”'” + </p> + <p> + “Ow! I WOULD run home yellin' 'Mom-muh.'” + </p> + <p> + “There!” said Rupe, giving the helpless nape a final squeeze. “That's the + way we do up at the Third.” + </p> + <p> + Penrod rubbed his neck and asked meekly: + </p> + <p> + “Can you do that to any boy up at the Third?” + </p> + <p> + “See here now,” said Rupe, in the tone of one goaded beyond all endurance, + “YOU say if I can! You better say it quick, or——” + </p> + <p> + “I knew you could,” Penrod interposed hastily, with the pathetic semblance + of a laugh. “I only said that in fun.” + </p> + <p> + “In 'fun'!” repeated Rupe stormily. “You better look out how you——” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I SAID I wasn't in earnest!” Penrod retreated a few steps. “<i>I</i> + knew you could, all the time. I expect <i>I</i> could do it to some of the + boys up at the Third, myself. Couldn't I?” + </p> + <p> + “No, you couldn't.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, there must be SOME boy up there that I could——” + </p> + <p> + “No, they ain't! You better——” + </p> + <p> + “I expect not, then,” said Penrod, quickly. + </p> + <p> + “You BETTER 'expect not.' Didn't I tell you once you'd never get back + alive if you ever tried to come up around the Third? You want me to SHOW + you how we do up there, 'bo?” + </p> + <p> + He began a slow and deadly advance, whereupon Penrod timidly offered a + diversion: + </p> + <p> + “Say, Rupe, I got a box of rats in our stable under a glass cover, so you + can watch 'em jump around when you hammer on the box. Come on and look at + 'em.” + </p> + <p> + “All right,” said the fat-faced boy, slightly mollified. “We'll let Dan + kill 'em.” + </p> + <p> + “No, SIR! I'm goin' to keep 'em. They're kind of pets; I've had 'em all + summer—I got names for em, and——” + </p> + <p> + “Looky here, 'bo. Did you hear me say we'll let 'Dan kill 'em?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but I won't——” + </p> + <p> + “WHAT won't you?” Rupe became sinister immediately. “It seems to me you're + gettin' pretty fresh around here.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I don't want——” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Collins once more brought into play the dreadful eye-to-eye scowl as + practised “up at the Third,” and, sometimes, also by young leading men + upon the stage. Frowning appallingly, and thrusting forward his underlip, + he placed his nose almost in contact with the nose of Penrod, whose eyes + naturally became crossed. + </p> + <p> + “Dan kills the rats. See?” hissed the fat-faced boy, maintaining the + horrible juxtaposition. + </p> + <p> + “Well, all right,” said Penrod, swallowing. “I don't want 'em much.” And + when the pose had been relaxed, he stared at his new friend for a moment, + almost with reverence. Then he brightened. + </p> + <p> + “Come on, Rupe!” he cried enthusiastically, as he climbed the fence. + “We'll give our dogs a little live meat—'bo!” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXII THE IMITATOR + </h2> + <p> + At the dinner-table, that evening, Penrod Surprised his family by + remarking, in a voice they had never heard him attempt—a law-giving + voice of intentional gruffness: + </p> + <p> + “Any man that's makin' a hunderd dollars a month is makin' good money.” + </p> + <p> + “What?” asked Mr. Schofield, staring, for the previous conversation had + concerned the illness of an infant relative in Council Bluffs. + </p> + <p> + “Any man that's makin' a hunderd dollars a month is makin' good money.” + </p> + <p> + “What IS he talking about!” Margaret appealed to the invisible. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Penrod, frowning, “that's what foremen at the ladder works + get.” + </p> + <p> + “How in the world do you know?” asked his mother. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I KNOW it! A hunderd dollars a month is good money, I tell you!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, what of it?” said the father, impatiently. + </p> + <p> + “Nothin'. I only said it was good money.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Schofield shook his head, dismissing the subject; and here he made a + mistake: he should have followed up his son's singular contribution to the + conversation. That would have revealed the fact that there was a certain + Rupe Collins whose father was a foreman at the ladder works. All clues are + important when a boy makes his first remark in a new key. + </p> + <p> + “'Good money'?” repeated Margaret, curiously. “What is 'good' money?” + </p> + <p> + Penrod turned upon her a stern glance. “Say, wouldn't you be just as happy + if you had SOME sense?” + </p> + <p> + “Penrod!” shouted his father. But Penrod's mother gazed with dismay at her + son: he had never before spoken like that to his sister. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Schofield might have been more dismayed than she was, if she had + realized that it was the beginning of an epoch. After dinner, Penrod was + slightly scalded in the back as the result of telling Della, the cook, + that there was a wart on the middle finger of her right hand. Della thus + proving poor material for his new manner to work upon, he approached Duke, + in the backyard, and, bending double, seized the lowly animal by the + forepaws. + </p> + <p> + “I let you know my name's Penrod Schofield,” hissed the boy. He protruded + his underlip ferociously, scowled, and thrust forward his head until his + nose touched the dog's. “And you better look out when Penrod Schofield's + around, or you'll get in big trouble! YOU UNDERSTAN' THAT, 'BO?” + </p> + <p> + The next day, and the next, the increasing change in Penrod puzzled and + distressed his family, who had no idea of its source. + </p> + <p> + How might they guess that hero-worship takes such forms? They were vaguely + conscious that a rather shabby boy, not of the neighbourhood, came to + “play” with Penrod several times; but they failed to connect this + circumstance with the peculiar behaviour of the son of the house, whose + ideals (his father remarked) seemed to have suddenly become identical with + those of Gyp the Blood. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile, for Penrod himself, “life had taken on new meaning, new + richness.” He had become a fighting man—in conversation at least. + “Do you want to know how I do when they try to slip up on me from behind?” + he asked Della. And he enacted for her unappreciative eye a scene of + fistic manoeuvres wherein he held an imaginary antagonist helpless in a + net of stratagems. + </p> + <p> + Frequently, when he was alone, he would outwit, and pummel this same + enemy, and, after a cunning feint, land a dolorous stroke full upon a face + of air. “There! I guess you'll know better next time. That's the way we do + up at the Third!” + </p> + <p> + Sometimes, in solitary pantomime, he encountered more than one opponent at + a time, for numbers were apt to come upon him treacherously, especially at + a little after his rising hour, when he might be caught at a disadvantage—perhaps + standing on one leg to encase the other in his knickerbockers. Like + lightning, he would hurl the trapping garment from him, and, ducking and + pivoting, deal great sweeping blows among the circle of sneaking devils. + (That was how he broke the clock in his bedroom.) And while these battles + were occupying his attention, it was a waste of voice to call him to + breakfast, though if his mother, losing patience, came to his room, she + would find him seated on the bed pulling at a stocking. “Well, ain't I + coming fast as I CAN?” + </p> + <p> + At the table and about the house generally he was bumptious, loud with + fatuous misinformation, and assumed a domineering tone, which neither + satire nor reproof seemed able to reduce: but it was among his own + intimates that his new superiority was most outrageous. He twisted the + fingers and squeezed the necks of all the boys of the neighbourhood, + meeting their indignation with a hoarse and rasping laugh he had acquired + after short practice in the stable, where he jeered and taunted the + lawn-mower, the garden-scythe and the wheelbarrow quite out of + countenance. + </p> + <p> + Likewise he bragged to the other boys by the hour, Rupe Collins being the + chief subject of encomium—next to Penrod himself. “That's the way we + do up at the Third,” became staple explanation of violence, for Penrod, + like Tartarin, was plastic in the hands of his own imagination, and at + times convinced himself that he really was one of those dark and murderous + spirits exclusively of whom “the Third” was composed—according to + Rupe Collins. + </p> + <p> + Then, when Penrod had exhausted himself repeating to nausea accounts of + the prowess of himself and his great friend, he would turn to two other + subjects for vainglory. These were his father and Duke. + </p> + <p> + Mothers must accept the fact that between babyhood and manhood their sons + do not boast of them. The boy, with boys, is a Choctaw; and either the + influence or the protection of women is shameful. “Your mother won't let + you,” is an insult. But, “My father won't let me,” is a dignified + explanation and cannot be hooted. A boy is ruined among his fellows if he + talks much of his mother or sisters; and he must recognize it as his duty + to offer at least the appearance of persecution to all things ranked as + female, such as cats and every species of fowl. But he must champion his + father and his dog, and, ever, ready to pit either against any challenger, + must picture both as ravening for battle and absolutely unconquerable. + </p> + <p> + Penrod, of course, had always talked by the code, but, under the new + stimulus, Duke was represented virtually as a cross between Bob, Son of + Battle, and a South American vampire; and this in spite of the fact that + Duke himself often sat close by, a living lie, with the hope of peace in + his heart. As for Penrod's father, that gladiator was painted as of + sentiments and dimensions suitable to a super-demon composed of equal + parts of Goliath, Jack Johnson and the Emperor Nero. + </p> + <p> + Even Penrod's walk was affected; he adopted a gait which was a kind of + taunting swagger; and, when he passed other children on the street, he + practised the habit of feinting a blow; then, as the victim dodged, he + rasped the triumphant horse laugh which he gradually mastered to horrible + perfection. He did this to Marjorie Jones—ay! this was their next + meeting, and such is Eros, young! What was even worse, in Marjorie's + opinion, he went on his way without explanation, and left her standing on + the corner talking about it, long after he was out of hearing. + </p> + <p> + Within five days from his first encounter with Rupe Collins, Penrod had + become unbearable. He even almost alienated Sam Williams, who for a time + submitted to finger twisting and neck squeezing and the new style of + conversation, but finally declared that Penrod made him “sick.” He made + the statement with fervour, one sultry afternoon, in Mr. Schofield's + stable, in the presence of Herman and Verman. + </p> + <p> + “You better look out, 'bo,” said Penrod, threateningly. “I'll show you a + little how we do up at the Third.” + </p> + <p> + “Up at the Third!” Sam repeated with scorn. “You haven't ever been up + there.” + </p> + <p> + “I haven't?” cried Penrod. “I HAVEN'T?” + </p> + <p> + “No, you haven't!” + </p> + <p> + “Looky here!” Penrod, darkly argumentative, prepared to perform the + eye-to-eye business. “When haven't I been up there?” + </p> + <p> + “You haven't NEVER been up there!” In spite of Penrod's closely + approaching nose Sam maintained his ground, and appealed for confirmation. + “Has he, Herman?” + </p> + <p> + “I don' reckon so,” said Herman, laughing. + </p> + <p> + “WHAT!” Penrod transferred his nose to the immediate vicinity of Herman's + nose. “You don't reckon so, 'bo, don't you? You better look out how you + reckon around here! YOU UNDERSTAN' THAT, 'BO?” + </p> + <p> + Herman bore the eye-to-eye very well; indeed, it seemed to please him, for + he continued to laugh while Verman chuckled delightedly. The brothers had + been in the country picking berries for a week, and it happened that this + was their first experience of the new manifestation of Penrod. + </p> + <p> + “HAVEN'T I been up at the Third?” the sinister Penrod demanded. + </p> + <p> + “I don' reckon so. How come you ast ME?” + </p> + <p> + “Didn't you just hear me SAY I been up there?” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Herman mischievously, “hearin' ain't believin'!” + </p> + <p> + Penrod clutched him by the back of the neck, but Herman, laughing loudly, + ducked and released himself at once, retreating to the wall. + </p> + <p> + “You take that back!” Penrod shouted, striking out wildly. + </p> + <p> + “Don' git mad,” begged the small darky, while a number of blows falling + upon his warding arms failed to abate his amusement, and a sound one upon + the cheek only made him laugh the more unrestrainedly. He behaved exactly + as if Penrod were tickling him, and his brother, Verman, rolled with joy + in a wheelbarrow. Penrod pummelled till he was tired, and produced no + greater effect. + </p> + <p> + “There!” he panted, desisting finally. “NOW I reckon you know whether I + been up there or not!” + </p> + <p> + Herman rubbed his smitten cheek. “Pow!” he exclaimed. “Pow-ee! You cert'ny + did lan' me good one NAT time! Oo-ee! she HURT!” + </p> + <p> + “You'll get hurt worse'n that,” Penrod assured him, “if you stay around + here much. Rupe Collins is comin' this afternoon, he said. We're goin' to + make some policemen's billies out of the rake handle.” + </p> + <p> + “You go' spoil new rake you' pa bought?” + </p> + <p> + “What do WE care? I and Rupe got to have billies, haven't we?” + </p> + <p> + “How you make 'em?” + </p> + <p> + “Melt lead and pour in a hole we're goin' to make in the end of 'em. Then + we're goin' to carry 'em in our pockets, and if anybody says anything to + us—OH, oh! look out! They won't get a crack on the head—OH, + no!” + </p> + <p> + “When's Rupe Collins coming?” Sam Williams inquired rather uneasily. He + had heard a great deal too much of this personage, but as yet the pleasure + of actual acquaintance had been denied him. + </p> + <p> + “He's liable to be here any time,” answered Penrod. “You better look out. + You'll be lucky if you get home alive, if you stay till HE comes.” + </p> + <p> + “I ain't afraid of him,” Sam returned, conventionally. + </p> + <p> + “You are, too!” (There was some truth in the retort.) “There ain't any boy + in this part of town but me that wouldn't be afraid of him. You'd be + afraid to talk to him. You wouldn't get a word out of your mouth before + old Rupie'd have you where you'd wished you never come around HIM, lettin' + on like you was so much! YOU wouldn't run home yellin' 'Mom-muh' or + nothin'! OH, no!” + </p> + <p> + “Who Rupe Collins?” asked Herman. + </p> + <p> + “'Who Rupe Collins?'” Penrod mocked, and used his rasping laugh, but, + instead of showing fright, Herman appeared to think he was meant to laugh, + too; and so he did, echoed by Verman. “You just hang around here a little + while longer,” Penrod added, grimly, “and you'll find out who Rupe Collins + is, and I pity YOU when you do!” + </p> + <p> + “What he go' do?” + </p> + <p> + “You'll see; that's all! You just wait and——” + </p> + <p> + At this moment a brown hound ran into the stable through the alley door, + wagged a greeting to Penrod, and fraternized with Duke. The fat-faced boy + appeared upon the threshold and gazed coldly about the little company in + the carriage-house, whereupon the coloured brethren, ceasing from + merriment, were instantly impassive, and Sam Williams moved a little + nearer the door leading into the yard. + </p> + <p> + Obviously, Sam regarded the newcomer as a redoubtable if not ominous + figure. He was a head taller than either Sam or Penrod; head and shoulders + taller than Herman, who was short for his age; and Verman could hardly be + used for purposes of comparison at all, being a mere squat brown spot, not + yet quite nine years on this planet. And to Sam's mind, the aspect of Mr. + Collins realized Penrod's portentous foreshadowings. Upon the fat face + there was an expression of truculent intolerance which had been cultivated + by careful habit to such perfection that Sam's heart sank at sight of it. + A somewhat enfeebled twin to this expression had of late often decorated + the visage of Penrod, and appeared upon that ingenuous surface now, as he + advanced to welcome the eminent visitor. + </p> + <p> + The host swaggered toward the door with a great deal of shoulder movement, + carelessly feinting a slap at Verman in passing, and creating by various + means the atmosphere of a man who has contemptuously amused himself with + underlings while awaiting an equal. + </p> + <p> + “Hello, 'bo!” Penrod said in the deepest voice possible to him. + </p> + <p> + “Who you callin' 'bo?” was the ungracious response, accompanied by + immediate action of a similar nature. Rupe held Penrod's head in the crook + of an elbow and massaged his temples with a hard-pressing knuckle. + </p> + <p> + “I was only in fun, Rupie,” pleaded the sufferer, and then, being set + free, “Come here, Sam,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “What for?” + </p> + <p> + Penrod laughed pityingly. “Pshaw, I ain't goin' to hurt you. Come on.” + Sam, maintaining his position near the other door, Penrod went to him and + caught him round the neck. + </p> + <p> + “Watch me, Rupie!” Penrod called, and performed upon Sam the knuckle + operation which he had himself just undergone, Sam submitting + mechanically, his eyes fixed with increasing uneasiness upon Rupe Collins. + Sam had a premonition that something even more painful than Penrod's + knuckle was going to be inflicted upon him. + </p> + <p> + “THAT don' hurt,” said Penrod, pushing him away. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, it does, too!” Sam rubbed his temple. + </p> + <p> + “Puh! It didn't hurt me, did it, Rupie? Come on in, Rupe: show this baby + where he's got a wart on his finger.” + </p> + <p> + “You showed me that trick,” Sam objected. “You already did that to me. You + tried it twice this afternoon and I don't know how many times before, only + you weren't strong enough after the first time. Anyway, I know what it is, + and I don't——” + </p> + <p> + “Come on, Rupe,” said Penrod. “Make the baby lick dirt.” + </p> + <p> + At this bidding, Rupe approached, while Sam, still protesting, moved to + the threshold of the outer door; but Penrod seized him by the shoulders + and swung him indoors with a shout. + </p> + <p> + “Little baby wants to run home to its Mom-muh! Here he is, Rupie.” + </p> + <p> + Thereupon was Penrod's treachery to an old comrade properly rewarded, for + as the two struggled, Rupe caught each by the back of the neck, + simultaneously, and, with creditable impartiality, forced both boys to + their knees. + </p> + <p> + “Lick dirt!” he commanded, forcing them still forward, until their faces + were close to the stable floor. + </p> + <p> + At this moment he received a real surprise. With a loud whack something + struck the back of his head, and, turning, he beheld Verman in the act of + lifting a piece of lath to strike again. + </p> + <p> + “Em moys ome!” said Verman, the Giant Killer. + </p> + <p> + “He tongue-tie',” Herman explained. “He say, let 'em boys alone.” + </p> + <p> + Rupe addressed his host briefly: + </p> + <p> + “Chase them nigs out o' here!” + </p> + <p> + “Don' call me nig,” said Herman. “I mine my own biznuss. You let 'em boys + alone.” + </p> + <p> + Rupe strode across the still prostrate Sam, stepped upon Penrod, and, + equipping his countenance with the terrifying scowl and protruded jaw, + lowered his head to the level of Herman's. + </p> + <p> + “Nig, you'll be lucky if you leave here alive!” And he leaned forward till + his nose was within less than an inch of Herman's nose. + </p> + <p> + It could be felt that something awful was about to happen, and Penrod, as + he rose from the floor, suffered an unexpected twinge of apprehension and + remorse: he hoped that Rupe wouldn't REALLY hurt Herman. A sudden dislike + of Rupe and Rupe's ways rose within him, as he looked at the big boy + overwhelming the little darky with that ferocious scowl. Penrod, all at + once, felt sorry about something indefinable; and, with equal vagueness, + he felt foolish. “Come on, Rupe,” he suggested, feebly, “let Herman go, + and let's us make our billies out of the rake handle.” + </p> + <p> + The rake handle, however, was not available, if Rupe had inclined to + favour the suggestion. Verman had discarded his lath for the rake, which + he was at this moment lifting in the air. + </p> + <p> + “You ole black nigger,” the fat-faced boy said venomously to Herman, “I'm + agoin' to——” + </p> + <p> + But he had allowed his nose to remain too long near Herman's. + </p> + <p> + Penrod's familiar nose had been as close with only a ticklish spinal + effect upon the not very remote descendant of Congo man-eaters. The result + produced by the glare of Rupe's unfamiliar eyes, and by the dreadfully + suggestive proximity of Rupe's unfamiliar nose, was altogether different. + Herman's and Verman's Bangala great-grandfathers never considered people + of their own jungle neighbourhood proper material for a meal, but they + looked upon strangers especially truculent strangers—as distinctly + edible. + </p> + <p> + Penrod and Sam heard Rupe suddenly squawk and bellow; saw him writhe and + twist and fling out his arms like flails, though without removing his face + from its juxtaposition; indeed, for a moment, the two heads seemed even + closer. + </p> + <p> + Then they separated—and battle was on! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIII COLOURED TROOPS IN ACTION + </h2> + <p> + How neat and pure is the task of the chronicler who has the tale to tell + of a “good rousing fight” between boys or men who fight in the “good old + English way,” according to a model set for fights in books long before Tom + Brown went to Rugby. There are seconds and rounds and rules of fair-play, + and always there is great good feeling in the end—though sometimes, + to vary the model, “the Butcher” defeats the hero—and the chronicler + who stencils this fine old pattern on his page is certain of applause as + the stirrer of “red blood.” There is no surer recipe. + </p> + <p> + But when Herman and Verman set to 't the record must be no more than a few + fragments left by the expurgator. It has been perhaps sufficiently + suggested that the altercation in Mr. Schofield's stable opened with + mayhem in respect to the aggressor's nose. Expressing vocally his + indignation and the extremity of his pained surprise, Mr. Collins stepped + backward, holding his left hand over his nose, and striking at Herman with + his right. Then Verman hit him with the rake. + </p> + <p> + Verman struck from behind. He struck as hard as he could. And he struck + with the tines down—For, in his simple, direct African way he wished + to kill his enemy, and he wished to kill him as soon as possible. That was + his single, earnest purpose. + </p> + <p> + On this account, Rupe Collins was peculiarly unfortunate. He was plucky + and he enjoyed conflict, but neither his ambitions nor his anticipations + had ever included murder. He had not learned that an habitually aggressive + person runs the danger of colliding with beings in one of those lower + stages of evolution wherein theories about “hitting below the belt” have + not yet made their appearance. + </p> + <p> + The rake glanced from the back of Rupe's head to his shoulder, but it + felled him. Both darkies jumped full upon him instantly, and the three + rolled and twisted upon the stable-floor, unloosing upon the air sincere + maledictions closely connected with complaints of cruel and unusual + treatment; while certain expressions of feeling presently emanating from + Herman and Verman indicated that Rupe Collins, in this extremity, was + proving himself not too slavishly addicted to fighting by rule. Dan and + Duke, mistaking all for mirth, barked gayly. + </p> + <p> + From the panting, pounding, yelling heap issued words and phrases hitherto + quite unknown to Penrod and Sam; also, a hoarse repetition in the voice of + Rupe concerning his ear left it not to be doubted that additional mayhem + was taking place. Appalled, the two spectators retreated to the doorway + nearest the yard, where they stood dumbly watching the cataclysm. + </p> + <p> + The struggle increased in primitive simplicity: time and again the howling + Rupe got to his knees only to go down again as the earnest brothers, in + their own way, assisted him to a more reclining position. Primal forces + operated here, and the two blanched, slightly higher products of + evolution, Sam and Penrod, no more thought of interfering than they would + have thought of interfering with an earthquake. + </p> + <p> + At last, out of the ruck rose Verman, disfigured and maniacal. With a wild + eye he looked about him for his trusty rake; but Penrod, in horror, had + long since thrown the rake out into the yard. Naturally, it had not seemed + necessary to remove the lawn-mower. + </p> + <p> + The frantic eye of Verman fell upon the lawn-mower, and instantly he + leaped to its handle. Shrilling a wordless war-cry, he charged, propelling + the whirling, deafening knives straight upon the prone legs of Rupe + Collins. The lawn-mower was sincerely intended to pass longitudinally over + the body of Mr. Collins from heel to head; and it was the time for a + death-song. Black Valkyrie hovered in the shrieking air. + </p> + <p> + “Cut his gizzud out!” shrieked Herman, urging on the whirling knives. + </p> + <p> + They touched and lacerated the shin of Rupe, as, with the supreme agony of + effort a creature in mortal peril puts forth before succumbing, he tore + himself free of Herman and got upon his feet. + </p> + <p> + Herman was up as quickly. He leaped to the wall and seized the + garden-scythe that hung there. + </p> + <p> + “I'm go to cut you' gizzud out,” he announced definitely, “an' eat it!” + </p> + <p> + Rupe Collins had never run from anybody (except his father) in his life; + he was not a coward; but the present situation was very, very unusual. He + was already in a badly dismantled condition, and yet Herman and Verman + seemed discontented with their work: Verman was swinging the grass-cutter + about for a new charge, apparently still wishing to mow him, and Herman + had made a quite plausible statement about what he intended to do with the + scythe. + </p> + <p> + Rupe paused but for an extremely condensed survey of the horrible advance + of the brothers, and then, uttering a blood-curdled scream of fear, ran + out of the stable and up the alley at a speed he had never before + attained, so that even Dan had hard work to keep within barking distance. + And a 'cross-shoulder glance, at the corner, revealing Verman and Herman + in pursuit, the latter waving his scythe overhead, Mr. Collins slackened + not his gait, but, rather, out of great anguish, increased it; the while a + rapidly developing purpose became firm in his mind—and ever after so + remained—not only to refrain from visiting that neighbourhood again, + but never by any chance to come within a mile of it. + </p> + <p> + From the alley door, Penrod and Sam watched the flight, and were without + words. When the pursuit rounded the corner, the two looked wanly at each + other, but neither spoke until the return of the brothers from the chase. + </p> + <p> + Herman and Verman came back, laughing and chuckling. + </p> + <p> + “Hiyi!” cackled Herman to Verman, as they came, “See 'at ole boy run!” + </p> + <p> + “Who-ee!” Verman shouted in ecstasy. + </p> + <p> + “Nev' did see boy run so fas'!” Herman continued, tossing the scythe into + the wheelbarrow. “I bet he home in bed by viss time!” + </p> + <p> + Verman roared with delight, appearing to be wholly unconscious that the + lids of his right eye were swollen shut and that his attire, not too + finical before the struggle, now entitled him to unquestioned rank as a + sansculotte. Herman was a similar ruin, and gave as little heed to his + condition. + </p> + <p> + Penrod looked dazedly from Herman to Verman and back again. So did Sam + Williams. + </p> + <p> + “Herman,” said Penrod, in a weak voice, “you wouldn't HONEST of cut his + gizzard out, would you?” + </p> + <p> + “Who? Me? I don' know. He mighty mean ole boy!” Herman shook his head + gravely, and then, observing that Verman was again convulsed with unctuous + merriment, joined laughter with his brother. “Sho'! I guess I uz dess + TALKIN' whens I said 'at! Reckon he thought I meant it, f'm de way he tuck + an' run. Hiyi! Reckon he thought ole Herman bad man! No, suh! I uz dess + talkin', 'cause I nev' would cut NObody! I ain' tryin' git in no jail—NO, + suh!” + </p> + <p> + Penrod looked at the scythe: he looked at Herman. He looked at the + lawn-mower, and he looked at Verman. Then he looked out in the yard at the + rake. So did Sam Williams. + </p> + <p> + “Come on, Verman,” said Herman. “We ain' go' 'at stove-wood f' supper + yit.” + </p> + <p> + Giggling reminiscently, the brothers disappeared leaving silence behind + them in the carriage-house. Penrod and Sam retired slowly into the shadowy + interior, each glancing, now and then, with a preoccupied air, at the + open, empty doorway where the late afternoon sunshine was growing ruddy. + At intervals one or the other scraped the floor reflectively with the side + of his shoe. Finally, still without either having made any effort at + conversation, they went out into the yard and stood, continuing their + silence. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Sam, at last, “I guess it's time I better be gettin' home. So + long, Penrod!” + </p> + <p> + “So long, Sam,” said Penrod, feebly. + </p> + <p> + With a solemn gaze he watched his friend out of sight. Then he went slowly + into the house, and after an interval occupied in a unique manner, + appeared in the library, holding a pair of brilliantly gleaming shoes in + his hand. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Schofield, reading the evening paper, glanced frowningly over it at + his offspring. + </p> + <p> + “Look, papa,” said Penrod. “I found your shoes where you'd taken 'em off + in your room, to put on your slippers, and they were all dusty. So I took + 'em out on the back porch and gave 'em a good blacking. They shine up + fine, don't they?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I'll be d-dud-dummed!” said the startled Mr. Schofield. + </p> + <p> + Penrod was zigzagging back to normal. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIV “LITTLE GENTLEMAN” + </h2> + <p> + The midsummer sun was stinging hot outside the little barber-shop next to + the corner drug store and Penrod, undergoing a toilette preliminary to his + very slowly approaching twelfth birthday, was adhesive enough to retain + upon his face much hair as it fell from the shears. There is a mystery + here: the tonsorial processes are not unagreeable to manhood; in truth, + they are soothing; but the hairs detached from a boy's head get into his + eyes, his ears, his nose, his mouth, and down his neck, and he does + everywhere itch excruciatingly. Wherefore he blinks, winks, weeps, + twitches, condenses his countenance, and squirms; and perchance the + barber's scissors clip more than intended—belike an outlying flange + of ear. + </p> + <p> + “Um—muh—OW!” said Penrod, this thing having happened. + </p> + <p> + “D' I touch y' up a little?” inquired the barber, smiling falsely. + </p> + <p> + “Ooh—UH!” The boy in the chair offered inarticulate protest, as the + wound was rubbed with alum. + </p> + <p> + “THAT don't hurt!” said the barber. “You WILL get it, though, if you don't + sit stiller,” he continued, nipping in the bud any attempt on the part of + his patient to think that he already had “it.” + </p> + <p> + “Pfuff!” said Penrod, meaning no disrespect, but endeavoring to dislodge a + temporary moustache from his lip. + </p> + <p> + “You ought to see how still that little Georgie Bassett sits,” the barber + went on, reprovingly. “I hear everybody says he's the best boy in town.” + </p> + <p> + “Pfuff! PHIRR!” There was a touch of intentional contempt in this. + </p> + <p> + “I haven't heard nobody around the neighbourhood makin' no such remarks,” + added the barber, “about nobody of the name of Penrod Schofield.” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Penrod, clearing his mouth after a struggle, “who wants 'em + to? Ouch!” + </p> + <p> + “I hear they call Georgie Bassett the 'little gentleman,'” ventured the + barber, provocatively, meeting with instant success. + </p> + <p> + “They better not call ME that,” returned Penrod truculently. “I'd like to + hear anybody try. Just once, that's all! I bet they'd never try it ag——OUCH!” + </p> + <p> + “Why? What'd you do to 'em?” + </p> + <p> + “It's all right what I'd DO! I bet they wouldn't want to call me that + again long as they lived!” + </p> + <p> + “What'd you do if it was a little girl? You wouldn't hit her, would you?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I'd——Ouch!” + </p> + <p> + “You wouldn't hit a little girl, would you?” the barber persisted, + gathering into his powerful fingers a mop of hair from the top of Penrod's + head and pulling that suffering head into an unnatural position. “Doesn't + the Bible say it ain't never right to hit the weak sex?” + </p> + <p> + “Ow! SAY, look OUT!” + </p> + <p> + “So you'd go and punch a pore, weak, little girl, would you?” said the + barber, reprovingly. + </p> + <p> + “Well, who said I'd hit her?” demanded the chivalrous Penrod. “I bet I'd + FIX her though, all right. She'd see!” + </p> + <p> + “You wouldn't call her names, would you?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I wouldn't! What hurt is it to call anybody names?” + </p> + <p> + “Is that SO!” exclaimed the barber. “Then you was intending what I heard + you hollering at Fisher's grocery delivery wagon driver fer a favour, the + other day when I was goin' by your house, was you? I reckon I better tell + him, because he says to me after-WERDS if he ever lays eyes on you when + you ain't in your own yard, he's goin' to do a whole lot o' things you + ain't goin' to like! Yessir, that's what he says to ME!” + </p> + <p> + “He better catch me first, I guess, before he talks so much.” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” resumed the barber, “that ain't sayin' what you'd do if a young + lady ever walked up and called you a little gentleman. <i>I</i> want to + hear what you'd do to her. I guess I know, though—come to think of + it.” + </p> + <p> + “What?” demanded Penrod. + </p> + <p> + “You'd sick that pore ole dog of yours on her cat, if she had one, I + expect,” guessed the barber derisively. + </p> + <p> + “No, I would not!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, what WOULD you do?” + </p> + <p> + “I'd do enough. Don't worry about that!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, suppose it was a boy, then: what'd you do if a boy come up to you + and says, 'Hello, little gentleman'?” + </p> + <p> + “He'd be lucky,” said Penrod, with a sinister frown, “if he got home + alive.” + </p> + <p> + “Suppose it was a boy twice your size?” + </p> + <p> + “Just let him try,” said Penrod ominously. “You just let him try. He'd + never see daylight again; that's all!” + </p> + <p> + The barber dug ten active fingers into the helpless scalp before him and + did his best to displace it, while the anguished Penrod, becoming + instantly a seething crucible of emotion, misdirected his natural + resentment into maddened brooding upon what he would do to a boy “twice + his size” who should dare to call him “little gentleman.” The barber shook + him as his father had never shaken him; the barber buffeted him, rocked + him frantically to and fro; the barber seemed to be trying to wring his + neck; and Penrod saw himself in staggering zigzag pictures, destroying + large, screaming, fragmentary boys who had insulted him. + </p> + <p> + The torture stopped suddenly; and clenched, weeping eyes began to see + again, while the barber applied cooling lotions which made Penrod smell + like a coloured housemaid's ideal. + </p> + <p> + “Now what,” asked the barber, combing the reeking locks gently, “what + would it make you so mad fer, to have somebody call you a little + gentleman? It's a kind of compliment, as it were, you might say. What + would you want to hit anybody fer THAT fer?” + </p> + <p> + To the mind of Penrod, this question was without meaning or + reasonableness. It was within neither his power nor his desire to analyze + the process by which the phrase had become offensive to him, and was now + rapidly assuming the proportions of an outrage. He knew only that his + gorge rose at the thought of it. + </p> + <p> + “You just let 'em try it!” he said threateningly, as he slid down from the + chair. And as he went out of the door, after further conversation on the + same subject, he called back those warning words once more: “Just let 'em + try it! Just once—that's all <i>I</i> ask 'em to. They'll find out + what they GET!” + </p> + <p> + The barber chuckled. Then a fly lit on the barber's nose and he slapped at + it, and the slap missed the fly but did not miss the nose. The barber was + irritated. At this moment his birdlike eye gleamed a gleam as it fell upon + customers approaching: the prettiest little girl in the world, leading by + the hand her baby brother, Mitchy-Mitch, coming to have Mitchy-Mitch's + hair clipped, against the heat. + </p> + <p> + It was a hot day and idle, with little to feed the mind—and the + barber was a mischievous man with an irritated nose. He did his worst. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile, the brooding Penrod pursued his homeward way; no great + distance, but long enough for several one-sided conflicts with malign + insulters made of thin air. “You better NOT call me that!” he muttered. + “You just try it, and you'll get what other people got when THEY tried it. + You better not ack fresh with ME! Oh, you WILL, will you?” He delivered a + vicious kick full upon the shins of an iron fence-post, which suffered + little, though Penrod instantly regretted his indiscretion. “Oof!” he + grunted, hopping; and went on after bestowing a look of awful hostility + upon the fence-post. “I guess you'll know better next time,” he said, in + parting, to this antagonist. “You just let me catch you around here again + and I'll——” His voice sank to inarticulate but ominous + murmurings. He was in a dangerous mood. + </p> + <p> + Nearing home, however, his belligerent spirit was diverted to happier + interests by the discovery that some workmen had left a caldron of tar in + the cross-street, close by his father's stable. He tested it, but found it + inedible. Also, as a substitute for professional chewing-gum it was + unsatisfactory, being insufficiently boiled down and too thin, though of a + pleasant, lukewarm temperature. But it had an excess of one quality—it + was sticky. It was the stickiest tar Penrod had ever used for any purposes + whatsoever, and nothing upon which he wiped his hands served to rid them + of it; neither his polka-dotted shirt waist nor his knickerbockers; + neither the fence, nor even Duke, who came unthinkingly wagging out to + greet him, and retired wiser. + </p> + <p> + Nevertheless, tar is tar. Much can be done with it, no matter what its + condition; so Penrod lingered by the caldron, though from a neighbouring + yard could be heard the voices of comrades, including that of Sam + Williams. On the ground about the caldron were scattered chips and sticks + and bits of wood to the number of a great multitude. Penrod mixed + quantities of this refuse into the tar, and interested himself in seeing + how much of it he could keep moving in slow swirls upon the ebon surface. + </p> + <p> + Other surprises were arranged for the absent workmen. The caldron was + almost full, and the surface of the tar near the rim. + </p> + <p> + Penrod endeavoured to ascertain how many pebbles and brickbats, dropped + in, would cause an overflow. Labouring heartily to this end, he had almost + accomplished it, when he received the suggestion for an experiment on a + much larger scale. Embedded at the corner of a grassplot across the street + was a whitewashed stone, the size of a small watermelon and serving no + purpose whatever save the questionable one of decoration. It was easily + pried up with a stick; though getting it to the caldron tested the full + strength of the ardent labourer. Instructed to perform such a task, he + would have sincerely maintained its impossibility but now, as it was + unbidden, and promised rather destructive results, he set about it with + unconquerable energy, feeling certain that he would be rewarded with a + mighty splash. Perspiring, grunting vehemently, his back aching and all + muscles strained, he progressed in short stages until the big stone lay at + the base of the caldron. He rested a moment, panting, then lifted the + stone, and was bending his shoulders for the heave that would lift it over + the rim, when a sweet, taunting voice, close behind him, startled him + cruelly. + </p> + <p> + “How do you do, LITTLE GENTLEMAN!” + </p> + <p> + Penrod squawked, dropped the stone, and shouted, “Shut up, you dern fool!” + purely from instinct, even before his about-face made him aware who had so + spitefully addressed him. + </p> + <p> + It was Marjorie Jones. Always dainty, and prettily dressed, she was in + speckless and starchy white to-day, and a refreshing picture she made, + with the new-shorn and powerfully scented Mitchy-Mitch clinging to her + hand. They had stolen up behind the toiler, and now stood laughing + together in sweet merriment. Since the passing of Penrod's Rupe Collins + period he had experienced some severe qualms at the recollection of his + last meeting with Marjorie and his Apache behaviour; in truth, his heart + instantly became as wax at sight of her, and he would have offered her + fair speech; but, alas! in Marjorie's wonderful eyes there shone a + consciousness of new powers for his undoing, and she denied him + opportunity. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, OH!” she cried, mocking his pained outcry. “What a way for a LITTLE + GENTLEMAN to talk! Little gentleman don't say wicked——” + </p> + <p> + “Marjorie!” Penrod, enraged and dismayed, felt himself stung beyond all + endurance. Insult from her was bitterer to endure than from any other. + “Don't you call me that again!” + </p> + <p> + “Why not, LITTLE GENTLEMAN?” + </p> + <p> + He stamped his foot. “You better stop!” + </p> + <p> + Marjorie sent into his furious face her lovely, spiteful laughter. + </p> + <p> + “Little gentleman, little gentleman, little gentleman!” she said + deliberately. “How's the little gentleman, this afternoon? Hello, little + gentleman!” + </p> + <p> + Penrod, quite beside himself, danced eccentrically. “Dry up!” he howled. + “Dry up, dry up, dry up, dry UP!” + </p> + <p> + Mitchy-Mitch shouted with delight and applied a finger to the side of the + caldron—a finger immediately snatched away and wiped upon a + handkerchief by his fastidious sister. + </p> + <p> + “'Ittle gellamun!” said Mitchy-Mitch. + </p> + <p> + “You better look out!” Penrod whirled upon this small offender with grim + satisfaction. Here was at least something male that could without + dishonour be held responsible. “You say that again, and I'll give you the + worst——” + </p> + <p> + “You will NOT!” snapped Marjorie, instantly vitriolic. “He'll say just + whatever he wants to, and he'll say it just as MUCH as he wants to. Say it + again, Mitchy-Mitch!” + </p> + <p> + “'Ittle gellamun!” said Mitchy-Mitch promptly. + </p> + <p> + “Ow-YAH!” Penrod's tone-production was becoming affected by his mental + condition. “You say that again, and I'll——” + </p> + <p> + “Go on, Mitchy-Mitch,” cried Marjorie. “He can't do a thing. He don't + DARE! Say it some more, Mitchy-Mitch—say it a whole lot!” + </p> + <p> + Mitchy-Mitch, his small, fat face shining with confidence in his immunity, + complied. + </p> + <p> + “'Ittle gellamun!” he squeaked malevolently. “'Ittle gellamun! 'Ittle + gellamun! 'Ittle gellamun!” + </p> + <p> + The desperate Penrod bent over the whitewashed rock, lifted it, and then—outdoing + Porthos, John Ridd, and Ursus in one miraculous burst of strength—heaved + it into the air. + </p> + <p> + Marjorie screamed. + </p> + <p> + But it was too late. The big stone descended into the precise midst of the + caldron and Penrod got his mighty splash. It was far, far beyond his + expectations. + </p> + <p> + Spontaneously there were grand and awful effects—volcanic spectacles + of nightmare and eruption. A black sheet of eccentric shape rose out of + the caldron and descended upon the three children, who had no time to + evade it. + </p> + <p> + After it fell, Mitchy-Mitch, who stood nearest the caldron, was the + thickest, though there was enough for all. Br'er Rabbit would have fled + from any of them. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXV TAR + </h2> + <p> + When Marjorie and Mitchy-Mitch got their breath, they used it vocally; and + seldom have more penetrating sounds issued from human throats. + Coincidentally, Marjorie, quite baresark, laid hands upon the largest + stick within reach and fell upon Penrod with blind fury. He had the + presence of mind to flee, and they went round and round the caldron, while + Mitchy-Mitch feebly endeavoured to follow—his appearance, in this + pursuit, being pathetically like that of a bug fished out of an ink-well, + alive but discouraged. + </p> + <p> + Attracted by the riot, Samuel Williams made his appearance, vaulting a + fence, and was immediately followed by Maurice Levy and Georgie Bassett. + They stared incredulously at the extraordinary spectacle before them. + </p> + <p> + “Little GEN-TIL-MUN!” shrieked Marjorie, with a wild stroke that landed + full upon Penrod's tarry cap. + </p> + <p> + “OOOCH!” bleated Penrod. + </p> + <p> + “It's Penrod!” shouted Sam Williams, recognizing him by the voice. For an + instant he had been in some doubt. + </p> + <p> + “Penrod Schofield!” exclaimed Georgie Bassett. “WHAT does this mean?” That + was Georgie's style, and had helped to win him his title. + </p> + <p> + Marjorie leaned, panting, upon her stick. “I cu-called—uh— him—oh!” + she sobbed—“I called him a lul-little—oh—gentleman! And + oh—lul-look!—oh! lul-look at my du-dress! Lul-look at Mumitchy—oh—Mitch—oh!” + </p> + <p> + Unexpectedly, she smote again—with results—and then, seizing + the indistinguishable hand of Mitchy-Mitch, she ran wailing homeward down + the street. + </p> + <p> + “'Little gentleman'?” said Georgie Bassett, with some evidences of + disturbed complacency. “Why, that's what they call ME!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, and you ARE one, too!” shouted the maddened Penrod. “But you better + not let anybody call ME that! I've stood enough around here for one day, + and you can't run over ME, Georgie Bassett. Just you put that in your + gizzard and smoke it!” + </p> + <p> + “Anybody has a perfect right,” said Georgie, with, dignity, “to call a + person a little gentleman. There's lots of names nobody ought to call, but + this one's a NICE——” + </p> + <p> + “You better look out!” + </p> + <p> + Unavenged bruises were distributed all over Penrod, both upon his body and + upon his spirit. Driven by subtle forces, he had dipped his hands in + catastrophe and disaster: it was not for a Georgie Bassett to beard him. + Penrod was about to run amuck. + </p> + <p> + “I haven't called you a little gentleman, yet,” said Georgie. “I only said + it. Anybody's got a right to SAY it.” + </p> + <p> + “Not around ME! You just try it again and——” + </p> + <p> + “I shall say it,” returned Georgie, “all I please. Anybody in this town + has a right to SAY 'little gentleman'——” + </p> + <p> + Bellowing insanely, Penrod plunged his right hand into the caldron, rushed + upon Georgie and made awful work of his hair and features. + </p> + <p> + Alas, it was but the beginning! Sam Williams and Maurice Levy screamed + with delight, and, simultaneously infected, danced about the struggling + pair, shouting frantically: + </p> + <p> + “Little gentleman! Little gentleman! Sick him, Georgie! Sick him, little + gentleman! Little gentleman! Little gentleman!” + </p> + <p> + The infuriated outlaw turned upon them with blows and more tar, which gave + Georgie Bassett his opportunity and later seriously impaired the purity of + his fame. Feeling himself hopelessly tarred, he dipped both hands + repeatedly into the caldron and applied his gatherings to Penrod. It was + bringing coals to Newcastle, but it helped to assuage the just wrath of + Georgie. + </p> + <p> + The four boys gave a fine imitation of the Laocoon group complicated by an + extra figure frantic splutterings and chokings, strange cries and stranger + words issued from this tangle; hands dipped lavishly into the + inexhaustible reservoir of tar, with more and more picturesque results. + The caldron had been elevated upon bricks and was not perfectly balanced; + and under a heavy impact of the struggling group it lurched and went + partly over, pouring forth a Stygian tide which formed a deep pool in the + gutter. + </p> + <p> + It was the fate of Master Roderick Bitts, that exclusive and immaculate + person, to make his appearance upon the chaotic scene at this juncture. + All in the cool of a white “sailor suit,” he turned aside from the path of + duty—which led straight to the house of a maiden aunt—and + paused to hop with joy upon the sidewalk. A repeated epithet continuously + half panted, half squawked, somewhere in the nest of gladiators, caught + his ear, and he took it up excitedly, not knowing why. + </p> + <p> + “Little gentleman!” shouted Roderick, jumping up and down in childish + glee. “Little gentleman! Little gentleman! Lit——” + </p> + <p> + A frightful figure tore itself free from the group, encircled this + innocent bystander with a black arm, and hurled him headlong. Full length + and flat on his face went Roderick into the Stygian pool. The frightful + figure was Penrod. + </p> + <p> + Instantly, the pack flung themselves upon him again, and, carrying them + with him, he went over upon Roderick, who from that instant was as active + a belligerent as any there. + </p> + <p> + Thus began the Great Tar Fight, the origin of which proved, afterward, so + difficult for parents to trace, owing to the opposing accounts of the + combatants. Marjorie said Penrod began it; Penrod said Mitchy-Mitch began + it; Sam Williams said Georgie Bassett began it; Georgie and Maurice Levy + said Penrod began it; Roderick Bitts, who had not recognized his first + assailant, said Sam Williams began it. + </p> + <p> + Nobody thought of accusing the barber. But the barber did not begin it; it + was the fly on the barber's nose that began it—though, of course, + something else began the fly. Somehow, we never manage to hang the real + offender. + </p> + <p> + The end came only with the arrival of Penrod's mother, who had been having + a painful conversation by telephone with Mrs. Jones, the mother of + Marjorie, and came forth to seek an errant son. It is a mystery how she + was able to pick out her own, for by the time she got there his voice was + too hoarse to be recognizable. Mr. Schofield's version of things was that + Penrod was insane. “He's a stark, raving lunatic!” declared the father, + descending to the library from a before-dinner interview with the outlaw, + that evening. “I'd send him to military school, but I don't believe they'd + take him. Do you know WHY he says all that awfulness happened?” + </p> + <p> + “When Margaret and I were trying to scrub him,” responded Mrs. Schofield + wearily, “he said 'everybody' had been calling him names.” + </p> + <p> + “'Names!'” snorted her husband. “'Little gentleman!' THAT'S the vile + epithet they called him! And because of it he wrecks the peace of six + homes!” + </p> + <p> + “SH! Yes; he told us about it,” said Mrs. Schofield, moaning. “He told us + several hundred times, I should guess, though I didn't count. He's got it + fixed in his head, and we couldn't get it out. All we could do was to put + him in the closet. He'd have gone out again after those boys if we hadn't. + I don't know WHAT to make of him!” + </p> + <p> + “He's a mystery to ME!” said her husband. “And he refuses to explain why + he objects to being called 'little gentleman.' Says he'd do the same thing—and + worse—if anybody dared to call him that again. He said if the + President of the United States called him that he'd try to whip him. How + long did you have him locked up in the closet?” + </p> + <p> + “SH!” said Mrs. Schofield warningly. “About two hours; but I don't think + it softened his spirit at all, because when I took him to the barber's to + get his hair clipped again, on account of the tar in it, Sammy Williams + and Maurice Levy were there for the same reason, and they just WHISPERED + 'little gentleman,' so low you could hardly hear them—and Penrod + began fighting with them right before me, and it was really all the barber + and I could do to drag him away from them. The barber was very kind about + it, but Penrod——” + </p> + <p> + “I tell you he's a lunatic!” Mr. Schofield would have said the same thing + of a Frenchman infuriated by the epithet “camel.” The philosophy of insult + needs expounding. + </p> + <p> + “SH!” said Mrs. Schofield. “It does seem a kind of frenzy.” + </p> + <p> + “Why on earth should any sane person mind being called——” + </p> + <p> + “SH!” said Mrs. Schofield. “It's beyond ME!” + </p> + <p> + “What are you SH-ing me for?” demanded Mr. Schofield explosively. + </p> + <p> + “SH!” said Mrs. Schofield. “It's Mr. Kinosling, the new rector of Saint + Joseph's.” + </p> + <p> + “Where?” + </p> + <p> + “SH! On the front porch with Margaret; he's going to stay for dinner. I do + hope——” + </p> + <p> + “Bachelor, isn't he?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “OUR old minister was speaking of him the other day,” said Mr. Schofield, + “and he didn't seem so terribly impressed.” + </p> + <p> + “SH! Yes; about thirty, and of course so superior to most of Margaret's + friends—boys home from college. She thinks she likes young Robert + Williams, I know—but he laughs so much! Of course there isn't any + comparison. Mr. Kinosling talks so intellectually; it's a good thing for + Margaret to hear that kind of thing, for a change and, of course, he's + very spiritual. He seems very much interested in her.” She paused to muse. + “I think Margaret likes him; he's so different, too. It's the third time + he's dropped in this week, and I——” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Mr. Schofield grimly, “if you and Margaret want him to come + again, you'd better not let him see Penrod.” + </p> + <p> + “But he's asked to see him; he seems interested in meeting all the family. + And Penrod nearly always behaves fairly well at table.” She paused, and + then put to her husband a question referring to his interview with Penrod + upstairs. “Did you—did you—do it?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” he answered gloomily. “No, I didn't, but——” He was + interrupted by a violent crash of china and metal in the kitchen, a shriek + from Della, and the outrageous voice of Penrod. The well-informed Della, + ill-inspired to set up for a wit, had ventured to address the scion of the + house roguishly as “little gentleman,” and Penrod, by means of the rapid + elevation of his right foot, had removed from her supporting hands a laden + tray. Both parents, started for the kitchen, Mr. Schofield completing his + interrupted sentence on the way. + </p> + <p> + “But I will, now!” + </p> + <p> + The rite thus promised was hastily but accurately performed in that + apartment most distant from the front porch; and, twenty minutes later, + Penrod descended to dinner. The Rev. Mr. Kinosling had asked for the + pleasure of meeting him, and it had been decided that the only course + possible was to cover up the scandal for the present, and to offer an + undisturbed and smiling family surface to the gaze of the visitor. + </p> + <p> + Scorched but not bowed, the smouldering Penrod was led forward for the + social formulae simultaneously with the somewhat bleak departure of Robert + Williams, who took his guitar with him, this time, and went in forlorn + unconsciousness of the powerful forces already set in secret motion to be + his allies. + </p> + <p> + The punishment just undergone had but made the haughty and unyielding soul + of Penrod more stalwart in revolt; he was unconquered. Every time the one + intolerable insult had been offered him, his resentment had become the + hotter, his vengeance the more instant and furious. And, still burning + with outrage, but upheld by the conviction of right, he was determined to + continue to the last drop of his blood the defense of his honour, whenever + it should be assailed, no matter how mighty or august the powers that + attacked it. In all ways, he was a very sore boy. + </p> + <p> + During the brief ceremony of presentation, his usually inscrutable + countenance wore an expression interpreted by his father as one of insane + obstinacy, while Mrs. Schofield found it an incentive to inward prayer. + The fine graciousness of Mr. Kinosling, however, was unimpaired by the + glare of virulent suspicion given him by this little brother: Mr. + Kinosling mistook it for a natural curiosity concerning one who might + possibly become, in time, a member of the family. He patted Penrod upon + the head, which was, for many reasons, in no condition to be patted with + any pleasure to the patter. Penrod felt himself in the presence of a new + enemy. + </p> + <p> + “How do you do, my little lad,” said Mr. Kinosling. “I trust we shall + become fast friends.” + </p> + <p> + To the ear of his little lad, it seemed he said, “A trost we shall + bick-home fawst frainds.” Mr. Kinosling's pronunciation was, in fact, + slightly precious; and, the little lad, simply mistaking it for some + cryptic form of mockery of himself, assumed a manner and expression which + argued so ill for the proposed friendship that Mrs. Schofield hastily + interposed the suggestion of dinner, and the small procession went in to + the dining-room. + </p> + <p> + “It has been a delicious day,” said Mr. Kinosling, presently; “warm but + balmy.” With a benevolent smile he addressed Penrod, who sat opposite him. + “I suppose, little gentleman, you have been indulging in the usual outdoor + sports of vacation?” + </p> + <p> + Penrod laid down his fork and glared, open-mouthed at Mr. Kinosling. + </p> + <p> + “You'll have another slice of breast of the chicken?” Mr. Schofield + inquired, loudly and quickly. + </p> + <p> + “A lovely day!” exclaimed Margaret, with equal promptitude and emphasis. + “Lovely, oh, lovely! Lovely!” + </p> + <p> + “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!” said Mrs. Schofield, and after a glance + at Penrod which confirmed her impression that he intended to say + something, she continued, “Yes, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, + beautiful, beautiful beautiful!” + </p> + <p> + Penrod closed his mouth and sank back in his chair—and his relatives + took breath. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Kinosling looked pleased. This responsive family, with its ready + enthusiasm, made the kind of audience he liked. He passed a delicate white + hand gracefully over his tall, pale forehead, and smiled indulgently. + </p> + <p> + “Youth relaxes in summer,” he said. “Boyhood is the age of relaxation; one + is playful, light, free, unfettered. One runs and leaps and enjoys one's + self with one's companions. It is good for the little lads to play with + their friends; they jostle, push, and wrestle, and simulate little, happy + struggles with one another in harmless conflict. The young muscles are + toughening. It is good. Boyish chivalry develops, enlarges, expands. The + young learn quickly, intuitively, spontaneously. They perceive the + obligations of noblesse oblige. They begin to comprehend the necessity of + caste and its requirements. They learn what birth means—ah,—that + is, they learn what it means to be well born. They learn courtesy in their + games; they learn politeness, consideration for one another in their + pastimes, amusements, lighter occupations. I make it my pleasure to join + them often, for I sympathize with them in all their wholesome joys as well + as in their little bothers and perplexities. I understand them, you see; + and let me tell you it is no easy matter to understand the little lads and + lassies.” He sent to each listener his beaming glance, and, permitting it + to come to rest upon Penrod, inquired: + </p> + <p> + “And what do you say to that, little gentleman?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Schofield uttered a stentorian cough. “More? You'd better have some + more chicken! More! Do!” + </p> + <p> + “More chicken!” urged Margaret simultaneously. “Do please! Please! More! + Do! More!” + </p> + <p> + “Beautiful, beautiful,” began Mrs. Schofield. “Beautiful, beautiful, + beautiful, beautiful——” + </p> + <p> + It is not known in what light Mr. Kinosling viewed the expression of + Penrod's face. Perhaps he mistook it for awe; perhaps he received no + impression at all of its extraordinary quality. He was a rather + self-engrossed young man, just then engaged in a double occupation, for he + not only talked, but supplied from his own consciousness a critical though + favourable auditor as well, which of course kept him quite busy. Besides, + it is oftener than is expected the case that extremely peculiar + expressions upon the countenances of boys are entirely overlooked, and + suggest nothing to the minds of people staring straight at them. Certainly + Penrod's expression—which, to the perception of his family, was + perfectly horrible—caused not the faintest perturbation in the + breast of Mr. Kinosling. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Kinosling waived the chicken, and continued to talk. “Yes, I think I + may claim to understand boys,” he said, smiling thoughtfully. “One has + been a boy one's self. Ah, it is not all playtime! I hope our young + scholar here does not overwork himself at his Latin, at his classics, as I + did, so that at the age of eight years I was compelled to wear glasses. He + must be careful not to strain the little eyes at his scholar's tasks, not + to let the little shoulders grow round over his scholar's desk. Youth is + golden; we should keep it golden, bright, glistening. Youth should frolic, + should be sprightly; it should play its cricket, its tennis, its + hand-ball. It should run and leap; it should laugh, should sing madrigals + and glees, carol with the lark, ring out in chanties, folk-songs, ballads, + roundelays——” + </p> + <p> + He talked on. At any instant Mr. Schofield held himself ready to cough + vehemently and shout, “More chicken,” to drown out Penrod in case the + fatal words again fell from those eloquent lips; and Mrs. Schofield and + Margaret kept themselves prepared at all times to assist him. So passed a + threatening meal, which Mrs. Schofield hurried, by every means with + decency, to its conclusion. She felt that somehow they would all be safer + out in the dark of the front porch, and led the way thither as soon as + possible. + </p> + <p> + “No cigar, I thank you.” Mr. Kinosling, establishing himself in a wicker + chair beside Margaret, waved away her father's proffer. “I do not smoke. I + have never tasted tobacco in any form.” Mrs. Schofield was confirmed in + her opinion that this would be an ideal son-in-law. Mr. Schofield was not + so sure. + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Mr. Kinosling. “No tobacco for me. No cigar, no pipe, no + cigarette, no cheroot. For me, a book—a volume of poems, perhaps. + Verses, rhymes, lines metrical and cadenced—those are my + dissipation. Tennyson by preference: 'Maud,' or 'Idylls of the King'—poetry + of the sound Victorian days; there is none later. Or Longfellow will rest + me in a tired hour. Yes; for me, a book, a volume in the hand, held + lightly between the fingers.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Kinosling looked pleasantly at his fingers as he spoke, waving his + hand in a curving gesture which brought it into the light of a window + faintly illumined from the interior of the house. Then he passed those + graceful fingers over his hair, and turned toward Penrod, who was perched + upon the railing in a dark corner. + </p> + <p> + “The evening is touched with a slight coolness,” said Mr. Kinosling. + “Perhaps I may request the little gentleman——” + </p> + <p> + “B'gr-r-RUFF!” coughed Mr. Schofield. “You'd better change your mind about + a cigar.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I thank you. I was about to request the lit——” + </p> + <p> + “DO try one,” Margaret urged. “I'm sure papa's are nice ones. Do try——” + </p> + <p> + “No, I thank you. I remarked a slight coolness in the air, and my hat is + in the hallway. I was about to request——” + </p> + <p> + “I'll get it for you,” said Penrod suddenly. + </p> + <p> + “If you will be so good,” said Mr. Kinosling. “It is a black bowler hat, + little gentleman, and placed upon a table in the hall.” + </p> + <p> + “I know where it is.” Penrod entered the door, and a feeling of relief, + mutually experienced, carried from one to another of his three relatives + their interchanged congratulations that he had recovered his sanity. + </p> + <p> + “'The day is done, and the darkness,'” began Mr. Kinosling—and + recited that poem entire. He followed it with “The Children's Hour,” and + after a pause, at the close, to allow his listeners time for a little + reflection upon his rendition, he passed his handagain over his head, and + called, in the direction of the doorway: + </p> + <p> + “I believe I will take my hat now, little gentleman.” + </p> + <p> + “Here it is,” said Penrod, unexpectedly climbing over the porch railing, + in the other direction. His mother and father and Margaret had supposed + him to be standing in the hallway out of deference, and because he thought + it tactful not to interrupt the recitations. All of them remembered, + later, that this supposed thoughtfulness on his part struck them as + unnatural. + </p> + <p> + “Very good, little gentleman!” said Mr. Kinosling, and being somewhat + chilled, placed the hat firmly upon his head, pulling it down as far as it + would go. It had a pleasant warmth, which he noticed at once. The next + instant, he noticed something else, a peculiar sensation of the scalp—a + sensation which he was quite unable to define. He lifted his hand to take + the hat off, and entered upon a strange experience: his hat seemed to have + decided to remain where it was. + </p> + <p> + “Do you like Tennyson as much as Longfellow, Mr. Kinosling?” inquired + Margaret. + </p> + <p> + “I—ah—I cannot say,” he returned absently. “I—ah—each + has his own—ugh! flavour and savour, each his—ah—ah——” + </p> + <p> + Struck by a strangeness in his tone, she peered at him curiously through + the dusk. His outlines were indistinct, but she made out that his arms + were, uplifted in a singular gesture. He seemed to be wrenching at his + head. + </p> + <p> + “Is—is anything the matter?” she asked anxiously. “Mr. Kinosling, + are you ill?” + </p> + <p> + “Not at—ugh!—all,” he replied, in the same odd tone. “I—ah—I + believe—UGH!” + </p> + <p> + He dropped his hands from his hat, and rose. His manner was slightly + agitated. “I fear I may have taken a trifling—ah—cold. I + should—ah—perhaps be—ah—better at home. I will—ah—say + good-night.” + </p> + <p> + At the steps, he instinctively lifted his hand to remove his hat, but did + not do so, and, saying “Goodnight,” again in a frigid voice, departed with + visible stiffness from that house, to return no more. + </p> + <p> + “Well, of all——!” cried Mrs. Schofield, astounded. “What was + the matter? He just went—like that!” She made a flurried gesture. + “In heaven's name, Margaret, what DID you say to him?” + </p> + <p> + “<i>I</i>!” exclaimed Margaret indignantly. “Nothing! He just WENT!” + </p> + <p> + “Why, he didn't even take off his hat when he said good-night!” said Mrs. + Schofield. + </p> + <p> + Margaret, who had crossed to the doorway, caught the ghost of a whisper + behind her, where stood Penrod. + </p> + <p> + “YOU BET HE DIDN'T!” + </p> + <p> + He knew not that he was overheard. + </p> + <p> + A frightful suspicion flashed through Margaret's mind—a suspicion + that Mr. Kinosling's hat would have to be either boiled off or shaved off. + With growing horror she recalled Penrod's long absence when he went to + bring the hat. + </p> + <p> + “Penrod,” she cried, “let me see your hands!” + </p> + <p> + She had toiled at those hands herself late that afternoon, nearly scalding + her own, but at last achieving a lily purity. + </p> + <p> + “Let me see your hands!” + </p> + <p> + She seized them. + </p> + <p> + Again they were tarred! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVI THE QUIET AFTERNOON + </h2> + <p> + Perhaps middle-aged people might discern Nature's real intentions in the + matter of pain if they would examine a boy's punishments and sorrows, for + he prolongs neither beyond their actual duration. With a boy, trouble must + be of Homeric dimensions to last overnight. To him, every next day is + really a new day. Thus, Penrod woke, next morning, with neither the + unspared rod, nor Mr. Kinosling in his mind. Tar, itself, so far as his + consideration of it went, might have been an undiscovered substance. His + mood was cheerful and mercantile; some process having worked mysteriously + within him, during the night, to the result that his first waking thought + was of profits connected with the sale of old iron—or perhaps a + ragman had passed the house, just before he woke. + </p> + <p> + By ten o'clock he had formed a partnership with the indeed amiable Sam, + and the firm of Schofield and Williams plunged headlong into commerce. + Heavy dealings in rags, paper, old iron and lead gave the firm a balance + of twenty-two cents on the evening of the third day; but a venture in + glassware, following, proved disappointing on account of the scepticism of + all the druggists in that part of town, even after seven laborious hours + had been spent in cleansing a wheelbarrow-load of old medicine bottles + with hydrant water and ashes. Likewise, the partners were disheartened by + their failure to dispose of a crop of “greens,” although they had uprooted + specimens of that decorative and unappreciated flower, the dandelion, with + such persistence and energy that the Schofields' and Williams' lawns + looked curiously haggard for the rest of that summer. + </p> + <p> + The fit passed: business languished; became extinct. The dog-days had set + in. + </p> + <p> + One August afternoon was so hot that even boys sought indoor shade. In the + dimness of the vacant carriage-house of the stable, lounged Masters Penrod + Schofield, Samuel Williams, Maurice Levy, Georgie Bassett, and Herman. + They sat still and talked. It is a hot day, in rare truth, when boys + devote themselves principally to conversation, and this day was that hot. + </p> + <p> + Their elders should beware such days. Peril hovers near when the + fierceness of weather forces inaction and boys in groups are quiet. The + more closely volcanoes, Western rivers, nitroglycerin, and boys are pent, + the deadlier is their action at the point of outbreak. Thus, parents and + guardians should look for outrages of the most singular violence and of + the most peculiar nature during the confining weather of February and + August. + </p> + <p> + The thing which befell upon this broiling afternoon began to brew and stew + peacefully enough. All was innocence and languor; no one could have + foretold the eruption. + </p> + <p> + They were upon their great theme: “When I get to be a man!” Being human, + though boys, they considered their present estate too commonplace to be + dwelt upon. So, when the old men gather, they say: “When I was a boy!” It + really is the land of nowadays that we never discover. + </p> + <p> + “When I'm a man,” said Sam Williams, “I'm goin' to hire me a couple of + coloured waiters to swing me in a hammock and keep pourin' ice-water on me + all day out o' those waterin'-cans they sprinkle flowers from. I'll hire + you for one of 'em, Herman.” + </p> + <p> + “No; you ain' goin' to,” said Herman promptly. “You ain' no flowuh. But + nev' min' nat, anyway. Ain' nobody goin' haih me whens <i>I</i>'m a man. + Goin' be my own boss. <i>I</i>'m go' be a rai'road man!” + </p> + <p> + “You mean like a superintendent, or sumpthing like that, and sell + tickets?” asked Penrod. + </p> + <p> + “Sup'in—nev' min' nat! Sell ticket? NO suh! Go' be a PO'tuh! My + uncle a po'tuh right now. Solid gole buttons—oh, oh!” + </p> + <p> + “Generals get a lot more buttons than porters,” said Penrod. “Generals——” + </p> + <p> + “Po'tuhs make the bes' l'vin',” Herman interrupted. “My uncle spen' mo' + money 'n any white man n'is town.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I rather be a general,” said Penrod, “or a senator, or sumpthing + like that.” + </p> + <p> + “Senators live in Warshington,” Maurice Levy contributed the information. + “I been there. Warshington ain't so much; Niag'ra Falls is a hundred times + as good as Warshington. So's 'Tlantic City, I was there, too. I been + everywhere there is. I——” + </p> + <p> + “Well, anyway,” said Sam Williams, raising his voice in order to obtain + the floor, “anyway, I'm goin' to lay in a hammock all day, and have + ice-water sprinkled on top o' me, and I'm goin' to lay there all night, + too, and the next day. I'm goin' to lay there a couple o' years, maybe.” + </p> + <p> + “I bet you don't!” exclaimed Maurice. “What'd you do in winter?” + </p> + <p> + “What?” + </p> + <p> + “What you goin' to do when it's winter, out in a hammock with water + sprinkled on top o' you all day? I bet you——” + </p> + <p> + “I'd stay right there,” Sam declared, with strong conviction, blinking as + he looked out through the open doors at the dazzling lawn and trees, + trembling in the heat. “They couldn't sprinkle too much for ME!” + </p> + <p> + “It'd make icicles all over you, and——” + </p> + <p> + “I wish it would,” said Sam. “I'd eat 'em up.” + </p> + <p> + “And it'd snow on you——” + </p> + <p> + “Yay! I'd swaller it as fast as it'd come down. I wish I had a BARREL o' + snow right now. I wish this whole barn was full of it. I wish they wasn't + anything in the whole world except just good ole snow.” + </p> + <p> + Penrod and Herman rose and went out to the hydrant, where they drank long + and ardently. Sam was still talking about snow when they returned. + </p> + <p> + “No, I wouldn't just roll in it. I'd stick it all round inside my clo'es, + and fill my hat. No, I'd freeze a big pile of it all hard, and I'd roll + her out flat and then I'd carry her down to some ole tailor's and have him + make me a SUIT out of her, and——” + </p> + <p> + “Can't you keep still about your ole snow?” demanded Penrod petulantly. + “Makes me so thirsty I can't keep still, and I've drunk so much now I bet + I bust. That ole hydrant water's mighty near hot anyway.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm goin' to have a big store, when I grow up,” volunteered Maurice. + </p> + <p> + “Candy store?” asked Penrod. + </p> + <p> + “NO, sir! I'll have candy in it, but not to eat, so much. It's goin' to be + a deportment store: ladies' clothes, gentlemen's clothes, neckties, china + goods, leather goods, nice lines in woollings and lace goods——” + </p> + <p> + “Yay! I wouldn't give a five-for-a-cent marble for your whole store,” said + Sam. “Would you, Penrod?” + </p> + <p> + “Not for ten of 'em; not for a million of 'em! <i>I</i>'m goin' to have——” + </p> + <p> + “Wait!” clamoured Maurice. “You'd be foolish, because they'd be a toy + deportment in my store where they'd be a hunderd marbles! So, how much + would you think your five-for-a-cent marble counts for? And when I'm + keepin' my store I'm goin' to get married.” + </p> + <p> + “Yay!” shrieked Sam derisively. “MARRIED! Listen!” Penrod and Herman + joined in the howl of contempt. + </p> + <p> + “Certumly I'll get married,” asserted Maurice stoutly. “I'll get married + to Marjorie Jones. She likes me awful good, and I'm her beau.” + </p> + <p> + “What makes you think so?” inquired Penrod in a cryptic voice. + </p> + <p> + “Because she's my beau, too,” came the prompt answer. “I'm her beau + because she's my beau; I guess that's plenty reason! I'll get married to + her as soon as I get my store running nice.” + </p> + <p> + Penrod looked upon him darkly, but, for the moment, held his peace. + </p> + <p> + “Married!” jeered Sam Williams. “Married to Marjorie Jones! You're the + only boy I ever heard say he was going to get married. I wouldn't get + married for—why, I wouldn't for—for——” Unable to + think of any inducement the mere mention of which would not be + ridiculously incommensurate, he proceeded: “I wouldn't do it! What you + want to get married for? What do married people do, except just come home + tired, and worry around and kind of scold? You better not do it, M'rice; + you'll be mighty sorry.” + </p> + <p> + “Everybody gets married,” stated Maurice, holding his ground. + </p> + <p> + “They gotta.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll bet <i>I</i> don't!” Sam returned hotly. “They better catch me + before they tell ME I have to. Anyway, I bet nobody has to get married + unless they want to.” + </p> + <p> + “They do, too,” insisted Maurice. “They GOTTA!” + </p> + <p> + “Who told you?” + </p> + <p> + “Look at what my own papa told me!” cried Maurice, heated with argument. + “Didn't he tell me your papa had to marry your mamma, or else he never'd + got to handle a cent of her money? Certumly, people gotta marry. + Everybody. You don't know anybody over twenty years old that isn't married—except + maybe teachers.” + </p> + <p> + “Look at policemen!” shouted Sam triumphantly. “You don't s'pose anybody + can make policemen get married, I reckon, do you?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, policemen, maybe,” Maurice was forced to admit. “Policemen and + teachers don't, but everybody else gotta.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I'll be a policeman,” said Sam. “THEN I guess they won't come + around tellin' me I have to get married. What you goin' to be, Penrod?” + </p> + <p> + “Chief police,” said the laconic Penrod. + </p> + <p> + “What you?” Sam inquired of quiet Georgie Bassett. + </p> + <p> + “I am going to be,” said Georgie, consciously, “a minister.” + </p> + <p> + This announcement created a sensation so profound that it was followed by + silence. Herman was the first to speak. + </p> + <p> + “You mean preachuh?” he asked incredulously. “You go' PREACH?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” answered Georgie, looking like Saint Cecilia at the organ. + </p> + <p> + Herman was impressed. “You know all 'at preachuh talk?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm going to learn it,” said Georgie simply. + </p> + <p> + “How loud kin you holler?” asked Herman doubtfully. + </p> + <p> + “He can't holler at all,” Penrod interposed with scorn. “He hollers like a + girl. He's the poorest hollerer in town!” + </p> + <p> + Herman shook his head. Evidently he thought Georgie's chance of being + ordained very slender. Nevertheless, a final question put to the candidate + by the coloured expert seemed to admit one ray of hope. + </p> + <p> + “How good kin you clim a pole?” + </p> + <p> + “He can't climb one at all,” Penrod answered for Georgie. “Over at Sam's + turning-pole you ought to see him try to——” + </p> + <p> + “Preachers don't have to climb poles,” Georgie said with dignity. + </p> + <p> + “GOOD ones do,” declared Herman. “Bes' one ev' <i>I</i> hear, he clim up + an' down same as a circus man. One n'em big 'vivals outen whens we livin' + on a fahm, preachuh clim big pole right in a middle o' the church, what + was to hol' roof up. He clim way high up, an' holler: 'Goin' to heavum, + goin' to heavum, goin' to heavum NOW. Hallelujah, praise my Lawd!' An' he + slide down little, an' holler: 'Devil's got a hol' o' my coat-tails; devil + tryin' to drag me down! Sinnuhs, take wawnun! Devil got a hol' o' my + coat-tails; I'm a-goin' to hell, oh Lawd!' Nex', he clim up little mo', + an' yell an' holler: 'Done shuck ole devil loose; goin' straight to heavum + agin! Goin' to heavum, goin' to heavum, my Lawd!' Nex', he slide down some + mo' an' holler, 'Leggo my coat-tails, ole devil! Goin' to hell agin, + sinnuhs! Goin' straight to hell, my Lawd!' An' he clim an' he slide, an' + he slide, an' he clim, an' all time holler: 'Now 'm a-goin' to heavum; now + 'm a-goin' to hell! Goin'to heavum, heavum, heavum, my Lawd!' Las' he + slide all a-way down, jes' a-squallin' an' a-kickin' an' a-rarin' up an' + squealin', 'Goin' to hell. Goin' to hell! Ole Satum got my soul! Goin' to + hell! Goin' to hell! Goin' to hell, hell, hell!” + </p> + <p> + Herman possessed that extraordinary facility for vivid acting which is the + great native gift of his race, and he enchained his listeners. They sat + fascinated and spellbound. + </p> + <p> + “Herman, tell that again!” said Penrod, breathlessly. + </p> + <p> + Herman, nothing loath, accepted the encore and repeated the Miltonic + episode, expanding it somewhat, and dwelling with a fine art upon those + portions of the narrative which he perceived to be most exciting to his + audience. Plainly, they thrilled less to Paradise gained than to its + losing, and the dreadful climax of the descent into the Pit was the + greatest treat of all. + </p> + <p> + The effect was immense and instant. Penrod sprang to his feet. + </p> + <p> + “Georgie Bassett couldn't do that to save his life,” he declared. “<i>I</i>'m + goin' to be a preacher! I'D be all right for one, wouldn't I, Herman?” + </p> + <p> + “So am I!” Sam Williams echoed loudly. “I guess I can do it if YOU can. + I'd be better'n Penrod, wouldn't I, Herman?” + </p> + <p> + “I am, too!” Maurice shouted. “I got a stronger voice than anybody here, + and I'd like to know what——” + </p> + <p> + The three clamoured together indistinguishably, each asserting his + qualifications for the ministry according to Herman's theory, which had + been accepted by these sudden converts without question. + </p> + <p> + “Listen to ME!” Maurice bellowed, proving his claim to at least the voice + by drowning the others. “Maybe I can't climb a pole so good, but who can + holler louder'n this? Listen to ME-E-E!” + </p> + <p> + “Shut up!” cried Penrod, irritated. “Go to heaven; go to hell!” + </p> + <p> + “Oo-o-oh!” exclaimed Georgie Bassett, profoundly shocked. + </p> + <p> + Sam and Maurice, awed by Penrod's daring, ceased from turmoil, staring + wide-eyed. + </p> + <p> + “You cursed and swore!” said Georgie. + </p> + <p> + “I did not!” cried Penrod, hotly. “That isn't swearing.” + </p> + <p> + “You said, 'Go to a big H'!” said Georgie. + </p> + <p> + “I did not! I said, 'Go to heaven,' before I said a big H. That isn't + swearing, is it, Herman? It's almost what the preacher said, ain't it, + Herman? It ain't swearing now, any more—not if you put 'go to + heaven' with it, is it, Herman? You can say it all you want to, long as + you say 'go to heaven' first, CAN'T you, Herman? Anybody can say it if the + preacher says it, can't they, Herman? I guess I know when I ain't + swearing, don't I, Herman?” + </p> + <p> + Judge Herman ruled for the defendant, and Penrod was considered to have + carried his point. With fine consistency, the conclave established that it + was proper for the general public to “say it,” provided “go to heaven” + should in all cases precede it. This prefix was pronounced a perfect + disinfectant, removing all odour of impiety or insult; and, with the + exception of Georgie Bassett (who maintained that the minister's words + were “going” and “gone,” not “go”), all the boys proceeded to exercise + their new privilege so lavishly that they tired of it. + </p> + <p> + But there was no diminution of evangelical ardour; again were heard the + clamours of dispute as to which was the best qualified for the ministry, + each of the claimants appealing passionately to Herman, who, pleased but + confused, appeared to be incapable of arriving at a decision. + </p> + <p> + During a pause, Georgie Bassett asserted his prior rights. “Who said it + first, I'd like to know?” he demanded. “I was going to be a minister from + long back of to-day, I guess. And I guess I said I was going to be a + minister right to-day before any of you said anything at all. DIDN'T I, + Herman? YOU heard me, didn't you, Herman? That's the very thing started + you talking about it, wasn't it, Herman?” + </p> + <p> + “You' right,” said Herman. “You the firs' one to say it.” + </p> + <p> + Penrod, Sam, and Maurice immediately lost faith in Herman. + </p> + <p> + “What if you did say it first?” Penrod shouted. “You couldn't BE a + minister if you were a hunderd years old!” + </p> + <p> + “I bet his mother wouldn't let him be one,” said Sam. “She never lets him + do anything.” + </p> + <p> + “She would, too,” retorted Georgie. “Ever since I was little, she——” + </p> + <p> + “He's too sissy to be a preacher!” cried Maurice. “Listen at his squeaky + voice!” + </p> + <p> + “I'm going to be a better minister,” shouted Georgie, “than all three of + you put together. I could do it with my left hand!” + </p> + <p> + The three laughed bitingly in chorus. They jeered, derided, scoffed, and + raised an uproar which would have had its effect upon much stronger nerves + than Georgie's. For a time he contained his rising choler and chanted + monotonously, over and over: “I COULD! I COULD, TOO! I COULD! I COULD, + TOO!” But their tumult wore upon him, and he decided to avail himself of + the recent decision whereby a big H was rendered innocuous and unprofane. + Having used the expression once, he found it comforting, and substituted + it for: “I could! I could, too!” + </p> + <p> + But it relieved him only temporarily. His tormentors were unaffected by it + and increased their howlings, until at last Georgie lost his head + altogether. Badgered beyond bearing, his eyes shining with a wild light, + he broke through the besieging trio, hurling little Maurice from his path + with a frantic hand. + </p> + <p> + “I'll show you!” he cried, in this sudden frenzy. “You give me a chance, + and I'll prove it right NOW!” + </p> + <p> + “That's talkin' business!” shouted Penrod. “Everybody keep still a minute. + Everybody!” + </p> + <p> + He took command of the situation at once, displaying a fine capacity for + organization and system. It needed only a few minutes to set order in the + place of confusion and to determine, with the full concurrence of all + parties, the conditions under which Georgie Bassett was to defend his + claim by undergoing what may be perhaps intelligibly defined as the Herman + test. Georgie declared he could do it easily. He was in a state of great + excitement and in no condition to think calmly or, probably, he would not + have made the attempt at all. Certainly he was overconfident. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVII CONCLUSION OF THE QUIET AFTERNOON + </h2> + <p> + It was during the discussion of the details of this enterprise that + Georgie's mother, a short distance down the street, received a few female + callers, who came by appointment to drink a glass of iced tea with her, + and to meet the Rev. Mr. Kinosling. Mr. Kinosling was proving almost + formidably interesting to the women and girls of his own and other flocks. + What favour of his fellow clergymen a slight precociousness of manner and + pronunciation cost him was more than balanced by the visible ecstasies of + ladies. They blossomed at his touch. + </p> + <p> + He had just entered Mrs. Bassett's front door, when the son of the house, + followed by an intent and earnest company of four, opened the alley gate + and came into the yard. The unconscious Mrs. Bassett was about to have her + first experience of a fatal coincidence. It was her first, because she was + the mother of a boy so well behaved that he had become a proverb of + transcendency. Fatal coincidences were plentiful in the Schofield and + Williams families, and would have been familiar to Mrs. Bassett had + Georgie been permitted greater intimacy with Penrod and Sam. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Kinosling sipped his iced tea and looked about, him approvingly. Seven + ladies leaned forward, for it was to be seen that he meant to speak. + </p> + <p> + “This cool room is a relief,” he said, waving a graceful hand in a neatly + limited gesture, which everybody's eyes followed, his own included. “It is + a relief and a retreat. The windows open, the blinds closed—that is + as it should be. It is a retreat, a fastness, a bastion against the heat's + assault. For me, a quiet room—a quiet room and a book, a volume in + the hand, held lightly between the fingers. A volume of poems, lines + metrical and cadenced; something by a sound Victorian. We have no later + poets.” + </p> + <p> + “Swinburne?” suggested Miss Beam, an eager spinster. “Swinburne, Mr. + Kinosling? Ah, SWINBURNE!” + </p> + <p> + “Not Swinburne,” said Mr. Kinosling chastely. “No.” + </p> + <p> + That concluded all the remarks about Swinburne. + </p> + <p> + Miss Beam retired in confusion behind another lady; and somehow there + became diffused an impression that Miss Beam was erotic. + </p> + <p> + “I do not observe your manly little son,” Mr. Kinosling addressed his + hostess. + </p> + <p> + “He's out playing in the yard,” Mrs. Bassett returned. “I heard his voice + just now, I think.” + </p> + <p> + “Everywhere I hear wonderful report of him,” said Mr. Kinosling. “I may + say that I understand boys, and I feel that he is a rare, a fine, a pure, + a lofty spirit. I say spirit, for spirit is the word I hear spoken of + him.” + </p> + <p> + A chorus of enthusiastic approbation affirmed the accuracy of this + proclamation, and Mrs. Bassett flushed with pleasure. Georgie's spiritual + perfection was demonstrated by instances of it, related by the visitors; + his piety was cited, and wonderful things he had said were quoted. + </p> + <p> + “Not all boys are pure, of fine spirit, of high mind,” said Mr. Kinosling, + and continued with true feeling: “You have a neighbour, dear Mrs. Bassett, + whose household I indeed really feel it quite impossible to visit until + such time when better, firmer, stronger handed, more determined discipline + shall prevail. I find Mr. and Mrs. Schofield and their daughter charming——” + </p> + <p> + Three or four ladies said “Oh!” and spoke a name simultaneously. It was as + if they had said, “Oh, the bubonic plague!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! Penrod Schofield!” + </p> + <p> + “Georgie does not play with him,” said Mrs. Bassett quickly—“that + is, he avoids him as much as he can without hurting Penrod's feelings. + Georgie is very sensitive to giving pain. I suppose a mother should not + tell these things, and I know people who talk about their own children are + dreadful bores, but it was only last Thursday night that Georgie looked up + in my face so sweetly, after he had said his prayers and his little cheeks + flushed, as he said: 'Mamma, I think it would be right for me to go more + with Penrod. I think it would make him a better boy.'” + </p> + <p> + A sibilance went about the room. “Sweet! How sweet! The sweet little soul! + Ah, SWEET!” + </p> + <p> + “And that very afternoon,” continued Mrs. Bassett, “he had come home in a + dreadful state. Penrod had thrown tar all over him.” + </p> + <p> + “Your son has a forgiving spirit!” said Mr. Kinosling with vehemence. “A + too forgiving spirit, perhaps.” He set down his glass. “No more, I thank + you. No more cake, I thank you. Was it not Cardinal Newman who said——” + </p> + <p> + He was interrupted by the sounds of an altercation just outside the closed + blinds of the window nearest him. + </p> + <p> + “Let him pick his tree!” It was the voice of Samuel Williams. “Didn't we + come over here to give him one of his own trees? Give him a fair show, + can't you?” + </p> + <p> + “The little lads!” Mr. Kinosling smiled. “They have their games, their + outdoor sports, their pastimes. The young muscles are toughening. The sun + will not harm them. They grow; they expand; they learn. They learn fair + play, honour, courtesy, from one another, as pebbles grow round in the + brook. They learn more from themselves than from us. They take shape, + form, outline. Let them.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Kinosling!” Another spinster—undeterred by what had happened to + Miss Beam—leaned fair forward, her face shining and ardent. “Mr. + Kinosling, there's a question I DO wish to ask you.” + </p> + <p> + “My dear Miss Cosslit,” Mr. Kinosling responded, again waving his hand and + watching it, “I am entirely at your disposal.” + </p> + <p> + “WAS Joan of Arc,” she asked fervently, “inspired by spirits?” + </p> + <p> + He smiled indulgently. “Yes—and no,” he said. “One must give both + answers. One must give the answer, yes; one must give the answer, no.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, THANK you!” said Miss Cosslit, blushing. + </p> + <p> + “She's one of my great enthusiasms, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “And I have a question, too,” urged Mrs. Lora Rewbush, after a moment's + hasty concentration. “'I've never been able to settle it for myself, but + NOW——” + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” said Mr. Kinosling encouragingly. + </p> + <p> + “Is—ah—is—oh, yes: Is Sanskrit a more difficult language + than Spanish, Mr. Kinosling?” + </p> + <p> + “It depends upon the student,” replied the oracle smiling. “One must not + look for linguists everywhere. In my own especial case—if one may + cite one's self as an example—I found no great, no insurmountable + difficulty in mastering, in conquering either.” + </p> + <p> + “And may <i>I</i> ask one?” ventured Mrs. Bassett. “Do you think it is + right to wear egrets?” + </p> + <p> + “There are marks of quality, of caste, of social distinction,” Mr. + Kinosling began, “which must be permitted, allowed, though perhaps + regulated. Social distinction, one observes, almost invariably implies + spiritual distinction as well. Distinction of circumstances is accompanied + by mental distinction. Distinction is hereditary; it descends from father + to son, and if there is one thing more true than 'Like father, like son,' + it is—” he bowed gallantly to Mrs. Bassett—“it is, 'Like + mother, like son.' What these good ladies have said this afternoon of YOUR——” + </p> + <p> + This was the fatal instant. There smote upon all ears the voice of + Georgie, painfully shrill and penetrating—fraught with protest and + protracted, strain. His plain words consisted of the newly sanctioned and + disinfected curse with a big H. + </p> + <p> + With an ejaculation of horror, Mrs. Bassett sprang to the window and threw + open the blinds. + </p> + <p> + Georgie's back was disclosed to the view of the tea-party. He was + endeavouring to ascend a maple tree about twelve feet from the window. + Embracing the trunk with arms and legs, he had managed to squirm to a + point above the heads of Penrod and Herman, who stood close by, watching + him earnestly—Penrod being obviously in charge of the performance. + Across the yard were Sam Williams and Maurice Levy, acting as a jury on + the question of voice-power, and it was to a complaint of theirs that + Georgie had just replied. + </p> + <p> + “That's right, Georgie,” said Penrod encouragingly. “They can, too, hear + you. Let her go!” + </p> + <p> + “Going to heaven!” shrieked Georgie, squirming up another inch. “Going to + heaven, heaven, heaven!” + </p> + <p> + His mother's frenzied attempts to attract his attention failed utterly. + Georgie was using the full power of his lungs, deafening his own ears to + all other sounds. Mrs. Bassett called in vain; while the tea-party stood + petrified in a cluster about the window. + </p> + <p> + “Going to heaven!” Georgie bellowed. “Going to heaven! Going to heaven, my + Lord! Going to heaven, heaven, heaven!” + </p> + <p> + He tried to climb higher, but began to slip downward, his exertions + causing damage to his apparel. A button flew into the air, and his + knickerbockers and his waistband severed relations. + </p> + <p> + “Devil's got my coat-tails, sinners! Old devil's got my coat-tails!” he + announced appropriately. Then he began to slide. + </p> + <p> + He relaxed his clasp of the tree and slid to the ground. + </p> + <p> + “Going to hell!” shrieked Georgie, reaching a high pitch of enthusiasm in + this great climax. “Going to hell! Going to hell! I'm gone to hell, hell, + hell!” + </p> + <p> + With a loud scream, Mrs. Bassett threw herself out of the window, + alighting by some miracle upon her feet with ankles unsprained. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Kinosling, feeling that his presence as spiritual adviser was demanded + in the yard, followed with greater dignity through the front door. At the + corner of the house a small departing figure collided with him violently. + It was Penrod, tactfully withdrawing from what promised to be a family + scene of unusual painfulness. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Kinosling seized him by the shoulders and, giving way to emotion, + shook him viciously. + </p> + <p> + “You horrible boy!” exclaimed Mr. Kinosling. “You ruffianly creature! Do + you know what's going to happen to you when you grow up? Do you realize + what you're going to BE!” + </p> + <p> + With flashing eyes, the indignant boy made know his unshaken purpose. He + shouted the reply: + </p> + <p> + “A minister!” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVIII TWELVE + </h2> + <p> + This busy globe which spawns us is as incapable of flattery and as intent + upon its own affair, whatever that is, as a gyroscope; it keeps steadily + whirling along its lawful track, and, thus far seeming to hold a right of + way, spins doggedly on, with no perceptible diminution of speed to mark + the most gigantic human events—it did not pause to pant and + recuperate even when what seemed to Penrod its principal purpose was + accomplished, and an enormous shadow, vanishing westward over its surface, + marked the dawn of his twelfth birthday. + </p> + <p> + To be twelve is an attainment worth the struggle. A boy, just twelve, is + like a Frenchman just elected to the Academy. + </p> + <p> + Distinction and honour wait upon him. Younger boys show deference to a + person of twelve: his experience is guaranteed, his judgment, therefore, + mellow; consequently, his influence is profound. Eleven is not quite + satisfactory: it is only an approach. Eleven has the disadvantage of six, + of nineteen, of forty-four, and of sixty-nine. But, like twelve, seven is + an honourable age, and the ambition to attain it is laudable. People look + forward to being seven. Similarly, twenty is worthy, and so, arbitrarily, + is twenty-one; forty-five has great solidity; seventy is most commendable + and each year thereafter an increasing honour. Thirteen is embarrassed by + the beginnings of a new colthood; the child becomes a youth. But twelve is + the very top of boyhood. + </p> + <p> + Dressing, that morning, Penrod felt that the world was changed from the + world of yesterday. For one thing, he seemed to own more of it; this day + was HIS day. And it was a day worth owning; the midsummer sunshine, + pouring gold through his window, came from a cool sky, and a breeze moved + pleasantly in his hair as he leaned from the sill to watch the tribe of + clattering blackbirds take wing, following their leader from the trees in + the yard to the day's work in the open country. The blackbirds were his, + as the sunshine and the breeze were his, for they all belonged to the day + which was his birthday and therefore most surely his. Pride suffused him: + he was twelve! + </p> + <p> + His father and his mother and Margaret seemed to understand the difference + between to-day and yesterday. They were at the table when he descended, + and they gave him a greeting which of itself marked the milestone. + Habitually, his entrance into a room where his elders sat brought a cloud + of apprehension: they were prone to look up in pathetic expectancy, as if + their thought was, “What new awfulness is he going to start NOW?” But this + morning they laughed; his mother rose and kissed him twelve times, so did + Margaret; and his father shouted, “Well, well! How's the MAN?” + </p> + <p> + Then his mother gave him a Bible and “The Vicar of Wakefield”; Margaret + gave him a pair of silver-mounted hair brushes; and his father gave him a + “Pocket Atlas” and a small compass. + </p> + <p> + “And now, Penrod,” said his mother, after breakfast, “I'm going to take + you out in the country to pay your birthday respects to Aunt Sarah Crim.” + </p> + <p> + Aunt Sarah Crim, Penrod's great-aunt, was his oldest living relative. She + was ninety, and when Mrs. Schofield and Penrod alighted from a carriage at + her gate they found her digging with a spade in the garden. + </p> + <p> + “I'm glad you brought him,” she said, desisting from labour. “Jinny's + baking a cake I'm going to send for his birthday party. Bring him in the + house. I've got something for him.” + </p> + <p> + She led the way to her “sitting-room,” which had a pleasant smell, unlike + any other smell, and, opening the drawer of a shining old what-not, took + therefrom a boy's “sling-shot,” made of a forked stick, two strips of + rubber and a bit of leather. + </p> + <p> + “This isn't for you,” she said, placing it in Penrod's eager hand. “No. It + would break all to pieces the first time you tried to shoot it, because it + is thirty-five years old. I want to send it back to your father. I think + it's time. You give it to him from me, and tell him I say I believe I can + trust him with it now. I took it away from him thirty-five years ago, one + day after he'd killed my best hen with it, accidentally, and broken a + glass pitcher on the back porch with it—accidentally. He doesn't + look like a person who's ever done things of that sort, and I suppose he's + forgotten it so well that he believes he never DID, but if you give it to + him from me I think he'll remember. You look like him, Penrod. He was + anything but a handsome boy.” + </p> + <p> + After this final bit of reminiscence—probably designed to be + repeated to Mr. Schofield—she disappeared in the direction of the + kitchen, and returned with a pitcher of lemonade and a blue china dish + sweetly freighted with flat ginger cookies of a composition that was her + own secret. Then, having set this collation before her guests, she + presented Penrod with a superb, intricate, and very modern machine of + destructive capacities almost limitless. She called it a pocket-knife. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you'll do something horrible with it,” she said, composedly. “I + hear you do that with everything, anyhow, so you might as well do it with + this, and have more fun out of it. They tell me you're the Worst Boy in + Town.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Aunt Sarah!” Mrs. Schofield lifted a protesting hand. + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense!” said Mrs. Crim. + </p> + <p> + “But on his birthday!” + </p> + <p> + “That's the time to say it. Penrod, aren't you the Worst Boy in Town?” + </p> + <p> + Penrod, gazing fondly upon his knife and eating cookies rapidly, answered + as a matter of course, and absently, “Yes'm.” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly!” said Mrs. Crim. “Once you accept a thing about yourself as + established and settled, it's all right. Nobody minds. Boys are just + people, really.” + </p> + <p> + “No, no!” Mrs. Schofield cried, involuntarily. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, they are,” returned Aunt Sarah. “Only they're not quite so awful, + because they haven't learned to cover themselves all over with little + pretences. When Penrod grows up he'll be just the same as he is now, + except that whenever he does what he wants to do he'll tell himself and + other people a little story about it to make his reason for doing it seem + nice and pretty and noble.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I won't!” said Penrod suddenly. + </p> + <p> + “There's one cookie left,” observed Aunt Sarah. “Are you going to eat it?” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said her great-nephew, thoughtfully, “I guess I better.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” asked the old lady. “Why do you guess you'd 'better'?” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Penrod, with a full mouth, “it might get all dried up if + nobody took it, and get thrown out and wasted.” + </p> + <p> + “You're beginning finely,” Mrs. Crim remarked. “A year ago you'd have + taken the cookie without the same sense of thrift.” + </p> + <p> + “Ma'am?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing. I see that you're twelve years old, that's all. There are more + cookies, Penrod.” She went away, returning with a fresh supply and the + observation, “Of course, you'll be sick before the day's over; you might + as well get a good start.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Schofield looked thoughtful. “Aunt Sarah,” she ventured, “don't you + really think we improve as we get older?” + </p> + <p> + “Meaning,” said the old lady, “that Penrod hasn't much chance to escape + the penitentiary if he doesn't? Well, we do learn to restrain ourselves in + some things; and there are people who really want someone else to take the + last cookie, though they aren't very common. But it's all right, the world + seems to be getting on.” She gazed whimsically upon her great-nephew and + added, “Of course, when you watch a boy and think about him, it doesn't + seem to be getting on very fast.” + </p> + <p> + Penrod moved uneasily in his chair; he was conscious that he was her topic + but unable to make out whether or not her observations were complimentary; + he inclined to think they were not. Mrs. Crim settled the question for + him. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose Penrod is regarded as the neighbourhood curse?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no,” cried Mrs. Schofield. “He——” + </p> + <p> + “I dare say the neighbours are right,” continued the old lady placidly. + “He's had to repeat the history of the race and go through all the stages + from the primordial to barbarism. You don't expect boys to be civilized, + do you?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I——” + </p> + <p> + “You might as well expect eggs to crow. No; you've got to take boys as + they are, and learn to know them as they are.” + </p> + <p> + “Naturally, Aunt Sarah,” said Mrs. Schofield, “I KNOW Penrod.” + </p> + <p> + Aunt Sarah laughed heartily. “Do you think his father knows him, too?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course, men are different,” Mrs. Schofield returned, apologetically. + “But a mother knows——” + </p> + <p> + “Penrod,” said Aunt Sarah, solemnly, “does your father understand you?” + </p> + <p> + “Ma'am?” + </p> + <p> + “About as much as he'd understand Sitting Bull!” she laughed. + </p> + <p> + “And I'll tell you what your mother thinks you are, Penrod. Her real + belief is that you're a novice in a convent.” + </p> + <p> + “Ma'am?” + </p> + <p> + “Aunt Sarah!” + </p> + <p> + “I know she thinks that, because whenever you don't behave like a novice + she's disappointed in you. And your father really believes that you're a + decorous, well-trained young business man, and whenever you don't live up + to that standard you get on his nerves and he thinks you need a walloping. + I'm sure a day very seldom passes without their both saying they don't + know what on earth to do with you. Does whipping do you any good, Penrod?” + </p> + <p> + “Ma'am?” + </p> + <p> + “Go on and finish the lemonade; there's about glassful left. Oh, take it, + take it; and don't say why! Of COURSE you're a little pig.” + </p> + <p> + Penrod laughed gratefully, his eyes fixed upon her over the rim of his + uptilted glass. + </p> + <p> + “Fill yourself up uncomfortably,” said the old lady. “You're twelve years + old, and you ought to be happy—if you aren't anything else. It's + taken over nineteen hundred years of Christianity and some hundreds of + thousands of years of other things to produce you, and there you sit!” + </p> + <p> + “Ma'am?” + </p> + <p> + “It'll be your turn to struggle and muss things up, for the betterment of + posterity, soon enough,” said Aunt Sarah Crim. “Drink your lemonade!” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIX FANCHON + </h2> + <p> + “Aunt Sarah's a funny old lady,” Penrod observed, on the way back to the + town. “What's she want me to give papa this old sling for? Last thing she + said was to be sure not to forget to give it to him. HE don't want it; and + she said, herself, it ain't any good. She's older than you or papa, isn't + she?” + </p> + <p> + “About fifty years older,” answered Mrs. Schofield, turning upon him a + stare of perplexity. “Don't cut into the leather with your new knife, + dear; the livery man might ask us to pay if——No. I wouldn't + scrape the paint off, either—nor whittle your shoe with it. COULDN'T + you put it up until we get home?” + </p> + <p> + “We goin' straight home?” + </p> + <p> + “No. We're going to stop at Mrs. Gelbraith's and ask a strange little girl + to come to your party, this afternoon.” + </p> + <p> + “Who?” + </p> + <p> + “Her name is Fanchon. She's Mrs. Gelbraith's little niece.” + </p> + <p> + “What makes her so queer?” + </p> + <p> + “I didn't say she's queer.” + </p> + <p> + “You said——” + </p> + <p> + “No; I mean that she is a stranger. She lives in New York and has come to + visit here.” + </p> + <p> + “What's she live in New York for?” + </p> + <p> + “Because her parents live there. You must be very nice to her, Penrod; she + has been very carefully brought up. Besides, she doesn't know the children + here, and you must help to keep her from feeling lonely at your party.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes'm.” + </p> + <p> + When they reached Mrs. Gelbraith's, Penrod sat patiently humped upon a + gilt chair during the lengthy exchange of greetings between his mother. + and Mrs. Gelbraith. That is one of the things a boy must learn to bear: + when his mother meets a compeer there is always a long and dreary wait for + him, while the two appear to be using strange symbols of speech, talking + for the greater part, it seems to him, simultaneously, and employing a + wholly incomprehensible system of emphasis at other times not in vogue. + Penrod twisted his legs, his cap and his nose. + </p> + <p> + “Here she is!” Mrs. Gelbraith cried, unexpectedly, and a dark-haired, + demure person entered the room wearing a look of gracious social + expectancy. In years she was eleven, in manner about sixty-five, and + evidently had lived much at court. She performed a curtsey in + acknowledgment of Mrs. Schofield's greeting, and bestowed her hand upon + Penrod, who had entertained no hope of such an honour, showed his surprise + that it should come to him, and was plainly unable to decide what to do + about it. + </p> + <p> + “Fanchon, dear,” said Mrs. Gelbraith, “take Penrod out in the yard for a + while, and play.” + </p> + <p> + “Let go the little girl's hand, Penrod,” Mrs. Schofield laughed, as the + children turned toward the door. + </p> + <p> + Penrod hastily dropped the small hand, and exclaiming, with simple + honesty, “Why, <i>I</i> don't want it!” followed Fanchon out into the + sunshiny yard, where they came to a halt and surveyed each other. + </p> + <p> + Penrod stared awkwardly at Fanchon, no other occupation suggesting itself + to him, while Fanchon, with the utmost coolness, made a very thorough + visual examination of Penrod, favouring him with an estimating scrutiny + which lasted until he literally wiggled. Finally, she spoke. + </p> + <p> + “Where do you buy your ties?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “What?” + </p> + <p> + “Where do you buy your neckties? Papa gets his at Skoone's. You ought to + get yours there. I'm sure the one you're wearing isn't from Skoone's.” + </p> + <p> + “Skoone's?” Penrod repeated. “Skoone's?” + </p> + <p> + “On Fifth Avenue,” said Fanchon. “It's a very smart shop, the men say.” + </p> + <p> + “Men?” echoed Penrod, in a hazy whisper. “Men?” + </p> + <p> + “Where do your people go in summer?” inquired the lady. “WE go to Long + Shore, but so many middle-class people have begun coming there, mamma + thinks of leaving. The middle classes are simply awful, don't you think?” + </p> + <p> + “What?” + </p> + <p> + “They're so boorjaw. You speak French, of course?” + </p> + <p> + “Me?” + </p> + <p> + “We ran over to Paris last year. It's lovely, don't you think? Don't you + LOVE the Rue de la Paix?” + </p> + <p> + Penrod wandered in a labyrinth. This girl seemed to be talking, but her + words were dumfounding, and of course there was no way for him to know + that he was really listening to her mother. It was his first meeting with + one of those grown-up little girls, wonderful product of the winter + apartment and summer hotel; and Fanchon, an only child, was a star of the + brand. He began to feel resentful. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose,” she went on, “I'll find everything here fearfully Western. + Some nice people called yesterday, though. Do you know the Magsworth + Bittses? Auntie says they're charming. Will Roddy be at your party?” + </p> + <p> + “I guess he will,” returned Penrod, finding this intelligible. “The mutt!” + </p> + <p> + “Really!” Fanchon exclaimed airily. “Aren't you great pals with him?” + </p> + <p> + “What's 'pals'?” + </p> + <p> + “Good heavens! Don't you know what it means to say you're 'great pals' + with any one? You ARE an odd child!” + </p> + <p> + It was too much. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Bugs!” said Penrod. + </p> + <p> + This bit of ruffianism had a curious effect. Fanchon looked upon him with + sudden favour. + </p> + <p> + “I like you, Penrod!” she said, in an odd way, and, whatever else there + may have been in her manner, there certainly was no shyness. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Bugs!” This repetition may have lacked gallantry, but it was uttered + in no very decided tone. Penrod was shaken. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I do!” She stepped closer to him, smiling. “Your hair is ever so + pretty.” + </p> + <p> + Sailors' parrots swear like mariners, they say; and gay mothers ought to + realize that all children are imitative, for, as the precocious Fanchon + leaned toward Penrod, the manner in which she looked into his eyes might + have made a thoughtful observer wonder where she had learned her pretty + ways. + </p> + <p> + Penrod was even more confused than he had been by her previous mysteries: + but his confusion was of a distinctly pleasant and alluring nature: he + wanted more of it. Looking intentionally into another person's eyes is an + act unknown to childhood; and Penrod's discovery that it could be done was + sensational. He had never thought of looking into the eyes of Marjorie + Jones. + </p> + <p> + Despite all anguish, contumely, tar, and Maurice Levy, he still secretly + thought of Marjorie, with pathetic constancy, as his “beau”—though + that is not how he would have spelled it. Marjorie was beautiful; her + curls were long and the colour of amber; her nose was straight and her + freckles were honest; she was much prettier than this accomplished + visitor. But beauty is not all. + </p> + <p> + “I do!” breathed Fanchon, softly. + </p> + <p> + She seemed to him a fairy creature from some rosier world than this. So + humble is the human heart, it glorifies and makes glamorous almost any + poor thing that says to it: “I like you!” + </p> + <p> + Penrod was enslaved. He swallowed, coughed, scratched the back of his + neck, and said, disjointedly: + </p> + <p> + “Well—I don't care if you want to. I just as soon.” + </p> + <p> + “We'll dance together,” said Fanchon, “at your party.” + </p> + <p> + “I guess so. I just as soon.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't you want to, Penrod?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I'm willing to.” + </p> + <p> + “No. Say you WANT to!” + </p> + <p> + “Well——” + </p> + <p> + He used his toe as a gimlet, boring into the ground, his wide open eyes + staring with intense vacancy at a button on his sleeve. + </p> + <p> + His mother appeared upon the porch in departure, calling farewells over + her shoulder to Mrs. Gelbraith, who stood in the doorway. + </p> + <p> + “Say it!” whispered Fanchon. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I just as SOON.” + </p> + <p> + She seemed satisfied. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXX THE BIRTHDAY PARTY + </h2> + <p> + A dancing floor had been laid upon a platform in the yard, when Mrs. + Schofield and her son arrived at their own abode; and a white and scarlet + striped canopy was in process of erection overhead, to shelter the dancers + from the sun. Workmen were busy everywhere under the direction of + Margaret, and the smitten heart of Penrod began to beat rapidly. All this + was for him; he was Twelve! + </p> + <p> + After lunch, he underwent an elaborate toilette and murmured not. For the + first time in his life he knew the wish to be sand-papered, waxed, and + polished to the highest possible degree. And when the operation was over, + he stood before the mirror in new bloom, feeling encouraged to hope that + his resemblance to his father was not so strong as Aunt Sarah seemed to + think. + </p> + <p> + The white gloves upon his hands had a pleasant smell, he found; and, as he + came down the stairs, he had great content in the twinkling of his new + dancing slippers. He stepped twice on each step, the better to enjoy their + effect and at the same time he deeply inhaled the odour of the gloves. In + spite of everything, Penrod had his social capacities. Already it is to be + perceived that there were in him the makings of a cotillon leader. + </p> + <p> + Then came from the yard a sound of tuning instruments, squeak of fiddle, + croon of 'cello, a falling triangle ringing and tinkling to the floor; and + he turned pale. + </p> + <p> + Chosen guests began to arrive, while Penrod, suffering from stage-fright + and perspiration, stood beside his mother, in the “drawing-room,” to + receive them. He greeted unfamiliar acquaintances and intimate + fellow-criminals with the same frigidity, murmuring: “'M glad to see y',” + to all alike, largely increasing the embarrassment which always prevails + at the beginning of children's festivities. His unnatural pomp and + circumstance had so thoroughly upset him, in truth, that Marjorie Jones + received a distinct shock, now to be related. Doctor Thrope, the kind old + clergyman who had baptized Penrod, came in for a moment to congratulate + the boy, and had just moved away when it was Marjorie's turn, in the line + of children, to speak to Penrod. She gave him what she considered a + forgiving look, and, because of the occasion, addressed him in a perfectly + courteous manner. + </p> + <p> + “I wish you many happy returns of the day, Penrod.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you, sir!” he returned, following Dr. Thrope with a glassy stare in + which there was absolutely no recognition of Marjorie. Then he greeted + Maurice Levy, who was next to Marjorie: “'M glad to see y'!” + </p> + <p> + Dumfounded, Marjorie turned aside, and stood near, observing Penrod with + gravity. It was the first great surprise of her life. Customarily, she had + seemed to place his character somewhere between that of the professional + rioter and that of the orang-outang; nevertheless, her manner at times + just hinted a consciousness that this Caliban was her property. Wherefore, + she stared at him incredulously as his head bobbed up and down, in the + dancing-school bow, greeting his guests. Then she heard an adult voice, + near her, exclaim: + </p> + <p> + “What an exquisite child!” + </p> + <p> + Mariorie galanced up—a little consciously, though she was used to it—naturally + curious to ascertain who was speaking of her. It was Sam Williams' mother + addressing Mrs. Bassett, both being present to help Mrs. Schofield make + the festivities festive. + </p> + <p> + “Exquisite!” + </p> + <p> + Here was a second heavy surprise for Marjorie: they were not looking at + her. They were looking with beaming approval at a girl she had never seen; + a dark and modish stranger of singularly composed and yet modest aspect. + Her downcast eyes, becoming in one thus entering a crowded room, were all + that produced the effect of modesty, counteracting something about her + which might have seemed too assured. She was very slender, very dainty, + and her apparel was disheartening to the other girls; it was of a knowing + picturesqueness wholly unfamiliar to them. There was a delicate trace of + powder upon the lobe of Fanchon's left ear, and the outlines of her + eyelids, if very closely scrutinized, would have revealed successful + experimentation with a burnt match. + </p> + <p> + Marjorie's lovely eyes dilated: she learned the meaning of hatred at first + sight. Observing the stranger with instinctive suspicion, all at once she + seemed, to herself, awkward. Poor Marjorie underwent that experience which + hearty, healthy, little girls and big girls undergo at one time or another—from + heels to head she felt herself, somehow, too THICK. + </p> + <p> + Fanchon leaned close to Penrod and whispered in his ear: + </p> + <p> + “Don't you forget!” + </p> + <p> + Penrod blushed. + </p> + <p> + Marjorie saw the blush. Her lovely eyes opened even wider, and in them + there began to grow a light. It was the light of indignation;—at + least, people whose eyes glow with that light always call it indignation. + </p> + <p> + Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, approached Fanchon, when she had made + her courtesy to Mrs. Schofield. Fanchon whispered in Roderick's ear also. + </p> + <p> + “Your hair is pretty, Roddy! Don't forget what you said yesterday!” + </p> + <p> + Roderick likewise blushed. + </p> + <p> + Maurice Levy, captivated by the newcomer's appearance, pressed close to + Roderick. + </p> + <p> + “Give us an intaduction, Roddy?” + </p> + <p> + Roddy being either reluctant or unable to perform the rite, Fanchon took + matters into her own hands, and was presently favourably impressed with + Maurice, receiving the information that his tie had been brought to him by + his papa from Skoone's, whereupon she privately informed him that she + liked wavy hair, and arranged to dance with him. Fanchon also thought + sandy hair attractive, Sam Williams discovered, a few minutes later, and + so catholic was her taste that a ring of boys quite encircled her before + the musicians in the yard struck up their thrilling march, and Mrs. + Schofield brought Penrod to escort the lady from out-of-town to the + dancing pavilion. + </p> + <p> + Headed by this pair, the children sought partners and paraded solemnly out + of the front door and round a corner of the house. There they found the + gay marquee; the small orchestra seated on the lawn at one side of it, and + a punch bowl of lemonade inviting attention, under a tree. Decorously the + small couples stepped upon the platform, one after another, and began to + dance. + </p> + <p> + “It's not much like a children's party in our day,” Mrs. Williams said to + Penrod's mother. “We'd have been playing 'Quaker-meeting,' 'Clap-in, + Clap-out,' or 'Going to Jerusalem,' I suppose.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, or 'Post-office' and 'Drop-the-handkerchief,'” said Mrs. Schofield. + “Things change so quickly. Imagine asking little Fanchon Gelbraith to play + 'London Bridge'! Penrod seems to be having a difficult time with her, poor + boy; he wasn't a shining light in the dancing class.” + </p> + <p> + However, Penrod's difficulty was not precisely of the kind his mother + supposed. Fanchon was showing him a new step, which she taught her next + partner in turn, continuing instructions during the dancing. The children + crowded the floor, and in the kaleidoscopic jumble of bobbing heads and + intermingling figures her extremely different style of motion was + unobserved by the older people, who looked on, nodding time benevolently. + </p> + <p> + Fanchon fascinated girls as well as boys. Many of the former eagerly + sought her acquaintance and thronged about her between the dances, when, + accepting the deference due a cosmopolitan and an oracle of the mode, she + gave demonstrations of the new step to succeeding groups, professing + astonishment to find it unknown: it had been “all the go,” she explained, + at the Long Shore Casino for fully two seasons. She pronounced “slow” a + “Fancy Dance” executed during an intermission by Baby Rennsdale and + Georgie Bassett, giving it as her opinion that Miss Rennsdale and Mr. + Bassett were “dead ones”; and she expressed surprise that the punch bowl + contained lemonade and not champagne. + </p> + <p> + The dancing continued, the new step gaining instantly in popularity, fresh + couples adventuring with every number. The word “step” is somewhat + misleading, nothing done with the feet being vital to the evolutions + introduced by Fanchon. Fanchon's dance came from the Orient by a + roundabout way; pausing in Spain, taking on a Gallic frankness in + gallantry at the Bal Bullier in Paris, combining with a relative from the + South Seas encountered in San Francisco, flavouring itself with a carefree + negroid abandon in New Orleans, and, accumulating, too, something + inexpressible from Mexico and South America, it kept, throughout its + travels, to the underworld, or to circles where nature is extremely frank + and rank, until at last it reached the dives of New York, when it + immediately broke out in what is called civilized society. Thereafter it + spread, in variously modified forms—some of them disinfected—to + watering-places, and thence, carried by hundreds of older male and female + Fanchons, over the country, being eagerly adopted everywhere and made + wholly pure and respectable by the supreme moral axiom that anything is + all right if enough people do it. Everybody was doing it. + </p> + <p> + Not quite everybody. It was perhaps some test of this dance that earth + could furnish no more grotesque sight than that of children doing it. + </p> + <p> + Earth, assisted by Fanchon, was furnishing this sight at Penrod's party. + By the time ice-cream and cake arrived, about half the guests had either + been initiated into the mysteries by Fanchon or were learning by + imitation, and the education of the other half was resumed with the + dancing, when the attendant ladies, unconscious of what was happening, + withdrew into the house for tea. + </p> + <p> + “That orchestra's a dead one,” Fanchon remarked to Penrod. “We ought to + liven them up a little!” + </p> + <p> + She approached the musicians. + </p> + <p> + “Don't you know,” she asked the leader, “the Slingo Sligo Slide?” + </p> + <p> + The leader giggled, nodded, rapped with his bow upon his violin; and + Penrod, following Fanchon back upon the dancing floor, blindly brushed + with his elbow a solitary little figure standing aloof on the lawn at the + edge of the platform. + </p> + <p> + It was Marjorie. + </p> + <p> + In no mood to approve of anything introduced by Fanchon, she had + scornfully refused, from the first, to dance the new “step,” and, because + of its bonfire popularity, found herself neglected in a society where she + had reigned as beauty and belle. Faithless Penrod, dazed by the sweeping + Fanchon, had utterly forgotten the amber curls; he had not once asked + Marjorie to dance. All afternoon the light of indignation had been growing + brighter in her eyes, though Maurice Levy's defection to the lady from New + York had not fanned this flame. From the moment Fanchon had whispered + familiarly in Penrod's ear, and Penrod had blushed, Marjorie had been + occupied exclusively with resentment against that guilty pair. It seemed + to her that Penrod had no right to allow a strange girl to whisper in his + ear; that his blushing, when the strange girl did it, was atrocious; and + that the strange girl, herself, ought to be arrested. + </p> + <p> + Forgotten by the merrymakers, Marjorie stood alone upon the lawn, + clenching her small fists, watching the new dance at its high tide, and + hating it with a hatred that made every inch of her tremble. And, perhaps + because jealousy is a great awakener of the virtues, she had a perception + of something in it worse than lack of dignity—something vaguely but + outrageously reprehensible. Finally, when Penrod brushed by her, touched + her with his elbow, and, did not even see her, Marjorie's state of mind + (not unmingled with emotion!) became dangerous. In fact, a trained nurse, + chancing to observe her at this juncture, would probably have advised that + she be taken home and put to bed. Marjorie was on the verge of hysterics. + </p> + <p> + She saw Fanchon and Penrod assume the double embrace required by the + dance; the “Slingo Sligo Slide” burst from the orchestra like the lunatic + shriek of a gin-maddened nigger; and all the little couples began to bob + and dip and sway. + </p> + <p> + Marjorie made a scene. She sprang upon the platform and stamped her foot. + </p> + <p> + “Penrod Schofield!” she shouted. “You BEHAVE yourself!” + </p> + <p> + The remarkable girl took Penrod by the ear. By his ear she swung him away + from Fanchon and faced him toward the lawn. + </p> + <p> + “You march straight out of here!” she commanded. + </p> + <p> + Penrod marched. + </p> + <p> + He was stunned; obeyed automatically, without question, and had very + little realization of what was happening to him. Altogether, and without + reason, he was in precisely the condition of an elderly spouse detected in + flagrant misbehaviour. Marjorie, similarly, was in precisely the condition + of the party who detects such misbehaviour. It may be added that she had + acted with a promptness, a decision and a disregard of social consequences + all to be commended to the attention of ladies in like predicament. + </p> + <p> + “You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” she raged, when they reached the + lawn. “Aren't you ashamed of yourself?” + </p> + <p> + “What for?” he inquired, helplessly. + </p> + <p> + “You be quiet!” + </p> + <p> + “But what'd <i>I</i> do, Marjorie? <i>I</i> haven't done anything to you,” + he pleaded. “I haven't even seen you, all aftern——” + </p> + <p> + “You be quiet!” she cried, tears filling her eyes. “Keep still! You ugly + boy! Shut up!” + </p> + <p> + She slapped him. + </p> + <p> + He should have understood from this how much she cared for him. But he + rubbed his cheek and declared ruefully: + </p> + <p> + “I'll never speak to you again!” + </p> + <p> + “You will, too!” she sobbed, passionately. + </p> + <p> + “I will not!” + </p> + <p> + He turned to leave her, but paused. + </p> + <p> + His mother, his sister Margaret, and their grownup friends had finished + their tea and were approaching from the house. Other parents and guardians + were with them, coming for their children; and there were carriages and + automobiles waiting in the street. But the “Slingo Slide” went on, + regardless. + </p> + <p> + The group of grown-up people hesitated and came to a halt, gazing at the + pavilion. + </p> + <p> + “What are they doing?” gasped Mrs. Williams, blushing deeply. “What is it? + What IS it?” + </p> + <p> + “WHAT IS IT?” Mrs. Gelbraith echoed in a frightened whisper. “WHAT——” + </p> + <p> + “They're Tangoing!” cried Margaret Schofield. “Or Bunny Hugging or Grizzly + Bearing, or——” + </p> + <p> + “They're only Turkey Trotting,” said Robert Williams. + </p> + <p> + With fearful outcries the mothers, aunts, and sisters rushed upon the + pavilion. + </p> + <p> + “Of course it was dreadful,” said Mrs. Schofield, an hour later, rendering + her lord an account of the day, “but it was every bit the fault of that + one extraordinary child. And of all the quiet, demur little things—that + is, I mean, when she first came. We all spoke of how exquisite she seemed—so + well trained, so finished! Eleven years old! I never saw anything like her + in my life!” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose it's the New Child,” her husband grunted. + </p> + <p> + “And to think of her saying there ought to have been champagne in the + lemonade!” + </p> + <p> + “Probably she'd forgotten to bring her pocket flask,” he suggested + musingly. + </p> + <p> + “But aren't you proud of Penrod?” cried Penrod's mother. “It was just as I + told you: he was standing clear outside the pavilion——” + </p> + <p> + “I never thought to see the day! And Penrod was the only boy not doing it, + the only one to refuse? ALL the others were——” + </p> + <p> + “Every one!” she returned triumphantly. “Even Georgie Bassett!” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Mr. Schofield, patting her on the shoulder. “I guess we can + hold up our heads at last.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXI OVER THE FENCE + </h2> + <p> + Penrod was out in the yard, staring at the empty marquee. The sun was on + the horizon line, so far behind the back fence, and a western window of + the house blazed in gold unbearable to the eye: his day was nearly over. + He sighed, and took from the inside pocket of his new jacket the + “sling-shot” aunt Sarah Crim had given him that morning. + </p> + <p> + He snapped the rubbers absently. They held fast; and his next impulse was + entirely irresistible. He found a shapely stone, fitted it to the leather, + and drew back the ancient catapult for a shot. A sparrow hopped upon a + branch between him and the house, and he aimed at the sparrow, but the + reflection from the dazzling window struck in his eyes as he loosed the + leather. + </p> + <p> + He missed the sparrow, but not the window. There was a loud crash, and to + his horror he caught a glimpse of his father, stricken in mid-shaving, + ducking a shower of broken glass, glittering razor flourishing wildly. + Words crashed with the glass, stentorian words, fragmentary but collossal. + </p> + <p> + Penrod stood petrified, a broken sling in his hand. He could hear his + parent's booming descent of the back stairs, instant and furious; and + then, red-hot above white lather, Mr. Schofield burst out of the kitchen + door and hurtled forth upon his son. + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean?” he demanded, shaking Penrod by the shoulder. “Ten + minutes ago, for the very first time in our lives, your mother and I were + saying we were proud of you, and here you go and throw a rock at me + through the window when I'm shaving for dinner!” + </p> + <p> + “I didn't!” Penrod quavered. “I was shooting at a sparrow, and the sun got + in his eyes, and the sling broke——” + </p> + <p> + “What sling?” + </p> + <p> + “This'n.” + </p> + <p> + “Where'd you get that devilish thing? Don't you know I've forbidden you a + thousand times——” + </p> + <p> + “It ain't mine,” said Penrod. “It's yours.” + </p> + <p> + “What?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir,” said the boy meekly. “Aunt Sarah Crim gave it to me this + morning and told me to give it back to you. She said she took it away from + you thirty-five years ago. You killed her hen, she said. She told me some + more to tell you, but I've forgotten.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” said Mr. Schofield. + </p> + <p> + He took the broken sling in his hand, looked at it long and thoughtfully—and + he looked longer, and quite as thoughtfully, at Penrod. Then he turned + away, and walked toward the house. + </p> + <p> + “I'm sorry, papa,” said Penrod. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Schofield coughed, and, as he reached the door, called back, but + without turning his head. + </p> + <p> + “Never mind, little boy. A broken window isn't much harm.” + </p> + <p> + When he had gone in, Penrod wandered down the yard to the back fence, + climbed upon it, and sat in reverie there. + </p> + <p> + A slight figure appeared, likewise upon a fence, beyond two neighbouring + yards. + </p> + <p> + “Yay, Penrod!” called comrade Sam Williams. + </p> + <p> + “Yay!” returned Penrod, mechanically. + </p> + <p> + “I caught Billy Blue Hill!” shouted Sam, describing retribution in a + manner perfectly clear to his friend. “You were mighty lucky to get out of + it.” + </p> + <p> + “I know that!” + </p> + <p> + “You wouldn't of, if it hadn't been for Marjorie.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, don't I know that?” Penrod shouted, with heat. + </p> + <p> + “Well, so long!” called Sam, dropping from his fence; and the friendly + voice came then, more faintly, “Many happy returns of the day, Penrod!” + </p> + <p> + And now, a plaintive little whine sounded from below Penrod's feet, and, + looking down, he saw that Duke, his wistful, old, scraggly dog sat in the + grass, gazing seekingly up at him. + </p> + <p> + The last shaft of sunshine of that day fell graciously and like a blessing + upon the boy sitting on the fence. Years afterward, a quiet sunset would + recall to him sometimes the gentle evening of his twelfth birthday, and + bring him the picture of his boy self, sitting in rosy light upon the + fence, gazing pensively down upon his wistful, scraggly, little old dog, + Duke. But something else, surpassing, he would remember of that hour, for, + in the side street, close by, a pink skirt flickered from behind a shade + tree to the shelter of the fence, there was a gleam of amber curls, and + Penrod started, as something like a tiny white wing fluttered by his head, + and there came to his ears the sound of a light laugh and of light + footsteps departing, the laughter tremulous, the footsteps fleet. + </p> + <p> + In the grass, between Duke's forepaws, there lay a white note, folded in + the shape of a cocked hat, and the sun sent forth a final amazing glory as + Penrod opened it and read: + </p> + <p> + “Your my bow.” + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Penrod, by Booth Tarkington + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PENROD *** + +***** This file should be named 402-h.htm or 402-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/402/ + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” + or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project +Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.” + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +“Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right +of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + </body> +</html> @@ -0,0 +1,7928 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Penrod, by Booth Tarkington + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Penrod + +Author: Booth Tarkington + +Release Date: March 14, 2006 [EBook #402] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PENROD *** + + + + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger + + + + + +PENROD + + +By Booth Tarkington + + + +To + +John, Donald And Booth Jameson + +From A Grateful Uncle + + + + +CONTENTS + + I. A Boy and His Dog + II. Romance + III. The Costume + IV. Desperation + V. The Pageant of the Table Round + VI. Evening + VII. Evils of Drink + VIII. School + IX. Soaring + X. Uncle John + XI. Fidelity of a Little Dog + XII. Miss Rennsdale Accepts + XIII. The Smallpox Medicine + XIV. Maurice Levy's Constitution + XV. The Two Families + XVI. The New Star + XVII. Retiring from the Show-Business + XVIII. Music + XIX. The Inner Boy + XX. Brothers of Angels + XXI. Rupe Collins + XXII. The Imitator + XXIII. Coloured Troops in Action + XXIV. "Little Gentleman" + XXV. Tar + XXVI. The Quiet Afternoon + XXVII. Conclusion of the Quiet Afternoon + XXVIII. Twelve + XXIX. Fanchon + XXX. The Birthday Party + XXXI. Over the Fence + + + + +CHAPTER I A BOY AND HIS DOG + +Penrod sat morosely upon the back fence and gazed with envy at Duke, his +wistful dog. + +A bitter soul dominated the various curved and angular surfaces known +by a careless world as the face of Penrod Schofield. Except in solitude, +that face was almost always cryptic and emotionless; for Penrod had +come into his twelfth year wearing an expression carefully trained to be +inscrutable. Since the world was sure to misunderstand everything, mere +defensive instinct prompted him to give it as little as possible to lay +hold upon. Nothing is more impenetrable than the face of a boy who has +learned this, and Penrod's was habitually as fathomless as the depth +of his hatred this morning for the literary activities of Mrs. Lora +Rewbush--an almost universally respected fellow citizen, a lady of +charitable and poetic inclinations, and one of his own mother's most +intimate friends. + +Mrs. Lora Rewbush had written something which she called "The Children's +Pageant of the Table Round," and it was to be performed in public that +very afternoon at the Women's Arts and Guild Hall for the benefit of the +Coloured Infants' Betterment Society. And if any flavour of sweetness +remained in the nature of Penrod Schofield after the dismal trials of +the school-week just past, that problematic, infinitesimal remnant was +made pungent acid by the imminence of his destiny to form a prominent +feature of the spectacle, and to declaim the loathsome sentiments of a +character named upon the programme the Child Sir Lancelot. + +After each rehearsal he had plotted escape, and only ten days earlier +there had been a glimmer of light: Mrs. Lora Rewbush caught a very +bad cold, and it was hoped it might develop into pneumonia; but she +recovered so quickly that not even a rehearsal of the Children's Pageant +was postponed. Darkness closed in. Penrod had rather vaguely debated +plans for a self-mutilation such as would make his appearance as the +Child Sir Lancelot inexpedient on public grounds; it was a heroic +and attractive thought, but the results of some extremely sketchy +preliminary experiments caused him to abandon it. + +There was no escape; and at last his hour was hard upon him. Therefore +he brooded on the fence and gazed with envy at his wistful Duke. + +The dog's name was undescriptive of his person, which was obviously +the result of a singular series of mesalliances. He wore a grizzled +moustache and indefinite whiskers; he was small and shabby, and looked +like an old postman. Penrod envied Duke because he was sure Duke would +never be compelled to be a Child Sir Lancelot. He thought a dog free and +unshackled to go or come as the wind listeth. Penrod forgot the life he +led Duke. + +There was a long soliloquy upon the fence, a plaintive monologue without +words: the boy's thoughts were adjectives, but they were expressed by +a running film of pictures in his mind's eye, morbidly prophetic of the +hideosities before him. Finally he spoke aloud, with such spleen that +Duke rose from his haunches and lifted one ear in keen anxiety. + + "'I hight Sir Lancelot du Lake, the Child, + Gentul-hearted, meek, and mild. + What though I'm BUT a littul child, + Gentul-hearted, meek, and----' OOF!" + +All of this except "oof" was a quotation from the Child Sir Lancelot, as +conceived by Mrs. Lora Rewbush. Choking upon it, Penrod slid down from +the fence, and with slow and thoughtful steps entered a one-storied wing +of the stable, consisting of a single apartment, floored with cement and +used as a storeroom for broken bric-a-brac, old paint-buckets, decayed +garden-hose, worn-out carpets, dead furniture, and other condemned odds +and ends not yet considered hopeless enough to be given away. + +In one corner stood a large box, a part of the building itself: it was +eight feet high and open at the top, and it had been constructed as a +sawdust magazine from which was drawn material for the horse's bed in +a stall on the other side of the partition. The big box, so high and +towerlike, so commodious, so suggestive, had ceased to fulfil its +legitimate function; though, providentially, it had been at least half +full of sawdust when the horse died. Two years had gone by since that +passing; an interregnum in transportation during which Penrod's father +was "thinking" (he explained sometimes) of an automobile. Meanwhile, the +gifted and generous sawdust-box had served brilliantly in war and peace: +it was Penrod's stronghold. + +There was a partially defaced sign upon the front wall of the box; the +donjon-keep had known mercantile impulses: + + The O. K. RaBiT Co. + PENROD ScHoFiELD AND CO. + iNQuiRE FOR PRicEs + +This was a venture of the preceding vacation, and had netted, at one +time, an accrued and owed profit of $1.38. Prospects had been brightest +on the very eve of cataclysm. The storeroom was locked and guarded, but +twenty-seven rabbits and Belgian hares, old and young, had perished here +on a single night--through no human agency, but in a foray of cats, the +besiegers treacherously tunnelling up through the sawdust from the small +aperture which opened into the stall beyond the partition. Commerce has +its martyrs. + +Penrod climbed upon a barrel, stood on tiptoe, grasped the rim of the +box; then, using a knot-hole as a stirrup, threw one leg over the top, +drew himself up, and dropped within. Standing upon the packed sawdust, +he was just tall enough to see over the top. + +Duke had not followed him into the storeroom, but remained near the open +doorway in a concave and pessimistic attitude. Penrod felt in a dark +corner of the box and laid hands upon a simple apparatus consisting of +an old bushel-basket with a few yards of clothes-line tied to each of +its handles. He passed the ends of the lines over a big spool, which +revolved upon an axle of wire suspended from a beam overhead, and, with +the aid of this improvised pulley, lowered the empty basket until it +came to rest in an upright position upon the floor of the storeroom at +the foot of the sawdust-box. + +"Eleva-ter!" shouted Penrod. "Ting-ting!" + +Duke, old and intelligently apprehensive, approached slowly, in a +semicircular manner, deprecatingly, but with courtesy. He pawed the +basket delicately; then, as if that were all his master had expected of +him, uttered one bright bark, sat down, and looked up triumphantly. His +hypocrisy was shallow: many a horrible quarter of an hour had taught him +his duty in this matter. + +"El-e-VAY-ter!" shouted Penrod sternly. "You want me to come down there +to you?" + +Duke looked suddenly haggard. He pawed the basket feebly again and, +upon another outburst from on high, prostrated himself flat. Again +threatened, he gave a superb impersonation of a worm. + +"You get in that el-e-VAY-ter!" + +Reckless with despair, Duke jumped into the basket, landing in a +dishevelled posture, which he did not alter until he had been drawn +up and poured out upon the floor of sawdust with the box. There, +shuddering, he lay in doughnut shape and presently slumbered. + +It was dark in the box, a condition that might have been remedied by +sliding back a small wooden panel on runners, which would have let in +ample light from the alley; but Penrod Schofield had more interesting +means of illumination. He knelt, and from a former soap-box, in a +corner, took a lantern, without a chimney, and a large oil-can, the leak +in the latter being so nearly imperceptible that its banishment +from household use had seemed to Penrod as inexplicable as it was +providential. + +He shook the lantern near his ear: nothing splashed; there was no sound +but a dry clinking. But there was plenty of kerosene in the can; and he +filled the lantern, striking a match to illumine the operation. Then he +lit the lantern and hung it upon a nail against the wall. The sawdust +floor was slightly impregnated with oil, and the open flame quivered in +suggestive proximity to the side of the box; however, some rather deep +charrings of the plank against which the lantern hung offered evidence +that the arrangement was by no means a new one, and indicated at least a +possibility of no fatality occurring this time. + +Next, Penrod turned up the surface of the sawdust in another corner +of the floor, and drew forth a cigar-box in which were half a +dozen cigarettes, made of hayseed and thick brown wrapping paper, a +lead-pencil, an eraser, and a small note-book, the cover of which was +labelled in his own handwriting: + +"English Grammar. Penrod Schofield. Room 6, Ward School Nomber Seventh." + +The first page of this book was purely academic; but the study of +English undefiled terminated with a slight jar at the top of the second: +"Nor must an adverb be used to modif----" + +Immediately followed: + + "HARoLD RAMoREZ THE RoADAGENT + OR WiLD LiFE AMoNG THE + ROCKY MTS." + +And the subsequent entries in the book appeared to have little concern +with Room 6, Ward School Nomber Seventh. + + + +CHAPTER II ROMANCE + +The author of "Harold Ramorez," etc., lit one of the hayseed cigarettes, +seated himself comfortably, with his back against the wall and his +right shoulder just under the lantern, elevated his knees to support the +note-book, turned to a blank page, and wrote, slowly and earnestly: + +"CHAPITER THE SIXTH" + + +He took a knife from his pocket, and, broodingly, his eyes upon the +inward embryos of vision, sharpened his pencil. After that, he extended +a foot and meditatively rubbed Duke's back with the side of his shoe. +Creation, with Penrod, did not leap, full-armed, from the brain; but +finally he began to produce. He wrote very slowly at first, and then +with increasing rapidity; faster and faster, gathering momentum and +growing more and more fevered as he sped, till at last the true fire +came, without which no lamp of real literature may be made to burn. + + +Mr. Wilson reched for his gun but our hero had him covred and soon said +Well I guess you don't come any of that on me my freind. + +Well what makes you so sure about it sneered the other bitting his lip +so savageley that the blood ran. You are nothing but a common Roadagent +any way and I do not propose to be bafled by such, Ramorez laughed at +this and kep Mr. Wilson covred by his ottomatick. + +Soon the two men were struggling together in the death-roes but soon Mr +Wilson got him bound and gaged his mouth and went away for awhile leavin +our hero, it was dark and he writhd at his bonds writhing on the floor +wile the rats came out of their holes and bit him and vernim got all +over him from the floor of that helish spot but soon he managed to push +the gag out of his mouth with the end of his toungeu and got all his +bonds off. + +Soon Mr Wilson came back to tant him with his helpless condition flowed +by his gang of detectives and they said Oh look at Ramorez sneering at +his plight and tanted him with his helpless condition because Ramorez +had put the bonds back sos he would look the same but could throw them +off him when he wanted to Just look at him now sneered they. To hear him +talk you would thought he was hot stuff and they said Look at him now, +him that was going to do so much, Oh I would not like to be in his fix. + +Soon Harold got mad at this and jumped up with blasing eyes throwin off +his bonds like they were air Ha Ha sneered he I guess you better not +talk so much next time. Soon there flowed another awful struggle and +siezin his ottomatick back from Mr Wilson he shot two of the detectives +through the heart Bing Bing went the ottomatick and two more went to +meet their Maker only two detectives left now and so he stabbed one and +the scondrel went to meet his Maker for now our hero was fighting +for his very life. It was dark in there now for night had falen and a +terrible view met the eye Blood was just all over everything and the +rats were eatin the dead men. + +Soon our hero manged to get his back to the wall for he was fighting +for his very life now and shot Mr Wilson through the abodmen Oh said Mr +Wilson you---- ---- ---- (The dashes are Penrod's.) + +Mr Wilson stagerd back vile oaths soilin his lips for he was in pain Why +you---- ----you sneered he I will get you yet---- ----you Harold Ramorez + +The remainin scondrel had an ax which he came near our heros head with +but missed him and ramand stuck in the wall Our heros amunition was +exhaused what was he to do, the remanin scondrel would soon get his ax +lose so our hero sprung forward and bit him till his teeth met in the +flech for now our hero was fighting for his very life. At this the +remanin scondrel also cursed and swore vile oaths. Oh sneered he---- +---- ----you Harold Ramorez what did you bite me for Yes sneered Mr +Wilson also and he has shot me in the abdomen too the---- + +Soon they were both cursin and reviln him together Why you---- ---- ---- +---- ----sneered they what did you want to injure us for----you Harold +Ramorez you have not got any sence and you think you are so much but you +are no better than anybody else and you are a---- ---- ---- ---- ---- +---- + +Soon our hero could stand this no longer. If you could learn to act like +gentlmen said he I would not do any more to you now and your low vile +exppresions have not got any effect on me only to injure your own self +when you go to meet your Maker Oh I guess you have had enogh for one day +and I think you have learned a lesson and will not soon atemp to beard +Harold Ramorez again so with a tantig laugh he cooly lit a cigarrete and +takin the keys of the cell from Mr Wilson poket went on out. + +Soon Mr Wilson and the wonded detective manged to bind up their wonds +and got up off the floor---- ----it I will have that dasstads life now +sneered they if we have to swing for it---- ---- ---- ----him he shall +not eccape us again the low down---- ---- ---- ---- ---- + +Chapiter seventh + +A mule train of heavily laden burros laden with gold from the mines was +to be seen wondering among the highest clifts and gorgs of the Rocky Mts +and a tall man with a long silken mustash and a cartigde belt could be +heard cursin vile oaths because he well knew this was the lair of Harold +Ramorez Why---- ---- ----you you---- ---- ---- ---- mules you sneered he +because the poor mules were not able to go any quicker ---- you I will +show you Why---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----it sneered he his oaths growing +viler and viler I will whip you---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----you +sos you will not be able to walk for a week---- ----you you mean old---- +---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----mules you + +Scarcly had the vile words left his lips when---- + + +"PENROD!" + +It was his mother's voice, calling from the back porch. + +Simultaneously, the noon whistles began to blow, far and near; and the +romancer in the sawdust-box, summoned prosaically from steep mountain +passes above the clouds, paused with stubby pencil halfway from lip to +knee. His eyes were shining: there was a rapt sweetness in his gaze. As +he wrote, his burden had grown lighter; thoughts of Mrs. Lora Rewbush +had almost left him; and in particular as he recounted (even by +the chaste dash) the annoyed expressions of Mr. Wilson, the wounded +detective, and the silken moustached mule-driver, he had felt +mysteriously relieved concerning the Child Sir Lancelot. Altogether he +looked a better and a brighter boy. + +"Pen-ROD!" + +The rapt look faded slowly. He sighed, but moved not. + +"Penrod! We're having lunch early just on your account, so you'll have +plenty of time to be dressed for the pageant. Hurry!" + +There was silence in Penrod's aerie. + +"PEN-rod!" + +Mrs. Schofields voice sounded nearer, indicating a threatened approach. +Penrod bestirred himself: he blew out the lantern, and shouted +plaintively: + +"Well, ain't I coming fast's I can?" + +"Do hurry," returned the voice, withdrawing; and the kitchen door could +be heard to close. + +Languidly, Penrod proceeded to set his house in order. + +Replacing his manuscript and pencil in the cigar-box, he carefully +buried the box in the sawdust, put the lantern and oil-can back in the +soap-box, adjusted the elevator for the reception of Duke, and, in no +uncertain tone, invited the devoted animal to enter. + +Duke stretched himself amiably, affecting not to hear; and when this +pretence became so obvious that even a dog could keep it up no longer, +sat down in a corner, facing it, his back to his master, and his head +perpendicular, nose upward, supported by the convergence of the two +walls. This, from a dog, is the last word, the comble of the immutable. +Penrod commanded, stormed, tried gentleness; persuaded with honeyed +words and pictured rewards. Duke's eyes looked backward; otherwise +he moved not. Time elapsed. Penrod stooped to flattery, finally to +insincere caresses; then, losing patience spouted sudden threats. + +Duke remained immovable, frozen fast to his great gesture of implacable +despair. + +A footstep sounded on the threshold of the store-room. + +"Penrod, come down from that box this instant!" + +"Ma'am?" + +"Are you up in that sawdust-box again?" As Mrs. Schofield had just heard +her son's voice issue from the box, and also, as she knew he was there +anyhow, her question must have been put for oratorical purposes only. +"Because if you are," she continued promptly, "I'm going to ask your +papa not to let you play there any----" + +Penrod's forehead, his eyes, the tops of his ears, and most of his hair, +became visible to her at the top of the box. "I ain't 'playing!'" he +said indignantly. + +"Well, what ARE you doing?" + +"Just coming down," he replied, in a grieved but patient tone. + +"Then why don't you COME?" + +"I got Duke here. I got to get him DOWN, haven't I? You don't suppose I +want to leave a poor dog in here to starve, do you?" + +"Well, hand him down over the side to me. Let me----" + +"I'll get him down all right," said Penrod. "I got him up here, and I +guess I can get him down!" + +"Well then, DO it!" + +"I will if you'll let me alone. If you'll go on back to the house I +promise to be there inside of two minutes. Honest!" + +He put extreme urgency into this, and his mother turned toward the +house. "If you're not there in two minutes----" + +"I will be!" + +After her departure, Penrod expended some finalities of eloquence upon +Duke, then disgustedly gathered him up in his arms, dumped him into the +basket and, shouting sternly, "All in for the ground floor--step back +there, madam--all ready, Jim!" lowered dog and basket to the floor +of the storeroom. Duke sprang out in tumultuous relief, and bestowed +frantic affection upon his master as the latter slid down from the box. + +Penrod dusted himself sketchily, experiencing a sense of satisfaction, +dulled by the overhanging afternoon, perhaps, but perceptible: he had +the feeling of one who has been true to a cause. The operation of the +elevator was unsinful and, save for the shock to Duke's nervous system, +it was harmless; but Penrod could not possibly have brought himself to +exhibit it in the presence of his mother or any other grown person in +the world. The reasons for secrecy were undefined; at least, Penrod did +not define them. + + + +CHAPTER III THE COSTUME + +After lunch his mother and his sister Margaret, a pretty girl of +nineteen, dressed him for the sacrifice. They stood him near his +mother's bedroom window and did what they would to him. + +During the earlier anguishes of the process he was mute, exceeding the +pathos of the stricken calf in the shambles; but a student of eyes +might have perceived in his soul the premonitory symptoms of a sinister +uprising. At a rehearsal (in citizens' clothes) attended by mothers and +grown-up sisters, Mrs. Lora Rewbush had announced that she wished the +costuming to be "as medieval and artistic as possible." Otherwise, and +as to details, she said, she would leave the costumes entirely to the +good taste of the children's parents. Mrs. Schofield and Margaret were +no archeologists, but they knew that their taste was as good as that of +other mothers and sisters concerned; so with perfect confidence they had +planned and executed a costume for Penrod; and the only misgiving they +felt was connected with the tractability of the Child Sir Lancelot +himself. + +Stripped to his underwear, he had been made to wash himself vehemently; +then they began by shrouding his legs in a pair of silk stockings, once +blue but now mostly whitish. Upon Penrod they visibly surpassed mere +ampleness; but they were long, and it required only a rather loose +imagination to assume that they were tights. + +The upper part of his body was next concealed from view by a garment +so peculiar that its description becomes difficult. In 1886, Mrs. +Schofield, then unmarried, had worn at her "coming-out party" a dress of +vivid salmon silk which had been remodelled after her marriage to accord +with various epochs of fashion until a final, unskilful campaign at a +dye-house had left it in a condition certain to attract much attention +to the wearer. Mrs. Schofield had considered giving it to Della, the +cook; but had decided not to do so, because you never could tell how +Della was going to take things, and cooks were scarce. + +It may have been the word "medieval" (in Mrs. Lora Rewbush's rich +phrase) which had inspired the idea for a last conspicuous usefulness; +at all events, the bodice of that once salmon dress, somewhat modified +and moderated, now took a position, for its farewell appearance in +society, upon the back, breast, and arms of the Child Sir Lancelot. + +The area thus costumed ceased at the waist, leaving a Jaeger-like and +unmedieval gap thence to the tops of the stockings. The inventive genius +of woman triumphantly bridged it, but in a manner which imposes upon +history almost insuperable delicacies of narration. Penrod's father +was an old-fashioned man: the twentieth century had failed to shake his +faith in red flannel for cold weather; and it was while Mrs. Schofield +was putting away her husband's winter underwear that she perceived how +hopelessly one of the elder specimens had dwindled; and simultaneously +she received the inspiration which resulted in a pair of trunks for the +Child Sir Lancelot, and added an earnest bit of colour, as well as a +genuine touch of the Middle Ages, to his costume. Reversed, fore to aft, +with the greater part of the legs cut off, and strips of silver braid +covering the seams, this garment, she felt, was not traceable to its +original source. + +When it had been placed upon Penrod, the stockings were attached to it +by a system of safety-pins, not very perceptible at a distance. Next, +after being severely warned against stooping, Penrod got his feet into +the slippers he wore to dancing-school--"patent-leather pumps" now +decorated with large pink rosettes. + +"If I can't stoop," he began, smolderingly, "I'd like to know how'm I +goin' to kneel in the pag----" + +"You must MANAGE!" This, uttered through pins, was evidently thought to +be sufficient. + +They fastened some ruching about his slender neck, pinned ribbons at +random all over him, and then Margaret thickly powdered his hair. + +"Oh, yes, that's all right," she said, replying to a question put by her +mother. "They always powdered their hair in Colonial times." + +"It doesn't seem right to me--exactly," objected Mrs. Schofield, gently. +"Sir Lancelot must have been ever so long before Colonial times." + +"That doesn't matter," Margaret reassured her. "Nobody'll know the +difference--Mrs. Lora Rewbush least of all. I don't think she knows a +thing about it, though, of course, she does write splendidly and the +words of the pageant are just beautiful. Stand still, Penrod!" (The +author of "Harold Ramorez" had moved convulsively.) "Besides, powdered +hair's always becoming. Look at him. You'd hardly know it was Penrod!" + +The pride and admiration with which she pronounced this undeniable truth +might have been thought tactless, but Penrod, not analytical, found his +spirits somewhat elevated. No mirror was in his range of vision and, +though he had submitted to cursory measurements of his person a week +earlier, he had no previous acquaintance with the costume. He began +to form a not unpleasing mental picture of his appearance, something +somewhere between the portraits of George Washington and a vivid memory +of Miss Julia Marlowe at a matinee of "Twelfth Night." + +He was additionally cheered by a sword which had been borrowed from a +neighbor, who was a Knight of Pythias. Finally there was a mantle, an +old golf cape of Margaret's. Fluffy polka-dots of white cotton had been +sewed to it generously; also it was ornamented with a large cross of +red flannel, suggested by the picture of a Crusader in a newspaper +advertisement. The mantle was fastened to Penrod's shoulder (that is, +to the shoulder of Mrs. Schofield's ex-bodice) by means of large +safety-pins, and arranged to hang down behind him, touching his heels, +but obscuring nowise the glory of his facade. Then, at last, he was +allowed to step before a mirror. + +It was a full-length glass, and the worst immediately happened. It might +have been a little less violent, perhaps, if Penrod's expectations had +not been so richly and poetically idealized; but as things were, the +revolt was volcanic. + +Victor Hugo's account of the fight with the devil-fish, in "Toilers +of the Sea," encourages a belief that, had Hugo lived and increased in +power, he might have been equal to a proper recital of the half +hour which followed Penrod's first sight of himself as the Child Sir +Lancelot. But Mr. Wilson himself, dastard but eloquent foe of Harold +Ramorez, could not have expressed, with all the vile dashes at +his command, the sentiments which animated Penrod's bosom when the +instantaneous and unalterable conviction descended upon him that he was +intended by his loved ones to make a public spectacle of himself in his +sister's stockings and part of an old dress of his mother's. + +To him these familiar things were not disguised at all; there seemed no +possibility that the whole world would not know them at a glance. The +stockings were worse than the bodice. He had been assured that these +could not be recognized, but, seeing them in the mirror, he was sure +that no human eye could fail at first glance to detect the difference +between himself and the former purposes of these stockings. Fold, +wrinkle, and void shrieked their history with a hundred tongues, +invoking earthquake, eclipse, and blue ruin. The frantic youth's final +submission was obtained only after a painful telephonic conversation +between himself and his father, the latter having been called up and +upon, by the exhausted Mrs. Schofield, to subjugate his offspring by +wire. + +The two ladies made all possible haste, after this, to deliver +Penrod into the hands of Mrs. Lora Rewbush; nevertheless, they found +opportunity to exchange earnest congratulations upon his not having +recognized the humble but serviceable paternal garment now brilliant +about the Lancelotish middle. Altogether, they felt that the costume +was a success. Penrod looked like nothing ever remotely imagined by +Sir Thomas Malory or Alfred Tennyson;--for that matter, he looked like +nothing ever before seen on earth; but as Mrs. Schofield and Margaret +took their places in the audience at the Women's Arts and Guild Hall, +the anxiety they felt concerning Penrod's elocutionary and gesticular +powers, so soon to be put to public test, was pleasantly tempered by +their satisfaction that, owing to their efforts, his outward appearance +would be a credit to the family. + + + +CHAPTER IV DESPERATION + +The Child Sir Lancelot found himself in a large anteroom behind the +stage--a room crowded with excited children, all about equally medieval +and artistic. Penrod was less conspicuous than he thought himself, but +he was so preoccupied with his own shame, steeling his nerves to meet +the first inevitable taunting reference to his sister's stockings, +that he failed to perceive there were others present in much of his own +unmanned condition. Retiring to a corner, immediately upon his entrance, +he managed to unfasten the mantle at the shoulders, and, drawing it +round him, pinned it again at his throat so that it concealed the rest +of his costume. This permitted a temporary relief, but increased his +horror of the moment when, in pursuance of the action of the "pageant," +the sheltering garment must be cast aside. + +Some of the other child knights were also keeping their mantles close +about them. A few of the envied opulent swung brilliant fabrics +from their shoulders, airily, showing off hired splendours from a +professional costumer's stock, while one or two were insulting examples +of parental indulgence, particularly little Maurice Levy, the Child Sir +Galahad. This shrinking person went clamorously about, making it known +everywhere that the best tailor in town had been dazzled by a great +sum into constructing his costume. It consisted of blue velvet +knickerbockers, a white satin waistcoat, and a beautifully cut little +swallow-tailed coat with pearl buttons. The medieval and artistic +triumph was completed by a mantle of yellow velvet, and little white +boots, sporting gold tassels. + +All this radiance paused in a brilliant career and addressed the Child +Sir Lancelot, gathering an immediately formed semicircular audience of +little girls. Woman was ever the trailer of magnificence. + +"What YOU got on?" inquired Mr. Levy, after dispensing information. +"What you got on under that ole golf cape?" + +Penrod looked upon him coldly. At other times his questioner would have +approached him with deference, even with apprehension. But to-day the +Child Sir Galahad was somewhat intoxicated with the power of his own +beauty. + +"What YOU got on?" he repeated. + +"Oh, nothin'," said Penrod, with an indifference assumed at great cost +to his nervous system. + +The elate Maurice was inspired to set up as a wit. "Then you're nakid!" +he shouted exultantly. "Penrod Schofield says he hasn't got nothin' on +under that ole golf cape! He's nakid! He's nakid." + +The indelicate little girls giggled delightedly, and a javelin pierced +the inwards of Penrod when he saw that the Child Elaine, amber-curled +and beautiful Marjorie Jones, lifted golden laughter to the horrid jest. + +Other boys and girls came flocking to the uproar. "He's nakid, he's +nakid!" shrieked the Child Sir Galahad. "Penrod Schofield's nakid! He's +NA-A-A-KID!" + +"Hush, hush!" said Mrs. Lora Rewbush, pushing her way into the group. +"Remember, we are all little knights and ladies to-day. Little knights +and ladies of the Table Round would not make so much noise. Now +children, we must begin to take our places on the stage. Is everybody +here?" + +Penrod made his escape under cover of this diversion: he slid behind +Mrs. Lora Rewbush, and being near a door, opened it unnoticed and went +out quickly, closing it behind him. He found himself in a narrow and +vacant hallway which led to a door marked "Janitor's Room." + +Burning with outrage, heart-sick at the sweet, cold-blooded laughter +of Marjorie Jones, Penrod rested his elbows upon a window-sill and +speculated upon the effects of a leap from the second story. One of the +reasons he gave it up was his desire to live on Maurice Levy's account: +already he was forming educational plans for the Child Sir Galahad. + +A stout man in blue overalls passed through the hallway muttering to +himself petulantly. "I reckon they'll find that hall hot enough NOW!" he +said, conveying to Penrod an impression that some too feminine women had +sent him upon an unreasonable errand to the furnace. He went into the +Janitor's Room and, emerging a moment later, minus the overalls, passed +Penrod again with a bass rumble--"Dern 'em!" it seemed he said--and +made a gloomy exit by the door at the upper end of the hallway. + +The conglomerate and delicate rustle of a large, mannerly audience was +heard as the janitor opened and closed the door; and stage-fright +seized the boy. The orchestra began an overture, and, at that, Penrod, +trembling violently, tiptoed down the hall into the Janitor's Room. It +was a cul-de-sac: There was no outlet save by the way he had come. + +Despairingly he doffed his mantle and looked down upon himself for +a last sickening assurance that the stockings were as obviously and +disgracefully Margaret's as they had seemed in the mirror at home. For a +moment he was encouraged: perhaps he was no worse than some of the +other boys. Then he noticed that a safety-pin had opened; one of those +connecting the stockings with his trunks. He sat down to fasten it +and his eye fell for the first time with particular attention upon the +trunks. Until this instant he had been preoccupied with the stockings. + +Slowly recognition dawned in his eyes. + +The Schofields' house stood on a corner at the intersection of two +main-travelled streets; the fence was low, and the publicity obtained by +the washable portion of the family apparel, on Mondays, had often been +painful to Penrod; for boys have a peculiar sensitiveness in these +matters. A plain, matter-of-fact washerwoman' employed by Mrs. +Schofield, never left anything to the imagination of the passer-by; and +of all her calm display the scarlet flaunting of his father's winter +wear had most abashed Penrod. One day Marjorie Jones, all gold and +starch, had passed when the dreadful things were on the line: Penrod had +hidden himself, shuddering. The whole town, he was convinced, knew these +garments intimately and derisively. + +And now, as he sat in the janitor's chair, the horrible and paralyzing +recognition came. He had not an instant's doubt that every fellow actor, +as well as every soul in the audience, would recognize what his mother +and sister had put upon him. For as the awful truth became plain to +himself it seemed blazoned to the world; and far, far louder than the +stockings, the trunks did fairly bellow the grisly secret: WHOSE they +were and WHAT they were! + +Most people have suffered in a dream the experience of finding +themselves very inadequately clad in the midst of a crowd of +well-dressed people, and such dreamers' sensations are comparable to +Penrod's, though faintly, because Penrod was awake and in much too full +possession of the most active capacities for anguish. + +A human male whose dress has been damaged, or reveals some vital lack, +suffers from a hideous and shameful loneliness which makes every +second absolutely unbearable until he is again as others of his sex and +species; and there is no act or sin whatever too desperate for him in +his struggle to attain that condition. Also, there is absolutely no +embarrassment possible to a woman which is comparable to that of a man +under corresponding circumstances and in this a boy is a man. Gazing +upon the ghastly trunks, the stricken Penrod felt that he was a degree +worse then nude; and a great horror of himself filled his soul. + +"Penrod Schofield!" + +The door into the hallway opened, and a voice demanded him. He could not +be seen from the hallway, but the hue and the cry was up; and he knew +he must be taken. It was only a question of seconds. He huddled in his +chair. + +"Penrod Schofield!" cried Mrs. Lora Rewbush angrily. + +The distracted boy rose and, as he did so, a long pin sank deep into his +back. He extracted it frenziedly, which brought to his ears a protracted +and sonorous ripping, too easily located by a final gesture of horror. + +"Penrod Schofield!" Mrs. Lora Rewbush had come out into the hallway. + +And now, in this extremity, when all seemed lost indeed, particularly +including honour, the dilating eye of the outlaw fell upon the blue +overalls which the janitor had left hanging upon a peg. + +Inspiration and action were almost simultaneous. + + + +CHAPTER V THE PAGEANT OF THE TABLE ROUND + + +"Penrod!" Mrs. Lora Rewbush stood in the doorway, indignantly gazing +upon a Child Sir Lancelot mantled to the heels. "Do you know that you +have kept an audience of five hundred people waiting for ten minutes?" +She, also, detained the five hundred while she spake further. + +"Well," said Penrod contentedly, as he followed her toward the buzzing +stage, "I was just sitting there thinking." + +Two minutes later the curtain rose on a medieval castle hall richly done +in the new stage-craft made in Germany and consisting of pink and blue +cheesecloth. The Child King Arthur and the Child Queen Guinevere were +disclosed upon thrones, with the Child Elaine and many other celebrities +in attendance; while about fifteen Child Knights were seated at a +dining-room table round, which was covered with a large Oriental rug, +and displayed (for the knights' refreshment) a banquet service of silver +loving-cups and trophies, borrowed from the Country Club and some local +automobile manufacturers. + +In addition to this splendour, potted plants and palms have seldom been +more lavishly used in any castle on the stage or off. + +The footlights were aided by a "spot-light" from the rear of the hall; +and the children were revealed in a blaze of glory. + +A hushed, multitudinous "O-OH" of admiration came from the decorous and +delighted audience. Then the children sang feebly: + + "Chuldrun of the Tabul Round, + Lit-tul knights and ladies we. + Let our voy-siz all resound + Faith and hope and charitee!" + +The Child King Arthur rose, extended his sceptre with the decisive +gesture of a semaphore, and spake: + + "Each littul knight and lady born + Has noble deeds TO perform + In THEE child-world of shivullree, + No matter how small his share may be. + Let each advance and tell in turn + What claim has each to knighthood earn." + +The Child Sir Mordred, the villain of this piece, rose in his place +at the table round, and piped the only lines ever written by Mrs. Lora +Rewbush which Penrod Schofield could have pronounced without loathing. +Georgie Bassett, a really angelic boy, had been selected for the role of +Mordred. His perfect conduct had earned for him the sardonic sobriquet, +"The Little Gentleman," among his boy acquaintances. (Naturally he had +no friends.) Hence the other boys supposed that he had been selected for +the wicked Mordred as a reward of virtue. He declaimed serenely: + + "I hight Sir Mordred the Child, and I teach + Lessons of selfishest evil, and reach + Out into darkness. Thoughtless, unkind, + And ruthless is Mordred, and unrefined." + +The Child Mordred was properly rebuked and denied the accolade, though, +like the others, he seemed to have assumed the title already. He made +a plotter's exit. Whereupon Maurice Levy rose, bowed, announced that he +highted the Child Sir Galahad, and continued with perfect sang-froid: + + "I am the purest of the pure. + I have but kindest thoughts each day. + I give my riches to the poor, + And follow in the Master's way." + +This elicited tokens of approval from the Child King Arthur, and he bade +Maurice "stand forth" and come near the throne, a command obeyed with +the easy grace of conscious merit. + +It was Penrod's turn. He stepped back from his chair, the table between +him and the audience, and began in a high, breathless monotone: + + "I hight Sir Lancelot du Lake, the Child, + Gentul-hearted, meek, and mild. + What though I'm BUT a littul child, + Gentul-heartud, meek, and mild, + I do my share though but--though but----" + +Penrod paused and gulped. The voice of Mrs. Lora Rewbush was heard from +the wings, prompting irritably, and the Child. Sir Lancelot repeated: + + "I do my share though but--though but a tot, + I pray you knight Sir Lancelot!" + +This also met the royal favour, and Penrod was bidden to join Sir +Galahad at the throne. As he crossed the stage, Mrs. Schofield whispered +to Margaret: + +"That boy! He's unpinned his mantle and fixed it to cover his whole +costume. After we worked so hard to make it becoming!" + +"Never mind; he'll have to take the cape off in a minute," returned +Margaret. She leaned forward suddenly, narrowing her eyes to see +better. "What IS that thing hanging about his left ankle?" she whispered +uneasily. "How queer! He must have got tangled in something." + +"Where?" asked Mrs. Schofield, in alarm. + +"His left foot. It makes him stumble. Don't you see? It looks--it looks +like an elephant's foot!" + +The Child Sir Lancelot and the Child Sir Galahad clasped hands before +their Child King. Penrod was conscious of a great uplift; in a moment he +would have to throw aside his mantle, but even so he was protected and +sheltered in the human garment of a man. His stage-fright had passed, +for the audience was but an indistinguishable blur of darkness beyond +the dazzling lights. His most repulsive speech (that in which he +proclaimed himself a "tot") was over and done with; and now at last the +small, moist hand of the Child Sir Galahad lay within his own. Craftily +his brown fingers stole from Maurice's palm to the wrist. The two boys +declaimed in concert: + + "We are two chuldrun of the Tabul Round + Strewing kindness all a-round. + With love and good deeds striving ever for the best, + May our littul efforts e'er be blest. + Two littul hearts we offer. See + United in love, faith, hope, and char--OW!" + +The conclusion of the duet was marred. The Child Sir Galahad suddenly +stiffened, and, uttering an irrepressible shriek of anguish, gave a +brief exhibition of the contortionist's art. ("HE'S TWISTIN' MY WRIST! +DERN YOU, LEGGO!") + +The voice of Mrs. Lora Rewbush was again heard from the wings; it +sounded bloodthirsty. Penrod released his victim; and the Child King +Arthur, somewhat disconcerted, extended his sceptre and, with the +assistance of the enraged prompter, said: + + "Sweet child-friends of the Tabul Round, + In brotherly love and kindness abound, + Sir Lancelot, you have spoken well, + Sir Galahad, too, as clear as bell. + So now pray doff your mantles gay. + You shall be knighted this very day." + +And Penrod doffed his mantle. + +Simultaneously, a thick and vasty gasp came from the audience, as +from five hundred bathers in a wholly unexpected surf. This gasp was +punctuated irregularly, over the auditorium, by imperfectly subdued +screams both of dismay and incredulous joy, and by two dismal shrieks. +Altogether it was an extraordinary sound, a sound never to be forgotten +by any one who heard it. It was almost as unforgettable as the sight +which caused it; the word "sight" being here used in its vernacular +sense, for Penrod, standing unmantled and revealed in all the medieval +and artistic glory of the janitor's blue overalls, falls within its +meaning. + +The janitor was a heavy man, and his overalls, upon Penrod, were merely +oceanic. The boy was at once swaddled and lost within their blue +gulfs and vast saggings; and the left leg, too hastily rolled up, had +descended with a distinctively elephantine effect, as Margaret had +observed. Certainly, the Child Sir Lancelot was at least a sight. + +It is probable that a great many in that hall must have had, even then, +a consciousness that they were looking on at History in the Making. +A supreme act is recognizable at sight: it bears the birthmark of +immortality. But Penrod, that marvellous boy, had begun to declaim, even +with the gesture of flinging off his mantle for the accolade: + + "I first, the Child Sir Lancelot du Lake, + Will volunteer to knighthood take, + And kneeling here before your throne + I vow to----" + +He finished his speech unheard. The audience had recovered breath, but +had lost self-control, and there ensued something later described by a +participant as a sort of cultured riot. + +The actors in the "pageant" were not so dumfounded by Penrod's costume +as might have been expected. A few precocious geniuses perceived +that the overalls were the Child Lancelot's own comment on maternal +intentions; and these were profoundly impressed: they regarded him with +the grisly admiration of young and ambitious criminals for a jail-mate +about to be distinguished by hanging. But most of the children simply +took it to be the case (a little strange, but not startling) that +Penrod's mother had dressed him like that--which is pathetic. They tried +to go on with the "pageant." + +They made a brief, manful effort. But the irrepressible outbursts from +the audience bewildered them; every time Sir Lancelot du Lake the Child +opened his mouth, the great, shadowy house fell into an uproar, and the +children into confusion. Strong women and brave girls in the audience +went out into the lobby, shrieking and clinging to one another. Others +remained, rocking in their seats, helpless and spent. The neighbourhood +of Mrs. Schofield and Margaret became, tactfully, a desert. Friends of +the author went behind the scenes and encountered a hitherto unknown +phase of Mrs. Lora Rewbush; they said, afterward, that she hardly seemed +to know what she was doing. She begged to be left alone somewhere with +Penrod Schofield, for just a little while. + +They led her away. + + + +CHAPTER VI EVENING + +The sun was setting behind the back fence (though at a considerable +distance) as Penrod Schofield approached that fence and looked +thoughtfully up at the top of it, apparently having in mind some purpose +to climb up and sit there. Debating this, he passed his fingers gently +up and down the backs of his legs; and then something seemed to decide +him not to sit anywhere. He leaned against the fence, sighed profoundly, +and gazed at Duke, his wistful dog. + +The sigh was reminiscent: episodes of simple pathos were passing before +his inward eye. About the most painful was the vision of lovely +Marjorie Jones, weeping with rage as the Child Sir Lancelot was dragged, +insatiate, from the prostrate and howling Child Sir Galahad, after an +onslaught delivered the precise instant the curtain began to fall upon +the demoralized "pageant." And then--oh, pangs! oh, woman!--she slapped +at the ruffian's cheek, as he was led past her by a resentful janitor; +and turning, flung her arms round the Child Sir Galahad's neck. + +"PENROD SCHOFIELD, DON'T YOU DARE EVER SPEAK TO ME AGAIN AS LONG AS +YOU LIVE!" Maurice's little white boots and gold tassels had done their +work. + +At home the late Child Sir Lancelot was consigned to a locked +clothes-closet pending the arrival of his father. Mr. Schofield came +and, shortly after, there was put into practice an old patriarchal +custom. It is a custom of inconceivable antiquity: probably primordial, +certainly prehistoric, but still in vogue in some remaining citadels of +the ancient simplicities of the Republic. + +And now, therefore, in the dusk, Penrod leaned against the fence and +sighed. + +His case is comparable to that of an adult who could have survived a +similar experience. Looking back to the sawdust-box, fancy pictures this +comparable adult a serious and inventive writer engaged in congenial +literary activities in a private retreat. We see this period marked +by the creation of some of the most virile passages of a Work dealing +exclusively in red corpuscles and huge primal impulses. We see +this thoughtful man dragged from his calm seclusion to a horrifying +publicity; forced to adopt the stage and, himself a writer, compelled +to exploit the repulsive sentiments of an author not only personally +distasteful to him but whose whole method and school in belles lettres +he despises. + +We see him reduced by desperation and modesty to stealing a pair of +overalls. We conceive him to have ruined, then, his own reputation, +and to have utterly disgraced his family; next, to have engaged in +the duello and to have been spurned by his lady-love, thus lost to him +(according to her own declaration) forever. Finally, we must behold: +imprisonment by the authorities; the third degree and flagellation. + +We conceive our man decided that his career had been perhaps too +eventful. Yet Penrod had condensed all of it into eight hours. + +It appears that he had at least some shadowy perception of a recent +fulness of life, for, as he leaned against the fence, gazing upon his +wistful Duke, he sighed again and murmured aloud: + +"WELL, HASN'T THIS BEEN A DAY!" + +But in a little while a star came out, freshly lighted, from the highest +part of the sky, and Penrod, looking up, noticed it casually and +a little drowsily. He yawned. Then he sighed once more, but not +reminiscently: evening had come; the day was over. It was a sigh of pure +ennui. + + + +CHAPTER VII EVILS OF DRINK + +Next day, Penrod acquired a dime by a simple and antique process which +was without doubt sometimes practised by the boys of Babylon. When the +teacher of his class in Sunday-school requested the weekly contribution, +Penrod, fumbling honestly (at first) in the wrong pockets, managed to +look so embarrassed that the gentle lady told him not to mind, and said +she was often forgetful herself. She was so sweet about it that, looking +into the future, Penrod began to feel confident of a small but regular +income. + +At the close of the afternoon services he did not go home, but proceeded +to squander the funds just withheld from China upon an orgy of the most +pungently forbidden description. In a Drug Emporium, near the church, he +purchased a five-cent sack of candy consisting for the most part of the +heavily flavoured hoofs of horned cattle, but undeniably substantial, +and so generously capable of resisting solution that the purchaser must +needs be avaricious beyond reason who did not realize his money's worth. + +Equipped with this collation, Penrod contributed his remaining nickel to +a picture show, countenanced upon the seventh day by the legal but not +the moral authorities. Here, in cozy darkness, he placidly insulted his +liver with jaw-breaker upon jaw-breaker from the paper sack, and in a +surfeit of content watched the silent actors on the screen. + +One film made a lasting impression upon him. It depicted with relentless +pathos the drunkard's progress; beginning with his conversion to beer +in the company of loose travelling men; pursuing him through an +inexplicable lapse into evening clothes and the society of some +remarkably painful ladies, next, exhibiting the effects of alcohol on +the victim's domestic disposition, the unfortunate man was seen in the +act of striking his wife and, subsequently, his pleading baby daughter +with an abnormally heavy walking-stick. Their flight--through the +snow--to seek the protection of a relative was shown, and finally, the +drunkard's picturesque behaviour at the portals of a madhouse. + +So fascinated was Penrod that he postponed his departure until this film +came round again, by which time he had finished his unnatural repast +and almost, but not quite, decided against following the profession of a +drunkard when he grew up. + +Emerging, satiated, from the theatre, a public timepiece before a +jeweller's shop confronted him with an unexpected dial and imminent +perplexities. How was he to explain at home these hours of dalliance? +There was a steadfast rule that he return direct from Sunday-school; and +Sunday rules were important, because on that day there was his father, +always at home and at hand, perilously ready for action. One of the +hardest conditions of boyhood is the almost continuous strain put upon +the powers of invention by the constant and harassing necessity for +explanations of every natural act. + +Proceeding homeward through the deepening twilight as rapidly as +possible, at a gait half skip and half canter, Penrod made up his mind +in what manner he would account for his long delay, and, as he drew +nearer, rehearsed in words the opening passage of his defence. + +"Now see here," he determined to begin; "I do not wished to be blamed +for things I couldn't help, nor any other boy. I was going along the +street by a cottage and a lady put her head out of the window and said +her husband was drunk and whipping her and her little girl, and she +asked me wouldn't I come in and help hold him. So I went in and tried to +get hold of this drunken lady's husband where he was whipping their baby +daughter, but he wouldn't pay any attention, and I TOLD her I ought to +be getting home, but she kep' on askin' me to stay----" + +At this point he reached the corner of his own yard, where a coincidence +not only checked the rehearsal of his eloquence but happily obviated all +occasion for it. A cab from the station drew up in front of the gate, +and there descended a troubled lady in black and a fragile little girl +about three. Mrs. Schofield rushed from the house and enfolded both in +hospitable arms. + +They were Penrod's Aunt Clara and cousin, also Clara, from Dayton, +Illinois, and in the flurry of their arrival everybody forgot to put +Penrod to the question. It is doubtful, however, if he felt any relief; +there may have been even a slight, unconscious disappointment not +altogether dissimilar to that of an actor deprived of a good part. + +In the course of some really necessary preparations for dinner he +stepped from the bathroom into the pink-and-white bedchamber of his +sister, and addressed her rather thickly through a towel. + +"When'd mamma find out Aunt Clara and Cousin Clara were coming?" + +"Not till she saw them from the window. She just happened to look out +as they drove up. Aunt Clara telegraphed this morning, but it wasn't +delivered." + +"How long they goin' to stay?" + +"I don't know." + +Penrod ceased to rub his shining face, and thoughtfully tossed the towel +through the bathroom door. "Uncle John won't try to make 'em come +back home, I guess, will he?" (Uncle John was Aunt Clara's husband, a +successful manufacturer of stoves, and his lifelong regret was that he +had not entered the Baptist ministry.) "He'll let 'em stay here quietly, +won't he?" + +"What ARE you talking about?" demanded Margaret, turning from her +mirror. "Uncle John sent them here. Why shouldn't he let them stay?" + +Penrod looked crestfallen. "Then he hasn't taken to drink?" + +"Certainly not!" She emphasized the denial with a pretty peal of soprano +laughter. + +"Then why," asked her brother gloomily, "why did Aunt Clara look so +worried when she got here?" + +"Good gracious! Don't people worry about anything except somebody's +drinking? Where did you get such an idea?" + +"Well," he persisted, "you don't KNOW it ain't that." + +She laughed again, wholeheartedly. "Poor Uncle John! He won't even allow +grape juice or ginger ale in his house. They came because they were +afraid little Clara might catch the measles. She's very delicate, and +there's such an epidemic of measles among the children over in Dayton +the schools had to be closed. Uncle John got so worried that last night +he dreamed about it; and this morning he couldn't stand it any longer +and packed them off over here, though he thinks its wicked to travel +on Sunday. And Aunt Clara was worried when she got here because they'd +forgotten to check her trunk and it will have to be sent by express. Now +what in the name of the common sense put it into your head that Uncle +John had taken to----" + +"Oh, nothing." He turned lifelessly away and went downstairs, a new-born +hope dying in his bosom. Life seems so needlessly dull sometimes. + + + +CHAPTER VIII SCHOOL + +Next morning, when he had once more resumed the dreadful burden of +education, it seemed infinitely duller. And yet what pleasanter sight +is there than a schoolroom well filled with children of those sprouting +years just before the 'teens? The casual visitor, gazing from the +teacher's platform upon these busy little heads, needs only a blunted +memory to experience the most agreeable and exhilarating sensations. +Still, for the greater part, the children are unconscious of the +happiness of their condition; for nothing is more pathetically true than +that we "never know when we are well off." The boys in a public school +are less aware of their happy state than are the girls; and of all the +boys in his room, probably Penrod himself had the least appreciation of +his felicity. + +He sat staring at an open page of a textbook, but not studying; not even +reading; not even thinking. Nor was he lost in a reverie: his mind's eye +was shut, as his physical eye might well have been, for the optic nerve, +flaccid with ennui, conveyed nothing whatever of the printed page +upon which the orb of vision was partially focused. Penrod was doing +something very unusual and rare, something almost never accomplished +except by coloured people or by a boy in school on a spring day: he was +doing really nothing at all. He was merely a state of being. + +From the street a sound stole in through the open window, and abhorring +Nature began to fill the vacuum called Penrod Schofield; for the sound +was the spring song of a mouth-organ, coming down the sidewalk. The +windows were intentionally above the level of the eyes of the seated +pupils; but the picture of the musician was plain to Penrod, painted for +him by a quality in the runs and trills, partaking of the oboe, of the +calliope, and of cats in anguish; an excruciating sweetness obtained +only by the wallowing, walloping yellow-pink palm of a hand whose back +was Congo black and shiny. The music came down the street and passed +beneath the window, accompanied by the care-free shuffling of a pair of +old shoes scuffing syncopations on the cement sidewalk. It passed into +the distance; became faint and blurred; was gone. Emotion stirred in +Penrod a great and poignant desire, but (perhaps fortunately) no fairy +godmother made her appearance. + +Otherwise Penrod would have gone down the street in a black skin, +playing the mouth-organ, and an unprepared coloured youth would have +found himself enjoying educational advantages for which he had no +ambition whatever. + +Roused from perfect apathy, the boy cast about the schoolroom an eye +wearied to nausea by the perpetual vision of the neat teacher upon the +platform, the backs of the heads of the pupils in front of him, and the +monotonous stretches of blackboard threateningly defaced by arithmetical +formulae and other insignia of torture. Above the blackboard, the +walls of the high room were of white plaster--white with the qualified +whiteness of old snow in a soft coal town. This dismal expanse was +broken by four lithographic portraits, votive offerings of a thoughtful +publisher. The portraits were of good and great men, kind men; men +who loved children. Their faces were noble and benevolent. But the +lithographs offered the only rest for the eyes of children fatigued by +the everlasting sameness of the schoolroom. Long day after long day, +interminable week in and interminable week out, vast month on vast +month, the pupils sat with those four portraits beaming kindness down +upon them. The faces became permanent in the consciousness of the +children; they became an obsession--in and out of school the children +were never free of them. The four faces haunted the minds of children +falling asleep; they hung upon the minds of children waking at night; +they rose forebodingly in the minds of children waking in the morning; +they became monstrously alive in the minds of children lying sick of +fever. Never, while the children of that schoolroom lived, would they +be able to forget one detail of the four lithographs: the hand of +Longfellow was fixed, for them, forever, in his beard. And by a simple +and unconscious association of ideas, Penrod Schofield was accumulating +an antipathy for the gentle Longfellow and for James Russell Lowell and +for Oliver Wendell Holmes and for John Greenleaf Whittier, which would +never permit him to peruse a work of one of those great New Englanders +without a feeling of personal resentment. + +His eyes fell slowly and inimically from the brow of Whittier to +the braid of reddish hair belonging to Victorine Riordan, the little +octoroon girl who sat directly in front of him. Victorine's back was as +familiar to Penrod as the necktie of Oliver Wendell Holmes. So was her +gayly coloured plaid waist. He hated the waist as he hated Victorine +herself, without knowing why. Enforced companionship in large quantities +and on an equal basis between the sexes appears to sterilize the +affections, and schoolroom romances are few. + +Victorine's hair was thick, and the brickish glints in it were +beautiful, but Penrod was very tired of it. A tiny knot of green ribbon +finished off the braid and kept it from unravelling; and beneath the +ribbon there was a final wisp of hair which was just long enough to +repose upon Penrod's desk when Victorine leaned back in her seat. It was +there now. Thoughtfully, he took the braid between thumb and forefinger, +and, without disturbing Victorine, dipped the end of it and the green +ribbon into the inkwell of his desk. He brought hair and ribbon forth +dripping purple ink, and partially dried them on a blotter, though, a +moment later when Victorine leaned forward, they were still able to add +a few picturesque touches to the plaid waist. + +Rudolph Krauss, across the aisle from Penrod, watched the operation with +protuberant eyes, fascinated. Inspired to imitation, he took a piece of +chalk from his pocket and wrote "RATS" across the shoulder-blades of the +boy in front of him, then looked across appealingly to Penrod for tokens +of congratulation. Penrod yawned. It may not be denied that at times he +appeared to be a very self-centred boy. + + + +CHAPTER IX SOARING + +Half the members of the class passed out to a recitation-room, the +empurpled Victorine among them, and Miss Spence started the remaining +half through the ordeal of trial by mathematics. Several boys and girls +were sent to the blackboard, and Penrod, spared for the moment, followed +their operations a little while with his eyes, but not with his mind; +then, sinking deeper in his seat, limply abandoned the effort. His eyes +remained open, but saw nothing; the routine of the arithmetic lesson +reached his ears in familiar, meaningless sounds, but he heard nothing; +and yet, this time, he was profoundly occupied. He had drifted away from +the painful land of facts, and floated now in a new sea of fancy which +he had just discovered. + +Maturity forgets the marvellous realness of a boy's day-dreams, how +colourful they glow, rosy and living, and how opaque the curtain closing +down between the dreamer and the actual world. That curtain is almost +sound-proof, too, and causes more throat-trouble among parents than is +suspected. + +The nervous monotony of the schoolroom inspires a sometimes unbearable +longing for something astonishing to happen, and as every boy's +fundamental desire is to do something astonishing himself, so as to be +the centre of all human interest and awe, it was natural that Penrod +should discover in fancy the delightful secret of self-levitation. +He found, in this curious series of imaginings, during the lesson in +arithmetic, that the atmosphere may be navigated as by a swimmer under +water, but with infinitely greater ease and with perfect comfort in +breathing. In his mind he extended his arms gracefully, at a level with +his shoulders, and delicately paddled the air with his hands, which at +once caused him to be drawn up out of his seat and elevated gently to a +position about midway between the floor and the ceiling, where he +came to an equilibrium and floated; a sensation not the less exquisite +because of the screams of his fellow pupils, appalled by the miracle. +Miss Spence herself was amazed and frightened, but he only smiled down +carelessly upon her when she commanded him to return to earth; and +then, when she climbed upon a desk to pull him down, he quietly paddled +himself a little higher, leaving his toes just out of her reach. Next, +he swam through a few slow somersaults to show his mastery of the new +art, and, with the shouting of the dumfounded scholars ringing in +his ears, turned on his side and floated swiftly out of the window, +immediately rising above the housetops, while people in the street below +him shrieked, and a trolley car stopped dead in wonder. + +With almost no exertion he paddled himself, many yards at a stroke, to +the girls' private school where Marjorie Jones was a pupil--Marjorie +Jones of the amber curls and the golden voice! Long before the "Pageant +of the Table Round," she had offered Penrod a hundred proofs that +she considered him wholly undesirable and ineligible. At the Friday +Afternoon Dancing Class she consistently incited and led the laughter at +him whenever Professor Bartet singled him out for admonition in matters +of feet and decorum. And but yesterday she had chid him for his +slavish lack of memory in daring to offer her a greeting on the way to +Sunday-school. "Well! I expect you must forgot I told you never to speak +to me again! If I was a boy, I'd be too proud to come hanging around +people that don't speak to me, even if I WAS the Worst Boy in Town!" +So she flouted him. But now, as he floated in through the window of her +classroom and swam gently along the ceiling like an escaped toy balloon, +she fell upon her knees beside her little desk, and, lifting up her arms +toward him, cried with love and admiration: + +"Oh, PENrod!" + +He negligently kicked a globe from the high chandelier, and, smiling +coldly, floated out through the hall to the front steps of the school, +while Marjorie followed, imploring him to grant her one kind look. + +In the street an enormous crowd had gathered, headed by Miss Spence and +a brass band; and a cheer from a hundred thousand throats shook the +very ground as Penrod swam overhead. Marjorie knelt upon the steps +and watched adoringly while Penrod took the drum-major's baton and, +performing sinuous evolutions above the crowd, led the band. Then he +threw the baton so high that it disappeared from sight; but he went +swiftly after it, a double delight, for he had not only the delicious +sensation of rocketing safely up and up into the blue sky, but also +that of standing in the crowd below, watching and admiring himself as he +dwindled to a speck, disappeared and then, emerging from a cloud, came +speeding down, with the baton in his hand, to the level of the treetops, +where he beat time for the band and the vast throng and Marjorie Jones, +who all united in the "Star-spangled Banner" in honour of his aerial +achievements. It was a great moment. + +It was a great moment, but something seemed to threaten it. The face +of Miss Spence looking up from the crowd grew too vivid--unpleasantly +vivid. She was beckoning him and shouting, "Come down, Penrod Schofield! +Penrod Schofield, come down here!" + +He could hear her above the band and the singing of the multitude; she +seemed intent on spoiling everything. Marjorie Jones was weeping to +show how sorry she was that she had formerly slighted him, and throwing +kisses to prove that she loved him; but Miss Spence kept jumping between +him and Marjorie, incessantly calling his name. + +He grew more and more irritated with her; he was the most important +person in the world and was engaged in proving it to Marjorie Jones and +the whole city, and yet Miss Spence seemed to feel she still had the +right to order him about as she did in the old days when he was an +ordinary schoolboy. He was furious; he was sure she wanted him to do +something disagreeable. It seemed to him that she had screamed "Penrod +Schofield!" thousands of times. + +From the beginning of his aerial experiments in his own schoolroom, he +had not opened his lips, knowing somehow that one of the requirements +for air floating is perfect silence on the part of the floater; but, +finally, irritated beyond measure by Miss Spence's clamorous insistence, +he was unable to restrain an indignant rebuke and immediately came to +earth with a frightful bump. + +Miss Spence--in the flesh--had directed toward the physical body of the +absent Penrod an inquiry as to the fractional consequences of dividing +seventeen apples, fairly, among three boys, and she was surprised and +displeased to receive no answer although to the best of her knowledge +and belief, he was looking fixedly at her. She repeated her question +crisply, without visible effect; then summoned him by name with +increasing asperity. Twice she called him, while all his fellow +pupils turned to stare at the gazing boy. She advanced a step from the +platform. + +"Penrod Schofield!" + +"Oh, my goodness!" he shouted suddenly. "Can't you keep still a MINUTE?" + + + +CHAPTER X UNCLE JOHN + +Miss Spence gasped. So did the pupils. + +The whole room filled with a swelling conglomerate "O-O-O-O-H!" + +As for Penrod himself, the walls reeled with the shock. He sat with his +mouth open, a mere lump of stupefaction. For the appalling words that +he had hurled at the teacher were as inexplicable to him as to any other +who heard them. + +Nothing is more treacherous than the human mind; nothing else so loves +to play the Iscariot. Even when patiently bullied into a semblance of +order and training, it may prove but a base and shifty servant. And +Penrod's mind was not his servant; it was a master, with the April +wind's whims; and it had just played him a diabolical trick. The very +jolt with which he came back to the schoolroom in the midst of his +fancied flight jarred his day-dream utterly out of him; and he sat, +open-mouthed in horror at what he had said. + +The unanimous gasp of awe was protracted. Miss Spence, however, finally +recovered her breath, and, returning deliberately to the platform, faced +the school. "And then for a little while," as pathetic stories sometimes +recount, "everything was very still." It was so still, in fact, that +Penrod's newborn notoriety could almost be heard growing. This grisly +silence was at last broken by the teacher. + +"Penrod Schofield, stand up!" + +The miserable child obeyed. + +"What did you mean by speaking to me in that way?" + +He hung his head, raked the floor with the side of his shoe, swayed, +swallowed, looked suddenly at his hands with the air of never having +seen them before, then clasped them behind him. The school shivered in +ecstatic horror, every fascinated eye upon him; yet there was not a +soul in the room but was profoundly grateful to him for the +sensation--including the offended teacher herself. Unhappily, all this +gratitude was unconscious and altogether different from the kind which, +results in testimonials and loving-cups. On the contrary! + +"Penrod Schofield!" + +He gulped. + +"Answer me at once! Why did you speak to me like that?" + +"I was----" He choked, unable to continue. + +"Speak out!" + +"I was just--thinking," he managed to stammer. + +"That will not do," she returned sharply. "I wish to know immediately +why you spoke as you did." + +The stricken Penrod answered helplessly: + +"Because I was just thinking." + +Upon the very rack he could have offered no ampler truthful explanation. +It was all he knew about it. + +"Thinking what?" + +"Just thinking." + +Miss Spence's expression gave evidence that her power of self-restraint +was undergoing a remarkable test. However, after taking counsel with +herself, she commanded: + +"Come here!" + +He shuffled forward, and she placed a chair upon the platform near her +own. + +"Sit there!" + +Then (but not at all as if nothing had happened), she continued the +lesson in arithmetic. Spiritually the children may have learned a lesson +in very small fractions indeed as they gazed at the fragment of +sin before them on the stool of penitence. They all stared at him +attentively with hard and passionately interested eyes, in which there +was never one trace of pity. It cannot be said with precision that he +writhed; his movement was more a slow, continuous squirm, effected with +a ghastly assumption of languid indifference; while his gaze, in the +effort to escape the marble-hearted glare of his schoolmates, affixed +itself with apparent permanence to the waistcoat button of James Russell +Lowell just above the "U" in "Russell." + +Classes came and classes went, grilling him with eyes. Newcomers +received the story of the crime in darkling whispers; and the outcast +sat and sat and sat, and squirmed and squirmed and squirmed. (He did one +or two things with his spine which a professional contortionist would +have observed with real interest.) And all this while of freezing +suspense was but the criminal's detention awaiting trial. A known +punishment may be anticipated with some measure of equanimity; at least, +the prisoner may prepare himself to undergo it; but the unknown looms +more monstrous for every attempt to guess it. Penrod's crime was unique; +there were no rules to aid him in estimating the vengeance to fall upon +him for it. What seemed most probable was that he would be expelled from +the schools in the presence of his family, the mayor, and council, and +afterward whipped by his father upon the State House steps, with the +entire city as audience by invitation of the authorities. + +Noon came. The rows of children filed out, every head turning for a last +unpleasingly speculative look at the outlaw. Then Miss Spence closed the +door into the cloakroom and that into the big hall, and came and sat at +her desk, near Penrod. The tramping of feet outside, the shrill calls +and shouting and the changing voices of the older boys ceased to be +heard--and there was silence. Penrod, still affecting to be occupied +with Lowell, was conscious that Miss Spence looked at him intently. + +"Penrod," she said gravely, "what excuse have you to offer before I +report your case to the principal?" + +The word "principal" struck him to the vitals. Grand Inquisitor, Grand +Khan, Sultan, Emperor, Tsar, Caesar Augustus--these are comparable. He +stopped squirming instantly, and sat rigid. + +"I want an answer. Why did you shout those words at me?" + +"Well," he murmured, "I was just--thinking." + +"Thinking what?" she asked sharply. + +"I don't know." + +"That won't do!" + +He took his left ankle in his right hand and regarded it helplessly. + +"That won't do, Penrod Schofield," she repeated severely. "If that is +all the excuse you have to offer I shall report your case this instant!" + +And she rose with fatal intent. + +But Penrod was one of those whom the precipice inspires. "Well, I HAVE +got an excuse." + +"Well"--she paused impatiently--"what is it?" + +He had not an idea, but he felt one coming, and replied automatically, +in a plaintive tone: + +"I guess anybody that had been through what I had to go through, last +night, would think they had an excuse." + +Miss Spence resumed her seat, though with the air of being ready to leap +from it instantly. + +"What has last night to do with your insolence to me this morning?" + +"Well, I guess you'd see," he returned, emphasizing the plaintive note, +"if you knew what I know." + +"Now, Penrod," she said, in a kinder voice, "I have a high regard for +your mother and father, and it would hurt me to distress them, but you +must either tell me what was the matter with you or I'll have to take +you to Mrs. Houston." + +"Well, ain't I going to?" he cried, spurred by the dread name. "It's +because I didn't sleep last night." + +"Were you ill?" The question was put with some dryness. + +He felt the dryness. "No'm; _I_ wasn't." + +"Then if someone in your family was so ill that even you were kept up +all night, how does it happen they let you come to school this morning?" + +"It wasn't illness," he returned, shaking his head mournfully. "It was +lots worse'n anybody's being sick. It was--it was--well, it was jest +awful." + +"WHAT was?" He remarked with anxiety the incredulity in her tone. + +"It was about Aunt Clara," he said. + +"Your Aunt Clara!" she repeated. "Do you mean your mother's sister who +married Mr. Farry of Dayton, Illinois?" + +"Yes--Uncle John," returned Penrod sorrowfully. "The trouble was about +him." + +Miss Spence frowned a frown which he rightly interpreted as one of +continued suspicion. "She and I were in school together," she said. "I +used to know her very well, and I've always heard her married life was +entirely happy. I don't----" + +"Yes, it was," he interrupted, "until last year when Uncle John took to +running with travelling men----" + +"What?" + +"Yes'm." He nodded solemnly. "That was what started it. At first he was +a good, kind husband, but these travelling men would coax him into a +saloon on his way home from work, and they got him to drinking beer and +then ales, wines, liquors, and cigars----" + +"Penrod!" + +"Ma'am?" + +"I'm not inquiring into your Aunt Clara's private affairs; I'm asking +you if you have anything to say which would palliate----" + +"That's what I'm tryin' to TELL you about, Miss Spence," he +pleaded,--"if you'd jest only let me. When Aunt Clara and her little +baby daughter got to our house last night----" + +"You say Mrs. Farry is visiting your mother?" + +"Yes'm--not just visiting--you see, she HAD to come. Well of course, +little baby Clara, she was so bruised up and mauled, where he'd been +hittin' her with his cane----" + +"You mean that your uncle had done such a thing as THAT!" exclaimed Miss +Spence, suddenly disarmed by this scandal. + +"Yes'm, and mamma and Margaret had to sit up all night nursin' little +Clara--and AUNT Clara was in such a state SOMEBODY had to keep talkin' +to HER, and there wasn't anybody but me to do it, so I----" + +"But where was your father?" she cried. + +"Ma'am?" + +"Where was your father while----" + +"Oh--papa?" Penrod paused, reflected; then brightened. "Why, he was down +at the train, waitin' to see if Uncle John would try to follow 'em and +make 'em come home so's he could persecute 'em some more. I wanted to do +that, but they said if he did come I mightn't be strong enough to +hold him and----" The brave lad paused again, modestly. Miss Spence's +expression was encouraging. Her eyes were wide with astonishment, and +there may have been in them, also, the mingled beginnings of admiration +and self-reproach. Penrod, warming to his work, felt safer every moment. + +"And so," he continued, "I had to sit up with Aunt Clara. She had some +pretty big bruises, too, and I had to----" + +"But why didn't they send for a doctor?" However, this question was only +a flicker of dying incredulity. + +"Oh, they didn't want any DOCTOR," exclaimed the inspired realist +promptly. "They don't want anybody to HEAR about it because Uncle John +might reform--and then where'd he be if everybody knew he'd been a +drunkard and whipped his wife and baby daughter?" + +"Oh!" said Miss Spence. + +"You see, he used to be upright as anybody," he went on explanatively. +"It all begun----" + +"Began, Penrod." + +"Yes'm. It all commenced from the first day he let those travelling men +coax him into the saloon." Penrod narrated the downfall of his Uncle +John at length. In detail he was nothing short of plethoric; and +incident followed incident, sketched with such vividness, such abundance +of colour, and such verisimilitude to a drunkard's life as a drunkard's +life should be, that had Miss Spence possessed the rather chilling +attributes of William J. Burns himself, the last trace of skepticism +must have vanished from her mind. Besides, there are two things that +will be believed of any man whatsoever, and one of them is that he has +taken to drink. And in every sense it was a moving picture which, with +simple but eloquent words, the virtuous Penrod set before his teacher. + +His eloquence increased with what it fed on; and as with the eloquence +so with self-reproach in the gentle bosom of the teacher. She cleared +her throat with difficulty once or twice, during his description of his +ministering night with Aunt Clara. "And I said to her, 'Why, Aunt Clara, +what's the use of takin' on so about it?' And I said, 'Now, Aunt Clara, +all the crying in the world can't make things any better.' And then +she'd just keep catchin' hold of me, and sob and kind of holler, and I'd +say, 'DON'T cry, Aunt Clara--PLEASE don't cry."' + +Then, under the influence of some fragmentary survivals of the +respectable portion of his Sunday adventures, his theme became more +exalted; and, only partially misquoting a phrase from a psalm, he +related how he had made it of comfort to Aunt Clara, and how he had +besought her to seek Higher guidance in her trouble. + +The surprising thing about a structure such as Penrod was erecting is +that the taller it becomes the more ornamentation it will stand. Gifted +boys have this faculty of building magnificence upon cobwebs--and Penrod +was gifted. Under the spell of his really great performance, Miss Spence +gazed more and more sweetly upon the prodigy of spiritual beauty and +goodness before her, until at last, when Penrod came to the explanation +of his "just thinking," she was forced to turn her head away. + +"You mean, dear," she said gently, "that you were all worn out and +hardly knew what you were saying?" + +"Yes'm." + +"And you were thinking about all those dreadful things so hard that you +forgot where you were?" + +"I was thinking," he said simply, "how to save Uncle John." + +And the end of it for this mighty boy was that the teacher kissed him! + + + +CHAPTER XI FIDELITY OF A LITTLE DOG + +The returning students, that afternoon, observed that Penrod's desk was +vacant--and nothing could have been more impressive than that sinister +mere emptiness. The accepted theory was that Penrod had been arrested. +How breathtaking, then, the sensation when, at the beginning of the +second hour, he strolled--in with inimitable carelessness and, rubbing +his eyes, somewhat noticeably in the manner of one who has snatched an +hour of much needed sleep, took his place as if nothing in particular +had happened. This, at first supposed to be a superhuman exhibition +of sheer audacity, became but the more dumfounding when Miss +Spence--looking up from her desk--greeted him with a pleasant little +nod. Even after school, Penrod gave numerous maddened investigators no +relief. All he would consent to say was: + +"Oh, I just TALKED to her." + +A mystification not entirely unconnected with the one thus produced was +manifested at his own family dinner-table the following evening. Aunt +Clara had been out rather late, and came to the table after the rest +were seated. She wore a puzzled expression. + +"Do you ever see Mary Spence nowadays?" she inquired, as she unfolded +her napkin, addressing Mrs. Schofield. Penrod abruptly set down his +soup-spoon and gazed at his aunt with flattering attention. + +"Yes; sometimes," said Mrs. Schofield. "She's Penrod's teacher." + +"Is she?" said Mrs. Farry. "Do you--" She paused. "Do people think her a +little--queer, these days?" + +"Why, no," returned her sister. "What makes you say that?" + +"She has acquired a very odd manner," said Mrs. Farry decidedly. "At +least, she seemed odd to ME. I met her at the corner just before I got +to the house, a few minutes ago, and after we'd said howdy-do to each +other, she kept hold of my hand and looked as though she was going to +cry. She seemed to be trying to say something, and choking----" + +"But I don't think that's so very queer, Clara. She knew you in school, +didn't she?" + +"Yes, but----" + +"And she hadn't seen you for so many years, I think it's perfectly +natural she----" + +"Wait! She stood there squeezing my hand, and struggling to get her +voice--and I got really embarrassed--and then finally she said, in a +kind of tearful whisper, 'Be of good cheer--this trial will pass!'" + +"How queer!" exclaimed Margaret. + +Penrod sighed, and returned somewhat absently to his soup. + +"Well, I don't know," said Mrs. Schofield thoughtfully. "Of course she's +heard about the outbreak of measles in Dayton, since they had to close +the schools, and she knows you live there----" + +"But doesn't it seem a VERY exaggerated way," suggested Margaret, "to +talk about measles?" + +"Wait!" begged Aunt Clara. "After she said that, she said something even +queerer, and then put her handkerchief to her eyes and hurried away." + +Penrod laid down his spoon again and moved his chair slightly back from +the table. A spirit of prophecy was upon him: he knew that someone was +going to ask a question which he felt might better remain unspoken. + +"What WAS the other thing she said?" Mr. Schofield inquired, thus +immediately fulfilling his son's premonition. + +"She said," returned Mrs. Farry slowly, looking about the table, "she +said, 'I know that Penrod is a great, great comfort to you!'" + +There was a general exclamation of surprise. It was a singular thing, +and in no manner may it be considered complimentary to Penrod, that this +speech of Miss Spence's should have immediately confirmed Mrs. Farry's +doubts about her in the minds of all his family. + +Mr. Schofield shook his head pityingly. + +"I'm afraid she's a goner," he went so far as to say. + +"Of all the weird ideas!" cried Margaret. + +"I never heard anything like it in my life!" Mrs. Schofield exclaimed. +"Was that ALL she said?" + +"Every word!" + +Penrod again resumed attention to his soup. His mother looked at him +curiously, and then, struck by a sudden thought, gathered the glances of +the adults of the table by a significant movement of the head, and, by +another, conveyed an admonition to drop the subject until later. Miss +Spence was Penrod's teacher: it was better, for many reasons, not +to discuss the subject of her queerness before him. This was Mrs. +Schofield's thought at the time. Later she had another, and it kept her +awake. + +The next afternoon, Mr. Schofield, returning at five o'clock from the +cares of the day, found the house deserted, and sat down to read his +evening paper in what appeared to be an uninhabited apartment known to +its own world as the "drawing-room." A sneeze, unexpected both to him +and the owner, informed him of the presence of another person. + +"Where are you, Penrod?" the parent asked, looking about. + +"Here," said Penrod meekly. + +Stooping, Mr. Schofield discovered his son squatting under the piano, +near an open window--his wistful Duke lying beside him. + +"What are you doing there?" + +"Me?" + +"Why under the piano?" + +"Well," the boy returned, with grave sweetness, "I was just kind of +sitting here--thinking." + +"All right." Mr. Schofield, rather touched, returned to the digestion of +a murder, his back once more to the piano; and Penrod silently drew +from beneath his jacket (where he had slipped it simultaneously with +the sneeze) a paper-backed volume entitled: "Slimsy, the Sioux City +Squealer, or, 'Not Guilty, Your Honor.'" + +In this manner the reading-club continued in peace, absorbed, contented, +the world well forgot--until a sudden, violently irritated slam-bang of +the front door startled the members; and Mrs. Schofield burst into the +room and threw herself into a chair, moaning. + +"What's the matter, mamma?" asked her husband laying aside his paper. + +"Henry Passloe Schofield," returned the lady, "I don't know what IS to +be done with that boy; I do NOT!" + +"You mean Penrod?" + +"Who else could I mean?" She sat up, exasperated, to stare at him. +"Henry Passloe Schofield, you've got to take this matter in your +hands--it's beyond me!" + +"Well, what has he----" + +"Last night I got to thinking," she began rapidly, "about what Clara +told us--thank Heaven she and Margaret and little Clara have gone to tea +at Cousin Charlotte's!--but they'll be home soon--about what she said +about Miss Spence----" + +"You mean about Penrod's being a comfort?" + +"Yes, and I kept thinking and thinking and thinking about it till I +couldn't stand it any----" + +"By GEORGE!" shouted Mr. Schofield startlingly, stooping to look +under the piano. A statement that he had suddenly remembered his son's +presence would be lacking in accuracy, for the highly sensitized Penrod +was, in fact, no longer present. No more was Duke, his faithful dog. + +"What's the matter?" + +"Nothing," he returned, striding to the open window and looking out. "Go +on." + +"Oh," she moaned, "it must be kept from Clara--and I'll never hold up my +head again if John Farry ever hears of it!" + +"Hears of WHAT?" + +"Well, I just couldn't stand it, I got so curious; and I thought of +course if Miss Spence HAD become a little unbalanced it was my duty to +know it, as Penrod's mother and she his teacher; so I thought I would +just call on her at her apartment after school and have a chat and see +and I did and--oh----" + +"Well?" + +"I've just come from there, and she told me--she told me! Oh, I've NEVER +known anything like this!" + +"WHAT did she tell you?" + +Mrs. Schofield, making a great effort, managed to assume a temporary +appearance of calm. "Henry," she said solemnly, "bear this in mind: +whatever you do to Penrod, it must be done in some place when Clara +won't hear it. But the first thing to do is to find him." + +Within view of the window from which Mr. Schofield was gazing was the +closed door of the storeroom in the stable, and just outside this door +Duke was performing a most engaging trick. + +His young master had taught Duke to "sit up and beg" when he wanted +anything, and if that didn't get it, to "speak." Duke was facing the +closed door and sitting up and begging, and now he also spoke--in a +loud, clear bark. + +There was an open transom over the door, and from this descended--hurled +by an unseen agency--a can half filled with old paint. + +It caught the small besieger of the door on his thoroughly surprised +right ear, encouraged him to some remarkable acrobatics, and turned +large portions of him a dull blue. Allowing only a moment to perplexity, +and deciding, after a single and evidently unappetizing experiment, +not to cleanse himself of paint, the loyal animal resumed his quaint, +upright posture. + +Mr. Schofield seated himself on the window-sill, whence he could keep in +view that pathetic picture of unrequited love. + +"Go on with your story, mamma," he said. "I think I can find Penrod when +we want him." + +And a few minutes later he added, "And I think I know the place to do it +in." + +Again the faithful voice of Duke was heard, pleading outside the bolted +door. + + + +CHAPTER XII MISS RENNSDALE ACCEPTS + +"One-two-three; one-two-three--glide!" said Professor Bartet, +emphasizing his instructions by a brisk collision of his palms at +"glide." "One-two-three; one-two-three--glide!" + +The school week was over, at last, but Penrod's troubles were not. + +Round and round the ballroom went the seventeen struggling little +couples of the Friday Afternoon Dancing Class. Round and round went +their reflections with them, swimming rhythmically in the polished, dark +floor--white and blue and pink for the girls; black, with dabs of white, +for the white-collared, white-gloved boys; and sparks and slivers +of high light everywhere as the glistening pumps flickered along the +surface like a school of flying fish. Every small pink face--with one +exception--was painstaking and set for duty. It was a conscientious +little merry-go-round. + +"One-two-three; one-two-three--glide! One-two-three; +one-two-three--glide! One-two-th--Ha! Mister Penrod Schofield, you lose +the step. Your left foot! No, no! This is the left! See--like me! Now +again! One-two-three; one-two-three--glide! Better! Much better! Again! +One-two-three; one-two-three--gl--Stop! Mr. Penrod Schofield, this +dancing class is provided by the kind parents of the pupilses as much +to learn the mannerss of good societies as to dance. You think you shall +ever see a gentleman in good societies to tickle his partner in the +dance till she say Ouch? Never! I assure you it is not done. Again! Now +then! Piano, please! One-two-three; one-two-three--glide! Mr. Penrod +Schofield, your right foot--your right foot! No, no! Stop!" + +The merry-go-round came to a standstill. + +"Mr. Penrod Schofield and partner"--Professor Bartet wiped his +brow--"will you kindly observe me? One-two-three--glide! So! Now +then--no; you will please keep your places, ladies and gentlemen. Mr. +Penrod Schofield, I would puttickly like your attention, this is for +you!" + +"Pickin' on me again!" murmured the smouldering Penrod to his small, +unsympathetic partner. "Can't let me alone a minute!" + +"Mister Georgie Bassett, please step to the centre," said the professor. + +Mr. Bassett complied with modest alacrity. + +"Teacher's pet!" whispered Penrod hoarsely. He had nothing but contempt +for Georgie Bassett. The parents, guardians, aunts, uncles, cousins, +governesses, housemaids, cooks, chauffeurs and coachmen, appertaining to +the members of the dancing class, all dwelt in the same part of town and +shared certain communal theories; and among the most firmly established +was that which maintained Georgie Bassett to be the Best Boy in Town. +Contrariwise, the unfortunate Penrod, largely because of his recent +dazzling but disastrous attempts to control forces far beyond him, +had been given a clear title as the Worst Boy in Town. (Population, +135,000.) To precisely what degree his reputation was the product of +his own energies cannot be calculated. It was Marjorie Jones who first +applied the description, in its definite simplicity, the day after the +"pageant," and, possibly, her frequent and effusive repetitions of it, +even upon wholly irrelevant occasions, had something to do with its +prompt and quite perfect acceptance by the community. + +"Miss Rennsdale will please do me the fafer to be Mr. Georgie Bassett's +partner for one moment," said Professor Bartet. "Mr. Penrod Schofield +will please give his attention. Miss Rennsdale and Mister Bassett, +obliche me, if you please. Others please watch. Piano, please! Now +then!" + +Miss Rennsdale, aged eight--the youngest lady in the class--and Mr. +Georgie Bassett one-two-three--glided with consummate technique for the +better education of Penrod Schofield. It is possible that amber-curled, +beautiful Marjorie felt that she, rather than Miss Rennsdale, might have +been selected as the example of perfection--or perhaps her remark was +only woman. + +"Stopping everybody for that boy!" said Marjorie. + +Penrod, across the circle from her, heard distinctly--nay, he was +obviously intended to hear; but over a scorched heart he preserved a +stoic front. Whereupon Marjorie whispered derisively in the ear of her +partner, Maurice Levy, who wore a pearl pin in his tie. + +"Again, please, everybody--ladies and gentlemen!" cried Professor +Bartet. "Mister Penrod Schofield, if you please, pay puttickly +attention! Piano, please! Now then!" + +The lesson proceeded. At the close of the hour Professor Bartet stepped +to the centre of the room and clapped his hands for attention. + +"Ladies and gentlemen, if you please to seat yourselves quietly," he +said; "I speak to you now about to-morrow. As you all know--Mister +Penrod Schofield, I am not sticking up in a tree outside that window! If +you do me the fafer to examine I am here, insides of the room. Now then! +Piano, pl--no, I do not wish the piano! As you all know, this is the +last lesson of the season until next October. Tomorrow is our special +afternoon; beginning three o'clock, we dance the cotillon. But this +afternoon comes the test of mannerss. You must see if each know how to +make a little formal call like a grown-up people in good societies. You +have had good, perfect instruction; let us see if we know how to perform +like societies ladies and gentlemen twenty-six years of age. + +"Now, when you're dismissed each lady will go to her home and prepare to +receive a call. The gentlemen will allow the ladies time to reach their +houses and to prepare to receive callers; then each gentleman will call +upon a lady and beg the pleasure to engage her for a partner in the +cotillon to-morrow. You all know the correct, proper form for these +calls, because didn't I work teaching you last lesson till I thought +I would drop dead? Yes! Now each gentleman, if he reach a lady's house +behind some-other gentleman, then he must go somewhere else to a lady's +house, and keep calling until he secures a partner; so, as there are the +same number of both, everybody shall have a partner. + +"Now please all remember that if in case--Mister Penrod Schofield, when +you make your call on a lady I beg you to please remember that gentlemen +in good societies do not scratch the back in societies as you appear to +attempt; so please allow the hands to rest carelessly in the lap. Now +please all remember that if in case--Mister Penrod Schofield, if you +please! Gentlemen in societies do not scratch the back by causing +frictions between it and the back of your chair, either! Nobody else is +itching here! _I_ do not itch! I cannot talk if you must itch! In the +name of Heaven, why must you always itch? What was I saying? Where ah! +the cotillon--yes! For the cotillon it is important nobody shall fail +to be here tomorrow; but if any one should be so very ill he cannot +possible come he must write a very polite note of regrets in the form +of good societies to his engaged partner to excuse himself--and he must +give the reason. + +"I do not think anybody is going to be that sick to-morrow--no; and I +will find out and report to parents if anybody would try it and not be. +But it is important for the cotillon that we have an even number of so +many couples, and if it should happen that someone comes and her partner +has sent her a polite note that he has genuine reasons why he cannot +come, the note must be handed at once to me, so that I arrange some +other partner. Is all understood? Yes. The gentlemen will remember now +to allow the ladies plenty of time to reach their houses and prepare +to receive calls. Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your polite +attention." + +It was nine blocks to the house of Marjorie Jones; but Penrod did it in +less than seven minutes from a flying start--such was his haste to lay +himself and his hand for the cotillon at the feet of one who had so +recently spoken unamiably of him in public. He had not yet learned that +the only safe male rebuke to a scornful female is to stay away from +her--especially if that is what she desires. However, he did not wish +to rebuke her; simply and ardently he wished to dance the cotillon with +her. Resentment was swallowed up in hope. + +The fact that Miss Jones' feeling for him bore a striking resemblance to +that of Simon Legree for Uncle Tom, deterred him not at all. Naturally, +he was not wholly unconscious that when he should lay his hand for the +cotillon at her feet it would be her inward desire to step on it; but +he believed that if he were first in the field Marjorie would have to +accept. These things are governed by law. + +It was his fond intention to reach her house even in advance of herself, +and with grave misgiving he beheld a large automobile at rest before the +sainted gate. Forthwith, a sinking feeling became a portent inside him +as little Maurice Levy emerged from the front door of the house. + +"'Lo, Penrod!" said Maurice airily. + +"What you doin' in there?" inquired Penrod. + +"In where?" + +"In Marjorie's." + +"Well, what shouldn't I be doin' in Marjorie's?" Mr. Levy returned +indignantly. "I was inviting her for my partner in the cotillon--what +you s'pose?" + +"You haven't got any right to!" Penrod protested hotly. "You can't do it +yet." + +"I did do it yet!" said Maurice. + +"You can't!" insisted Penrod. "You got to allow them time first. He said +the ladies had to be allowed time to prepare." + +"Well, ain't she had time to prepare?" + +"When?" Penrod demanded, stepping close to his rival threateningly. "I'd +like to know when----" + +"When?" echoed the other with shrill triumph. "When? Why, in mamma's +sixty-horse powder limousine automobile, what Marjorie came home with me +in! I guess that's when!" + +An impulse in the direction of violence became visible upon the +countenance of Penrod. + +"I expect you need some wiping down," he began dangerously. "I'll give +you sumpthing to remem----" + +"Oh, you will!" Maurice cried with astonishing truculence, contorting +himself into what he may have considered a posture of defense. "Let's +see you try it, you--you itcher!" + +For the moment, defiance from such a source was dumfounding. Then, +luckily, Penrod recollected something and glanced at the automobile. + +Perceiving therein not only the alert chauffeur but the magnificent +outlines of Mrs. Levy, his enemy's mother, he manoeuvred his lifted hand +so that it seemed he had but meant to scratch his ear. + +"Well, I guess I better be goin'," he said casually. "See you tomorrow!" + +Maurice mounted to the lap of luxury, and Penrod strolled away with an +assumption of careless ease which was put to a severe strain when, from +the rear window of the car, a sudden protuberance in the nature of a +small, dark, curly head shrieked scornfully: + +"Go on--you big stiff!" + +The cotillon loomed dismally before Penrod now; but it was his duty +to secure a partner and he set about it with a dreary heart. The delay +occasioned by his fruitless attempt on Marjorie and the altercation with +his enemy at her gate had allowed other ladies ample time to prepare for +callers--and to receive them. Sadly he went from house to house, finding +that he had been preceded in one after the other. Altogether his +hand for the cotillon was declined eleven times that afternoon on the +legitimate ground of previous engagement. This, with Marjorie, scored +off all except five of the seventeen possible partners; and four of the +five were also sealed away from him, as he learned in chance encounters +with other boys upon the street. + +One lady alone remained; he bowed to the inevitable and entered this +lorn damsel's gate at twilight with an air of great discouragement. The +lorn damsel was Miss Rennsdale, aged eight. + +We are apt to forget that there are actually times of life when too much +youth is a handicap. Miss Rennsdale was beautiful; she danced like a +premiere; she had every charm but age. On that account alone had she +been allowed so much time to prepare to receive callers that it was only +by the most manful efforts she could keep her lip from trembling. + +A decorous maid conducted the long-belated applicant to her where she +sat upon a sofa beside a nursery governess. The decorous maid announced +him composedly as he made his entrance. + +"Mr. Penrod Schofield!" + +Miss Rennsdale suddenly burst into loud sobs. + +"Oh!" she wailed. "I just knew it would be him!" + +The decorous maid's composure vanished at once--likewise her decorum. +She clapped her hand over her mouth and fled, uttering sounds. The +governess, however, set herself to comfort her heartbroken charge, and +presently succeeded in restoring Miss Rennsdale to a semblance of that +poise with which a lady receives callers and accepts invitations to +dance cotillons. But she continued to sob at intervals. + +Feeling himself at perhaps a disadvantage, Penrod made offer of his +hand for the morrow with a little embarrassment. Following the form +prescribed by Professor Bartet, he advanced several paces toward the +stricken lady and bowed formally. + +"I hope," he said by rote, "you're well, and your parents also in good +health. May I have the pleasure of dancing the cotillon as your partner +t'-morrow afternoon?" + +The wet eyes of Miss Rennsdale searched his countenance without +pleasure, and a shudder wrung her small shoulders; but the governess +whispered to her instructively, and she made a great effort. + +"I thu-thank you fu-for your polite invu-invu-invutation; and I ac----" +Thus far she progressed when emotion overcame her again. She beat +frantically upon the sofa with fists and heels. "Oh, I DID want it to be +Georgie Bassett!" + +"No, no, no!" said the governess, and whispered urgently, whereupon Miss +Rennsdale was able to complete her acceptance. + +"And I ac-accept wu-with pu-pleasure!" she moaned, and immediately, +uttering a loud yell, flung herself face downward upon the sofa, +clutching her governess convulsively. + +Somewhat disconcerted, Penrod bowed again. + +"I thank you for your polite acceptance," he murmured hurriedly; "and +I trust--I trust--I forget. Oh, yes--I trust we shall have a most +enjoyable occasion. Pray present my compliments to your parents; and I +must now wish you a very good afternoon." + +Concluding these courtly demonstrations with another bow he withdrew in +fair order, though thrown into partial confusion in the hall by a final +wail from his crushed hostess: + +"Oh! Why couldn't it be anybody but HIM!" + + + +CHAPTER XIII THE SMALLPOX MEDICINE + +Next morning Penrod woke in profound depression of spirit, the cotillon +ominous before him. He pictured Marjorie Jones and Maurice, graceful and +light-hearted, flitting by him fairylike, loosing silvery laughter upon +him as he engaged in the struggle to keep step with a partner about four +years and two feet his junior. It was hard enough for Penrod to keep +step with a girl of his size. + +The foreboding vision remained with him, increasing in vividness, +throughout the forenoon. He found himself unable to fix his mind +upon anything else, and, having bent his gloomy footsteps toward the +sawdust-box, after breakfast, presently descended therefrom, abandoning +Harold Ramorez where he had left him the preceding Saturday. Then, as he +sat communing silently with wistful Duke, in the storeroom, coquettish +fortune looked his way. + +It was the habit of Penrod's mother not to throw away anything +whatsoever until years of storage conclusively proved there would never +be a use for it; but a recent house-cleaning had ejected upon the back +porch a great quantity of bottles and other paraphernalia of medicine, +left over from illnesses in the family during a period of several years. +This debris Della, the cook, had collected in a large market basket, +adding to it some bottles of flavouring extracts that had proved +unpopular in the household; also, old catsup bottles; a jar or two of +preserves gone bad; various rejected dental liquids--and other things. +And she carried the basket out to the storeroom in the stable. + +Penrod was at first unaware of what lay before him. Chin on palms, he +sat upon the iron rim of a former aquarium and stared morbidly through +the open door at the checkered departing back of Della. It was another +who saw treasure in the basket she had left. + +Mr. Samuel Williams, aged eleven, and congenial to Penrod in years, +sex, and disposition, appeared in the doorway, shaking into foam a black +liquid within a pint bottle, stoppered by a thumb. + +"Yay, Penrod!" the visitor gave greeting. + +"Yay," said Penrod with slight enthusiasm. "What you got?" + +"Lickrish water." + +"Drinkin's!" demanded Penrod promptly. This is equivalent to the cry of +"Biters" when an apple is shown, and establishes unquestionable title. + +"Down to there!" stipulated Sam, removing his thumb to affix it firmly +as a mark upon the side of the bottle a check upon gormandizing that +remained carefully in place while Penrod drank. + +This rite concluded, the visitor's eye fell upon the basket deposited by +Della. He emitted tokens of pleasure. + +"Looky! Looky! Looky there! That ain't any good pile o' stuff--oh, no!" + +"What for?" + +"Drug store!" shouted Sam. "We'll be partners----" + +"Or else," Penrod suggested, "I'll run the drug store and you be a +customer----" + +"No! Partners!" insisted Sam with such conviction that his host yielded; +and within ten minutes the drug store was doing a heavy business with +imaginary patrons. Improvising counters with boards and boxes, and +setting forth a very druggish-looking stock from the basket, each of the +partners found occupation to his taste--Penrod as salesman and Sam as +prescription clerk. + +"Here you are, madam!" said Penrod briskly, offering a vial of Sam's +mixing to an invisible matron. "This will cure your husband in a few +minutes. Here's the camphor, mister. Call again! Fifty cents' worth of +pills? Yes, madam. There you are! Hurry up with that dose for the nigger +lady, Bill!" + +"I'll 'tend to it soon's I get time, Jim," replied the prescription +clerk. "I'm busy fixin' the smallpox medicine for the sick policeman +downtown." + +Penrod stopped sales to watch this operation. Sam had found an empty +pint bottle and, with the pursed lips and measuring eye of a great +chemist, was engaged in filling it from other bottles. + +First, he poured into it some of the syrup from the condemned preserves; +and a quantity of extinct hair oil; next the remaining contents of a +dozen small vials cryptically labelled with physicians' prescriptions; +then some remnants of catsup and essence of beef and what was left +in several bottles of mouthwash; after that a quantity of rejected +flavouring extract--topping off by shaking into the mouth of the +bottle various powders from small pink papers, relics of Mr. Schofield's +influenza of the preceding winter. + +Sam examined the combination with concern, appearing unsatisfied. "We +got to make that smallpox medicine good and strong!" he remarked; and, +his artistic sense growing more powerful than his appetite, he poured +about a quarter of the licorice water into the smallpox medicine. + +"What you doin'?" protested Penrod. "What you want to waste that +lickrish water for? We ought to keep it to drink when we're tired." + +"I guess I got a right to use my own lickrish water any way I want to," +replied the prescription clerk. "I tell you, you can't get smallpox +medicine too strong. Look at her now!" He held the bottle up admiringly. +"She's as black as lickrish. I bet you she's strong all right!" + +"I wonder how she tastes?" said Penrod thoughtfully. + +"Don't smell so awful much," observed Sam, sniffing the bottle--"a good +deal, though!" + +"I wonder if it'd make us sick to drink it?" said Penrod. + +Sam looked at the bottle thoughtfully; then his eye, wandering, fell +upon Duke, placidly curled up near the door, and lighted with the advent +of an idea new to him, but old, old in the world--older than Egypt! + +"Let's give Duke some!" he cried. + +That was the spark. They acted immediately; and a minute later Duke, +released from custody with a competent potion of the smallpox medicine +inside him, settled conclusively their doubts concerning its effect. The +patient animal, accustomed to expect the worst at all times, walked out +of the door, shaking his head with an air of considerable annoyance, +opening and closing his mouth with singular energy--and so repeatedly +that they began to count the number of times he did it. Sam thought it +was thirty-nine times, but Penrod had counted forty-one before other and +more striking symptoms appeared. + +All things come from Mother Earth and must return--Duke restored much +at this time. Afterward, he ate heartily of grass; and then, over his +shoulder, he bent upon his master one inscrutable look and departed +feebly to the front yard. + +The two boys had watched the process with warm interest. "I told you she +was strong!" said Mr. Williams proudly. + +"Yes, sir--she is!" Penrod was generous enough to admit. "I expect she's +strong enough----" He paused in thought, and added: + +"We haven't got a horse any more." + +"I bet you she'd fix him if you had!" said Sam. And it may be that this +was no idle boast. + +The pharmaceutical game was not resumed; the experiment upon Duke had +made the drug store commonplace and stimulated the appetite for stronger +meat. Lounging in the doorway, the near-vivisectionists sipped licorice +water alternately and conversed. + +"I bet some of our smallpox medicine would fix ole P'fessor Bartet all +right!" quoth Penrod. "I wish he'd come along and ask us for some." + +"We could tell him it was lickrish water," added Sam, liking the idea. +"The two bottles look almost the same." + +"Then we wouldn't have to go to his ole cotillon this afternoon," Penrod +sighed. "There wouldn't be any!" + +"Who's your partner, Pen?" + +"Who's yours?" + +"Who's yours? I just ast you." + +"Oh, she's all right!" And Penrod smiled boastfully. + +"I bet you wanted to dance with Marjorie!" said his friend. + +"Me? I wouldn't dance with that girl if she begged me to! I wouldn't +dance with her to save her from drowning! I wouldn't da----" + +"Oh, no--you wouldn't!" interrupted Mr. Williams skeptically. + +Penrod changed his tone and became persuasive. + +"Looky here, Sam," he said confidentially. "I've got 'a mighty nice +partner, but my mother don't like her mother; and so I've been thinking +I better not dance with her. I'll tell you what I'll do; I've got a +mighty good sling in the house, and I'll give it to you if you'll change +partners." + +"You want to change and you don't even know who mine is!" said Sam, and +he made the simple though precocious deduction: "Yours must be a lala! +Well, I invited Mabel Rorebeck, and she wouldn't let me change if +I wanted to. Mabel Rorebeck'd rather dance with me," he continued +serenely, "than anybody; and she said she was awful afraid you'd ast +her. But I ain't goin' to dance with Mabel after all, because this +morning she sent me a note about her uncle died last night--and P'fessor +Bartet'll have to find me a partner after I get there. Anyway I bet you +haven't got any sling--and I bet your partner's Baby Rennsdale!" + +"What if she is?" said Penrod. "She's good enough for ME!" This speech +held not so much modesty in solution as intended praise of the lady. +Taken literally, however, it was an understatement of the facts and +wholly insincere. + +"Yay!" jeered Mr. Williams, upon whom his friend's hypocrisy was quite +wasted. "How can your mother not like her mother? Baby Rennsdale hasn't +got any mother! You and her'll be a sight!" + +That was Penrod's own conviction; and with this corroboration of it +he grew so spiritless that he could offer no retort. He slid to a +despondent sitting posture upon the door sill and gazed wretchedly upon +the ground, while his companion went to replenish the licorice water at +the hydrant--enfeebling the potency of the liquor no doubt, but making +up for that in quantity. + +"Your mother goin' with you to the cotillon?" asked Sam when he +returned. + +"No. She's goin' to meet me there. She's goin' somewhere first." + +"So's mine," said Sam. "I'll come by for you." + +"All right." + +"I better go before long. Noon whistles been blowin'." + +"All right," Penrod repeated dully. + +Sam turned to go, but paused. A new straw hat was peregrinating along +the fence near the two boys. This hat belonged to someone passing upon +the sidewalk of the cross-street; and the someone was Maurice Levy. +Even as they stared, he halted and regarded them over the fence with two +small, dark eyes. + +Fate had brought about this moment and this confrontation. + + + +CHAPTER XIV MAURICE LEVY'S CONSTITUTION + +"Lo, Sam!" said Maurice cautiously. "What you doin'?" + +Penrod at that instant had a singular experience--an intellectual shock +like a flash of fire in the brain. Sitting in darkness, a great light +flooded him with wild brilliance. He gasped! + +"What you doin'?" repeated Mr. Levy. + +Penrod sprang to his feet, seized the licorice bottle, shook it with +stoppering thumb, and took a long drink with histrionic unction. + +"What you doin'?" asked Maurice for the third time, Sam Williams not +having decided upon a reply. + +It was Penrod who answered. + +"Drinkin' lickrish water," he said simply, and wiped his mouth with such +delicious enjoyment that Sam's jaded thirst was instantly stimulated. He +took the bottle eagerly from Penrod. + +"A-a-h!" exclaimed Penrod, smacking his lips. "That was a good un!" + +The eyes above the fence glistened. + +"Ask him if he don't want some," Penrod whispered urgently. "Quit +drinkin' it! It's no good any more. Ask him!" + +"What for?" demanded the practical Sam. + +"Go on and ask him!" whispered Penrod fiercely. + +"Say, M'rice!" Sam called, waving the bottle. "Want some?" + +"Bring it here!" Mr. Levy requested. + +"Come on over and get some," returned Sam, being prompted. + +"I can't. Penrod Schofield's after me." + +"No, I'm not," said Penrod reassuringly. "I won't touch you, M'rice. +I made up with you yesterday afternoon--don't you remember? You're all +right with me, M'rice." + +Maurice looked undecided. But Penrod had the delectable bottle again, +and tilting it above his lips, affected to let the cool liquid purl +enrichingly into him, while with his right hand he stroked his middle +facade ineffably. Maurice's mouth watered. + +"Here!" cried Sam, stirred again by the superb manifestations of his +friend. "Gimme that!" + +Penrod brought the bottle down, surprisingly full after so much gusto, +but withheld it from Sam; and the two scuffled for its possession. +Nothing in the world could have so worked upon the desire of the +yearning observer beyond the fence. + +"Honest, Penrod--you ain't goin' to touch me if I come in your yard?" he +called. "Honest?" + +"Cross my heart!" answered Penrod, holding the bottle away from Sam. +"And we'll let you drink all you want." + +Maurice hastily climbed the fence, and while he was thus occupied Mr. +Samuel Williams received a great enlightenment. With startling rapidity +Penrod, standing just outside the storeroom door, extended his arm +within the room, deposited the licorice water upon the counter of the +drug store, seized in its stead the bottle of smallpox medicine, and +extended it cordially toward the advancing Maurice. + +Genius is like that--great, simple, broad strokes! + +Dazzled, Mr. Samuel Williams leaned against the wall. He had +the sensations of one who comes suddenly into the presence of a +chef-d'oeuvre. Perhaps his first coherent thought was that almost +universal one on such huge occasions: "Why couldn't _I_ have done that!" + +Sam might have been even more dazzled had he guessed that he figured not +altogether as a spectator in the sweeping and magnificent conception of +the new Talleyrand. Sam had no partner for the cotillon. If Maurice +was to be absent from that festivity--as it began to seem he might +be--Penrod needed a male friend to take care of Miss Rennsdale and he +believed he saw his way to compel Mr. Williams to be that male friend. +For this he relied largely upon the prospective conduct of Miss +Rennsdale when he should get the matter before her--he was inclined to +believe she would favour the exchange. As for Talleyrand Penrod himself, +he was going to dance that cotillon with Marjorie Jones! + +"You can have all you can drink at one pull, M'rice," said Penrod +kindly. + +"You said I could have all I want!" protested Maurice, reaching for the +bottle. + +"No, I didn't," returned Penrod quickly, holding it away from the eager +hand. + +"He did, too! Didn't he, Sam?" + +Sam could not reply; his eyes, fixed upon the bottle, protruded +strangely. + +"You heard him--didn't you, Sam?" + +"Well, if I did say it I didn't mean it!" said Penrod hastily, quoting +from one of the authorities. "Looky here, M'rice," he continued, +assuming a more placative and reasoning tone, "that wouldn't be fair to +us. I guess we want some of our own lickrish water, don't we? The bottle +ain't much over two-thirds full anyway. What I meant was, you can have +all you can drink at one pull." + +"How do you mean?" + +"Why, this way: you can gulp all you want, so long as you keep +swallering; but you can't take the bottle out of your mouth and commence +again. Soon's you quit swallering it's Sam's turn." + +"No; you can have next, Penrod," said Sam. + +"Well, anyway, I mean M'rice has to give the bottle up the minute he +stops swallering." + +Craft appeared upon the face of Maurice, like a poster pasted on a wall. + +"I can drink so long I don't stop swallering?" + +"Yes; that's it." + +"All right!" he cried. "Gimme the bottle!" + +And Penrod placed it in his hand. + +"You promise to let me drink until I quit swallering?" Maurice insisted. + +"Yes!" said both boys together. + +With that, Maurice placed the bottle to his lips and began to drink. +Penrod and Sam leaned forward in breathless excitement. They had feared +Maurice might smell the contents of the bottle; but that danger was +past--this was the crucial moment. Their fondest hope was that he would +make his first swallow a voracious one--it was impossible to imagine a +second. They expected one big, gulping swallow and then an explosion, +with fountain effects. + +Little they knew the mettle of their man! Maurice swallowed once; he +swallowed twice--and thrice--and he continued to swallow! No Adam's +apple was sculptured on that juvenile throat, but the internal progress +of the liquid was not a whit the less visible. His eyes gleamed with +cunning and malicious triumph, sidewise, at the stunned conspirators; +he was fulfilling the conditions of the draught, not once breaking the +thread of that marvelous swallering. + +His audience stood petrified. Already Maurice had swallowed more than +they had given Duke and still the liquor receded in the uplifted bottle! +And now the clear glass gleamed above the dark contents full half the +vessel's length--and Maurice went on drinking! Slowly the clear glass +increased in its dimensions--slowly the dark diminished. + +Sam Williams made a horrified movement to check him--but Maurice +protested passionately with his disengaged arm, and made vehement vocal +noises remindful of the contract; whereupon Sam desisted and watched the +continuing performance in a state of grisly fascination. + +Maurice drank it all! He drained the last drop and threw the bottle in +the air, uttering loud ejaculations of triumph and satisfaction. + +"Hah!" he cried, blowing out his cheeks, inflating his chest, squaring +his shoulders, patting his stomach, and wiping his mouth contentedly. +"Hah! Aha! Waha! Wafwah! But that was good!" + +The two boys stood looking at him in stupor. + +"Well, I gotta say this," said Maurice graciously: "You stuck to your +bargain all right and treated me fair." + +Stricken with a sudden horrible suspicion, Penrod entered the storeroom +in one stride and lifted the bottle of licorice water to his nose--then +to his lips. It was weak, but good; he had made no mistake. And Maurice +had really drained--to the dregs--the bottle of old hair tonics, dead +catsups, syrups of undesirable preserves, condemned extracts of +vanilla and lemon, decayed chocolate, ex-essence of beef, mixed dental +preparations, aromatic spirits of ammonia, spirits of nitre, alcohol, +arnica, quinine, ipecac, sal volatile, nux vomica and licorice water-- +with traces of arsenic, belladonna and strychnine. + +Penrod put the licorice water out of sight and turned to face the +others. Maurice was seating himself on a box just outside the door and +had taken a package of cigarettes from his pocket. + +"Nobody can see me from here, can they?" he said, striking a match. "You +fellers smoke?" + +"No," said Sam, staring at him haggardly. + +"No," said Penrod in a whisper. + +Maurice lit his cigarette and puffed showily. + +"Well, sir," he remarked, "you fellers are certainly square--I gotta +say that much. Honest, Penrod, I thought you was after me! I did +think so," he added sunnily; "but now I guess you like me, or else +you wouldn't of stuck to it about lettin' me drink it all if I kept on +swallering." + +He chatted on with complete geniality, smoking his cigarette in content. +And as he ran from one topic to another his hearers stared at him in a +kind of torpor. Never once did they exchange a glance with each other; +their eyes were frozen to Maurice. The cheerful conversationalist made +it evident that he was not without gratitude. + +"Well," he said as he finished his cigarette and rose to go, "you +fellers have treated me nice and some day you come over to my yard; I'd +like to run with you fellers. You're the kind of fellers I like." + +Penrod's jaw fell; Sam's mouth had been open all the time. Neither +spoke. + +"I gotta go," observed Maurice, consulting a handsome watch. "Gotta get +dressed for the cotillon right after lunch. Come on, Sam. Don't you have +to go, too?" + +Sam nodded dazedly. + +"Well, good-bye, Penrod," said Maurice cordially. "I'm glad you like me +all right. Come on, Sam." + +Penrod leaned against the doorpost and with fixed and glazing eyes +watched the departure of his two visitors. Maurice was talking volubly, +with much gesticulation, as they went; but Sam walked mechanically +and in silence, staring at his brisk companion and keeping at a little +distance from him. + +They passed from sight, Maurice still conversing gayly--and Penrod +slowly betook himself into the house, his head bowed upon his chest. + + +Some three hours later, Mr. Samuel Williams, waxen clean and in sweet +raiment, made his reappearance in Penrod's yard, yodelling a code-signal +to summon forth his friend. He yodelled loud, long, and frequently, +finally securing a faint response from the upper air. + +"Where are you?" shouted Mr. Williams, his roving glance searching +ambient heights. Another low-spirited yodel reaching his ear, he +perceived the head and shoulders of his friend projecting above the +roofridge of the stable. The rest of Penrod's body was concealed from +view, reposing upon the opposite slant of the gable and precariously +secured by the crooking of his elbows over the ridge. + +"Yay! What you doin' up there?" + +"Nothin'." + +"You better be careful!" Sam called. "You'll slide off and fall down in +the alley if you don't look out. I come pert' near it last time we was +up there. Come on down! Ain't you goin' to the cotillon?" + +Penrod made no reply. Sam came nearer. + +"Say," he called up in a guarded voice, "I went to our telephone a while +ago and ast him how he was feelin', and he said he felt fine!" + +"So did I," said Penrod. "He told me he felt bully!" + +Sam thrust his hands in his pockets and brooded. The opening of the +kitchen door caused a diversion. It was Della. + +"Mister Penrod," she bellowed forthwith, "come ahn down fr'm up there! +Y'r mamma's at the dancin' class waitin' fer ye, an' she's telephoned +me they're goin' to begin--an' what's the matter with ye? Come ahn down +fr'm up there!" + +"Come on!" urged Sam. "We'll be late. There go Maurice and Marjorie +now." + +A glittering car spun by, disclosing briefly a genre picture of Marjorie +Jones in pink, supporting a monstrous sheaf of American Beauty roses. +Maurice, sitting shining and joyous beside her, saw both boys and waved +them a hearty greeting as the car turned the corner. + +Penrod uttered some muffled words and then waved both arms--either in +response or as an expression of his condition of mind; it may have +been a gesture of despair. How much intention there was in this +act--obviously so rash, considering the position he occupied--it +is impossible to say. Undeniably there must remain a suspicion of +deliberate purpose. + +Della screamed and Sam shouted. Penrod had disappeared from view. + +The delayed dance was about to begin a most uneven cotillon when Samuel +Williams arrived. + +Mrs. Schofield hurriedly left the ballroom; while Miss Rennsdale, +flushing with sudden happiness, curtsied profoundly to Professor Bartet +and obtained his attention. + +"I have telled you fifty times," he informed her passionately ere she +spoke, "I cannot make no such changes. If your partner comes you have to +dance with him. You are going to drive me crazy, sure! What is it? What +now? What you want?" + +The damsel curtsied again and handed him the following communication, +addressed to herself: + + +"Dear madam Please excuse me from dancing the cotilon with you +this afternoon as I have fell off the barn + +"Sincerly yours + +"PENROD SCHOFIELD." + + + +CHAPTER XV THE TWO FAMILIES + +Penrod entered the schoolroom, Monday picturesquely leaning upon a man's +cane shortened to support a cripple approaching the age of twelve. He +arrived about twenty minutes late, limping deeply, his brave young mouth +drawn with pain, and the sensation he created must have been a solace to +him; the only possible criticism of this entrance being that it was just +a shade too heroic. Perhaps for that reason it failed to stagger Miss +Spence, a woman so saturated with suspicion that she penalized Penrod +for tardiness as promptly and as coldly as if he had been a mere, +ordinary, unmutilated boy. Nor would she entertain any discussion of the +justice of her ruling. It seemed, almost, that she feared to argue with +him. + +However, the distinction of cane and limp remained to him, consolations +which he protracted far into the week--until Thursday evening, in fact, +when Mr. Schofield, observing from a window his son's pursuit of Duke +round and round the backyard, confiscated the cane, with the promise +that it should not remain idle if he saw Penrod limping again. Thus, +succeeding a depressing Friday, another Saturday brought the necessity +for new inventions. + +It was a scented morning in apple-blossom time. At about ten of the +clock Penrod emerged hastily from the kitchen door. His pockets bulged +abnormally; so did his checks, and he swallowed with difficulty. A +threatening mop, wielded by a cooklike arm in a checkered sleeve, +followed him through the doorway, and he was preceded by a small, +hurried, wistful dog with a warm doughnut in his mouth. The kitchen door +slammed petulantly, enclosing the sore voice of Della, whereupon Penrod +and Duke seated themselves upon the pleasant sward and immediately +consumed the spoils of their raid. + +From the cross-street which formed the side boundary of the Schofields' +ample yard came a jingle of harness and the cadenced clatter of a pair +of trotting horses, and Penrod, looking up, beheld the passing of a +fat acquaintance, torpid amid the conservative splendours of a rather +old-fashioned victoria. This was Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, a +fellow sufferer at the Friday Afternoon Dancing Class, but otherwise not +often a companion: a home-sheltered lad, tutored privately and preserved +against the coarsening influences of rude comradeship and miscellaneous +information. Heavily overgrown in all physical dimensions, virtuous, +and placid, this cloistered mutton was wholly uninteresting to Penrod +Schofield. Nevertheless, Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, was a +personage on account of the importance of the Magsworth Bitts family; +and it was Penrod's destiny to increase Roderick's celebrity far, far +beyond its present aristocratic limitations. + +The Magsworth Bittses were important because they were impressive; there +was no other reason. And they were impressive because they believed +themselves important. The adults of the family were impregnably formal; +they dressed with reticent elegance, and wore the same nose and the +same expression--an expression which indicated that they knew something +exquisite and sacred which other people could never know. Other people, +in their presence, were apt to feel mysteriously ignoble and to +become secretly uneasy about ancestors, gloves, and pronunciation. The +Magsworth Bitts manner was withholding and reserved, though sometimes +gracious, granting small smiles as great favours and giving off a +chilling kind of preciousness. Naturally, when any citizen of the +community did anything unconventional or improper, or made a mistake, or +had a relative who went wrong, that citizen's first and worst fear +was that the Magsworth Bittses would hear of it. In fact, this painful +family had for years terrorized the community, though the community +had never realized that it was terrorized, and invariably spoke of the +family as the "most charming circle in town." By common consent, Mrs. +Roderick Magsworth Bitts officiated as the supreme model as well as +critic-in-chief of morals and deportment for all the unlucky people +prosperous enough to be elevated to her acquaintance. + +Magsworth was the important part of the name. Mrs. Roderick Magsworth +Bitts was a Magsworth born, herself, and the Magsworth crest decorated +not only Mrs. Magsworth Bitts' note-paper but was on the china, on the +table linen, on the chimney-pieces, on the opaque glass of the front +door, on the victoria, and on the harness, though omitted from the +garden-hose and the lawn-mower. + +Naturally, no sensible person dreamed of connecting that illustrious +crest with the unfortunate and notorious Rena Magsworth whose name had +grown week by week into larger and larger type upon the front pages of +newspapers, owing to the gradually increasing public and official belief +that she had poisoned a family of eight. However, the statement that no +sensible person could have connected the Magsworth Bitts family with the +arsenical Rena takes no account of Penrod Schofield. + +Penrod never missed a murder, a hanging or an electrocution in the +newspapers; he knew almost as much about Rena Magsworth as her jurymen +did, though they sat in a court-room two hundred miles away, and he had +it in mind--so frank he was--to ask Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, if +the murderess happened to be a relative. + +The present encounter, being merely one of apathetic greeting, did not +afford the opportunity. Penrod took off his cap, and Roderick, seated +between his mother and one of his grown-up sisters, nodded sluggishly, +but neither Mrs. Magsworth Bitts nor her daughter acknowledged the +salutation of the boy in the yard. They disapproved of him as a +person of little consequence, and that little, bad. Snubbed, Penrod +thoughtfully restored his cap to his head. A boy can be cut as +effectually as a man, and this one was chilled to a low temperature. He +wondered if they despised him because they had seen a last fragment of +doughnut in his hand; then he thought that perhaps it was Duke who had +disgraced him. Duke was certainly no fashionable looking dog. + +The resilient spirits of youth, however, presently revived, and +discovering a spider upon one knee and a beetle simultaneously upon the +other, Penrod forgot Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts in the course of +some experiments infringing upon the domain of Doctor Carrel. Penrod's +efforts--with the aid of a pin--to effect a transference of living +organism were unsuccessful; but he convinced himself forever that a +spider cannot walk with a beetle's legs. Della then enhanced zoological +interest by depositing upon the back porch a large rat-trap from the +cellar, the prison of four live rats awaiting execution. + +Penrod at once took possession, retiring to the empty stable, where +he installed the rats in a small wooden box with a sheet of broken +window-glass--held down by a brickbat--over the top. Thus the symptoms +of their agitation, when the box was shaken or hammered upon, could be +studied at leisure. Altogether this Saturday was starting splendidly. + +After a time, the student's attention was withdrawn from his specimens +by a peculiar smell, which, being followed up by a system of selective +sniffing, proved to be an emanation leaking into the stable from the +alley. He opened the back door. + +Across the alley was a cottage which a thrifty neighbour had built on +the rear line of his lot and rented to negroes; and the fact that a +negro family was now in process of "moving in" was manifested by the +presence of a thin mule and a ramshackle wagon, the latter laden +with the semblance of a stove and a few other unpretentious household +articles. + +A very small darky boy stood near the mule. In his hand was a rusty +chain, and at the end of the chain the delighted Penrod perceived the +source of the special smell he was tracing--a large raccoon. Duke, +who had shown not the slightest interest in the rats, set up a frantic +barking and simulated a ravening assault upon the strange animal. It +was only a bit of acting, however, for Duke was an old dog, had suffered +much, and desired no unnecessary sorrow, wherefore he confined his +demonstrations to alarums and excursions, and presently sat down at +a distance and expressed himself by intermittent threatenings in a +quavering falsetto. + +"What's that 'coon's name?" asked Penrod, intending no discourtesy. + +"Aim gommo mame," said the small darky. + +"What?" + +"Aim gommo mame." + +"WHAT?" + +The small darky looked annoyed. + +"Aim GOMMO mame, I hell you," he said impatiently. + +Penrod conceived that insult was intended. + +"What's the matter of you?" he demanded advancing. "You get fresh with +ME, and I'll----" + +"Hyuh, white boy!" A coloured youth of Penrod's own age appeared in +the doorway of the cottage. "You let 'at brothuh mine alone. He ain' do +nothin' to you." + +"Well, why can't he answer?" + +"He can't. He can't talk no better'n what he WAS talkin'. He +tongue-tie'." + +"Oh," said Penrod, mollified. Then, obeying an impulse so universally +aroused in the human breast under like circumstances that it has become +a quip, he turned to the afflicted one. + +"Talk some more," he begged eagerly. + +"I hoe you ackoom aim gommo mame," was the prompt response, in which +a slight ostentation was manifest. Unmistakable tokens of vanity had +appeared upon the small, swart countenance. + +"What's he mean?" asked Penrod, enchanted. + +"He say he tole you 'at 'coon ain' got no name." + +"What's YOUR name?" + +"I'm name Herman." + +"What's his name?" Penrod pointed to the tongue-tied boy. + +"Verman." + +"What!" + +"Verman. Was three us boys in ow fam'ly. Ol'est one name Sherman. 'N'en +come me; I'm Herman. 'N'en come him; he Verman. Sherman dead. Verman, he +de littles' one." + +"You goin' to live here?" + +"Umhuh. Done move in f'm way outen on a fahm." + +He pointed to the north with his right hand, and Penrod's eyes opened +wide as they followed the gesture. Herman had no forefinger on that +hand. + +"Look there!" exclaimed Penrod. "You haven't got any finger!" + +"_I_ mum map," said Verman, with egregious pride. + +"HE done 'at," interpreted Herman, chuckling. "Yessuh; done chop 'er +spang off, long 'go. He's a playin' wif a ax an' I lay my finguh on de +do'-sill an' I say, 'Verman, chop 'er off!' So Verman he chop 'er right +spang off up to de roots! Yessuh." + +"What FOR?" + +"Jes' fo' nothin'." + +"He hoe me hoo," remarked Verman. + +"Yessuh, I tole him to," said Herman, "an' he chop 'er off, an' ey ain't +airy oth' one evuh grown on wheres de ole one use to grow. Nosuh!" + +"But what'd you tell him to do it for?" + +"Nothin'. I 'es' said it 'at way--an' he jes' chop er off!" + +Both brothers looked pleased and proud. Penrod's profound interest was +flatteringly visible, a tribute to their unusualness. + +"Hem bow goy," suggested Verman eagerly. + +"Aw ri'," said Herman. "Ow sistuh Queenie, she a growed-up woman; she +got a goituh." + +"Got a what?" + +"Goituh. Swellin' on her neck--grea' big swellin'. She heppin' mammy +move in now. You look in de front-room winduh wheres she sweepin'; you +kin see it on her." + +Penrod looked in the window and was rewarded by a fine view of Queenie's +goitre. He had never before seen one, and only the lure of further +conversation on the part of Verman brought him from the window. + +"Verman say tell you 'bout pappy," explained Herman. "Mammy an' Queenie +move in town an' go git de house all fix up befo' pappy git out." + +"Out of where?" + +"Jail. Pappy cut a man, an' de police done kep' him in jail evuh sense +Chris'mus-time; but dey goin' tuhn him loose ag'in nex' week." + +"What'd he cut the other man with?" + +"Wif a pitchfawk." + +Penrod began to feel that a lifetime spent with this fascinating family +were all too short. The brothers, glowing with amiability, were as +enraptured as he. For the first time in their lives they moved in the +rich glamour of sensationalism. Herman was prodigal of gesture with his +right hand; and Verman, chuckling with delight, talked fluently, +though somewhat consciously. They cheerfully agreed to keep the +raccoon--already beginning to be mentioned as "our 'coon" by Penrod--in +Mr. Schofield's empty stable, and, when the animal had been chained to +the wall near the box of rats and supplied with a pan of fair water, +they assented to their new friend's suggestion (inspired by a fine +sense of the artistic harmonies) that the heretofore nameless pet be +christened Sherman, in honour of their deceased relative. + +At this juncture was heard from the front yard the sound of that +yodelling which is the peculiar accomplishment of those whose voices +have not "changed." Penrod yodelled a response; and Mr. Samuel Williams +appeared, a large bundle under his arm. + +"Yay, Penrod!" was his greeting, casual enough from without; but, having +entered, he stopped short and emitted a prodigious whistle. "YA-A-AY!" +he then shouted. "Look at the 'coon!" + +"I guess you better say, 'Look at the 'coon!'" Penrod returned proudly. +"They's a good deal more'n him to look at, too. Talk some, Verman." +Verman complied. + +Sam was warmly interested. "What'd you say his name was?" he asked. + +"Verman." + +"How d'you spell it?" + +"V-e-r-m-a-n," replied Penrod, having previously received this +information from Herman. + +"Oh!" said Sam. + +"Point to sumpthing, Herman," Penrod commanded, and Sam's excitement, +when Herman pointed was sufficient to the occasion. + +Penrod, the discoverer, continued his exploitation of the manifold +wonders of the Sherman, Herman, and Verman collection. With the air of +a proprietor he escorted Sam into the alley for a good look at Queenie +(who seemed not to care for her increasing celebrity) and proceeded to +a dramatic climax--the recital of the episode of the pitchfork and its +consequences. + +The cumulative effect was enormous, and could have but one possible +result. The normal boy is always at least one half Barnum. + +"Let's get up a SHOW!" + +Penrod and Sam both claimed to have said it first, a question left +unsettled in the ecstasies of hurried preparation. The bundle under +Sam's arm, brought with no definite purpose, proved to have been +an inspiration. It consisted of broad sheets of light yellow +wrapping-paper, discarded by Sam's mother in her spring house-cleaning. +There were half-filled cans and buckets of paint in the storeroom +adjoining the carriage-house, and presently the side wall of the stable +flamed information upon the passer-by from a great and spreading poster. + +"Publicity," primal requisite of all theatrical and amphitheatrical +enterprise thus provided, subsequent arrangements proceeded with a fury +of energy which transformed the empty hayloft. True, it is impossible to +say just what the hay-loft was transformed into, but history warrantably +clings to the statement that it was transformed. Duke and Sherman were +secured to the rear wall at a considerable distance from each other, +after an exhibition of reluctance on the part of Duke, during which he +displayed a nervous energy and agility almost miraculous in so small and +middle-aged a dog. Benches were improvised for spectators; the rats +were brought up; finally the rafters, corn-crib, and hay-chute were +ornamented with flags and strips of bunting from Sam Williams' +attic, Sam returning from the excursion wearing an old silk hat, and +accompanied (on account of a rope) by a fine dachshund encountered on +the highway. In the matter of personal decoration paint was generously +used: an interpretation of the spiral, inclining to whites and greens, +becoming brilliantly effective upon the dark facial backgrounds of +Herman and Verman; while the countenances of Sam and Penrod were each +supplied with the black moustache and imperial, lacking which, no +professional showman can be esteemed conscientious. + +It was regretfully decided, in council, that no attempt be made to add +Queenie to the list of exhibits, her brothers warmly declining to act as +ambassadors in that cause. They were certain Queenie would not like +the idea, they said, and Herman picturesquely described her activity +on occasions when she had been annoyed by too much attention to her +appearance. However, Penrod's disappointment was alleviated by an +inspiration which came to him in a moment of pondering upon the +dachshund, and the entire party went forth to add an enriching line to +the poster. + +They found a group of seven, including two adults, already gathered in +the street to read and admire this work. + + SCHoFiELD & WiLLiAMS + BiG SHOW + ADMiSSioN 1 CENT oR 20 PiNS + MUSUEM oF CURioSiTES + Now GoiNG oN + SHERMAN HERMAN & VERMAN + THiER FATHERS iN JAiL STABED A + MAN WiTH A + PiTCHFORK + SHERMAN THE WiLD ANIMAL + CAPTURED iN AFRiCA + HERMAN THE ONE FiNGERED TATOOD + WILD MAN VERMAN THE SAVAGE TATOOD + WILD BoY TALKS ONLY iN HiS NAiTiVE + LANGUAGS. Do NoT FAIL TO SEE DUKE + THE INDiAN DOG ALSO THE MiCHiGAN + TRAiNED RATS + +A heated argument took place between Sam and Penrod, the point at issue +being settled, finally, by the drawing of straws; whereupon Penrod, with +pardonable self-importance--in the presence of an audience now increased +to nine--slowly painted the words inspired by the dachshund: + + IMPoRTENT Do NoT MISS THE SoUTH + AMERiCAN DoG PART ALLIGATOR. + + + +CHAPTER XVI THE NEW STAR + +Sam, Penrod, Herman, and Verman withdrew in considerable state from +non-paying view, and, repairing to the hay-loft, declared the exhibition +open to the public. Oral proclamation was made by Sam, and then the +loitering multitude was enticed by the seductive strains of a band; the +two partners performing upon combs and paper, Herman and Verman upon tin +pans with sticks. + +The effect was immediate. Visitors appeared upon the stairway and sought +admission. Herman and Verman took position among the exhibits, near +the wall; Sam stood at the entrance, officiating as barker and +ticket-seller; while Penrod, with debonair suavity, acted as curator, +master of ceremonies, and lecturer. He greeted the first to enter with a +courtly bow. They consisted of Miss Rennsdale and her nursery governess, +and they paid spot cash for their admission. + +"Walk in, lay-deeze, walk right in--pray do not obstruck the +passageway," said Penrod, in a remarkable voice. "Pray be seated; there +is room for each and all." + +Miss Rennsdale and governess were followed by Mr. Georgie Bassett and +baby sister (which proves the perfection of Georgie's character) and +six or seven other neighbourhood children--a most satisfactory audience, +although, subsequent to Miss Rennsdale and governess, admission was +wholly by pin. + +"GEN-til-mun and LAY-deeze," shouted Penrod, "I will first call your +at-tain-shon to our genuine South American dog, part alligator!" He +pointed to the dachshund, and added, in his ordinary tone, "That's him." +Straightway reassuming the character of showman, he bellowed: "NEXT, +you see Duke, the genuine, full-blooded Indian dog from the far Western +Plains and Rocky Mountains. NEXT, the trained Michigan rats, captured +way up there, and trained to jump and run all around the box at the--at +the--at the slightest PRE-text!" He paused, partly to take breath and +partly to enjoy his own surprised discovery that this phrase was in his +vocabulary. + +"At the slightest PRE-text!" he repeated, and continued, suiting the +action to the word: "I will now hammer upon the box and each and all may +see these genuine full-blooded Michigan rats perform at the slightest +PRE-text! There! (That's all they do now, but I and Sam are goin' to +train 'em lots more before this afternoon.) GEN-til-mun and LAY-deeze I +will kindly now call your at-tain-shon to Sherman, the wild animal +from Africa, costing the lives of the wild trapper and many of his +companions. NEXT, let me kindly interodoos Herman and Verman. Their +father got mad and stuck his pitchfork right inside of another man, +exactly as promised upon the advertisements outside the big tent, and +got put in jail. Look at them well, gen-til-mun and lay-deeze, there is +no extra charge, and RE-MEM-BUR you are each and all now looking at two +wild, tattooed men which the father of is in jail. Point, Herman. Each +and all will have a chance to see. Point to sumpthing else, Herman. +This is the only genuine one-fingered tattooed wild man. Last on +the programme, gen-til-mun and lay-deeze, we have Verman, the savage +tattooed wild boy, that can't speak only his native foreign languages. +Talk some, Verman." + +Verman obliged and made an instantaneous hit. He was encored +rapturously, again and again; and, thrilling with the unique pleasure of +being appreciated and misunderstood at the same time, would have talked +all day but too gladly. Sam Williams, however, with a true showman's +foresight, whispered to Penrod, who rang down on the monologue. + +"GEN-til-mun and LAY-deeze, this closes our pufformance. Pray pass out +quietly and with as little jostling as possible. As soon as you are all +out there's goin' to be a new pufformance, and each and all are welcome +at the same and simple price of admission. Pray pass out quietly and +with as little jostling as possible. RE-MEM-BUR the price is only one +cent, the tenth part of a dime, or twenty pins, no bent ones taken. Pray +pass out quietly and with as little jostling as possible. The Schofield +and Williams Military Band will play before each pufformance, and each +and all are welcome for the same and simple price of admission. Pray +pass out quietly and with as little jostling as possible." + +Forthwith, the Schofield and Williams Military Band began a second +overture, in which something vaguely like a tune was at times +distinguishable; and all of the first audience returned, most of them +having occupied the interval in hasty excursions for more pins; Miss +Rennsdale and governess, however, again paying coin of the Republic and +receiving deference and the best seats accordingly. And when a third +performance found all of the same inveterate patrons once more crowding +the auditorium, and seven recruits added, the pleasurable excitement of +the partners in their venture will be understood by any one who has seen +a metropolitan manager strolling about the foyer of his theatre some +evening during the earlier stages of an assured "phenomenal run." + +From the first, there was no question which feature of the entertainment +was the attraction extraordinary: Verman--Verman, the savage tattooed +wild boy, speaking only his native foreign languages--Verman was a +triumph! Beaming, wreathed in smiles, melodious, incredibly fluent, +he had but to open his lips and a dead hush fell upon the audience. +Breathless, they leaned forward, hanging upon his every semi-syllable, +and, when Penrod checked the flow, burst into thunders of applause, +which Verman received with happy laughter. + +Alas! he delayed not o'er long to display all the egregiousness of a +new star; but for a time there was no caprice of his too eccentric to +be forgiven. During Penrod's lecture upon the other curios, the tattooed +wild boy continually stamped his foot, grinned, and gesticulated, +tapping his tiny chest, and pointing to himself as it were to say: "Wait +for Me! I am the Big Show." So soon they learn; so soon they learn! And +(again alas!) this spoiled darling of public favour, like many another, +was fated to know, in good time, the fickleness of that favour. + +But during all the morning performances he was the idol of his audience +and looked it! The climax of his popularity came during the fifth +overture of the Schofield and Williams Military Band, when the music +was quite drowned in the agitated clamours of Miss Rennsdale, who was +endeavouring to ascend the stairs in spite of the physical dissuasion of +her governess. + +"I WON'T go home to lunch!" screamed Miss Rennsdale, her voice +accompanied by a sound of ripping. "I WILL hear the tattooed wild boy +talk some more! It's lovely--I WILL hear him talk! I WILL! I WILL! I +want to listen to Verman--I WANT to--I WANT to----" + +Wailing, she was borne away--of her sex not the first to be fascinated +by obscurity, nor the last to champion its eloquence. + +Verman was almost unendurable after this, but, like many, many other +managers, Schofield and Williams restrained their choler, and even +laughed fulsomely when their principal attraction essayed the role of a +comedian in private, and capered and squawked in sheer, fatuous vanity. + +The first performance of the afternoon rivalled the successes of the +morning, and although Miss Rennsdale was detained at home, thus drying +up the single source of cash income developed before lunch, Maurice Levy +appeared, escorting Marjorie Jones, and paid coin for two admissions, +dropping the money into Sam's hand with a careless--nay, a +contemptuous--gesture. At sight of Marjorie, Penrod Schofield flushed +under his new moustache (repainted since noon) and lectured as he had +never lectured before. A new grace invested his every gesture; a new +sonorousness rang in his voice; a simple and manly pomposity marked +his very walk as he passed from curio to curio. And when he fearlessly +handled the box of rats and hammered upon it with cool insouciance, he +beheld--for the first time in his life--a purl of admiration eddying in +Marjorie's lovely eye, a certain softening of that eye. And then Verman +spake and Penrod was forgotten. Marjorie's eye rested upon him no more. + +A heavily equipped chauffeur ascended the stairway, bearing the message +that Mrs. Levy awaited her son and his lady. Thereupon, having devoured +the last sound permitted (by the managers) to issue from Verman, Mr. +Levy and Miss Jones departed to a real matinee at a real theatre, the +limpid eyes of Marjorie looking back softly over her shoulder--but only +at the tattooed wild boy. Nearly always it is woman who puts the irony +into life. + +After this, perhaps because of sated curiosity, perhaps on account of a +pin famine, the attendance began to languish. Only four responded to +the next call of the band; the four dwindled to three; finally the +entertainment was given for one blase auditor, and Schofield and +Williams looked depressed. Then followed an interval when the band +played in vain. + +About three o'clock Schofield and Williams were gloomily discussing +various unpromising devices for startling the public into a renewal of +interest, when another patron unexpectedly appeared and paid a cent for +his admission. News of the Big Show and Museum of Curiosities had at +last penetrated the far, cold spaces of interstellar niceness, for this +new patron consisted of no less than Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, +escaped in a white "sailor suit" from the Manor during a period of +severe maternal and tutorial preoccupation. + +He seated himself without parley, and the pufformance was offered for +his entertainment with admirable conscientiousness. True to the Lady +Clara caste and training, Roderick's pale, fat face expressed nothing +except an impervious superiority and, as he sat, cold and unimpressed +upon the front bench, like a large, white lump, it must be said that +he made a discouraging audience "to play to." He was not, however, +unresponsive--far from it. He offered comment very chilling to the warm +grandiloquence of the orator. + +"That's my uncle Ethelbert's dachshund," he remarked, at the beginning +of the lecture. "You better take him back if you don't want to get +arrested." And when Penrod, rather uneasily ignoring the interruption, +proceeded to the exploitation of the genuine, full-blooded Indian dog, +Duke, "Why don't you try to give that old dog away?" asked Roderick. +"You couldn't sell him." + +"My papa would buy me a lots better 'coon than that," was the +information volunteered a little later, "only I wouldn't want the nasty +old thing." + +Herman of the missing finger obtained no greater indulgence. "Pooh!" +said Roderick. "We have two fox-terriers in our stables that took prizes +at the kennel show, and their tails were BIT off. There's a man that +always bites fox-terriers' tails off." + +"Oh, my gosh, what a lie!" exclaimed Sam Williams ignorantly. + +"Go on with the show whether he likes it or not, Penrod. He's paid his +money." + +Verman, confident in his own singular powers, chuckled openly at the +failure of the other attractions to charm the frosty visitor, and, +when his turn came, poured forth a torrent of conversation which was +straightway damned. + +"Rotten," said Mr. Bitts languidly. "Anybody could talk like that. _I_ +could do it if I wanted to." + +Verman paused suddenly. + +"YES, you could!" exclaimed Penrod, stung. "Let's hear you do it, then." + +"Yessir!" the other partner shouted. "Let's just hear you DO it!" + +"I said I could if I wanted to," responded Roderick. "I didn't say I +WOULD." + +"Yay! Knows he can't!" sneered Sam. + +"I can, too, if I try." + +"Well, let's hear you try!" + +So challenged, the visitor did try, but, in the absence of an impartial +jury, his effort was considered so pronounced a failure that he was +howled down, derided, and mocked with great clamours. + +"Anyway," said Roderick, when things had quieted down, "if I couldn't +get up a better show than this I'd sell out and leave town." + +Not having enough presence of mind to inquire what he would sell out, +his adversaries replied with mere formless yells of scorn. + +"I could get up a better show than this with my left hand," Roderick +asserted. + +"Well, what would you have in your ole show?" asked Penrod, +condescending to language. + +"That's all right, what I'd HAVE. I'd have enough!" + +"You couldn't get Herman and Verman in your ole show." + +"No, and I wouldn't want 'em, either!" + +"Well, what WOULD you have?" insisted Penrod derisively. "You'd have to +have SUMPTHING--you couldn't be a show yourself!" + +"How do YOU know?" This was but meandering while waiting for ideas, and +evoked another yell. + +"You think you could be a show all by yourself?" demanded Penrod. + +"How do YOU know I couldn't?" + +Two white boys and two black boys shrieked their scorn of the boaster. + +"I could, too!" Roderick raised his voice to a sudden howl, obtaining a +hearing. + +"Well, why don't you tell us how?" + +"Well, _I_ know HOW, all right," said Roderick. "If anybody asks you, +you can just tell him I know HOW, all right." + +"Why, you can't DO anything," Sam began argumentatively. "You talk +about being a show all by yourself; what could you try to do? Show us +sumpthing you can do." + +"I didn't say I was going to DO anything," returned the badgered one, +still evading. + +"Well, then, how'd you BE a show?" Penrod demanded. "WE got a show here, +even if Herman didn't point or Verman didn't talk. Their father stabbed +a man with a pitchfork, I guess, didn't he?" + +"How do _I_ know?" + +"Well, I guess he's in jail, ain't he?" + +"Well, what if their father is in jail? I didn't say he wasn't, did I?" + +"Well, YOUR father ain't in jail, is he?" + +"Well, I never said he was, did I?" + +"Well, then," continued Penrod, "how could you be a----" He stopped +abruptly, staring at Roderick, the birth of an idea plainly visible in +his altered expression. He had suddenly remembered his intention to +ask Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, about Rena Magsworth, and this +recollection collided in his mind with the irritation produced by +Roderick's claiming some mysterious attainment which would warrant his +setting up as a show in his single person. Penrod's whole manner changed +instantly. + +"Roddy," he asked, almost overwhelmed by a prescience of something vast +and magnificent, "Roddy, are you any relation of Rena Magsworth?" + +Roderick had never heard of Rena Magsworth, although a concentration +of the sentence yesterday pronounced upon her had burned, black and +horrific, upon the face of every newspaper in the country. He was not +allowed to read the journals of the day and his family's indignation +over the sacrilegious coincidence of the name had not been expressed in +his presence. But he saw that it was an awesome name to Penrod Schofield +and Samuel Williams. Even Herman and Verman, though lacking many +educational advantages on account of a long residence in the country, +were informed on the subject of Rena Magsworth through hearsay, and they +joined in the portentous silence. + +"Roddy," repeated Penrod, "honest, is Rena Magsworth some relation of +yours?" + +There is no obsession more dangerous to its victims than a conviction +especially an inherited one--of superiority: this world is so full +of Missourians. And from his earliest years Roderick Magsworth Bitts, +Junior, had been trained to believe in the importance of the Magsworth +family. At every meal he absorbed a sense of Magsworth greatness, and +yet, in his infrequent meetings with persons of his own age and sex, +he was treated as negligible. Now, dimly, he perceived that there was +a Magsworth claim of some sort which was impressive, even to boys. +Magsworth blood was the essential of all true distinction in the world, +he knew. Consequently, having been driven into a cul-de-sac, as a result +of flagrant and unfounded boasting, he was ready to take advantage of +what appeared to be a triumphal way out. + +"Roddy," said Penrod again, with solemnity, "is Rena Magsworth some +relation of yours?" + +"IS she, Roddy?" asked Sam, almost hoarsely. + +"She's my aunt!" shouted Roddy. + +Silence followed. Sam and Penrod, spellbound, gazed upon Roderick +Magsworth Bitts, Junior. So did Herman and Verman. Roddy's staggering +lie had changed the face of things utterly. No one questioned it; no one +realized that it was much too good to be true. + +"Roddy," said Penrod, in a voice tremulous with hope, "Roddy, will you +join our show?" + +Roddy joined. + +Even he could see that the offer implied his being starred as the +paramount attraction of a new order of things. It was obvious that he +had swelled out suddenly, in the estimation of the other boys, to that +importance which he had been taught to believe his native gift and +natural right. The sensation was pleasant. He had often been treated +with effusion by grown-up callers and by acquaintances of his mothers +and sisters; he had heard ladies speak of him as "charming" and "that +delightful child," and little girls had sometimes shown him deference, +but until this moment no boy had ever allowed him, for one moment, to +presume even to equality. Now, in a trice, he was not only admitted +to comradeship, but patently valued as something rare and sacred to be +acclaimed and pedestalled. In fact, the very first thing that Schofield +and Williams did was to find a box for him to stand upon. + +The misgivings roused in Roderick's bosom by the subsequent activities +of the firm were not bothersome enough to make him forego his prominence +as Exhibit A. He was not a "quick-minded" boy, and it was long (and +much happened) before he thoroughly comprehended the causes of his new +celebrity. He had a shadowy feeling that if the affair came to be heard +of at home it might not be liked, but, intoxicated by the glamour and +bustle which surround a public character, he made no protest. On the +contrary, he entered whole-heartedly into the preparations for the +new show. Assuming, with Sam's assistance, a blue moustache and +"side-burns," he helped in the painting of a new poster, which, +supplanting the old one on the wall of the stable facing the +cross-street, screamed bloody murder at the passers in that rather +populous thoroughfare. + + SCHoFiELD & WiLLiAMS + NEW BIG SHoW + RoDERiCK MAGSWoRTH BiTTS JR + ONLY LiViNG NEPHEW + oF + RENA MAGSWORTH + THE FAMOS + MUDERESS GoiNG To BE HUNG + NEXT JULY KiLED EiGHT PEOPLE + PUT ARSiNECK iN THiER MiLK ALSO + SHERMAN HERMAN AND VERMAN + THE MiCHiGAN RATS DOG PART + ALLiGATOR DUKE THE GENUiNE + InDiAN DoG ADMISSioN 1 CENT oR + 20 PINS SAME AS BEFORE Do NoT + MISS THIS CHANSE TO SEE RoDERICK + ONLY LiViNG NEPHEW oF RENA + MAGSWORTH THE GREAT FAMOS + MUDERESS + GoiNG To BE + HUNG + + + +CHAPTER XVII RETIRING FROM THE SHOW-BUSINESS + +Megaphones were constructed out of heavy wrapping-paper, and Penrod, +Sam, and Herman set out in different directions, delivering vocally +the inflammatory proclamation of the poster to a large section of the +residential quarter, and leaving Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, with +Verman in the loft, shielded from all deadhead eyes. Upon the return +of the heralds, the Schofield and Williams Military Band played +deafeningly, and an awakened public once more thronged to fill the +coffers of the firm. + +Prosperity smiled again. The very first audience after the acquisition +of Roderick was larger than the largest of the morning. Master +Bitts--the only exhibit placed upon a box--was a supercurio. All eyes +fastened upon him and remained, hungrily feasting, throughout Penrod's +luminous oration. + +But the glory of one light must ever be the dimming of another. We dwell +in a vale of seesaws--and cobwebs spin fastest upon laurel. Verman, the +tattooed wild boy, speaking only in his native foreign languages, Verman +the gay, Verman the caperer, capered no more; he chuckled no more, he +beckoned no more, nor tapped his chest, nor wreathed his idolatrous face +in smiles. Gone, all gone, were his little artifices for attracting the +general attention to himself; gone was every engaging mannerism which +had endeared him to the mercurial public. He squatted against the wall +and glowered at the new sensation. It was the old story--the old, +old story of too much temperament: Verman was suffering from artistic +jealousy. + +The second audience contained a cash-paying adult, a spectacled young +man whose poignant attention was very flattering. He remained after the +lecture, and put a few questions to Roddy, which were answered rather +confusedly upon promptings from Penrod. The young man went away without +having stated the object of his interrogations, but it became quite +plain, later in the day. This same object caused the spectacled young +man to make several brief but stimulating calls directly after leaving +the Schofield and Williams Big Show, and the consequences thereof +loitered not by the wayside. + +The Big Show was at high tide. Not only was the auditorium filled +and throbbing; there was an indubitable line--by no means wholly +juvenile--waiting for admission to the next pufformance. A group stood +in the street examining the poster earnestly as it glowed in the long, +slanting rays of the westward sun, and people in automobiles and other +vehicles had halted wheel in the street to read the message so piquantly +given to the world. These were the conditions when a crested victoria +arrived at a gallop, and a large, chastely magnificent and highly +flushed woman descended, and progressed across the yard with an air of +violence. + +At sight of her, the adults of the waiting line hastily disappeared, +and most of the pausing vehicles moved instantly on their way. She was +followed by a stricken man in livery. + +The stairs to the auditorium were narrow and steep; Mrs. Roderick +Magsworth Bitts was of a stout favour; and the voice of Penrod was +audible during the ascent. + +"RE-MEM-BUR, gentilmun and lay-deeze, each and all are now gazing upon +Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, the only living nephew of the great +Rena Magsworth. She stuck ars'nic in the milk of eight separate and +distinck people to put in their coffee and each and all of 'em died. The +great ars'nic murderess, Rena Magsworth, gentilmun and lay-deeze, +and Roddy's her only living nephew. She's a relation of all the Bitts +family, but he's her one and only living nephew. RE-MEM-BUR! Next July +she's goin' to be hung, and, each and all, you now see before you----" + +Penrod paused abruptly, seeing something before himself--the august and +awful presence which filled the entryway. And his words (it should be +related) froze upon his lips. + +Before HERSELF, Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts saw her son--her +scion--wearing a moustache and sideburns of blue, and perched upon a box +flanked by Sherman and Verman, the Michigan rats, the Indian dog Duke, +Herman, and the dog part alligator. + +Roddy, also, saw something before himself. It needed no prophet to +read the countenance of the dread apparition in the entryway. His mouth +opened--remained open--then filled to capacity with a calamitous sound +of grief not unmingled with apprehension. + +Penrod's reason staggered under the crisis. For a horrible moment he saw +Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts approaching like some fatal mountain in +avalanche. She seemed to grow larger and redder; lightnings played about +her head; he had a vague consciousness of the audience spraying out +in flight, of the squealings, tramplings and dispersals of a stricken +field. The mountain was close upon him---- + +He stood by the open mouth of the hay-chute which went through the floor +to the manger below. Penrod also went through the floor. He propelled +himself into the chute and shot down, but not quite to the manger, for +Mr. Samuel Williams had thoughtfully stepped into the chute a moment in +advance of his partner. Penrod lit upon Sam. + +Catastrophic noises resounded in the loft; volcanoes seemed to romp upon +the stairway. + +There ensued a period when only a shrill keening marked the passing of +Roderick as he was borne to the tumbril. Then all was silence. + + +. . . Sunset, striking through a western window, rouged the walls of +the Schofields' library, where gathered a joint family council and +court martial of four--Mrs. Schofield, Mr. Schofield, and Mr. and Mrs. +Williams, parents of Samuel of that ilk. Mr. Williams read aloud a +conspicuous passage from the last edition of the evening paper: + +"Prominent people here believed close relations of woman sentenced to +hang. Angry denial by Mrs. R. Magsworth Bitts. Relationship admitted by +younger member of family. His statement confirmed by boy-friends----" + +"Don't!" said Mrs. Williams, addressing her husband vehemently. "We've +all read it a dozen times. We've got plenty of trouble on our hands +without hearing THAT again!" + +Singularly enough, Mrs. Williams did not look troubled; she looked as +if she were trying to look troubled. Mrs. Schofield wore a similar +expression. So did Mr. Schofield. So did Mr. Williams. + +"What did she say when she called YOU up?" Mrs. Schofield inquired +breathlessly of Mrs. Williams. + +"She could hardly speak at first, and then when she did talk, she talked +so fast I couldn't understand most of it, and----" + +"It was just the same when she tried to talk to me," said Mrs. +Schofield, nodding. + +"I never did hear any one in such a state before," continued Mrs. +Williams. "So furious----" + +"Quite justly, of course," said Mrs. Schofield. + +"Of course. And she said Penrod and Sam had enticed Roderick away from +home--usually he's not allowed to go outside the yard except with his +tutor or a servant--and had told him to say that horrible creature was +his aunt----" + +"How in the world do you suppose Sam and Penrod ever thought of such +a thing as THAT!" exclaimed Mrs. Schofield. "It must have been made up +just for their 'show.' Della says there were just STREAMS going in and +out all day. Of course it wouldn't have happened, but this was the day +Margaret and I spend every month in the country with Aunt Sarah, and I +didn't DREAM----" + +"She said one thing I thought rather tactless," interrupted Mrs. +Williams. "Of course we must allow for her being dreadfully excited and +wrought up, but I do think it wasn't quite delicate in her, and she's +usually the very soul of delicacy. She said that Roderick had NEVER been +allowed to associate with--common boys----" + +"Meaning Sam and Penrod," said Mrs. Schofield. "Yes, she said that to +me, too." + +"She said that the most awful thing about it," Mrs. Williams went on, +"was that, though she's going to prosecute the newspapers, many people +would always believe the story, and----" + +"Yes, I imagine they will," said Mrs. Schofield musingly. "Of course you +and I and everybody who really knows the Bitts and Magsworth families +understand the perfect absurdity of it; but I suppose there are ever so +many who'll believe it, no matter what the Bittses and Magsworths say." + +"Hundreds and hundreds!" said Mrs. Williams. "I'm afraid it will be a +great come-down for them." + +"I'm afraid so," said Mrs. Schofield gently. "A very great one--yes, a +very, very great one." + +"Well," observed Mrs. Williams, after a thoughtful pause, "there's only +one thing to be done, and I suppose it had better be done right away." + +She glanced toward the two gentlemen. + +"Certainly," Mr. Schofield agreed. "But where ARE they?" + +"Have you looked in the stable?" asked his wife. + +"I searched it. They've probably started for the far West." + +"Did you look in the sawdust-box?" + +"No, I didn't." + +"Then that's where they are." + +Thus, in the early twilight, the now historic stable was approached by +two fathers charged to do the only thing to be done. They entered the +storeroom. + +"Penrod!" said Mr. Schofield. + +"Sam!" said Mr. Williams. + +Nothing disturbed the twilight hush. + +But by means of a ladder, brought from the carriage-house, Mr. Schofield +mounted to the top of the sawdust-box. He looked within, and discerned +the dim outlines of three quiet figures, the third being that of a small +dog. + +The two boys rose, upon command, descended the ladder after Mr. +Schofield, bringing Duke with them, and stood before the authors of +their being, who bent upon them sinister and threatening brows. With +hanging heads and despondent countenances, each still ornamented with a +moustache and an imperial, Penrod and Sam awaited sentence. + +This is a boy's lot: anything he does, anything whatever, may afterward +turn out to have been a crime--he never knows. + +And punishment and clemency are alike inexplicable. + +Mr. Williams took his son by the ear. + +"You march home!" he commanded. + +Sam marched, not looking back, and his father followed the small figure +implacably. + +"You goin' to whip me?" quavered Penrod, alone with Justice. + +"Wash your face at that hydrant," said his father sternly. + +About fifteen minutes later, Penrod, hurriedly entering the corner drug +store, two blocks distant, was astonished to perceive a familiar form at +the soda counter. + +"Yay, Penrod," said Sam Williams. "Want some sody? Come on. He didn't +lick me. He didn't do anything to me at all. He gave me a quarter." + +"So'd mine," said Penrod. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII MUSIC + +Boyhood is the longest time in life for a boy. The last term of the +school-year is made of decades, not of weeks, and living through them is +like waiting for the millennium. But they do pass, somehow, and at last +there came a day when Penrod was one of a group that capered out +from the gravelled yard of "Ward School, Nomber Seventh," carolling a +leave-taking of the institution, of their instructress, and not even +forgetting Mr. Capps, the janitor. + +"Good-bye, teacher! Good-bye, school! Good-bye, Cappsie, dern ole fool!" + +Penrod sang the loudest. For every boy, there is an age when he "finds +his voice." Penrod's had not "changed," but he had found it. Inevitably +that thing had come upon his family and the neighbours; and his father, +a somewhat dyspeptic man, quoted frequently the expressive words of +the "Lady of Shalott," but there were others whose sufferings were as +poignant. + +Vacation-time warmed the young of the world to pleasant languor; and +a morning came that was like a brightly coloured picture in a child's +fairy story. Miss Margaret Schofield, reclining in a hammock upon the +front porch, was beautiful in the eyes of a newly made senior, well +favoured and in fair raiment, beside her. A guitar rested lightly upon +his knee, and he was trying to play--a matter of some difficulty, as +the floor of the porch also seemed inclined to be musical. From directly +under his feet came a voice of song, shrill, loud, incredibly piercing +and incredibly flat, dwelling upon each syllable with incomprehensible +reluctance to leave it. + + "I have lands and earthly pow-wur. + I'd give all for a now-wur, + Whi-ilst setting at MY-Y-Y dear old mother's knee-ee, + So-o-o rem-mem-bur whilst you're young----" + +Miss Schofield stamped heartily upon the musical floor. + +"It's Penrod," she explained. "The lattice at the end of the porch is +loose, and he crawls under and comes out all bugs. He's been having +a dreadful singing fit lately--running away to picture shows and +vaudeville, I suppose." + +Mr. Robert Williams looked upon her yearningly. He touched a thrilling +chord on his guitar and leaned nearer. "But you said you have missed +me," he began. "I----" + +The voice of Penrod drowned all other sounds. + + "So-o-o rem-mem-bur, whi-i-ilst you're young, + That the day-a-ys to you will come, + When you're o-o-old and only in the way, + Do not scoff at them BEE-cause----" + +"PENROD!" Miss Schofield stamped again. + +"You DID say you'd missed me," said Mr. Robert Williams, seizing +hurriedly upon the silence. "Didn't you say----" + +A livelier tune rose upward. + + "Oh, you talk about your fascinating beauties, + Of your dem-O-zells, your belles, + But the littil dame I met, while in the city, + She's par excellaws the queen of all the swells. + She's sweeter far----" + +Margaret rose and jumped up and down repeatedly in a well-calculated +area, whereupon the voice of Penrod cried chokedly, "QUIT that!" and +there were subterranean coughings and sneezings. + +"You want to choke a person to death?" he inquired severely, appearing +at the end of the porch, a cobweb upon his brow. And, continuing, he +put into practice a newly acquired phrase, "You better learn to be more +considerick of other people's comfort." + +Slowly and grievedly he withdrew, passed to the sunny side of the house, +reclined in the warm grass beside his wistful Duke, and presently sang +again. + + "She's sweeter far than the flower I named her after, + And the memery of her smile it haunts me YET! + When in after years the moon is soffly beamun' + And at eve I smell the smell of mignonette + I will re-CALL that----" + +"Pen-ROD!" + +Mr. Schofield appeared at an open window upstairs, a book in his hand. + +"Stop it!" he commanded. "Can't I stay home with a headache ONE morning +from the office without having to listen to--I never DID hear such +squawking!" He retired from the window, having too impulsively called +upon his Maker. Penrod, shocked and injured, entered the house, but +presently his voice was again audible as far as the front porch. He was +holding converse with his mother, somewhere in the interior. + +"Well, what of it? Sam Williams told me his mother said if Bob ever did +think of getting married to Margaret, his mother said she'd like to know +what in the name o' goodness they expect to----" + +Bang! Margaret thought it better to close the front door. + +The next minute Penrod opened it. "I suppose you want the whole family +to get a sunstroke," he said reprovingly. "Keepin' every breath of air +out o' the house on a day like this!" + +And he sat down implacably in the doorway. + +The serious poetry of all languages has omitted the little brother; +and yet he is one of the great trials of love--the immemorial burden of +courtship. Tragedy should have found place for him, but he has been left +to the haphazard vignettist of Grub Street. He is the grave and +real menace of lovers; his head is sacred and terrible, his power +illimitable. There is one way--only one--to deal with him; but Robert +Williams, having a brother of Penrod's age, understood that way. + +Robert had one dollar in the world. He gave it to Penrod immediately. + +Enslaved forever, the new Rockefeller rose and went forth upon the +highway, an overflowing heart bursting the floodgates of song. + + "In her eyes the light of love was soffly gleamun', + So sweetlay, + So neatlay. + On the banks the moon's soff light was brightly streamun', + Words of love I then spoke TO her. + She was purest of the PEW-er: + 'Littil sweetheart, do not sigh, + Do not weep and do not cry. + I will build a littil cottige just for yew-EW-EW and I.'" + +In fairness, it must be called to mind that boys older than Penrod have +these wellings of pent melody; a wife can never tell when she is to +undergo a musical morning, and even the golden wedding brings her no +security, a man of ninety is liable to bust-loose in song, any time. + +Invalids murmured pitifully as Penrod came within hearing; and people +trying to think cursed the day that they were born, when he went +shrilling by. His hands in his pockets, his shining face uplifted to the +sky of June, he passed down the street, singing his way into the heart's +deepest hatred of all who heard him. + + "One evuning I was sturow-ling + Midst the city of the DEAD, + I viewed where all a-round me + Their PEACE-full graves was SPREAD. + But that which touched me mostlay----" + +He had reached his journey's end, a junk-dealer's shop wherein lay +the long-desired treasure of his soul--an accordion which might +have possessed a high quality of interest for an antiquarian, being +unquestionably a ruin, beautiful in decay, and quite beyond the +sacrilegious reach of the restorer. But it was still able to disgorge +sounds--loud, strange, compelling sounds, which could be heard for a +remarkable distance in all directions; and it had one rich calf-like +tone that had gone to Penrod's heart. He obtained the instrument for +twenty-two cents, a price long since agreed upon with the junk-dealer, +who falsely claimed a loss of profit, Shylock that he was! He had found +the wreck in an alley. + +With this purchase suspended from his shoulder by a faded green cord, +Penrod set out in a somewhat homeward direction, but not by the route +he had just travelled, though his motive for the change was not +humanitarian. It was his desire to display himself thus troubadouring +to the gaze of Marjorie Jones. Heralding his advance by continuous +experiments in the music of the future, he pranced upon his blithesome +way, the faithful Duke at his heels. (It was easier for Duke than it +would have been for a younger dog, because, with advancing age, he had +begun to grow a little deaf.) + +Turning the corner nearest to the glamoured mansion of the Joneses, +the boy jongleur came suddenly face to face with Marjorie, and, in +the delicious surprise of the encounter, ceased to play, his hands, in +agitation, falling from the instrument. + +Bareheaded, the sunshine glorious upon her amber curls, Marjorie was +strolling hand-in-hand with her baby brother, Mitchell, four years +old. She wore pink that day--unforgettable pink, with a broad, black +patent-leather belt, shimmering reflections dancing upon its surface. +How beautiful she was! How sacred the sweet little baby brother, whose +privilege it was to cling to that small hand, delicately powdered with +freckles. + +"Hello, Marjorie," said Penrod, affecting carelessness. + +"Hello!" said Marjorie, with unexpected cordiality. She bent over her +baby brother with motherly affectations. "Say 'howdy' to the gentymuns, +Mitchy-Mitch," she urged sweetly, turning him to face Penrod. + +"WON'T!" said Mitchy-Mitch, and, to emphasize his refusal, kicked the +gentymuns upon the shin. + +Penrod's feelings underwent instant change, and in the sole occupation +of disliking Mitchy-Mitch, he wasted precious seconds which might have +been better employed in philosophic consideration of the startling +example, just afforded, of how a given law operates throughout the +universe in precisely the same manner perpetually. Mr. Robert Williams +would have understood this, easily. + +"Oh, oh!" Marjorie cried, and put Mitchy-Mitch behind her with too much +sweetness. "Maurice Levy's gone to Atlantic City with his mamma," she +remarked conversationally, as if the kicking incident were quite closed. + +"That's nothin'," returned Penrod, keeping his eye uneasily +upon Mitchy-Mitch. "I know plenty people been better places than +that--Chicago and everywhere." + +There was unconscious ingratitude in his low rating of Atlantic City, +for it was largely to the attractions of that resort he owed Miss Jones' +present attitude of friendliness. + +Of course, too, she was curious about the accordion. It would be +dastardly to hint that she had noticed a paper bag which bulged +the pocket of Penrod's coat, and yet this bag was undeniably +conspicuous--"and children are very like grown people sometimes!" + +Penrod brought forth the bag, purchased on the way at a drug store, and +till this moment UNOPENED, which expresses in a word the depth of his +sentiment for Marjorie. It contained an abundant fifteen-cents' worth of +lemon drops, jaw-breakers, licorice sticks, cinnamon drops, and shopworn +choclate creams. + +"Take all you want," he said, with off-hand generosity. + +"Why, Penrod Schofield," exclaimed the wholly thawed damsel, "you nice +boy!" + +"Oh, that's nothin'," he returned airily. "I got a good deal of money, +nowadays." + +"Where from?" + +"Oh--just around." With a cautious gesture he offered a jaw-breaker to +Mitchy-Mitch, who snatched it indignantly and set about its absorption +without delay. + +"Can you play on that?" asked Marjorie, with some difficulty, her cheeks +being rather too hilly for conversation. + +"Want to hear me?" + +She nodded, her eyes sweet with anticipation. + +This was what he had come for. He threw back his head, lifted his eyes +dreamily, as he had seen real musicians lift theirs, and distended the +accordion preparing to produce the wonderful calf-like noise which was +the instrument's great charm. + +But the distention evoked a long wail which was at once drowned in +another one. + +"Ow! Owowaoh! Wowohah! WaowWOW!" shrieked Mitchy-Mitch and the accordion +together. + +Mitchy-Mitch, to emphasize his disapproval of the accordion, opening his +mouth still wider, lost therefrom the jaw-breaker, which rolled in the +dust. Weeping, he stooped to retrieve it, and Marjorie, to prevent him, +hastily set her foot upon it. Penrod offered another jaw-breaker; but +Mitchy-Mitch struck it from his hand, desiring the former, which had +convinced him of its sweetness. + +Marjorie moved inadvertently; whereupon Mitchy-Mitch pounced upon the +remains of his jaw-breaker and restored them, with accretions, to his +mouth. His sister, uttering a cry of horror, sprang to the rescue, +assisted by Penrod, whom she prevailed upon to hold Mitchy-Mitch's mouth +open while she excavated. This operation being completed, and Penrod's +right thumb severely bitten, Mitchy-Mitch closed his eyes tightly, +stamped, squealed, bellowed, wrung his hands, and then, unexpectedly, +kicked Penrod again. + +Penrod put a hand in his pocket and drew forth a copper two-cent piece, +large, round, and fairly bright. + +He gave it to Mitchy-Mitch. + +Mitchy-Mitch immediately stopped crying and gazed upon his benefactor +with the eyes of a dog. + +This world! + +Thereafter did Penrod--with complete approval from Mitchy-Mitch--play +the accordion for his lady to his heart's content, and hers. Never had +he so won upon her; never had she let him feel so close to her before. +They strolled up and down upon the sidewalk, eating, one thought between +them, and soon she had learned to play the accordion almost as well as +he. So passed a happy hour, which the Good King Rene of Anjou would have +envied them, while Mitchy-Mitch made friends with Duke, romped about his +sister and her swain, and clung to the hand of the latter, at intervals, +with fondest affection and trust. + +The noon whistles failed to disturb this little Arcady; only the +sound of Mrs. Jones' voice for the third time summoning Marjorie and +Mitchy-Mitch to lunch--sent Penrod on his way. + +"I could come back this afternoon, I guess," he said, in parting. + +"I'm not goin' to be here. I'm goin' to Baby Rennsdale's party." + +Penrod looked blank, as she intended he should. Having thus satisfied +herself, she added: + +"There aren't goin' to be any boys there." + +He was instantly radiant again. + +"Marjorie----" + +"Hum?" + +"Do you wish I was goin' to be there?" + +She looked shy, and turned away her head. + +"MARJORIE JONES!" (This was a voice from home.) "HOW MANY MORE TIMES +SHALL I HAVE TO CALL YOU?" + +Marjorie moved away, her face still hidden from Penrod. + +"Do you?" he urged. + +At the gate, she turned quickly toward him, and said over her shoulder, +all in a breath: "Yes! Come again to-morrow morning and I'll be on the +corner. Bring your 'cordion!" + +And she ran into the house, Mitchy-Mitch waving a loving hand to the boy +on the sidewalk until the front door closed. + + + +CHAPTER XIX THE INNER BOY + +Penrod went home in splendour, pretending that he and Duke were a long +procession; and he made enough noise to render the auricular part of the +illusion perfect. His own family were already at the lunch-table when he +arrived, and the parade halted only at the door of the dining-room. + +"Oh SOMETHING!" shouted Mr. Schofield, clasping his bilious brow with +both hands. "Stop that noise! Isn't it awful enough for you to SING? Sit +DOWN! Not with that thing on! Take that green rope off your shoulder! +Now take that thing out of the dining-room and throw it in the ash-can! +Where did you get it?" + +"Where did I get what, papa?" asked Penrod meekly, depositing the +accordion in the hall just outside the dining-room door. + +"That da--that third-hand concertina." + +"It's a 'cordian," said Penrod, taking his place at the table, and +noticing that both Margaret and Mr. Robert Williams (who happened to be +a guest) were growing red. + +"I don't care what you call it," said Mr. Schofield irritably. "I want +to know where you got it." + +Penrod's eyes met Margaret's: hers had a strained expression. + +She very slightly shook her head. Penrod sent Mr. Williams a grateful +look, and might have been startled if he could have seen himself in a +mirror at that moment; for he regarded Mitchy-Mitch with concealed but +vigorous aversion and the resemblance would have horrified him. + +"A man gave it to me," he answered gently, and was rewarded by the +visibly regained ease of his patron's manner, while Margaret leaned back +in her chair and looked at her brother with real devotion. + +"I should think he'd have been glad to," said Mr. Schofield. "Who was +he?" + +"Sir?" In spite of the candy which he had consumed in company with +Marjorie and Mitchy-Mitch, Penrod had begun to eat lobster croquettes +earnestly. + +"Who WAS he?" + +"Who do you mean, papa?" + +"The man that gave you that ghastly Thing!" + +"Yessir. A man gave it to me." + +"I say, Who WAS he?" shouted Mr. Schofield. + +"Well, I was just walking along, and the man came up to me--it was right +down in front of Colgate's, where most of the paint's rubbed off the +fence----" + +"Penrod!" The father used his most dangerous tone. + +"Sir?" + +"Who was the man that gave you the concertina?" + +"I don't know. I was walking along----" + +"You never saw him before?" + +"No, sir. I was just walk----" + +"That will do," said Mr. Schofield, rising. "I suppose every family has +its secret enemies and this was one of ours. I must ask to be excused!" + +With that, he went out crossly, stopping in the hall a moment before +passing beyond hearing. And, after lunch, Penrod sought in vain for his +accordion; he even searched the library where his father sat reading, +though, upon inquiry, Penrod explained that he was looking for a +misplaced schoolbook. He thought he ought to study a little every day, +he said, even during vacation-time. Much pleased, Mr. Schofield rose and +joined the search, finding the missing work on mathematics with singular +ease--which cost him precisely the price of the book the following +September. + +Penrod departed to study in the backyard. There, after a cautious survey +of the neighbourhood, he managed to dislodge the iron cover of the +cistern, and dropped the arithmetic within. A fine splash rewarded his +listening ear. Thus assured that when he looked for that book again no +one would find it for him, he replaced the cover, and betook himself +pensively to the highway, discouraging Duke from following by repeated +volleys of stones, some imaginary and others all too real. + +Distant strains of brazen horns and the throbbing of drums were borne to +him upon the kind breeze, reminding him that the world was made for joy, +and that the Barzee and Potter Dog and Pony Show was exhibiting in a +banlieue not far away. So, thither he bent his steps--the plentiful +funds in his pocket burning hot holes all the way. He had paid +twenty-two cents for the accordion, and fifteen for candy; he had bought +the mercenary heart of Mitchy-Mitch for two: it certainly follows that +there remained to him of his dollar, sixty-one cents--a fair fortune, +and most unusual. + +Arrived upon the populous and festive scene of the Dog and Pony Show, +he first turned his attention to the brightly decorated booths which +surrounded the tent. The cries of the peanut vendors, of the popcorn +men, of the toy-balloon sellers, the stirring music of the band, playing +before the performance to attract a crowd, the shouting of excited +children and the barking of the dogs within the tent, all sounded +exhilaratingly in Penrod's ears and set his blood a-tingle. +Nevertheless, he did not squander his money or fling it to the winds in +one grand splurge. Instead, he began cautiously with the purchase of an +extraordinarily large pickle, which he obtained from an aged negress for +his odd cent, too obvious a bargain to be missed. At an adjacent stand +he bought a glass of raspberry lemonade (so alleged) and sipped it as he +ate the pickle. He left nothing of either. + +Next, he entered a small restaurant-tent and for a modest nickel was +supplied with a fork and a box of sardines, previously opened, it is +true, but more than half full. He consumed the sardines utterly, but +left the tin box and the fork, after which he indulged in an inexpensive +half-pint of lukewarm cider, at one of the open booths. Mug in hand, +a gentle glow radiating toward his surface from various centres of +activity deep inside him, he paused for breath--and the cool, sweet +cadences of the watermelon man fell delectably upon his ear: + +"Ice-cole WATER-melon; ice-cole water-MELON; the biggest slice of +ICE-cole, ripe, red, ICE-cole, rich an' rare; the biggest slice of +ice-cole watermelon ever cut by the hand of man! BUY our ICE-cole +water-melon?" + +Penrod, having drained the last drop of cider, complied with the +watermelon man's luscious entreaty, and received a round slice of +the fruit, magnificent in circumference and something over an inch in +thickness. Leaving only the really dangerous part of the rind behind +him, he wandered away from the vicinity of the watermelon man and +supplied himself with a bag of peanuts, which, with the expenditure of a +dime for admission, left a quarter still warm in his pocket. However, he +managed to "break" the coin at a stand inside the tent, where a large, +oblong paper box of popcorn was handed him, with twenty cents change. +The box was too large to go into his pocket, but, having seated himself +among some wistful Polack children, he placed it in his lap and devoured +the contents at leisure during the performance. The popcorn was heavily +larded with partially boiled molasses, and Penrod sandwiched mouthfuls +of peanuts with gobs of this mass until the peanuts were all gone. After +that, he ate with less avidity; a sense almost of satiety beginning +to manifest itself to him, and it was not until the close of the +performance that he disposed of the last morsel. + +He descended a little heavily to the outflowing crowd in the arena, and +bought a caterwauling toy balloon, but showed no great enthusiasm in +manipulating it. Near the exit, as he came out, was a hot-waffle stand +which he had overlooked, and a sense of duty obliged him to consume the +three waffles, thickly powdered with sugar, which the waffle man cooked +for him upon command. + +They left a hottish taste in his mouth; they had not been quite up to +his anticipation, indeed, and it was with a sense of relief that he +turned to the "hokey-pokey" cart which stood close at hand, laden with +square slabs of "Neapolitan ice-cream" wrapped in paper. He thought the +ice-cream would be cooling, but somehow it fell short of the desired +effect, and left a peculiar savour in his throat. + +He walked away, too languid to blow his balloon, and passed a +fresh-taffy booth with strange indifference. A bare-armed man was +manipulating the taffy over a hook, pulling a great white mass to the +desired stage of "candying," but Penrod did not pause to watch the +operation; in fact, he averted his eyes (which were slightly glazed) in +passing. He did not analyze his motives: simply, he was conscious that +he preferred not to look at the mass of taffy. + +For some reason, he put a considerable distance between himself and the +taffy-stand, but before long halted in the presence of a red-faced man +who flourished a long fork over a small cooking apparatus and shouted +jovially: "Winnies! HERE'S your hot winnies! Hot winny-WURST! Food for +the over-worked brain, nourishing for the weak stummick, entertaining +for the tired business man! HERE'S your hot winnies, three for a nickel, +a half-a-dime, the twentieth-pot-of-a-dollah!" + +This, above all nectar and ambrosia, was the favourite dish of Penrod +Schofield. Nothing inside him now craved it--on the contrary! But +memory is the great hypnotist; his mind argued against his inwards that +opportunity knocked at his door: "winny-wurst" was rigidly forbidden by +the home authorities. Besides, there was a last nickel in his pocket; +and nature protested against its survival. Also, the redfaced man had +himself proclaimed his wares nourishing for the weak stummick. + +Penrod placed the nickel in the red hand of the red-faced man. + +He ate two of the three greasy, cigarlike shapes cordially pressed upon +him in return. The first bite convinced him that he had made a mistake; +these winnies seemed of a very inferior flavour, almost unpleasant, in +fact. But he felt obliged to conceal his poor opinion of them, for fear +of offending the red-faced man. He ate without haste or eagerness--so +slowly, indeed, that he began to think the redfaced man might dislike +him, as a deterrent of trade. Perhaps Penrod's mind was not working +well, for he failed to remember that no law compelled him to remain +under the eye of the red-faced man, but the virulent repulsion excited +by his attempt to take a bite of the third sausage inspired him with at +least an excuse for postponement. + +"Mighty good," he murmured feebly, placing the sausage in the pocket +of his jacket with a shaking hand. "Guess I'll save this one to eat at +home, after--after dinner." + +He moved sluggishly away, wishing he had not thought of dinner. A +side-show, undiscovered until now, failed to arouse his interest, not +even exciting a wish that he had known of its existence when he had +money. For a time he stared without attraction; the weather-worn colours +conveying no meaning to comprehension at a huge canvas poster depicting +the chief his torpid eye. Then, little by little, the poster became more +vivid to his consciousness. There was a greenish-tinted person in the +tent, it seemed, who thrived upon a reptilian diet. + +Suddenly, Penrod decided that it was time to go home. + + + +CHAPTER XX BROTHERS OF ANGELS + +"Indeed, doctor," said Mrs. Schofield, with agitation and profound +conviction, just after eight o'clock that evening, "I shall ALWAYS +believe in mustard plasters--mustard plasters and hot--water bags. If +it hadn't been for them I don't believed he'd have LIVED till you got +here--I do NOT!" + +"Margaret," called Mr. Schofield from the open door of a bedroom, +"Margaret, where did you put that aromatic ammonia? Where's Margaret?" + +But he had to find the aromatic spirits of ammonia himself, for Margaret +was not in the house. She stood in the shadow beneath a maple tree +near the street corner, a guitar-case in her hand; and she scanned with +anxiety a briskly approaching figure. The arc light, swinging above, +revealed this figure as that of him she awaited. He was passing toward +the gate without seeing her, when she arrested him with a fateful +whisper. + +"BOB!" + +Mr. Robert Williams swung about hastily. "Why, Margaret!" + +"Here, take your guitar," she whispered hurriedly. "I was afraid if +father happened to find it he'd break it all to pieces!" + +"What for?" asked the startled Robert. + +"Because I'm sure he knows it's yours." "But what----" + +"Oh, Bob," she moaned, "I was waiting here to tell you. I was so afraid +you'd try to come in----" + +"TRY!" exclaimed the unfortunate young man, quite dumfounded. "TRY to +come----" + +"Yes, before I warned you. I've been waiting here to tell you, Bob, you +mustn't come near the house if I were you I'd stay away from even this +neighbourhood--far away! For a while I don't think it would be actually +SAFE for----" + +"Margaret, will you please----" + +"It's all on account of that dollar you gave Penrod this morning," she +walled. "First, he bought that horrible concertina that made papa so +furious--" + +"But Penrod didn't tell that I----" + +"Oh, wait!" she cried lamentably. "Listen! He didn't tell at lunch, but +he got home about dinner-time in the most--well! I've seen pale people +before, but nothing like Penrod. Nobody could IMAGINE it--not unless +they'd seen him! And he looked, so STRANGE, and kept making such +unnatural faces, and at first all he would say was that he'd eaten a +little piece of apple and thought it must have some microbes on it. But +he got sicker and sicker, and we put him to bed--and then we all thought +he was going to die--and, of COURSE, no little piece of apple would +have--well, and he kept getting worse and then he said he'd had a +dollar. He said he'd spent it for the concertina, and watermelon, and +chocolate-creams, and licorice sticks, and lemon-drops, and peanuts, +and jaw-breakers, and sardines, and raspberry lemonade, and pickles, and +popcorn, and ice-cream, and cider, and sausage--there was sausage in +his pocket, and mamma says his jacket is ruined--and cinnamon drops--and +waffles--and he ate four or five lobster croquettes at lunch--and papa +said, 'Who gave you that dollar?' Only he didn't say 'WHO'--he said +something horrible, Bob! And Penrod thought he was going to die, and he +said you gave it to him, and oh! it was just pitiful to hear the poor +child, Bob, because he thought he was dying, you see, and he blamed you +for the whole thing. He said if you'd only let him alone and not given +it to him, he'd have grown up to be a good man--and now he couldn't! I +never heard anything so heart-rending--he was so weak he could hardly +whisper, but he kept trying to talk, telling us over and over it was all +your fault." + +In the darkness Mr. Williams' facial expression could not be seen, but +his voice sounded hopeful. + +"Is he--is he still in a great deal of pain?" + +"They say the crisis is past," said Margaret, "but the doctor's still +up there. He said it was the acutest case of indigestion he had ever +treated in the whole course of his professional practice." + +"Of course _I_ didn't know what he'd do with the dollar," said Robert. + +She did not reply. + +He began plaintively, "Margaret, you don't----" + +"I've never seen papa and mamma so upset about anything," she said, +rather primly. + +"You mean they're upset about ME?" + +"We ARE all very much upset," returned Margaret, more starch in her tone +as she remembered not only Penrod's sufferings but a duty she had vowed +herself to perform. + +"Margaret! YOU don't----" + +"Robert," she said firmly and, also, with a rhetorical complexity which +breeds a suspicion of pre-rehearsal--"Robert, for the present I can only +look at it in one way: when you gave that money to Penrod you put into +the hands of an unthinking little child a weapon which might be, and, +indeed was, the means of his undoing. Boys are not respon----" + +"But you saw me give him the dollar, and you didn't----" + +"Robert!" she checked him with increasing severity. "I am only a woman +and not accustomed to thinking everything out on the spur of the moment; +but I cannot change my mind. Not now, at least." + +"And you think I'd better not come in to-night?" + +"To-night!" she gasped. "Not for WEEKS! Papa would----" + +"But Margaret," he urged plaintively, "how can you blame me for----" + +"I have not used the word 'blame,'" she interrupted. "But I must insist +that for your carelessness to--to wreak such havoc--cannot fail to--to +lessen my confidence in your powers of judgment. I cannot change my +convictions in this matter--not to-night--and I cannot remain here +another instant. The poor child may need me. Robert, good-night." + +With chill dignity she withdrew, entered the house, and returned to the +sick-room, leaving the young man in outer darkness to brood upon his +crime--and upon Penrod. + + +That sincere invalid became convalescent upon the third day; and a +week elapsed, then, before he found an opportunity to leave the house +unaccompanied--save by Duke. But at last he set forth and approached the +Jones neighbourhood in high spirits, pleasantly conscious of his pallor, +hollow cheeks, and other perquisites of illness provocative of interest. + +One thought troubled him a little because it gave him a sense of +inferiority to a rival. He believed, against his will, that Maurice +Levy could have successfully eaten chocolate-creams, licorice sticks, +lemon-drops, jaw-breakers, peanuts, waffles, lobster croquettes, +sardines, cinnamon-drops, watermelon, pickles, popcorn, ice-cream +and sausage with raspberry lemonade and cider. Penrod had admitted to +himself that Maurice could do it and afterward attend to business, or +pleasure, without the slightest discomfort; and this was probably no +more than a fair estimate of one of the great constitutions of all time. +As a digester, Maurice Levy would have disappointed a Borgia. + +Fortunately, Maurice was still at Atlantic City--and now the +convalescent's heart leaped. In the distance he saw Marjorie coming--in +pink again, with a ravishing little parasol over her head. And alone! No +Mitchy-Mitch was to mar this meeting. + +Penrod increased the feebleness of his steps, now and then leaning upon +the fence as if for support. + +"How do you do, Marjorie?" he said, in his best sick-room voice, as she +came near. + +To his pained amazement, she proceeded on her way, her nose at a +celebrated elevation--an icy nose. + +She cut him dead. + +He threw his invalid's airs to the winds, and hastened after her. + +"Marjorie," he pleaded, "what's the matter? Are you mad? Honest, that +day you said to come back next morning, and you'd be on the corner, +I was sick. Honest, I was AWFUL sick, Marjorie! I had to have the +doctor----" + +"DOCTOR!" She whirled upon him, her lovely eyes blazing. + +"I guess WE'VE had to have the doctor enough at OUR house, thanks to +you, Mister Penrod Schofield. Papa says you haven't got NEAR sense +enough to come in out of the rain, after what you did to poor little +Mitchy-Mitch----" + +"What?" + +"Yes, and he's sick in bed YET!" Marjorie went on, with unabated fury. +"And papa says if he ever catches you in this part of town----" + +"WHAT'D I do to Mitchy-Mitch?" gasped Penrod. + +"You know well enough what you did to Mitchy-Mitch!" she cried. "You +gave him that great, big, nasty two-cent piece!" + +"Well, what of it?" + +"Mitchy-Mitch swallowed it!" + +"What!" + +"And papa says if he ever just lays eyes on you, once, in this +neighbourhood----" + +But Penrod had started for home. + +In his embittered heart there was increasing a critical disapproval of +the Creator's methods. When He made pretty girls, thought Penrod, why +couldn't He have left out their little brothers! + + + +CHAPTER XXI RUPE COLLINS + +For several days after this, Penrod thought of growing up to be a +monk, and engaged in good works so far as to carry some kittens (that +otherwise would have been drowned) and a pair of Margaret's outworn +dancing-slippers to a poor, ungrateful old man sojourning in a shed +up the alley. And although Mr. Robert Williams, after a very short +interval, began to leave his guitar on the front porch again, exactly as +if he thought nothing had happened, Penrod, with his younger vision of +a father's mood, remained coldly distant from the Jones neighbourhood. +With his own family his manner was gentle, proud and sad, but not for +long enough to frighten them. The change came with mystifying abruptness +at the end of the week. + +It was Duke who brought it about. + +Duke could chase a much bigger dog out of the Schofields' yard and far +down the street. This might be thought to indicate unusual valour on +the part of Duke and cowardice on that of the bigger dogs whom he +undoubtedly put to rout. On the contrary, all such flights were founded +in mere superstition, for dogs are even more superstitious than boys +and coloured people; and the most firmly established of all dog +superstitions is that any dog--be he the smallest and feeblest in the +world--can whip any trespasser whatsoever. + +A rat-terrier believes that on his home grounds he can whip an elephant. +It follows, of course, that a big dog, away from his own home, will run +from a little dog in the little dog's neighbourhood. Otherwise, the big +dog must face a charge of inconsistency, and dogs are as consistent as +they are superstitious. A dog believes in war, but he is convinced +that there are times when it is moral to run; and the thoughtful +physiognomist, seeing a big dog fleeing out of a little dog's yard, must +observe that the expression of the big dog's face is more conscientious +than alarmed: it is the expression of a person performing a duty to +himself. + +Penrod understood these matters perfectly; he knew that the gaunt brown +hound Duke chased up the alley had fled only out of deference to a +custom, yet Penrod could not refrain from bragging of Duke to the +hound's owner, a fat-faced stranger of twelve or thirteen, who had +wandered into the neighbourhood. + +"You better keep that ole yellow dog o' yours back," said Penrod +ominously, as he climbed the fence. "You better catch him and hold him +till I get mine inside the yard again. Duke's chewed up some pretty bad +bulldogs around here." + +The fat-faced boy gave Penrod a fishy stare. "You'd oughta learn him not +to do that," he said. "It'll make him sick." + +"What will?" + +The stranger laughed raspingly and gazed up the alley, where the hound, +having come to a halt, now coolly sat down, and, with an expression of +roguish benevolence, patronizingly watched the tempered fury of Duke, +whose assaults and barkings were becoming perfunctory. + +"What'll make Duke sick?" Penrod demanded. + +"Eatin' dead bulldogs people leave around here." + +This was not improvisation but formula, adapted from other occasions to +the present encounter; nevertheless, it was new to Penrod, and he was +so taken with it that resentment lost itself in admiration. Hastily +committing the gem to memory for use upon a dog-owning friend, he +inquired in a sociable tone: + +"What's your dog's name?" + +"Dan. You better call your ole pup, 'cause Dan eats LIVE dogs." + +Dan's actions poorly supported his master's assertion, for, upon Duke's +ceasing to bark, Dan rose and showed the most courteous interest in +making the little, old dog's acquaintance. Dan had a great deal of +manner, and it became plain that Duke was impressed favourably in spite +of former prejudice, so that presently the two trotted amicably back to +their masters and sat down with the harmonious but indifferent air of +having known each other intimately for years. + +They were received without comment, though both boys looked at them +reflectively for a time. It was Penrod who spoke first. + +"What number you go to?" (In an "oral lesson in English," Penrod had +been instructed to put this question in another form: "May I ask which +of our public schools you attend?") + +"Me? What number do I go to?" said the stranger, contemptuously. "I +don't go to NO number in vacation!" + +"I mean when it ain't." + +"Third," returned the fat-faced boy. "I got 'em ALL scared in THAT +school." + +"What of?" innocently asked Penrod, to whom "the Third"--in a distant +part of town--was undiscovered country. + +"What of? I guess you'd soon see what of, if you ever was in that school +about one day. You'd be lucky if you got out alive!" + +"Are the teachers mean?" + +The other boy frowned with bitter scorn. "Teachers! Teachers don't order +ME around, I can tell you! They're mighty careful how they try to run +over Rupe Collins." + +"Who's Rupe Collins?" + +"Who is he?" echoed the fat-faced boy incredulously. "Say, ain't you got +ANY sense?" + +"What?" + +"Say, wouldn't you be just as happy if you had SOME sense?" + +"Ye-es." Penrod's answer, like the look he lifted to the impressive +stranger, was meek and placative. "Rupe Collins is the principal at your +school, guess." + +The other yelled with jeering laughter, and mocked Penrod's manner and +voice. "'Rupe Collins is the principal at your school, I guess!'" He +laughed harshly again, then suddenly showed truculence. "Say, 'bo, +whyn't you learn enough to go in the house when it rains? What's the +matter of you, anyhow?" + +"Well," urged Penrod timidly, "nobody ever TOLD me who Rupe Collins is: +I got a RIGHT to think he's the principal, haven't I?" + +The fat-faced boy shook his head disgustedly. "Honest, you make me +sick!" + +Penrod's expression became one of despair. "Well, who IS he?" he cried. + +"'Who IS he?'" mocked the other, with a scorn that withered. "'Who IS +he?' ME!" + +"Oh!" Penrod was humiliated but relieved: he felt that he had proved +himself criminally ignorant, yet a peril seemed to have passed. "Rupe +Collins is your name, then, I guess. I kind of thought it was, all the +time." + +The fat-faced boy still appeared embittered, burlesquing this speech in +a hateful falsetto. "'Rupe Collins is YOUR name, then, I guess!' Oh, you +'kind of thought it was, all the time,' did you?" Suddenly concentrating +his brow into a histrionic scowl he thrust his face within an inch of +Penrod's. "Yes, sonny, Rupe Collins is my name, and you better look +out what you say when he's around or you'll get in big trouble! YOU +UNDERSTAND THAT, 'BO?" + +Penrod was cowed but fascinated: he felt that there was something +dangerous and dashing about this newcomer. + +"Yes," he said, feebly, drawing back. "My name's Penrod Schofield." + +"Then I reckon your father and mother ain't got good sense," said Mr. +Collins promptly, this also being formula. + +"Why?" + +"'Cause if they had they'd of give you a good name!" And the agreeable +youth instantly rewarded himself for the wit with another yell of +rasping laughter, after which he pointed suddenly at Penrod's right +hand. + +"Where'd you get that wart on your finger?" he demanded severely. + +"Which finger?" asked the mystified Penrod, extending his hand. + +"The middle one." + +"Where?" + +"There!" exclaimed Rupe Collins, seizing and vigorously twisting the +wartless finger naively offered for his inspection. + +"Quit!" shouted Penrod in agony. "QUEE-yut!" + +"Say your prayers!" commanded Rupe, and continued to twist the luckless +finger until Penrod writhed to his knees. + +"OW!" The victim, released, looked grievously upon the still painful +finger. + +At this Rupe's scornful expression altered to one of contrition. "Well, +I declare!" he exclaimed remorsefully. "I didn't s'pose it would hurt. +Turn about's fair play; so now you do that to me." + +He extended the middle finger of his left hand and Penrod promptly +seized it, but did not twist it, for he was instantly swung round with +his back to his amiable new acquaintance: Rupe's right hand operated +upon the back of Penrod's slender neck; Rupe's knee tortured the small +of Penrod's back. + +"OW!" Penrod bent far forward involuntarily and went to his knees again. + +"Lick dirt," commanded Rupe, forcing the captive's face to the sidewalk; +and the suffering Penrod completed this ceremony. + +Mr. Collins evinced satisfaction by means of his horse laugh. + +"You'd last jest about one day up at the Third!" he said. "You'd come +runnin' home, yellin' 'MOM-MUH, MOM-muh,' before recess was over!" + +"No, I wouldn't," Penrod protested rather weakly, dusting his knees. + +"You would, too!" + +"No, I w---- + +"Looky here," said the fat-faced boy, darkly, "what you mean, +counterdicking me?" + +He advanced a step and Penrod hastily qualified his contradiction. + +"I mean, I don't THINK I would. I----" + +"You better look out!" Rupe moved closer, and unexpectedly grasped the +back of Penrod's neck again. "Say, 'I WOULD run home yellin' "MOM-muh!"'" + +"Ow! I WOULD run home yellin' 'Mom-muh.'" + +"There!" said Rupe, giving the helpless nape a final squeeze. "That's +the way we do up at the Third." + +Penrod rubbed his neck and asked meekly: + +"Can you do that to any boy up at the Third?" + +"See here now," said Rupe, in the tone of one goaded beyond all +endurance, "YOU say if I can! You better say it quick, or----" + +"I knew you could," Penrod interposed hastily, with the pathetic +semblance of a laugh. "I only said that in fun." + +"In 'fun'!" repeated Rupe stormily. "You better look out how you----" + +"Well, I SAID I wasn't in earnest!" Penrod retreated a few steps. "_I_ +knew you could, all the time. I expect _I_ could do it to some of the +boys up at the Third, myself. Couldn't I?" + +"No, you couldn't." + +"Well, there must be SOME boy up there that I could----" + +"No, they ain't! You better----" + +"I expect not, then," said Penrod, quickly. + +"You BETTER 'expect not.' Didn't I tell you once you'd never get back +alive if you ever tried to come up around the Third? You want me to SHOW +you how we do up there, 'bo?" + +He began a slow and deadly advance, whereupon Penrod timidly offered a +diversion: + +"Say, Rupe, I got a box of rats in our stable under a glass cover, so +you can watch 'em jump around when you hammer on the box. Come on and +look at 'em." + +"All right," said the fat-faced boy, slightly mollified. "We'll let Dan +kill 'em." + +"No, SIR! I'm goin' to keep 'em. They're kind of pets; I've had 'em all +summer--I got names for em, and----" + +"Looky here, 'bo. Did you hear me say we'll let 'Dan kill 'em?" + +"Yes, but I won't----" + +"WHAT won't you?" Rupe became sinister immediately. "It seems to me +you're gettin' pretty fresh around here." + +"Well, I don't want----" + +Mr. Collins once more brought into play the dreadful eye-to-eye scowl as +practised "up at the Third," and, sometimes, also by young leading +men upon the stage. Frowning appallingly, and thrusting forward his +underlip, he placed his nose almost in contact with the nose of Penrod, +whose eyes naturally became crossed. + +"Dan kills the rats. See?" hissed the fat-faced boy, maintaining the +horrible juxtaposition. + +"Well, all right," said Penrod, swallowing. "I don't want 'em much." +And when the pose had been relaxed, he stared at his new friend for a +moment, almost with reverence. Then he brightened. + +"Come on, Rupe!" he cried enthusiastically, as he climbed the fence. +"We'll give our dogs a little live meat--'bo!" + + + +CHAPTER XXII THE IMITATOR + +At the dinner-table, that evening, Penrod Surprised his family by +remarking, in a voice they had never heard him attempt--a law-giving +voice of intentional gruffness: + +"Any man that's makin' a hunderd dollars a month is makin' good money." + +"What?" asked Mr. Schofield, staring, for the previous conversation had +concerned the illness of an infant relative in Council Bluffs. + +"Any man that's makin' a hunderd dollars a month is makin' good money." + +"What IS he talking about!" Margaret appealed to the invisible. + +"Well," said Penrod, frowning, "that's what foremen at the ladder works +get." + +"How in the world do you know?" asked his mother. + +"Well, I KNOW it! A hunderd dollars a month is good money, I tell you!" + +"Well, what of it?" said the father, impatiently. + +"Nothin'. I only said it was good money." + +Mr. Schofield shook his head, dismissing the subject; and here he made +a mistake: he should have followed up his son's singular contribution +to the conversation. That would have revealed the fact that there was a +certain Rupe Collins whose father was a foreman at the ladder works. All +clues are important when a boy makes his first remark in a new key. + +"'Good money'?" repeated Margaret, curiously. "What is 'good' money?" + +Penrod turned upon her a stern glance. "Say, wouldn't you be just as +happy if you had SOME sense?" + +"Penrod!" shouted his father. But Penrod's mother gazed with dismay at +her son: he had never before spoken like that to his sister. + +Mrs. Schofield might have been more dismayed than she was, if she had +realized that it was the beginning of an epoch. After dinner, Penrod was +slightly scalded in the back as the result of telling Della, the cook, +that there was a wart on the middle finger of her right hand. Della thus +proving poor material for his new manner to work upon, he approached +Duke, in the backyard, and, bending double, seized the lowly animal by +the forepaws. + +"I let you know my name's Penrod Schofield," hissed the boy. He +protruded his underlip ferociously, scowled, and thrust forward his head +until his nose touched the dog's. "And you better look out when Penrod +Schofield's around, or you'll get in big trouble! YOU UNDERSTAN' THAT, +'BO?" + +The next day, and the next, the increasing change in Penrod puzzled and +distressed his family, who had no idea of its source. + +How might they guess that hero-worship takes such forms? They were +vaguely conscious that a rather shabby boy, not of the neighbourhood, +came to "play" with Penrod several times; but they failed to connect +this circumstance with the peculiar behaviour of the son of the house, +whose ideals (his father remarked) seemed to have suddenly become +identical with those of Gyp the Blood. + +Meanwhile, for Penrod himself, "life had taken on new meaning, new +richness." He had become a fighting man--in conversation at least. "Do +you want to know how I do when they try to slip up on me from behind?" +he asked Della. And he enacted for her unappreciative eye a scene of +fistic manoeuvres wherein he held an imaginary antagonist helpless in a +net of stratagems. + +Frequently, when he was alone, he would outwit, and pummel this same +enemy, and, after a cunning feint, land a dolorous stroke full upon a +face of air. "There! I guess you'll know better next time. That's the +way we do up at the Third!" + +Sometimes, in solitary pantomime, he encountered more than one opponent +at a time, for numbers were apt to come upon him treacherously, +especially at a little after his rising hour, when he might be caught at +a disadvantage--perhaps standing on one leg to encase the other in his +knickerbockers. Like lightning, he would hurl the trapping garment from +him, and, ducking and pivoting, deal great sweeping blows among the +circle of sneaking devils. (That was how he broke the clock in his +bedroom.) And while these battles were occupying his attention, it was +a waste of voice to call him to breakfast, though if his mother, losing +patience, came to his room, she would find him seated on the bed pulling +at a stocking. "Well, ain't I coming fast as I CAN?" + +At the table and about the house generally he was bumptious, loud with +fatuous misinformation, and assumed a domineering tone, which neither +satire nor reproof seemed able to reduce: but it was among his own +intimates that his new superiority was most outrageous. He twisted the +fingers and squeezed the necks of all the boys of the neighbourhood, +meeting their indignation with a hoarse and rasping laugh he had +acquired after short practice in the stable, where he jeered and taunted +the lawn-mower, the garden-scythe and the wheelbarrow quite out of +countenance. + +Likewise he bragged to the other boys by the hour, Rupe Collins being +the chief subject of encomium--next to Penrod himself. "That's the +way we do up at the Third," became staple explanation of violence, for +Penrod, like Tartarin, was plastic in the hands of his own imagination, +and at times convinced himself that he really was one of those dark +and murderous spirits exclusively of whom "the Third" was +composed--according to Rupe Collins. + +Then, when Penrod had exhausted himself repeating to nausea accounts of +the prowess of himself and his great friend, he would turn to two other +subjects for vainglory. These were his father and Duke. + +Mothers must accept the fact that between babyhood and manhood their +sons do not boast of them. The boy, with boys, is a Choctaw; and either +the influence or the protection of women is shameful. "Your mother won't +let you," is an insult. But, "My father won't let me," is a dignified +explanation and cannot be hooted. A boy is ruined among his fellows if +he talks much of his mother or sisters; and he must recognize it as +his duty to offer at least the appearance of persecution to all things +ranked as female, such as cats and every species of fowl. But he must +champion his father and his dog, and, ever, ready to pit either against +any challenger, must picture both as ravening for battle and absolutely +unconquerable. + +Penrod, of course, had always talked by the code, but, under the new +stimulus, Duke was represented virtually as a cross between Bob, Son of +Battle, and a South American vampire; and this in spite of the fact that +Duke himself often sat close by, a living lie, with the hope of peace +in his heart. As for Penrod's father, that gladiator was painted as of +sentiments and dimensions suitable to a super-demon composed of equal +parts of Goliath, Jack Johnson and the Emperor Nero. + +Even Penrod's walk was affected; he adopted a gait which was a kind of +taunting swagger; and, when he passed other children on the street, he +practised the habit of feinting a blow; then, as the victim dodged, +he rasped the triumphant horse laugh which he gradually mastered to +horrible perfection. He did this to Marjorie Jones--ay! this was +their next meeting, and such is Eros, young! What was even worse, in +Marjorie's opinion, he went on his way without explanation, and left +her standing on the corner talking about it, long after he was out of +hearing. + +Within five days from his first encounter with Rupe Collins, Penrod had +become unbearable. He even almost alienated Sam Williams, who for a time +submitted to finger twisting and neck squeezing and the new style of +conversation, but finally declared that Penrod made him "sick." He made +the statement with fervour, one sultry afternoon, in Mr. Schofield's +stable, in the presence of Herman and Verman. + +"You better look out, 'bo," said Penrod, threateningly. "I'll show you a +little how we do up at the Third." + +"Up at the Third!" Sam repeated with scorn. "You haven't ever been up +there." + +"I haven't?" cried Penrod. "I HAVEN'T?" + +"No, you haven't!" + +"Looky here!" Penrod, darkly argumentative, prepared to perform the +eye-to-eye business. "When haven't I been up there?" + +"You haven't NEVER been up there!" In spite of Penrod's closely +approaching nose Sam maintained his ground, and appealed for +confirmation. "Has he, Herman?" + +"I don' reckon so," said Herman, laughing. + +"WHAT!" Penrod transferred his nose to the immediate vicinity of +Herman's nose. "You don't reckon so, 'bo, don't you? You better look out +how you reckon around here! YOU UNDERSTAN' THAT, 'BO?" + +Herman bore the eye-to-eye very well; indeed, it seemed to please +him, for he continued to laugh while Verman chuckled delightedly. The +brothers had been in the country picking berries for a week, and it +happened that this was their first experience of the new manifestation +of Penrod. + +"HAVEN'T I been up at the Third?" the sinister Penrod demanded. + +"I don' reckon so. How come you ast ME?" + +"Didn't you just hear me SAY I been up there?" + +"Well," said Herman mischievously, "hearin' ain't believin'!" + +Penrod clutched him by the back of the neck, but Herman, laughing +loudly, ducked and released himself at once, retreating to the wall. + +"You take that back!" Penrod shouted, striking out wildly. + +"Don' git mad," begged the small darky, while a number of blows falling +upon his warding arms failed to abate his amusement, and a sound one +upon the cheek only made him laugh the more unrestrainedly. He behaved +exactly as if Penrod were tickling him, and his brother, Verman, rolled +with joy in a wheelbarrow. Penrod pummelled till he was tired, and +produced no greater effect. + +"There!" he panted, desisting finally. "NOW I reckon you know whether I +been up there or not!" + +Herman rubbed his smitten cheek. "Pow!" he exclaimed. "Pow-ee! You +cert'ny did lan' me good one NAT time! Oo-ee! she HURT!" + +"You'll get hurt worse'n that," Penrod assured him, "if you stay around +here much. Rupe Collins is comin' this afternoon, he said. We're goin' +to make some policemen's billies out of the rake handle." + +"You go' spoil new rake you' pa bought?" + +"What do WE care? I and Rupe got to have billies, haven't we?" + +"How you make 'em?" + +"Melt lead and pour in a hole we're goin' to make in the end of 'em. +Then we're goin' to carry 'em in our pockets, and if anybody says +anything to us--OH, oh! look out! They won't get a crack on the +head--OH, no!" + +"When's Rupe Collins coming?" Sam Williams inquired rather uneasily. +He had heard a great deal too much of this personage, but as yet the +pleasure of actual acquaintance had been denied him. + +"He's liable to be here any time," answered Penrod. "You better look +out. You'll be lucky if you get home alive, if you stay till HE comes." + +"I ain't afraid of him," Sam returned, conventionally. + +"You are, too!" (There was some truth in the retort.) "There ain't any +boy in this part of town but me that wouldn't be afraid of him. You'd be +afraid to talk to him. You wouldn't get a word out of your mouth before +old Rupie'd have you where you'd wished you never come around HIM, +lettin' on like you was so much! YOU wouldn't run home yellin' 'Mom-muh' +or nothin'! OH, no!" + +"Who Rupe Collins?" asked Herman. + +"'Who Rupe Collins?'" Penrod mocked, and used his rasping laugh, but, +instead of showing fright, Herman appeared to think he was meant to +laugh, too; and so he did, echoed by Verman. "You just hang around here +a little while longer," Penrod added, grimly, "and you'll find out who +Rupe Collins is, and I pity YOU when you do!" + +"What he go' do?" + +"You'll see; that's all! You just wait and----" + +At this moment a brown hound ran into the stable through the alley door, +wagged a greeting to Penrod, and fraternized with Duke. The fat-faced +boy appeared upon the threshold and gazed coldly about the little +company in the carriage-house, whereupon the coloured brethren, ceasing +from merriment, were instantly impassive, and Sam Williams moved a +little nearer the door leading into the yard. + +Obviously, Sam regarded the newcomer as a redoubtable if not ominous +figure. He was a head taller than either Sam or Penrod; head and +shoulders taller than Herman, who was short for his age; and Verman +could hardly be used for purposes of comparison at all, being a mere +squat brown spot, not yet quite nine years on this planet. And to +Sam's mind, the aspect of Mr. Collins realized Penrod's portentous +foreshadowings. Upon the fat face there was an expression of truculent +intolerance which had been cultivated by careful habit to such +perfection that Sam's heart sank at sight of it. A somewhat enfeebled +twin to this expression had of late often decorated the visage of +Penrod, and appeared upon that ingenuous surface now, as he advanced to +welcome the eminent visitor. + +The host swaggered toward the door with a great deal of shoulder +movement, carelessly feinting a slap at Verman in passing, and creating +by various means the atmosphere of a man who has contemptuously amused +himself with underlings while awaiting an equal. + +"Hello, 'bo!" Penrod said in the deepest voice possible to him. + +"Who you callin' 'bo?" was the ungracious response, accompanied by +immediate action of a similar nature. Rupe held Penrod's head in the +crook of an elbow and massaged his temples with a hard-pressing knuckle. + +"I was only in fun, Rupie," pleaded the sufferer, and then, being set +free, "Come here, Sam," he said. + +"What for?" + +Penrod laughed pityingly. "Pshaw, I ain't goin' to hurt you. Come on." +Sam, maintaining his position near the other door, Penrod went to him +and caught him round the neck. + +"Watch me, Rupie!" Penrod called, and performed upon Sam the knuckle +operation which he had himself just undergone, Sam submitting +mechanically, his eyes fixed with increasing uneasiness upon Rupe +Collins. Sam had a premonition that something even more painful than +Penrod's knuckle was going to be inflicted upon him. + +"THAT don' hurt," said Penrod, pushing him away. + +"Yes, it does, too!" Sam rubbed his temple. + +"Puh! It didn't hurt me, did it, Rupie? Come on in, Rupe: show this baby +where he's got a wart on his finger." + +"You showed me that trick," Sam objected. "You already did that to +me. You tried it twice this afternoon and I don't know how many times +before, only you weren't strong enough after the first time. Anyway, I +know what it is, and I don't----" + +"Come on, Rupe," said Penrod. "Make the baby lick dirt." + +At this bidding, Rupe approached, while Sam, still protesting, moved to +the threshold of the outer door; but Penrod seized him by the shoulders +and swung him indoors with a shout. + +"Little baby wants to run home to its Mom-muh! Here he is, Rupie." + +Thereupon was Penrod's treachery to an old comrade properly rewarded, +for as the two struggled, Rupe caught each by the back of the neck, +simultaneously, and, with creditable impartiality, forced both boys to +their knees. + +"Lick dirt!" he commanded, forcing them still forward, until their faces +were close to the stable floor. + +At this moment he received a real surprise. With a loud whack something +struck the back of his head, and, turning, he beheld Verman in the act +of lifting a piece of lath to strike again. + +"Em moys ome!" said Verman, the Giant Killer. + +"He tongue-tie'," Herman explained. "He say, let 'em boys alone." + +Rupe addressed his host briefly: + +"Chase them nigs out o' here!" + +"Don' call me nig," said Herman. "I mine my own biznuss. You let 'em +boys alone." + +Rupe strode across the still prostrate Sam, stepped upon Penrod, and, +equipping his countenance with the terrifying scowl and protruded jaw, +lowered his head to the level of Herman's. + +"Nig, you'll be lucky if you leave here alive!" And he leaned forward +till his nose was within less than an inch of Herman's nose. + +It could be felt that something awful was about to happen, and Penrod, +as he rose from the floor, suffered an unexpected twinge of apprehension +and remorse: he hoped that Rupe wouldn't REALLY hurt Herman. A sudden +dislike of Rupe and Rupe's ways rose within him, as he looked at the big +boy overwhelming the little darky with that ferocious scowl. Penrod, +all at once, felt sorry about something indefinable; and, with equal +vagueness, he felt foolish. "Come on, Rupe," he suggested, feebly, "let +Herman go, and let's us make our billies out of the rake handle." + +The rake handle, however, was not available, if Rupe had inclined to +favour the suggestion. Verman had discarded his lath for the rake, which +he was at this moment lifting in the air. + +"You ole black nigger," the fat-faced boy said venomously to Herman, +"I'm agoin' to----" + +But he had allowed his nose to remain too long near Herman's. + +Penrod's familiar nose had been as close with only a ticklish spinal +effect upon the not very remote descendant of Congo man-eaters. The +result produced by the glare of Rupe's unfamiliar eyes, and by +the dreadfully suggestive proximity of Rupe's unfamiliar nose, was +altogether different. Herman's and Verman's Bangala great-grandfathers +never considered people of their own jungle neighbourhood proper +material for a meal, but they looked upon strangers especially truculent +strangers--as distinctly edible. + +Penrod and Sam heard Rupe suddenly squawk and bellow; saw him writhe and +twist and fling out his arms like flails, though without removing his +face from its juxtaposition; indeed, for a moment, the two heads seemed +even closer. + +Then they separated--and battle was on! + + + +CHAPTER XXIII COLOURED TROOPS IN ACTION + +How neat and pure is the task of the chronicler who has the tale to tell +of a "good rousing fight" between boys or men who fight in the "good old +English way," according to a model set for fights in books long before +Tom Brown went to Rugby. There are seconds and rounds and rules of +fair-play, and always there is great good feeling in the end--though +sometimes, to vary the model, "the Butcher" defeats the hero--and the +chronicler who stencils this fine old pattern on his page is certain of +applause as the stirrer of "red blood." There is no surer recipe. + +But when Herman and Verman set to 't the record must be no more than a +few fragments left by the expurgator. It has been perhaps sufficiently +suggested that the altercation in Mr. Schofield's stable opened with +mayhem in respect to the aggressor's nose. Expressing vocally his +indignation and the extremity of his pained surprise, Mr. Collins +stepped backward, holding his left hand over his nose, and striking at +Herman with his right. Then Verman hit him with the rake. + +Verman struck from behind. He struck as hard as he could. And he struck +with the tines down--For, in his simple, direct African way he wished to +kill his enemy, and he wished to kill him as soon as possible. That was +his single, earnest purpose. + +On this account, Rupe Collins was peculiarly unfortunate. He was plucky +and he enjoyed conflict, but neither his ambitions nor his anticipations +had ever included murder. He had not learned that an habitually +aggressive person runs the danger of colliding with beings in one of +those lower stages of evolution wherein theories about "hitting below +the belt" have not yet made their appearance. + +The rake glanced from the back of Rupe's head to his shoulder, but it +felled him. Both darkies jumped full upon him instantly, and the three +rolled and twisted upon the stable-floor, unloosing upon the air sincere +maledictions closely connected with complaints of cruel and unusual +treatment; while certain expressions of feeling presently emanating from +Herman and Verman indicated that Rupe Collins, in this extremity, was +proving himself not too slavishly addicted to fighting by rule. Dan and +Duke, mistaking all for mirth, barked gayly. + +From the panting, pounding, yelling heap issued words and phrases +hitherto quite unknown to Penrod and Sam; also, a hoarse repetition +in the voice of Rupe concerning his ear left it not to be doubted +that additional mayhem was taking place. Appalled, the two spectators +retreated to the doorway nearest the yard, where they stood dumbly +watching the cataclysm. + +The struggle increased in primitive simplicity: time and again the +howling Rupe got to his knees only to go down again as the earnest +brothers, in their own way, assisted him to a more reclining position. +Primal forces operated here, and the two blanched, slightly higher +products of evolution, Sam and Penrod, no more thought of interfering +than they would have thought of interfering with an earthquake. + +At last, out of the ruck rose Verman, disfigured and maniacal. With a +wild eye he looked about him for his trusty rake; but Penrod, in horror, +had long since thrown the rake out into the yard. Naturally, it had not +seemed necessary to remove the lawn-mower. + +The frantic eye of Verman fell upon the lawn-mower, and instantly +he leaped to its handle. Shrilling a wordless war-cry, he charged, +propelling the whirling, deafening knives straight upon the prone +legs of Rupe Collins. The lawn-mower was sincerely intended to pass +longitudinally over the body of Mr. Collins from heel to head; and it +was the time for a death-song. Black Valkyrie hovered in the shrieking +air. + +"Cut his gizzud out!" shrieked Herman, urging on the whirling knives. + +They touched and lacerated the shin of Rupe, as, with the supreme agony +of effort a creature in mortal peril puts forth before succumbing, he +tore himself free of Herman and got upon his feet. + +Herman was up as quickly. He leaped to the wall and seized the +garden-scythe that hung there. + +"I'm go to cut you' gizzud out," he announced definitely, "an' eat it!" + +Rupe Collins had never run from anybody (except his father) in his life; +he was not a coward; but the present situation was very, very unusual. +He was already in a badly dismantled condition, and yet Herman and +Verman seemed discontented with their work: Verman was swinging the +grass-cutter about for a new charge, apparently still wishing to mow +him, and Herman had made a quite plausible statement about what he +intended to do with the scythe. + +Rupe paused but for an extremely condensed survey of the horrible +advance of the brothers, and then, uttering a blood-curdled scream of +fear, ran out of the stable and up the alley at a speed he had never +before attained, so that even Dan had hard work to keep within barking +distance. And a 'cross-shoulder glance, at the corner, revealing Verman +and Herman in pursuit, the latter waving his scythe overhead, Mr. +Collins slackened not his gait, but, rather, out of great anguish, +increased it; the while a rapidly developing purpose became firm in his +mind--and ever after so remained--not only to refrain from visiting that +neighbourhood again, but never by any chance to come within a mile of +it. + +From the alley door, Penrod and Sam watched the flight, and were without +words. When the pursuit rounded the corner, the two looked wanly at +each other, but neither spoke until the return of the brothers from the +chase. + +Herman and Verman came back, laughing and chuckling. + +"Hiyi!" cackled Herman to Verman, as they came, "See 'at ole boy run!" + +"Who-ee!" Verman shouted in ecstasy. + +"Nev' did see boy run so fas'!" Herman continued, tossing the scythe +into the wheelbarrow. "I bet he home in bed by viss time!" + +Verman roared with delight, appearing to be wholly unconscious that the +lids of his right eye were swollen shut and that his attire, not too +finical before the struggle, now entitled him to unquestioned rank as a +sansculotte. Herman was a similar ruin, and gave as little heed to his +condition. + +Penrod looked dazedly from Herman to Verman and back again. So did Sam +Williams. + +"Herman," said Penrod, in a weak voice, "you wouldn't HONEST of cut his +gizzard out, would you?" + +"Who? Me? I don' know. He mighty mean ole boy!" Herman shook his head +gravely, and then, observing that Verman was again convulsed with +unctuous merriment, joined laughter with his brother. "Sho'! I guess I +uz dess TALKIN' whens I said 'at! Reckon he thought I meant it, f'm de +way he tuck an' run. Hiyi! Reckon he thought ole Herman bad man! No, +suh! I uz dess talkin', 'cause I nev' would cut NObody! I ain' tryin' +git in no jail--NO, suh!" + +Penrod looked at the scythe: he looked at Herman. He looked at the +lawn-mower, and he looked at Verman. Then he looked out in the yard at +the rake. So did Sam Williams. + +"Come on, Verman," said Herman. "We ain' go' 'at stove-wood f' supper +yit." + +Giggling reminiscently, the brothers disappeared leaving silence behind +them in the carriage-house. Penrod and Sam retired slowly into the +shadowy interior, each glancing, now and then, with a preoccupied air, +at the open, empty doorway where the late afternoon sunshine was growing +ruddy. At intervals one or the other scraped the floor reflectively +with the side of his shoe. Finally, still without either having made +any effort at conversation, they went out into the yard and stood, +continuing their silence. + +"Well," said Sam, at last, "I guess it's time I better be gettin' home. +So long, Penrod!" + +"So long, Sam," said Penrod, feebly. + +With a solemn gaze he watched his friend out of sight. Then he went +slowly into the house, and after an interval occupied in a unique +manner, appeared in the library, holding a pair of brilliantly gleaming +shoes in his hand. + +Mr. Schofield, reading the evening paper, glanced frowningly over it at +his offspring. + +"Look, papa," said Penrod. "I found your shoes where you'd taken 'em +off in your room, to put on your slippers, and they were all dusty. So I +took 'em out on the back porch and gave 'em a good blacking. They shine +up fine, don't they?" + +"Well, I'll be d-dud-dummed!" said the startled Mr. Schofield. + +Penrod was zigzagging back to normal. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV "LITTLE GENTLEMAN" + +The midsummer sun was stinging hot outside the little barber-shop next +to the corner drug store and Penrod, undergoing a toilette preliminary +to his very slowly approaching twelfth birthday, was adhesive enough to +retain upon his face much hair as it fell from the shears. There is a +mystery here: the tonsorial processes are not unagreeable to manhood; in +truth, they are soothing; but the hairs detached from a boy's head get +into his eyes, his ears, his nose, his mouth, and down his neck, and he +does everywhere itch excruciatingly. Wherefore he blinks, winks, weeps, +twitches, condenses his countenance, and squirms; and perchance the +barber's scissors clip more than intended--belike an outlying flange of +ear. + +"Um--muh--OW!" said Penrod, this thing having happened. + +"D' I touch y' up a little?" inquired the barber, smiling falsely. + +"Ooh--UH!" The boy in the chair offered inarticulate protest, as the +wound was rubbed with alum. + +"THAT don't hurt!" said the barber. "You WILL get it, though, if you +don't sit stiller," he continued, nipping in the bud any attempt on the +part of his patient to think that he already had "it." + +"Pfuff!" said Penrod, meaning no disrespect, but endeavoring to dislodge +a temporary moustache from his lip. + +"You ought to see how still that little Georgie Bassett sits," the +barber went on, reprovingly. "I hear everybody says he's the best boy in +town." + +"Pfuff! PHIRR!" There was a touch of intentional contempt in this. + +"I haven't heard nobody around the neighbourhood makin' no such +remarks," added the barber, "about nobody of the name of Penrod +Schofield." + +"Well," said Penrod, clearing his mouth after a struggle, "who wants 'em +to? Ouch!" + +"I hear they call Georgie Bassett the 'little gentleman,'" ventured the +barber, provocatively, meeting with instant success. + +"They better not call ME that," returned Penrod truculently. "I'd like +to hear anybody try. Just once, that's all! I bet they'd never try it +ag----OUCH!" + +"Why? What'd you do to 'em?" + +"It's all right what I'd DO! I bet they wouldn't want to call me that +again long as they lived!" + +"What'd you do if it was a little girl? You wouldn't hit her, would +you?" + +"Well, I'd----Ouch!" + +"You wouldn't hit a little girl, would you?" the barber persisted, +gathering into his powerful fingers a mop of hair from the top of +Penrod's head and pulling that suffering head into an unnatural +position. "Doesn't the Bible say it ain't never right to hit the weak +sex?" + +"Ow! SAY, look OUT!" + +"So you'd go and punch a pore, weak, little girl, would you?" said the +barber, reprovingly. + +"Well, who said I'd hit her?" demanded the chivalrous Penrod. "I bet I'd +FIX her though, all right. She'd see!" + +"You wouldn't call her names, would you?" + +"No, I wouldn't! What hurt is it to call anybody names?" + +"Is that SO!" exclaimed the barber. "Then you was intending what I heard +you hollering at Fisher's grocery delivery wagon driver fer a favour, +the other day when I was goin' by your house, was you? I reckon I better +tell him, because he says to me after-WERDS if he ever lays eyes on you +when you ain't in your own yard, he's goin' to do a whole lot o' things +you ain't goin' to like! Yessir, that's what he says to ME!" + +"He better catch me first, I guess, before he talks so much." + +"Well," resumed the barber, "that ain't sayin' what you'd do if a young +lady ever walked up and called you a little gentleman. _I_ want to hear +what you'd do to her. I guess I know, though--come to think of it." + +"What?" demanded Penrod. + +"You'd sick that pore ole dog of yours on her cat, if she had one, I +expect," guessed the barber derisively. + +"No, I would not!" + +"Well, what WOULD you do?" + +"I'd do enough. Don't worry about that!" + +"Well, suppose it was a boy, then: what'd you do if a boy come up to you +and says, 'Hello, little gentleman'?" + +"He'd be lucky," said Penrod, with a sinister frown, "if he got home +alive." + +"Suppose it was a boy twice your size?" + +"Just let him try," said Penrod ominously. "You just let him try. He'd +never see daylight again; that's all!" + +The barber dug ten active fingers into the helpless scalp before him +and did his best to displace it, while the anguished Penrod, becoming +instantly a seething crucible of emotion, misdirected his natural +resentment into maddened brooding upon what he would do to a boy "twice +his size" who should dare to call him "little gentleman." The barber +shook him as his father had never shaken him; the barber buffeted him, +rocked him frantically to and fro; the barber seemed to be trying to +wring his neck; and Penrod saw himself in staggering zigzag pictures, +destroying large, screaming, fragmentary boys who had insulted him. + +The torture stopped suddenly; and clenched, weeping eyes began to see +again, while the barber applied cooling lotions which made Penrod smell +like a coloured housemaid's ideal. + +"Now what," asked the barber, combing the reeking locks gently, "what +would it make you so mad fer, to have somebody call you a little +gentleman? It's a kind of compliment, as it were, you might say. What +would you want to hit anybody fer THAT fer?" + +To the mind of Penrod, this question was without meaning or +reasonableness. It was within neither his power nor his desire to +analyze the process by which the phrase had become offensive to him, +and was now rapidly assuming the proportions of an outrage. He knew only +that his gorge rose at the thought of it. + +"You just let 'em try it!" he said threateningly, as he slid down from +the chair. And as he went out of the door, after further conversation +on the same subject, he called back those warning words once more: "Just +let 'em try it! Just once--that's all _I_ ask 'em to. They'll find out +what they GET!" + +The barber chuckled. Then a fly lit on the barber's nose and he slapped +at it, and the slap missed the fly but did not miss the nose. The barber +was irritated. At this moment his birdlike eye gleamed a gleam as it +fell upon customers approaching: the prettiest little girl in the world, +leading by the hand her baby brother, Mitchy-Mitch, coming to have +Mitchy-Mitch's hair clipped, against the heat. + +It was a hot day and idle, with little to feed the mind--and the barber +was a mischievous man with an irritated nose. He did his worst. + +Meanwhile, the brooding Penrod pursued his homeward way; no great +distance, but long enough for several one-sided conflicts with malign +insulters made of thin air. "You better NOT call me that!" he muttered. +"You just try it, and you'll get what other people got when THEY tried +it. You better not ack fresh with ME! Oh, you WILL, will you?" He +delivered a vicious kick full upon the shins of an iron fence-post, +which suffered little, though Penrod instantly regretted his +indiscretion. "Oof!" he grunted, hopping; and went on after bestowing a +look of awful hostility upon the fence-post. "I guess you'll know better +next time," he said, in parting, to this antagonist. "You just let me +catch you around here again and I'll----" His voice sank to inarticulate +but ominous murmurings. He was in a dangerous mood. + +Nearing home, however, his belligerent spirit was diverted to happier +interests by the discovery that some workmen had left a caldron of tar +in the cross-street, close by his father's stable. He tested it, but +found it inedible. Also, as a substitute for professional chewing-gum +it was unsatisfactory, being insufficiently boiled down and too thin, +though of a pleasant, lukewarm temperature. But it had an excess of one +quality--it was sticky. It was the stickiest tar Penrod had ever used +for any purposes whatsoever, and nothing upon which he wiped his hands +served to rid them of it; neither his polka-dotted shirt waist nor his +knickerbockers; neither the fence, nor even Duke, who came unthinkingly +wagging out to greet him, and retired wiser. + +Nevertheless, tar is tar. Much can be done with it, no matter what its +condition; so Penrod lingered by the caldron, though from a neighbouring +yard could be heard the voices of comrades, including that of Sam +Williams. On the ground about the caldron were scattered chips and +sticks and bits of wood to the number of a great multitude. Penrod mixed +quantities of this refuse into the tar, and interested himself in +seeing how much of it he could keep moving in slow swirls upon the ebon +surface. + +Other surprises were arranged for the absent workmen. The caldron was +almost full, and the surface of the tar near the rim. + +Penrod endeavoured to ascertain how many pebbles and brickbats, dropped +in, would cause an overflow. Labouring heartily to this end, he +had almost accomplished it, when he received the suggestion for an +experiment on a much larger scale. Embedded at the corner of a +grassplot across the street was a whitewashed stone, the size of a small +watermelon and serving no purpose whatever save the questionable one of +decoration. It was easily pried up with a stick; though getting it to +the caldron tested the full strength of the ardent labourer. Instructed +to perform such a task, he would have sincerely maintained its +impossibility but now, as it was unbidden, and promised rather +destructive results, he set about it with unconquerable energy, feeling +certain that he would be rewarded with a mighty splash. Perspiring, +grunting vehemently, his back aching and all muscles strained, he +progressed in short stages until the big stone lay at the base of the +caldron. He rested a moment, panting, then lifted the stone, and was +bending his shoulders for the heave that would lift it over the rim, +when a sweet, taunting voice, close behind him, startled him cruelly. + +"How do you do, LITTLE GENTLEMAN!" + +Penrod squawked, dropped the stone, and shouted, "Shut up, you dern +fool!" purely from instinct, even before his about-face made him aware +who had so spitefully addressed him. + +It was Marjorie Jones. Always dainty, and prettily dressed, she was in +speckless and starchy white to-day, and a refreshing picture she made, +with the new-shorn and powerfully scented Mitchy-Mitch clinging to +her hand. They had stolen up behind the toiler, and now stood laughing +together in sweet merriment. Since the passing of Penrod's Rupe Collins +period he had experienced some severe qualms at the recollection of his +last meeting with Marjorie and his Apache behaviour; in truth, his heart +instantly became as wax at sight of her, and he would have offered +her fair speech; but, alas! in Marjorie's wonderful eyes there shone +a consciousness of new powers for his undoing, and she denied him +opportunity. + +"Oh, OH!" she cried, mocking his pained outcry. "What a way for a LITTLE +GENTLEMAN to talk! Little gentleman don't say wicked----" + +"Marjorie!" Penrod, enraged and dismayed, felt himself stung beyond all +endurance. Insult from her was bitterer to endure than from any other. +"Don't you call me that again!" + +"Why not, LITTLE GENTLEMAN?" + +He stamped his foot. "You better stop!" + +Marjorie sent into his furious face her lovely, spiteful laughter. + +"Little gentleman, little gentleman, little gentleman!" she said +deliberately. "How's the little gentleman, this afternoon? Hello, little +gentleman!" + +Penrod, quite beside himself, danced eccentrically. "Dry up!" he howled. +"Dry up, dry up, dry up, dry UP!" + +Mitchy-Mitch shouted with delight and applied a finger to the side +of the caldron--a finger immediately snatched away and wiped upon a +handkerchief by his fastidious sister. + +"'Ittle gellamun!" said Mitchy-Mitch. + +"You better look out!" Penrod whirled upon this small offender with +grim satisfaction. Here was at least something male that could without +dishonour be held responsible. "You say that again, and I'll give you +the worst----" + +"You will NOT!" snapped Marjorie, instantly vitriolic. "He'll say just +whatever he wants to, and he'll say it just as MUCH as he wants to. Say +it again, Mitchy-Mitch!" + +"'Ittle gellamun!" said Mitchy-Mitch promptly. + +"Ow-YAH!" Penrod's tone-production was becoming affected by his mental +condition. "You say that again, and I'll----" + +"Go on, Mitchy-Mitch," cried Marjorie. "He can't do a thing. He don't +DARE! Say it some more, Mitchy-Mitch--say it a whole lot!" + +Mitchy-Mitch, his small, fat face shining with confidence in his +immunity, complied. + +"'Ittle gellamun!" he squeaked malevolently. "'Ittle gellamun! 'Ittle +gellamun! 'Ittle gellamun!" + +The desperate Penrod bent over the whitewashed rock, lifted it, and +then--outdoing Porthos, John Ridd, and Ursus in one miraculous burst of +strength--heaved it into the air. + +Marjorie screamed. + +But it was too late. The big stone descended into the precise midst of +the caldron and Penrod got his mighty splash. It was far, far beyond his +expectations. + +Spontaneously there were grand and awful effects--volcanic spectacles of +nightmare and eruption. A black sheet of eccentric shape rose out of the +caldron and descended upon the three children, who had no time to evade +it. + +After it fell, Mitchy-Mitch, who stood nearest the caldron, was the +thickest, though there was enough for all. Br'er Rabbit would have fled +from any of them. + + + +CHAPTER XXV TAR + +When Marjorie and Mitchy-Mitch got their breath, they used it vocally; +and seldom have more penetrating sounds issued from human throats. +Coincidentally, Marjorie, quite baresark, laid hands upon the largest +stick within reach and fell upon Penrod with blind fury. He had the +presence of mind to flee, and they went round and round the caldron, +while Mitchy-Mitch feebly endeavoured to follow--his appearance, in +this pursuit, being pathetically like that of a bug fished out of an +ink-well, alive but discouraged. + +Attracted by the riot, Samuel Williams made his appearance, vaulting a +fence, and was immediately followed by Maurice Levy and Georgie Bassett. +They stared incredulously at the extraordinary spectacle before them. + +"Little GEN-TIL-MUN!" shrieked Marjorie, with a wild stroke that landed +full upon Penrod's tarry cap. + +"OOOCH!" bleated Penrod. + +"It's Penrod!" shouted Sam Williams, recognizing him by the voice. For +an instant he had been in some doubt. + +"Penrod Schofield!" exclaimed Georgie Bassett. "WHAT does this mean?" +That was Georgie's style, and had helped to win him his title. + +Marjorie leaned, panting, upon her stick. "I cu-called--uh-- +him--oh!" she sobbed--"I called him a lul-little--oh--gentleman! +And oh--lul-look!--oh! lul-look at my du-dress! Lul-look at +Mumitchy--oh--Mitch--oh!" + +Unexpectedly, she smote again--with results--and then, seizing the +indistinguishable hand of Mitchy-Mitch, she ran wailing homeward down +the street. + +"'Little gentleman'?" said Georgie Bassett, with some evidences of +disturbed complacency. "Why, that's what they call ME!" + +"Yes, and you ARE one, too!" shouted the maddened Penrod. "But you +better not let anybody call ME that! I've stood enough around here for +one day, and you can't run over ME, Georgie Bassett. Just you put that +in your gizzard and smoke it!" + +"Anybody has a perfect right," said Georgie, with, dignity, "to call a +person a little gentleman. There's lots of names nobody ought to call, +but this one's a NICE----" + +"You better look out!" + +Unavenged bruises were distributed all over Penrod, both upon his body +and upon his spirit. Driven by subtle forces, he had dipped his hands in +catastrophe and disaster: it was not for a Georgie Bassett to beard him. +Penrod was about to run amuck. + +"I haven't called you a little gentleman, yet," said Georgie. "I only +said it. Anybody's got a right to SAY it." + +"Not around ME! You just try it again and----" + +"I shall say it," returned Georgie, "all I please. Anybody in this town +has a right to SAY 'little gentleman'----" + +Bellowing insanely, Penrod plunged his right hand into the caldron, +rushed upon Georgie and made awful work of his hair and features. + +Alas, it was but the beginning! Sam Williams and Maurice Levy screamed +with delight, and, simultaneously infected, danced about the struggling +pair, shouting frantically: + +"Little gentleman! Little gentleman! Sick him, Georgie! Sick him, little +gentleman! Little gentleman! Little gentleman!" + +The infuriated outlaw turned upon them with blows and more tar, which +gave Georgie Bassett his opportunity and later seriously impaired the +purity of his fame. Feeling himself hopelessly tarred, he dipped both +hands repeatedly into the caldron and applied his gatherings to Penrod. +It was bringing coals to Newcastle, but it helped to assuage the just +wrath of Georgie. + +The four boys gave a fine imitation of the Laocoon group complicated +by an extra figure frantic splutterings and chokings, strange cries and +stranger words issued from this tangle; hands dipped lavishly into the +inexhaustible reservoir of tar, with more and more picturesque results. +The caldron had been elevated upon bricks and was not perfectly +balanced; and under a heavy impact of the struggling group it lurched +and went partly over, pouring forth a Stygian tide which formed a deep +pool in the gutter. + +It was the fate of Master Roderick Bitts, that exclusive and immaculate +person, to make his appearance upon the chaotic scene at this juncture. +All in the cool of a white "sailor suit," he turned aside from the path +of duty--which led straight to the house of a maiden aunt--and paused +to hop with joy upon the sidewalk. A repeated epithet continuously half +panted, half squawked, somewhere in the nest of gladiators, caught his +ear, and he took it up excitedly, not knowing why. + +"Little gentleman!" shouted Roderick, jumping up and down in childish +glee. "Little gentleman! Little gentleman! Lit----" + +A frightful figure tore itself free from the group, encircled this +innocent bystander with a black arm, and hurled him headlong. Full +length and flat on his face went Roderick into the Stygian pool. The +frightful figure was Penrod. + +Instantly, the pack flung themselves upon him again, and, carrying +them with him, he went over upon Roderick, who from that instant was as +active a belligerent as any there. + +Thus began the Great Tar Fight, the origin of which proved, afterward, +so difficult for parents to trace, owing to the opposing accounts of +the combatants. Marjorie said Penrod began it; Penrod said Mitchy-Mitch +began it; Sam Williams said Georgie Bassett began it; Georgie and +Maurice Levy said Penrod began it; Roderick Bitts, who had not +recognized his first assailant, said Sam Williams began it. + +Nobody thought of accusing the barber. But the barber did not begin it; +it was the fly on the barber's nose that began it--though, of course, +something else began the fly. Somehow, we never manage to hang the real +offender. + +The end came only with the arrival of Penrod's mother, who had been +having a painful conversation by telephone with Mrs. Jones, the mother +of Marjorie, and came forth to seek an errant son. It is a mystery how +she was able to pick out her own, for by the time she got there his +voice was too hoarse to be recognizable. Mr. Schofield's version of +things was that Penrod was insane. "He's a stark, raving lunatic!" +declared the father, descending to the library from a before-dinner +interview with the outlaw, that evening. "I'd send him to military +school, but I don't believe they'd take him. Do you know WHY he says all +that awfulness happened?" + +"When Margaret and I were trying to scrub him," responded Mrs. Schofield +wearily, "he said 'everybody' had been calling him names." + +"'Names!'" snorted her husband. "'Little gentleman!' THAT'S the vile +epithet they called him! And because of it he wrecks the peace of six +homes!" + +"SH! Yes; he told us about it," said Mrs. Schofield, moaning. "He told +us several hundred times, I should guess, though I didn't count. He's +got it fixed in his head, and we couldn't get it out. All we could do +was to put him in the closet. He'd have gone out again after those boys +if we hadn't. I don't know WHAT to make of him!" + +"He's a mystery to ME!" said her husband. "And he refuses to explain +why he objects to being called 'little gentleman.' Says he'd do the same +thing--and worse--if anybody dared to call him that again. He said if +the President of the United States called him that he'd try to whip him. +How long did you have him locked up in the closet?" + +"SH!" said Mrs. Schofield warningly. "About two hours; but I don't think +it softened his spirit at all, because when I took him to the barber's +to get his hair clipped again, on account of the tar in it, Sammy +Williams and Maurice Levy were there for the same reason, and they just +WHISPERED 'little gentleman,' so low you could hardly hear them--and +Penrod began fighting with them right before me, and it was really all +the barber and I could do to drag him away from them. The barber was +very kind about it, but Penrod----" + +"I tell you he's a lunatic!" Mr. Schofield would have said the same +thing of a Frenchman infuriated by the epithet "camel." The philosophy +of insult needs expounding. + +"SH!" said Mrs. Schofield. "It does seem a kind of frenzy." + +"Why on earth should any sane person mind being called----" + +"SH!" said Mrs. Schofield. "It's beyond ME!" + +"What are you SH-ing me for?" demanded Mr. Schofield explosively. + +"SH!" said Mrs. Schofield. "It's Mr. Kinosling, the new rector of Saint +Joseph's." + +"Where?" + +"SH! On the front porch with Margaret; he's going to stay for dinner. I +do hope----" + +"Bachelor, isn't he?" + +"Yes." + +"OUR old minister was speaking of him the other day," said Mr. +Schofield, "and he didn't seem so terribly impressed." + +"SH! Yes; about thirty, and of course so superior to most of Margaret's +friends--boys home from college. She thinks she likes young Robert +Williams, I know--but he laughs so much! Of course there isn't any +comparison. Mr. Kinosling talks so intellectually; it's a good thing for +Margaret to hear that kind of thing, for a change and, of course, he's +very spiritual. He seems very much interested in her." She paused to +muse. "I think Margaret likes him; he's so different, too. It's the +third time he's dropped in this week, and I----" + +"Well," said Mr. Schofield grimly, "if you and Margaret want him to come +again, you'd better not let him see Penrod." + +"But he's asked to see him; he seems interested in meeting all the +family. And Penrod nearly always behaves fairly well at table." +She paused, and then put to her husband a question referring to his +interview with Penrod upstairs. "Did you--did you--do it?" + +"No," he answered gloomily. "No, I didn't, but----" He was interrupted +by a violent crash of china and metal in the kitchen, a shriek from +Della, and the outrageous voice of Penrod. The well-informed Della, +ill-inspired to set up for a wit, had ventured to address the scion of +the house roguishly as "little gentleman," and Penrod, by means of the +rapid elevation of his right foot, had removed from her supporting +hands a laden tray. Both parents, started for the kitchen, Mr. Schofield +completing his interrupted sentence on the way. + +"But I will, now!" + +The rite thus promised was hastily but accurately performed in that +apartment most distant from the front porch; and, twenty minutes later, +Penrod descended to dinner. The Rev. Mr. Kinosling had asked for the +pleasure of meeting him, and it had been decided that the only course +possible was to cover up the scandal for the present, and to offer an +undisturbed and smiling family surface to the gaze of the visitor. + +Scorched but not bowed, the smouldering Penrod was led forward for the +social formulae simultaneously with the somewhat bleak departure of +Robert Williams, who took his guitar with him, this time, and went in +forlorn unconsciousness of the powerful forces already set in secret +motion to be his allies. + +The punishment just undergone had but made the haughty and unyielding +soul of Penrod more stalwart in revolt; he was unconquered. Every time +the one intolerable insult had been offered him, his resentment had +become the hotter, his vengeance the more instant and furious. And, +still burning with outrage, but upheld by the conviction of right, he +was determined to continue to the last drop of his blood the defense +of his honour, whenever it should be assailed, no matter how mighty or +august the powers that attacked it. In all ways, he was a very sore boy. + +During the brief ceremony of presentation, his usually inscrutable +countenance wore an expression interpreted by his father as one of +insane obstinacy, while Mrs. Schofield found it an incentive to inward +prayer. The fine graciousness of Mr. Kinosling, however, was unimpaired +by the glare of virulent suspicion given him by this little brother: Mr. +Kinosling mistook it for a natural curiosity concerning one who might +possibly become, in time, a member of the family. He patted Penrod upon +the head, which was, for many reasons, in no condition to be patted with +any pleasure to the patter. Penrod felt himself in the presence of a new +enemy. + +"How do you do, my little lad," said Mr. Kinosling. "I trust we shall +become fast friends." + +To the ear of his little lad, it seemed he said, "A trost we shall +bick-home fawst frainds." Mr. Kinosling's pronunciation was, in fact, +slightly precious; and, the little lad, simply mistaking it for some +cryptic form of mockery of himself, assumed a manner and expression +which argued so ill for the proposed friendship that Mrs. Schofield +hastily interposed the suggestion of dinner, and the small procession +went in to the dining-room. + +"It has been a delicious day," said Mr. Kinosling, presently; "warm but +balmy." With a benevolent smile he addressed Penrod, who sat opposite +him. "I suppose, little gentleman, you have been indulging in the usual +outdoor sports of vacation?" + +Penrod laid down his fork and glared, open-mouthed at Mr. Kinosling. + +"You'll have another slice of breast of the chicken?" Mr. Schofield +inquired, loudly and quickly. + +"A lovely day!" exclaimed Margaret, with equal promptitude and emphasis. +"Lovely, oh, lovely! Lovely!" + +"Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!" said Mrs. Schofield, and after a +glance at Penrod which confirmed her impression that he intended to +say something, she continued, "Yes, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, +beautiful, beautiful beautiful!" + +Penrod closed his mouth and sank back in his chair--and his relatives +took breath. + +Mr. Kinosling looked pleased. This responsive family, with its ready +enthusiasm, made the kind of audience he liked. He passed a delicate +white hand gracefully over his tall, pale forehead, and smiled +indulgently. + +"Youth relaxes in summer," he said. "Boyhood is the age of relaxation; +one is playful, light, free, unfettered. One runs and leaps and enjoys +one's self with one's companions. It is good for the little lads to play +with their friends; they jostle, push, and wrestle, and simulate little, +happy struggles with one another in harmless conflict. The young muscles +are toughening. It is good. Boyish chivalry develops, enlarges, expands. +The young learn quickly, intuitively, spontaneously. They perceive the +obligations of noblesse oblige. They begin to comprehend the necessity +of caste and its requirements. They learn what birth means--ah,--that +is, they learn what it means to be well born. They learn courtesy in +their games; they learn politeness, consideration for one another in +their pastimes, amusements, lighter occupations. I make it my pleasure +to join them often, for I sympathize with them in all their wholesome +joys as well as in their little bothers and perplexities. I understand +them, you see; and let me tell you it is no easy matter to understand +the little lads and lassies." He sent to each listener his beaming +glance, and, permitting it to come to rest upon Penrod, inquired: + +"And what do you say to that, little gentleman?" + +Mr. Schofield uttered a stentorian cough. "More? You'd better have some +more chicken! More! Do!" + +"More chicken!" urged Margaret simultaneously. "Do please! Please! More! +Do! More!" + +"Beautiful, beautiful," began Mrs. Schofield. "Beautiful, beautiful, +beautiful, beautiful----" + +It is not known in what light Mr. Kinosling viewed the expression of +Penrod's face. Perhaps he mistook it for awe; perhaps he received +no impression at all of its extraordinary quality. He was a rather +self-engrossed young man, just then engaged in a double occupation, for +he not only talked, but supplied from his own consciousness a critical +though favourable auditor as well, which of course kept him quite busy. +Besides, it is oftener than is expected the case that extremely peculiar +expressions upon the countenances of boys are entirely overlooked, +and suggest nothing to the minds of people staring straight at them. +Certainly Penrod's expression--which, to the perception of his family, +was perfectly horrible--caused not the faintest perturbation in the +breast of Mr. Kinosling. + +Mr. Kinosling waived the chicken, and continued to talk. "Yes, I think +I may claim to understand boys," he said, smiling thoughtfully. "One +has been a boy one's self. Ah, it is not all playtime! I hope our young +scholar here does not overwork himself at his Latin, at his classics, +as I did, so that at the age of eight years I was compelled to wear +glasses. He must be careful not to strain the little eyes at his +scholar's tasks, not to let the little shoulders grow round over his +scholar's desk. Youth is golden; we should keep it golden, bright, +glistening. Youth should frolic, should be sprightly; it should play its +cricket, its tennis, its hand-ball. It should run and leap; it should +laugh, should sing madrigals and glees, carol with the lark, ring out in +chanties, folk-songs, ballads, roundelays----" + +He talked on. At any instant Mr. Schofield held himself ready to cough +vehemently and shout, "More chicken," to drown out Penrod in case the +fatal words again fell from those eloquent lips; and Mrs. Schofield and +Margaret kept themselves prepared at all times to assist him. So passed +a threatening meal, which Mrs. Schofield hurried, by every means with +decency, to its conclusion. She felt that somehow they would all be +safer out in the dark of the front porch, and led the way thither as +soon as possible. + +"No cigar, I thank you." Mr. Kinosling, establishing himself in a wicker +chair beside Margaret, waved away her father's proffer. "I do not smoke. +I have never tasted tobacco in any form." Mrs. Schofield was confirmed +in her opinion that this would be an ideal son-in-law. Mr. Schofield was +not so sure. + +"No," said Mr. Kinosling. "No tobacco for me. No cigar, no pipe, no +cigarette, no cheroot. For me, a book--a volume of poems, perhaps. +Verses, rhymes, lines metrical and cadenced--those are my dissipation. +Tennyson by preference: 'Maud,' or 'Idylls of the King'--poetry of the +sound Victorian days; there is none later. Or Longfellow will rest me +in a tired hour. Yes; for me, a book, a volume in the hand, held lightly +between the fingers." + +Mr. Kinosling looked pleasantly at his fingers as he spoke, waving his +hand in a curving gesture which brought it into the light of a window +faintly illumined from the interior of the house. Then he passed those +graceful fingers over his hair, and turned toward Penrod, who was +perched upon the railing in a dark corner. + +"The evening is touched with a slight coolness," said Mr. Kinosling. +"Perhaps I may request the little gentleman----" + +"B'gr-r-RUFF!" coughed Mr. Schofield. "You'd better change your mind +about a cigar." + +"No, I thank you. I was about to request the lit----" + +"DO try one," Margaret urged. "I'm sure papa's are nice ones. Do +try----" + +"No, I thank you. I remarked a slight coolness in the air, and my hat is +in the hallway. I was about to request----" + +"I'll get it for you," said Penrod suddenly. + +"If you will be so good," said Mr. Kinosling. "It is a black bowler hat, +little gentleman, and placed upon a table in the hall." + +"I know where it is." Penrod entered the door, and a feeling of relief, +mutually experienced, carried from one to another of his three relatives +their interchanged congratulations that he had recovered his sanity. + +"'The day is done, and the darkness,'" began Mr. Kinosling--and recited +that poem entire. He followed it with "The Children's Hour," and after a +pause, at the close, to allow his listeners time for a little reflection +upon his rendition, he passed his handagain over his head, and called, +in the direction of the doorway: + +"I believe I will take my hat now, little gentleman." + +"Here it is," said Penrod, unexpectedly climbing over the porch railing, +in the other direction. His mother and father and Margaret had supposed +him to be standing in the hallway out of deference, and because he +thought it tactful not to interrupt the recitations. All of them +remembered, later, that this supposed thoughtfulness on his part struck +them as unnatural. + +"Very good, little gentleman!" said Mr. Kinosling, and being somewhat +chilled, placed the hat firmly upon his head, pulling it down as far +as it would go. It had a pleasant warmth, which he noticed at once. The +next instant, he noticed something else, a peculiar sensation of the +scalp--a sensation which he was quite unable to define. He lifted his +hand to take the hat off, and entered upon a strange experience: his hat +seemed to have decided to remain where it was. + +"Do you like Tennyson as much as Longfellow, Mr. Kinosling?" inquired +Margaret. + +"I--ah--I cannot say," he returned absently. "I--ah--each has his +own--ugh! flavour and savour, each his--ah--ah----" + +Struck by a strangeness in his tone, she peered at him curiously through +the dusk. His outlines were indistinct, but she made out that his arms +were, uplifted in a singular gesture. He seemed to be wrenching at his +head. + +"Is--is anything the matter?" she asked anxiously. "Mr. Kinosling, are +you ill?" + +"Not at--ugh!--all," he replied, in the same odd tone. "I--ah--I +believe--UGH!" + +He dropped his hands from his hat, and rose. His manner was +slightly agitated. "I fear I may have taken a trifling--ah--cold. +I should--ah--perhaps be--ah--better at home. I will--ah--say +good-night." + +At the steps, he instinctively lifted his hand to remove his hat, +but did not do so, and, saying "Goodnight," again in a frigid voice, +departed with visible stiffness from that house, to return no more. + +"Well, of all----!" cried Mrs. Schofield, astounded. "What was the +matter? He just went--like that!" She made a flurried gesture. "In +heaven's name, Margaret, what DID you say to him?" + +"_I_!" exclaimed Margaret indignantly. "Nothing! He just WENT!" + +"Why, he didn't even take off his hat when he said good-night!" said +Mrs. Schofield. + +Margaret, who had crossed to the doorway, caught the ghost of a whisper +behind her, where stood Penrod. + +"YOU BET HE DIDN'T!" + +He knew not that he was overheard. + +A frightful suspicion flashed through Margaret's mind--a suspicion that +Mr. Kinosling's hat would have to be either boiled off or shaved off. +With growing horror she recalled Penrod's long absence when he went to +bring the hat. + +"Penrod," she cried, "let me see your hands!" + +She had toiled at those hands herself late that afternoon, nearly +scalding her own, but at last achieving a lily purity. + +"Let me see your hands!" + +She seized them. + +Again they were tarred! + + + +CHAPTER XXVI THE QUIET AFTERNOON + +Perhaps middle-aged people might discern Nature's real intentions in the +matter of pain if they would examine a boy's punishments and sorrows, +for he prolongs neither beyond their actual duration. With a boy, +trouble must be of Homeric dimensions to last overnight. To him, every +next day is really a new day. Thus, Penrod woke, next morning, with +neither the unspared rod, nor Mr. Kinosling in his mind. Tar, itself, +so far as his consideration of it went, might have been an undiscovered +substance. His mood was cheerful and mercantile; some process having +worked mysteriously within him, during the night, to the result that +his first waking thought was of profits connected with the sale of old +iron--or perhaps a ragman had passed the house, just before he woke. + +By ten o'clock he had formed a partnership with the indeed amiable Sam, +and the firm of Schofield and Williams plunged headlong into commerce. +Heavy dealings in rags, paper, old iron and lead gave the firm a balance +of twenty-two cents on the evening of the third day; but a venture in +glassware, following, proved disappointing on account of the scepticism +of all the druggists in that part of town, even after seven laborious +hours had been spent in cleansing a wheelbarrow-load of old medicine +bottles with hydrant water and ashes. Likewise, the partners were +disheartened by their failure to dispose of a crop of "greens," although +they had uprooted specimens of that decorative and unappreciated flower, +the dandelion, with such persistence and energy that the Schofields' and +Williams' lawns looked curiously haggard for the rest of that summer. + +The fit passed: business languished; became extinct. The dog-days had +set in. + +One August afternoon was so hot that even boys sought indoor shade. In +the dimness of the vacant carriage-house of the stable, lounged Masters +Penrod Schofield, Samuel Williams, Maurice Levy, Georgie Bassett, and +Herman. They sat still and talked. It is a hot day, in rare truth, when +boys devote themselves principally to conversation, and this day was +that hot. + +Their elders should beware such days. Peril hovers near when the +fierceness of weather forces inaction and boys in groups are quiet. +The more closely volcanoes, Western rivers, nitroglycerin, and boys +are pent, the deadlier is their action at the point of outbreak. Thus, +parents and guardians should look for outrages of the most singular +violence and of the most peculiar nature during the confining weather of +February and August. + +The thing which befell upon this broiling afternoon began to brew and +stew peacefully enough. All was innocence and languor; no one could have +foretold the eruption. + +They were upon their great theme: "When I get to be a man!" Being human, +though boys, they considered their present estate too commonplace to be +dwelt upon. So, when the old men gather, they say: "When I was a boy!" +It really is the land of nowadays that we never discover. + +"When I'm a man," said Sam Williams, "I'm goin' to hire me a couple of +coloured waiters to swing me in a hammock and keep pourin' ice-water on +me all day out o' those waterin'-cans they sprinkle flowers from. I'll +hire you for one of 'em, Herman." + +"No; you ain' goin' to," said Herman promptly. "You ain' no flowuh. +But nev' min' nat, anyway. Ain' nobody goin' haih me whens _I_'m a man. +Goin' be my own boss. _I_'m go' be a rai'road man!" + +"You mean like a superintendent, or sumpthing like that, and sell +tickets?" asked Penrod. + +"Sup'in--nev' min' nat! Sell ticket? NO suh! Go' be a PO'tuh! My uncle a +po'tuh right now. Solid gole buttons--oh, oh!" + +"Generals get a lot more buttons than porters," said Penrod. +"Generals----" + +"Po'tuhs make the bes' l'vin'," Herman interrupted. "My uncle spen' mo' +money 'n any white man n'is town." + +"Well, I rather be a general," said Penrod, "or a senator, or sumpthing +like that." + +"Senators live in Warshington," Maurice Levy contributed the +information. "I been there. Warshington ain't so much; Niag'ra Falls is +a hundred times as good as Warshington. So's 'Tlantic City, I was there, +too. I been everywhere there is. I----" + +"Well, anyway," said Sam Williams, raising his voice in order to obtain +the floor, "anyway, I'm goin' to lay in a hammock all day, and have +ice-water sprinkled on top o' me, and I'm goin' to lay there all night, +too, and the next day. I'm goin' to lay there a couple o' years, maybe." + +"I bet you don't!" exclaimed Maurice. "What'd you do in winter?" + +"What?" + +"What you goin' to do when it's winter, out in a hammock with water +sprinkled on top o' you all day? I bet you----" + +"I'd stay right there," Sam declared, with strong conviction, blinking +as he looked out through the open doors at the dazzling lawn and trees, +trembling in the heat. "They couldn't sprinkle too much for ME!" + +"It'd make icicles all over you, and----" + +"I wish it would," said Sam. "I'd eat 'em up." + +"And it'd snow on you----" + +"Yay! I'd swaller it as fast as it'd come down. I wish I had a BARREL +o' snow right now. I wish this whole barn was full of it. I wish they +wasn't anything in the whole world except just good ole snow." + +Penrod and Herman rose and went out to the hydrant, where they drank +long and ardently. Sam was still talking about snow when they returned. + +"No, I wouldn't just roll in it. I'd stick it all round inside my +clo'es, and fill my hat. No, I'd freeze a big pile of it all hard, and +I'd roll her out flat and then I'd carry her down to some ole tailor's +and have him make me a SUIT out of her, and----" + +"Can't you keep still about your ole snow?" demanded Penrod petulantly. +"Makes me so thirsty I can't keep still, and I've drunk so much now I +bet I bust. That ole hydrant water's mighty near hot anyway." + +"I'm goin' to have a big store, when I grow up," volunteered Maurice. + +"Candy store?" asked Penrod. + +"NO, sir! I'll have candy in it, but not to eat, so much. It's goin' to +be a deportment store: ladies' clothes, gentlemen's clothes, neckties, +china goods, leather goods, nice lines in woollings and lace goods----" + +"Yay! I wouldn't give a five-for-a-cent marble for your whole store," +said Sam. "Would you, Penrod?" + +"Not for ten of 'em; not for a million of 'em! _I_'m goin' to have----" + +"Wait!" clamoured Maurice. "You'd be foolish, because they'd be a toy +deportment in my store where they'd be a hunderd marbles! So, how much +would you think your five-for-a-cent marble counts for? And when I'm +keepin' my store I'm goin' to get married." + +"Yay!" shrieked Sam derisively. "MARRIED! Listen!" Penrod and Herman +joined in the howl of contempt. + +"Certumly I'll get married," asserted Maurice stoutly. "I'll get married +to Marjorie Jones. She likes me awful good, and I'm her beau." + +"What makes you think so?" inquired Penrod in a cryptic voice. + +"Because she's my beau, too," came the prompt answer. "I'm her beau +because she's my beau; I guess that's plenty reason! I'll get married to +her as soon as I get my store running nice." + +Penrod looked upon him darkly, but, for the moment, held his peace. + +"Married!" jeered Sam Williams. "Married to Marjorie Jones! You're the +only boy I ever heard say he was going to get married. I wouldn't +get married for--why, I wouldn't for--for----" Unable to think of +any inducement the mere mention of which would not be ridiculously +incommensurate, he proceeded: "I wouldn't do it! What you want to get +married for? What do married people do, except just come home tired, and +worry around and kind of scold? You better not do it, M'rice; you'll be +mighty sorry." + +"Everybody gets married," stated Maurice, holding his ground. + +"They gotta." + +"I'll bet _I_ don't!" Sam returned hotly. "They better catch me before +they tell ME I have to. Anyway, I bet nobody has to get married unless +they want to." + +"They do, too," insisted Maurice. "They GOTTA!" + +"Who told you?" + +"Look at what my own papa told me!" cried Maurice, heated with argument. +"Didn't he tell me your papa had to marry your mamma, or else he +never'd got to handle a cent of her money? Certumly, people gotta marry. +Everybody. You don't know anybody over twenty years old that isn't +married--except maybe teachers." + +"Look at policemen!" shouted Sam triumphantly. "You don't s'pose anybody +can make policemen get married, I reckon, do you?" + +"Well, policemen, maybe," Maurice was forced to admit. "Policemen and +teachers don't, but everybody else gotta." + +"Well, I'll be a policeman," said Sam. "THEN I guess they won't come +around tellin' me I have to get married. What you goin' to be, Penrod?" + +"Chief police," said the laconic Penrod. + +"What you?" Sam inquired of quiet Georgie Bassett. + +"I am going to be," said Georgie, consciously, "a minister." + +This announcement created a sensation so profound that it was followed +by silence. Herman was the first to speak. + +"You mean preachuh?" he asked incredulously. "You go' PREACH?" + +"Yes," answered Georgie, looking like Saint Cecilia at the organ. + +Herman was impressed. "You know all 'at preachuh talk?" + +"I'm going to learn it," said Georgie simply. + +"How loud kin you holler?" asked Herman doubtfully. + +"He can't holler at all," Penrod interposed with scorn. "He hollers like +a girl. He's the poorest hollerer in town!" + +Herman shook his head. Evidently he thought Georgie's chance of being +ordained very slender. Nevertheless, a final question put to the +candidate by the coloured expert seemed to admit one ray of hope. + +"How good kin you clim a pole?" + +"He can't climb one at all," Penrod answered for Georgie. "Over at Sam's +turning-pole you ought to see him try to----" + +"Preachers don't have to climb poles," Georgie said with dignity. + +"GOOD ones do," declared Herman. "Bes' one ev' _I_ hear, he clim up an' +down same as a circus man. One n'em big 'vivals outen whens we livin' on +a fahm, preachuh clim big pole right in a middle o' the church, what +was to hol' roof up. He clim way high up, an' holler: 'Goin' to heavum, +goin' to heavum, goin' to heavum NOW. Hallelujah, praise my Lawd!' An' +he slide down little, an' holler: 'Devil's got a hol' o' my coat-tails; +devil tryin' to drag me down! Sinnuhs, take wawnun! Devil got a hol' o' +my coat-tails; I'm a-goin' to hell, oh Lawd!' Nex', he clim up little +mo', an' yell an' holler: 'Done shuck ole devil loose; goin' straight to +heavum agin! Goin' to heavum, goin' to heavum, my Lawd!' Nex', he slide +down some mo' an' holler, 'Leggo my coat-tails, ole devil! Goin' to +hell agin, sinnuhs! Goin' straight to hell, my Lawd!' An' he clim an' he +slide, an' he slide, an' he clim, an' all time holler: 'Now 'm a-goin' +to heavum; now 'm a-goin' to hell! Goin'to heavum, heavum, heavum, my +Lawd!' Las' he slide all a-way down, jes' a-squallin' an' a-kickin' an' +a-rarin' up an' squealin', 'Goin' to hell. Goin' to hell! Ole Satum got +my soul! Goin' to hell! Goin' to hell! Goin' to hell, hell, hell!" + +Herman possessed that extraordinary facility for vivid acting which is +the great native gift of his race, and he enchained his listeners. They +sat fascinated and spellbound. + +"Herman, tell that again!" said Penrod, breathlessly. + +Herman, nothing loath, accepted the encore and repeated the Miltonic +episode, expanding it somewhat, and dwelling with a fine art upon those +portions of the narrative which he perceived to be most exciting to his +audience. Plainly, they thrilled less to Paradise gained than to its +losing, and the dreadful climax of the descent into the Pit was the +greatest treat of all. + +The effect was immense and instant. Penrod sprang to his feet. + +"Georgie Bassett couldn't do that to save his life," he declared. "_I_'m +goin' to be a preacher! I'D be all right for one, wouldn't I, Herman?" + +"So am I!" Sam Williams echoed loudly. "I guess I can do it if YOU can. +I'd be better'n Penrod, wouldn't I, Herman?" + +"I am, too!" Maurice shouted. "I got a stronger voice than anybody here, +and I'd like to know what----" + +The three clamoured together indistinguishably, each asserting his +qualifications for the ministry according to Herman's theory, which had +been accepted by these sudden converts without question. + +"Listen to ME!" Maurice bellowed, proving his claim to at least the +voice by drowning the others. "Maybe I can't climb a pole so good, but +who can holler louder'n this? Listen to ME-E-E!" + +"Shut up!" cried Penrod, irritated. "Go to heaven; go to hell!" + +"Oo-o-oh!" exclaimed Georgie Bassett, profoundly shocked. + +Sam and Maurice, awed by Penrod's daring, ceased from turmoil, staring +wide-eyed. + +"You cursed and swore!" said Georgie. + +"I did not!" cried Penrod, hotly. "That isn't swearing." + +"You said, 'Go to a big H'!" said Georgie. + +"I did not! I said, 'Go to heaven,' before I said a big H. That isn't +swearing, is it, Herman? It's almost what the preacher said, ain't it, +Herman? It ain't swearing now, any more--not if you put 'go to heaven' +with it, is it, Herman? You can say it all you want to, long as you +say 'go to heaven' first, CAN'T you, Herman? Anybody can say it if +the preacher says it, can't they, Herman? I guess I know when I ain't +swearing, don't I, Herman?" + +Judge Herman ruled for the defendant, and Penrod was considered to have +carried his point. With fine consistency, the conclave established +that it was proper for the general public to "say it," provided "go to +heaven" should in all cases precede it. This prefix was pronounced a +perfect disinfectant, removing all odour of impiety or insult; and, with +the exception of Georgie Bassett (who maintained that the minister's +words were "going" and "gone," not "go"), all the boys proceeded to +exercise their new privilege so lavishly that they tired of it. + +But there was no diminution of evangelical ardour; again were heard the +clamours of dispute as to which was the best qualified for the ministry, +each of the claimants appealing passionately to Herman, who, pleased but +confused, appeared to be incapable of arriving at a decision. + +During a pause, Georgie Bassett asserted his prior rights. "Who said +it first, I'd like to know?" he demanded. "I was going to be a minister +from long back of to-day, I guess. And I guess I said I was going to be +a minister right to-day before any of you said anything at all. DIDN'T +I, Herman? YOU heard me, didn't you, Herman? That's the very thing +started you talking about it, wasn't it, Herman?" + +"You' right," said Herman. "You the firs' one to say it." + +Penrod, Sam, and Maurice immediately lost faith in Herman. + +"What if you did say it first?" Penrod shouted. "You couldn't BE a +minister if you were a hunderd years old!" + +"I bet his mother wouldn't let him be one," said Sam. "She never lets +him do anything." + +"She would, too," retorted Georgie. "Ever since I was little, she----" + +"He's too sissy to be a preacher!" cried Maurice. "Listen at his squeaky +voice!" + +"I'm going to be a better minister," shouted Georgie, "than all three of +you put together. I could do it with my left hand!" + +The three laughed bitingly in chorus. They jeered, derided, scoffed, +and raised an uproar which would have had its effect upon much stronger +nerves than Georgie's. For a time he contained his rising choler and +chanted monotonously, over and over: "I COULD! I COULD, TOO! I COULD! +I COULD, TOO!" But their tumult wore upon him, and he decided to avail +himself of the recent decision whereby a big H was rendered innocuous +and unprofane. Having used the expression once, he found it comforting, +and substituted it for: "I could! I could, too!" + +But it relieved him only temporarily. His tormentors were unaffected +by it and increased their howlings, until at last Georgie lost his head +altogether. Badgered beyond bearing, his eyes shining with a wild light, +he broke through the besieging trio, hurling little Maurice from his +path with a frantic hand. + +"I'll show you!" he cried, in this sudden frenzy. "You give me a chance, +and I'll prove it right NOW!" + +"That's talkin' business!" shouted Penrod. "Everybody keep still a +minute. Everybody!" + +He took command of the situation at once, displaying a fine capacity for +organization and system. It needed only a few minutes to set order in +the place of confusion and to determine, with the full concurrence of +all parties, the conditions under which Georgie Bassett was to defend +his claim by undergoing what may be perhaps intelligibly defined as the +Herman test. Georgie declared he could do it easily. He was in a state +of great excitement and in no condition to think calmly or, probably, he +would not have made the attempt at all. Certainly he was overconfident. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII CONCLUSION OF THE QUIET AFTERNOON + +It was during the discussion of the details of this enterprise that +Georgie's mother, a short distance down the street, received a few +female callers, who came by appointment to drink a glass of iced tea +with her, and to meet the Rev. Mr. Kinosling. Mr. Kinosling was proving +almost formidably interesting to the women and girls of his own +and other flocks. What favour of his fellow clergymen a slight +precociousness of manner and pronunciation cost him was more than +balanced by the visible ecstasies of ladies. They blossomed at his +touch. + +He had just entered Mrs. Bassett's front door, when the son of the +house, followed by an intent and earnest company of four, opened the +alley gate and came into the yard. The unconscious Mrs. Bassett was +about to have her first experience of a fatal coincidence. It was her +first, because she was the mother of a boy so well behaved that he had +become a proverb of transcendency. Fatal coincidences were plentiful +in the Schofield and Williams families, and would have been familiar to +Mrs. Bassett had Georgie been permitted greater intimacy with Penrod and +Sam. + +Mr. Kinosling sipped his iced tea and looked about, him approvingly. +Seven ladies leaned forward, for it was to be seen that he meant to +speak. + +"This cool room is a relief," he said, waving a graceful hand in +a neatly limited gesture, which everybody's eyes followed, his own +included. "It is a relief and a retreat. The windows open, the blinds +closed--that is as it should be. It is a retreat, a fastness, a bastion +against the heat's assault. For me, a quiet room--a quiet room and a +book, a volume in the hand, held lightly between the fingers. A volume +of poems, lines metrical and cadenced; something by a sound Victorian. +We have no later poets." + +"Swinburne?" suggested Miss Beam, an eager spinster. "Swinburne, Mr. +Kinosling? Ah, SWINBURNE!" + +"Not Swinburne," said Mr. Kinosling chastely. "No." + +That concluded all the remarks about Swinburne. + + +Miss Beam retired in confusion behind another lady; and somehow there +became diffused an impression that Miss Beam was erotic. + +"I do not observe your manly little son," Mr. Kinosling addressed his +hostess. + +"He's out playing in the yard," Mrs. Bassett returned. "I heard his +voice just now, I think." + +"Everywhere I hear wonderful report of him," said Mr. Kinosling. "I +may say that I understand boys, and I feel that he is a rare, a fine, a +pure, a lofty spirit. I say spirit, for spirit is the word I hear spoken +of him." + +A chorus of enthusiastic approbation affirmed the accuracy of this +proclamation, and Mrs. Bassett flushed with pleasure. Georgie's +spiritual perfection was demonstrated by instances of it, related by +the visitors; his piety was cited, and wonderful things he had said were +quoted. + +"Not all boys are pure, of fine spirit, of high mind," said Mr. +Kinosling, and continued with true feeling: "You have a neighbour, dear +Mrs. Bassett, whose household I indeed really feel it quite impossible +to visit until such time when better, firmer, stronger handed, more +determined discipline shall prevail. I find Mr. and Mrs. Schofield and +their daughter charming----" + +Three or four ladies said "Oh!" and spoke a name simultaneously. It was +as if they had said, "Oh, the bubonic plague!" + +"Oh! Penrod Schofield!" + +"Georgie does not play with him," said Mrs. Bassett quickly--"that +is, he avoids him as much as he can without hurting Penrod's feelings. +Georgie is very sensitive to giving pain. I suppose a mother should not +tell these things, and I know people who talk about their own children +are dreadful bores, but it was only last Thursday night that Georgie +looked up in my face so sweetly, after he had said his prayers and his +little cheeks flushed, as he said: 'Mamma, I think it would be right for +me to go more with Penrod. I think it would make him a better boy.'" + +A sibilance went about the room. "Sweet! How sweet! The sweet little +soul! Ah, SWEET!" + +"And that very afternoon," continued Mrs. Bassett, "he had come home in +a dreadful state. Penrod had thrown tar all over him." + +"Your son has a forgiving spirit!" said Mr. Kinosling with vehemence. "A +too forgiving spirit, perhaps." He set down his glass. "No more, I thank +you. No more cake, I thank you. Was it not Cardinal Newman who said----" + +He was interrupted by the sounds of an altercation just outside the +closed blinds of the window nearest him. + +"Let him pick his tree!" It was the voice of Samuel Williams. "Didn't we +come over here to give him one of his own trees? Give him a fair show, +can't you?" + +"The little lads!" Mr. Kinosling smiled. "They have their games, their +outdoor sports, their pastimes. The young muscles are toughening. The +sun will not harm them. They grow; they expand; they learn. They learn +fair play, honour, courtesy, from one another, as pebbles grow round +in the brook. They learn more from themselves than from us. They take +shape, form, outline. Let them." + +"Mr. Kinosling!" Another spinster--undeterred by what had happened +to Miss Beam--leaned fair forward, her face shining and ardent. "Mr. +Kinosling, there's a question I DO wish to ask you." + +"My dear Miss Cosslit," Mr. Kinosling responded, again waving his hand +and watching it, "I am entirely at your disposal." + +"WAS Joan of Arc," she asked fervently, "inspired by spirits?" + +He smiled indulgently. "Yes--and no," he said. "One must give both +answers. One must give the answer, yes; one must give the answer, no." + +"Oh, THANK you!" said Miss Cosslit, blushing. + +"She's one of my great enthusiasms, you know." + +"And I have a question, too," urged Mrs. Lora Rewbush, after a moment's +hasty concentration. "'I've never been able to settle it for myself, but +NOW----" + +"Yes?" said Mr. Kinosling encouragingly. + +"Is--ah--is--oh, yes: Is Sanskrit a more difficult language than +Spanish, Mr. Kinosling?" + +"It depends upon the student," replied the oracle smiling. "One must not +look for linguists everywhere. In my own especial case--if one may cite +one's self as an example--I found no great, no insurmountable difficulty +in mastering, in conquering either." + +"And may _I_ ask one?" ventured Mrs. Bassett. "Do you think it is right +to wear egrets?" + +"There are marks of quality, of caste, of social distinction," Mr. +Kinosling began, "which must be permitted, allowed, though perhaps +regulated. Social distinction, one observes, almost invariably +implies spiritual distinction as well. Distinction of circumstances +is accompanied by mental distinction. Distinction is hereditary; it +descends from father to son, and if there is one thing more true +than 'Like father, like son,' it is--" he bowed gallantly to Mrs. +Bassett--"it is, 'Like mother, like son.' What these good ladies have +said this afternoon of YOUR----" + +This was the fatal instant. There smote upon all ears the voice of +Georgie, painfully shrill and penetrating--fraught with protest and +protracted, strain. His plain words consisted of the newly sanctioned +and disinfected curse with a big H. + +With an ejaculation of horror, Mrs. Bassett sprang to the window and +threw open the blinds. + +Georgie's back was disclosed to the view of the tea-party. He was +endeavouring to ascend a maple tree about twelve feet from the window. +Embracing the trunk with arms and legs, he had managed to squirm to a +point above the heads of Penrod and Herman, who stood close by, watching +him earnestly--Penrod being obviously in charge of the performance. +Across the yard were Sam Williams and Maurice Levy, acting as a jury on +the question of voice-power, and it was to a complaint of theirs that +Georgie had just replied. + +"That's right, Georgie," said Penrod encouragingly. "They can, too, hear +you. Let her go!" + +"Going to heaven!" shrieked Georgie, squirming up another inch. "Going +to heaven, heaven, heaven!" + +His mother's frenzied attempts to attract his attention failed utterly. +Georgie was using the full power of his lungs, deafening his own ears to +all other sounds. Mrs. Bassett called in vain; while the tea-party stood +petrified in a cluster about the window. + +"Going to heaven!" Georgie bellowed. "Going to heaven! Going to heaven, +my Lord! Going to heaven, heaven, heaven!" + +He tried to climb higher, but began to slip downward, his exertions +causing damage to his apparel. A button flew into the air, and his +knickerbockers and his waistband severed relations. + +"Devil's got my coat-tails, sinners! Old devil's got my coat-tails!" he +announced appropriately. Then he began to slide. + +He relaxed his clasp of the tree and slid to the ground. + +"Going to hell!" shrieked Georgie, reaching a high pitch of enthusiasm +in this great climax. "Going to hell! Going to hell! I'm gone to hell, +hell, hell!" + +With a loud scream, Mrs. Bassett threw herself out of the window, +alighting by some miracle upon her feet with ankles unsprained. + +Mr. Kinosling, feeling that his presence as spiritual adviser was +demanded in the yard, followed with greater dignity through the front +door. At the corner of the house a small departing figure collided with +him violently. It was Penrod, tactfully withdrawing from what promised +to be a family scene of unusual painfulness. + +Mr. Kinosling seized him by the shoulders and, giving way to emotion, +shook him viciously. + +"You horrible boy!" exclaimed Mr. Kinosling. "You ruffianly creature! Do +you know what's going to happen to you when you grow up? Do you realize +what you're going to BE!" + +With flashing eyes, the indignant boy made know his unshaken purpose. He +shouted the reply: + +"A minister!" + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII TWELVE + +This busy globe which spawns us is as incapable of flattery and as +intent upon its own affair, whatever that is, as a gyroscope; it keeps +steadily whirling along its lawful track, and, thus far seeming to hold +a right of way, spins doggedly on, with no perceptible diminution of +speed to mark the most gigantic human events--it did not pause to pant +and recuperate even when what seemed to Penrod its principal purpose +was accomplished, and an enormous shadow, vanishing westward over its +surface, marked the dawn of his twelfth birthday. + +To be twelve is an attainment worth the struggle. A boy, just twelve, is +like a Frenchman just elected to the Academy. + +Distinction and honour wait upon him. Younger boys show deference to a +person of twelve: his experience is guaranteed, his judgment, therefore, +mellow; consequently, his influence is profound. Eleven is not quite +satisfactory: it is only an approach. Eleven has the disadvantage of +six, of nineteen, of forty-four, and of sixty-nine. But, like twelve, +seven is an honourable age, and the ambition to attain it is laudable. +People look forward to being seven. Similarly, twenty is worthy, and so, +arbitrarily, is twenty-one; forty-five has great solidity; seventy is +most commendable and each year thereafter an increasing honour. Thirteen +is embarrassed by the beginnings of a new colthood; the child becomes a +youth. But twelve is the very top of boyhood. + +Dressing, that morning, Penrod felt that the world was changed from the +world of yesterday. For one thing, he seemed to own more of it; this +day was HIS day. And it was a day worth owning; the midsummer sunshine, +pouring gold through his window, came from a cool sky, and a breeze +moved pleasantly in his hair as he leaned from the sill to watch the +tribe of clattering blackbirds take wing, following their leader +from the trees in the yard to the day's work in the open country. The +blackbirds were his, as the sunshine and the breeze were his, for they +all belonged to the day which was his birthday and therefore most surely +his. Pride suffused him: he was twelve! + +His father and his mother and Margaret seemed to understand the +difference between to-day and yesterday. They were at the table when +he descended, and they gave him a greeting which of itself marked the +milestone. Habitually, his entrance into a room where his elders sat +brought a cloud of apprehension: they were prone to look up in pathetic +expectancy, as if their thought was, "What new awfulness is he going to +start NOW?" But this morning they laughed; his mother rose and kissed +him twelve times, so did Margaret; and his father shouted, "Well, well! +How's the MAN?" + +Then his mother gave him a Bible and "The Vicar of Wakefield"; Margaret +gave him a pair of silver-mounted hair brushes; and his father gave him +a "Pocket Atlas" and a small compass. + +"And now, Penrod," said his mother, after breakfast, "I'm going to +take you out in the country to pay your birthday respects to Aunt Sarah +Crim." + +Aunt Sarah Crim, Penrod's great-aunt, was his oldest living relative. +She was ninety, and when Mrs. Schofield and Penrod alighted from a +carriage at her gate they found her digging with a spade in the garden. + +"I'm glad you brought him," she said, desisting from labour. "Jinny's +baking a cake I'm going to send for his birthday party. Bring him in the +house. I've got something for him." + +She led the way to her "sitting-room," which had a pleasant smell, +unlike any other smell, and, opening the drawer of a shining old +what-not, took therefrom a boy's "sling-shot," made of a forked stick, +two strips of rubber and a bit of leather. + +"This isn't for you," she said, placing it in Penrod's eager hand. +"No. It would break all to pieces the first time you tried to shoot +it, because it is thirty-five years old. I want to send it back to your +father. I think it's time. You give it to him from me, and tell him +I say I believe I can trust him with it now. I took it away from him +thirty-five years ago, one day after he'd killed my best hen with +it, accidentally, and broken a glass pitcher on the back porch with +it--accidentally. He doesn't look like a person who's ever done things +of that sort, and I suppose he's forgotten it so well that he believes +he never DID, but if you give it to him from me I think he'll remember. +You look like him, Penrod. He was anything but a handsome boy." + +After this final bit of reminiscence--probably designed to be repeated +to Mr. Schofield--she disappeared in the direction of the kitchen, +and returned with a pitcher of lemonade and a blue china dish sweetly +freighted with flat ginger cookies of a composition that was her own +secret. Then, having set this collation before her guests, she presented +Penrod with a superb, intricate, and very modern machine of destructive +capacities almost limitless. She called it a pocket-knife. + +"I suppose you'll do something horrible with it," she said, composedly. +"I hear you do that with everything, anyhow, so you might as well do it +with this, and have more fun out of it. They tell me you're the Worst +Boy in Town." + +"Oh, Aunt Sarah!" Mrs. Schofield lifted a protesting hand. + +"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Crim. + +"But on his birthday!" + +"That's the time to say it. Penrod, aren't you the Worst Boy in Town?" + +Penrod, gazing fondly upon his knife and eating cookies rapidly, +answered as a matter of course, and absently, "Yes'm." + +"Certainly!" said Mrs. Crim. "Once you accept a thing about yourself +as established and settled, it's all right. Nobody minds. Boys are just +people, really." + +"No, no!" Mrs. Schofield cried, involuntarily. + +"Yes, they are," returned Aunt Sarah. "Only they're not quite so awful, +because they haven't learned to cover themselves all over with little +pretences. When Penrod grows up he'll be just the same as he is now, +except that whenever he does what he wants to do he'll tell himself and +other people a little story about it to make his reason for doing it +seem nice and pretty and noble." + +"No, I won't!" said Penrod suddenly. + +"There's one cookie left," observed Aunt Sarah. "Are you going to eat +it?" + +"Well," said her great-nephew, thoughtfully, "I guess I better." + +"Why?" asked the old lady. "Why do you guess you'd 'better'?" + +"Well," said Penrod, with a full mouth, "it might get all dried up if +nobody took it, and get thrown out and wasted." + +"You're beginning finely," Mrs. Crim remarked. "A year ago you'd have +taken the cookie without the same sense of thrift." + +"Ma'am?" + +"Nothing. I see that you're twelve years old, that's all. There are more +cookies, Penrod." She went away, returning with a fresh supply and the +observation, "Of course, you'll be sick before the day's over; you might +as well get a good start." + +Mrs. Schofield looked thoughtful. "Aunt Sarah," she ventured, "don't you +really think we improve as we get older?" + +"Meaning," said the old lady, "that Penrod hasn't much chance to escape +the penitentiary if he doesn't? Well, we do learn to restrain ourselves +in some things; and there are people who really want someone else to +take the last cookie, though they aren't very common. But it's all +right, the world seems to be getting on." She gazed whimsically upon her +great-nephew and added, "Of course, when you watch a boy and think about +him, it doesn't seem to be getting on very fast." + +Penrod moved uneasily in his chair; he was conscious that he was her +topic but unable to make out whether or not her observations were +complimentary; he inclined to think they were not. Mrs. Crim settled the +question for him. + +"I suppose Penrod is regarded as the neighbourhood curse?" + +"Oh, no," cried Mrs. Schofield. "He----" + +"I dare say the neighbours are right," continued the old lady placidly. +"He's had to repeat the history of the race and go through all the +stages from the primordial to barbarism. You don't expect boys to be +civilized, do you?" + +"Well, I----" + +"You might as well expect eggs to crow. No; you've got to take boys as +they are, and learn to know them as they are." + +"Naturally, Aunt Sarah," said Mrs. Schofield, "I KNOW Penrod." + +Aunt Sarah laughed heartily. "Do you think his father knows him, too?" + +"Of course, men are different," Mrs. Schofield returned, apologetically. +"But a mother knows----" + +"Penrod," said Aunt Sarah, solemnly, "does your father understand you?" + +"Ma'am?" + +"About as much as he'd understand Sitting Bull!" she laughed. + +"And I'll tell you what your mother thinks you are, Penrod. Her real +belief is that you're a novice in a convent." + +"Ma'am?" + +"Aunt Sarah!" + +"I know she thinks that, because whenever you don't behave like a novice +she's disappointed in you. And your father really believes that you're +a decorous, well-trained young business man, and whenever you don't +live up to that standard you get on his nerves and he thinks you need a +walloping. I'm sure a day very seldom passes without their both saying +they don't know what on earth to do with you. Does whipping do you any +good, Penrod?" + +"Ma'am?" + +"Go on and finish the lemonade; there's about glassful left. Oh, take +it, take it; and don't say why! Of COURSE you're a little pig." + +Penrod laughed gratefully, his eyes fixed upon her over the rim of his +uptilted glass. + +"Fill yourself up uncomfortably," said the old lady. "You're twelve +years old, and you ought to be happy--if you aren't anything else. It's +taken over nineteen hundred years of Christianity and some hundreds of +thousands of years of other things to produce you, and there you sit!" + +"Ma'am?" + +"It'll be your turn to struggle and muss things up, for the betterment +of posterity, soon enough," said Aunt Sarah Crim. "Drink your lemonade!" + + +CHAPTER XXIX FANCHON + +"Aunt Sarah's a funny old lady," Penrod observed, on the way back to the +town. "What's she want me to give papa this old sling for? Last thing +she said was to be sure not to forget to give it to him. HE don't want +it; and she said, herself, it ain't any good. She's older than you or +papa, isn't she?" + +"About fifty years older," answered Mrs. Schofield, turning upon him a +stare of perplexity. "Don't cut into the leather with your new knife, +dear; the livery man might ask us to pay if----No. I wouldn't scrape +the paint off, either--nor whittle your shoe with it. COULDN'T you put +it up until we get home?" + +"We goin' straight home?" + +"No. We're going to stop at Mrs. Gelbraith's and ask a strange little +girl to come to your party, this afternoon." + +"Who?" + +"Her name is Fanchon. She's Mrs. Gelbraith's little niece." + +"What makes her so queer?" + +"I didn't say she's queer." + +"You said----" + +"No; I mean that she is a stranger. She lives in New York and has come +to visit here." + +"What's she live in New York for?" + +"Because her parents live there. You must be very nice to her, Penrod; +she has been very carefully brought up. Besides, she doesn't know the +children here, and you must help to keep her from feeling lonely at your +party." + +"Yes'm." + +When they reached Mrs. Gelbraith's, Penrod sat patiently humped upon a +gilt chair during the lengthy exchange of greetings between his mother. +and Mrs. Gelbraith. That is one of the things a boy must learn to bear: +when his mother meets a compeer there is always a long and dreary wait +for him, while the two appear to be using strange symbols of speech, +talking for the greater part, it seems to him, simultaneously, and +employing a wholly incomprehensible system of emphasis at other times +not in vogue. Penrod twisted his legs, his cap and his nose. + +"Here she is!" Mrs. Gelbraith cried, unexpectedly, and a dark-haired, +demure person entered the room wearing a look of gracious social +expectancy. In years she was eleven, in manner about sixty-five, +and evidently had lived much at court. She performed a curtsey in +acknowledgment of Mrs. Schofield's greeting, and bestowed her hand +upon Penrod, who had entertained no hope of such an honour, showed his +surprise that it should come to him, and was plainly unable to decide +what to do about it. + +"Fanchon, dear," said Mrs. Gelbraith, "take Penrod out in the yard for a +while, and play." + +"Let go the little girl's hand, Penrod," Mrs. Schofield laughed, as the +children turned toward the door. + +Penrod hastily dropped the small hand, and exclaiming, with simple +honesty, "Why, _I_ don't want it!" followed Fanchon out into the +sunshiny yard, where they came to a halt and surveyed each other. + +Penrod stared awkwardly at Fanchon, no other occupation suggesting +itself to him, while Fanchon, with the utmost coolness, made a very +thorough visual examination of Penrod, favouring him with an estimating +scrutiny which lasted until he literally wiggled. Finally, she spoke. + +"Where do you buy your ties?" she asked. + +"What?" + +"Where do you buy your neckties? Papa gets his at Skoone's. You ought to +get yours there. I'm sure the one you're wearing isn't from Skoone's." + +"Skoone's?" Penrod repeated. "Skoone's?" + +"On Fifth Avenue," said Fanchon. "It's a very smart shop, the men say." + +"Men?" echoed Penrod, in a hazy whisper. "Men?" + +"Where do your people go in summer?" inquired the lady. "WE go to Long +Shore, but so many middle-class people have begun coming there, mamma +thinks of leaving. The middle classes are simply awful, don't you +think?" + +"What?" + +"They're so boorjaw. You speak French, of course?" + +"Me?" + +"We ran over to Paris last year. It's lovely, don't you think? Don't you +LOVE the Rue de la Paix?" + +Penrod wandered in a labyrinth. This girl seemed to be talking, but her +words were dumfounding, and of course there was no way for him to know +that he was really listening to her mother. It was his first meeting +with one of those grown-up little girls, wonderful product of the winter +apartment and summer hotel; and Fanchon, an only child, was a star of +the brand. He began to feel resentful. + +"I suppose," she went on, "I'll find everything here fearfully Western. +Some nice people called yesterday, though. Do you know the Magsworth +Bittses? Auntie says they're charming. Will Roddy be at your party?" + +"I guess he will," returned Penrod, finding this intelligible. "The +mutt!" + +"Really!" Fanchon exclaimed airily. "Aren't you great pals with him?" + +"What's 'pals'?" + +"Good heavens! Don't you know what it means to say you're 'great pals' +with any one? You ARE an odd child!" + +It was too much. + +"Oh, Bugs!" said Penrod. + +This bit of ruffianism had a curious effect. Fanchon looked upon him +with sudden favour. + +"I like you, Penrod!" she said, in an odd way, and, whatever else there +may have been in her manner, there certainly was no shyness. + +"Oh, Bugs!" This repetition may have lacked gallantry, but it was +uttered in no very decided tone. Penrod was shaken. + +"Yes, I do!" She stepped closer to him, smiling. "Your hair is ever so +pretty." + +Sailors' parrots swear like mariners, they say; and gay mothers ought to +realize that all children are imitative, for, as the precocious Fanchon +leaned toward Penrod, the manner in which she looked into his eyes might +have made a thoughtful observer wonder where she had learned her pretty +ways. + +Penrod was even more confused than he had been by her previous +mysteries: but his confusion was of a distinctly pleasant and alluring +nature: he wanted more of it. Looking intentionally into another +person's eyes is an act unknown to childhood; and Penrod's discovery +that it could be done was sensational. He had never thought of looking +into the eyes of Marjorie Jones. + +Despite all anguish, contumely, tar, and Maurice Levy, he still secretly +thought of Marjorie, with pathetic constancy, as his "beau"--though that +is not how he would have spelled it. Marjorie was beautiful; her +curls were long and the colour of amber; her nose was straight and +her freckles were honest; she was much prettier than this accomplished +visitor. But beauty is not all. + +"I do!" breathed Fanchon, softly. + +She seemed to him a fairy creature from some rosier world than this. So +humble is the human heart, it glorifies and makes glamorous almost any +poor thing that says to it: "I like you!" + +Penrod was enslaved. He swallowed, coughed, scratched the back of his +neck, and said, disjointedly: + +"Well--I don't care if you want to. I just as soon." + +"We'll dance together," said Fanchon, "at your party." + +"I guess so. I just as soon." + +"Don't you want to, Penrod?" + +"Well, I'm willing to." + +"No. Say you WANT to!" + +"Well----" + +He used his toe as a gimlet, boring into the ground, his wide open eyes +staring with intense vacancy at a button on his sleeve. + +His mother appeared upon the porch in departure, calling farewells over +her shoulder to Mrs. Gelbraith, who stood in the doorway. + +"Say it!" whispered Fanchon. + +"Well, I just as SOON." + +She seemed satisfied. + + + +CHAPTER XXX THE BIRTHDAY PARTY + +A dancing floor had been laid upon a platform in the yard, when Mrs. +Schofield and her son arrived at their own abode; and a white and +scarlet striped canopy was in process of erection overhead, to shelter +the dancers from the sun. Workmen were busy everywhere under the +direction of Margaret, and the smitten heart of Penrod began to beat +rapidly. All this was for him; he was Twelve! + +After lunch, he underwent an elaborate toilette and murmured not. For +the first time in his life he knew the wish to be sand-papered, waxed, +and polished to the highest possible degree. And when the operation was +over, he stood before the mirror in new bloom, feeling encouraged to +hope that his resemblance to his father was not so strong as Aunt Sarah +seemed to think. + +The white gloves upon his hands had a pleasant smell, he found; and, as +he came down the stairs, he had great content in the twinkling of his +new dancing slippers. He stepped twice on each step, the better to enjoy +their effect and at the same time he deeply inhaled the odour of the +gloves. In spite of everything, Penrod had his social capacities. +Already it is to be perceived that there were in him the makings of a +cotillon leader. + +Then came from the yard a sound of tuning instruments, squeak of fiddle, +croon of 'cello, a falling triangle ringing and tinkling to the floor; +and he turned pale. + +Chosen guests began to arrive, while Penrod, suffering from stage-fright +and perspiration, stood beside his mother, in the "drawing-room," +to receive them. He greeted unfamiliar acquaintances and intimate +fellow-criminals with the same frigidity, murmuring: "'M glad to see +y'," to all alike, largely increasing the embarrassment which always +prevails at the beginning of children's festivities. His unnatural pomp +and circumstance had so thoroughly upset him, in truth, that Marjorie +Jones received a distinct shock, now to be related. Doctor Thrope, the +kind old clergyman who had baptized Penrod, came in for a moment to +congratulate the boy, and had just moved away when it was Marjorie's +turn, in the line of children, to speak to Penrod. She gave him what she +considered a forgiving look, and, because of the occasion, addressed him +in a perfectly courteous manner. + +"I wish you many happy returns of the day, Penrod." + +"Thank you, sir!" he returned, following Dr. Thrope with a glassy +stare in which there was absolutely no recognition of Marjorie. Then he +greeted Maurice Levy, who was next to Marjorie: "'M glad to see y'!" + +Dumfounded, Marjorie turned aside, and stood near, observing Penrod with +gravity. It was the first great surprise of her life. Customarily, +she had seemed to place his character somewhere between that of the +professional rioter and that of the orang-outang; nevertheless, her +manner at times just hinted a consciousness that this Caliban was her +property. Wherefore, she stared at him incredulously as his head bobbed +up and down, in the dancing-school bow, greeting his guests. Then she +heard an adult voice, near her, exclaim: + +"What an exquisite child!" + +Mariorie galanced up--a little consciously, though she was used to +it--naturally curious to ascertain who was speaking of her. It was Sam +Williams' mother addressing Mrs. Bassett, both being present to help +Mrs. Schofield make the festivities festive. + +"Exquisite!" + +Here was a second heavy surprise for Marjorie: they were not looking +at her. They were looking with beaming approval at a girl she had never +seen; a dark and modish stranger of singularly composed and yet modest +aspect. Her downcast eyes, becoming in one thus entering a crowded room, +were all that produced the effect of modesty, counteracting something +about her which might have seemed too assured. She was very slender, +very dainty, and her apparel was disheartening to the other girls; it +was of a knowing picturesqueness wholly unfamiliar to them. There was +a delicate trace of powder upon the lobe of Fanchon's left ear, and +the outlines of her eyelids, if very closely scrutinized, would have +revealed successful experimentation with a burnt match. + +Marjorie's lovely eyes dilated: she learned the meaning of hatred at +first sight. Observing the stranger with instinctive suspicion, all +at once she seemed, to herself, awkward. Poor Marjorie underwent that +experience which hearty, healthy, little girls and big girls undergo at +one time or another--from heels to head she felt herself, somehow, too +THICK. + +Fanchon leaned close to Penrod and whispered in his ear: + +"Don't you forget!" + +Penrod blushed. + +Marjorie saw the blush. Her lovely eyes opened even wider, and in them +there began to grow a light. It was the light of indignation;--at least, +people whose eyes glow with that light always call it indignation. + +Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, approached Fanchon, when she had made +her courtesy to Mrs. Schofield. Fanchon whispered in Roderick's ear +also. + +"Your hair is pretty, Roddy! Don't forget what you said yesterday!" + +Roderick likewise blushed. + +Maurice Levy, captivated by the newcomer's appearance, pressed close to +Roderick. + +"Give us an intaduction, Roddy?" + +Roddy being either reluctant or unable to perform the rite, Fanchon took +matters into her own hands, and was presently favourably impressed with +Maurice, receiving the information that his tie had been brought to him +by his papa from Skoone's, whereupon she privately informed him that she +liked wavy hair, and arranged to dance with him. Fanchon also thought +sandy hair attractive, Sam Williams discovered, a few minutes later, and +so catholic was her taste that a ring of boys quite encircled her before +the musicians in the yard struck up their thrilling march, and Mrs. +Schofield brought Penrod to escort the lady from out-of-town to the +dancing pavilion. + +Headed by this pair, the children sought partners and paraded solemnly +out of the front door and round a corner of the house. There they found +the gay marquee; the small orchestra seated on the lawn at one side +of it, and a punch bowl of lemonade inviting attention, under a tree. +Decorously the small couples stepped upon the platform, one after +another, and began to dance. + +"It's not much like a children's party in our day," Mrs. Williams said +to Penrod's mother. "We'd have been playing 'Quaker-meeting,' 'Clap-in, +Clap-out,' or 'Going to Jerusalem,' I suppose." + +"Yes, or 'Post-office' and 'Drop-the-handkerchief,'" said Mrs. +Schofield. "Things change so quickly. Imagine asking little Fanchon +Gelbraith to play 'London Bridge'! Penrod seems to be having a difficult +time with her, poor boy; he wasn't a shining light in the dancing +class." + +However, Penrod's difficulty was not precisely of the kind his mother +supposed. Fanchon was showing him a new step, which she taught her +next partner in turn, continuing instructions during the dancing. The +children crowded the floor, and in the kaleidoscopic jumble of bobbing +heads and intermingling figures her extremely different style of +motion was unobserved by the older people, who looked on, nodding time +benevolently. + +Fanchon fascinated girls as well as boys. Many of the former eagerly +sought her acquaintance and thronged about her between the dances, when, +accepting the deference due a cosmopolitan and an oracle of the mode, +she gave demonstrations of the new step to succeeding groups, professing +astonishment to find it unknown: it had been "all the go," she +explained, at the Long Shore Casino for fully two seasons. She +pronounced "slow" a "Fancy Dance" executed during an intermission by +Baby Rennsdale and Georgie Bassett, giving it as her opinion that Miss +Rennsdale and Mr. Bassett were "dead ones"; and she expressed surprise +that the punch bowl contained lemonade and not champagne. + +The dancing continued, the new step gaining instantly in popularity, +fresh couples adventuring with every number. The word "step" is somewhat +misleading, nothing done with the feet being vital to the evolutions +introduced by Fanchon. Fanchon's dance came from the Orient by a +roundabout way; pausing in Spain, taking on a Gallic frankness in +gallantry at the Bal Bullier in Paris, combining with a relative from +the South Seas encountered in San Francisco, flavouring itself with +a carefree negroid abandon in New Orleans, and, accumulating, too, +something inexpressible from Mexico and South America, it kept, +throughout its travels, to the underworld, or to circles where nature +is extremely frank and rank, until at last it reached the dives of New +York, when it immediately broke out in what is called civilized +society. Thereafter it spread, in variously modified forms--some of +them disinfected--to watering-places, and thence, carried by hundreds of +older male and female Fanchons, over the country, being eagerly adopted +everywhere and made wholly pure and respectable by the supreme moral +axiom that anything is all right if enough people do it. Everybody was +doing it. + +Not quite everybody. It was perhaps some test of this dance that earth +could furnish no more grotesque sight than that of children doing it. + +Earth, assisted by Fanchon, was furnishing this sight at Penrod's party. +By the time ice-cream and cake arrived, about half the guests had +either been initiated into the mysteries by Fanchon or were learning +by imitation, and the education of the other half was resumed with the +dancing, when the attendant ladies, unconscious of what was happening, +withdrew into the house for tea. + +"That orchestra's a dead one," Fanchon remarked to Penrod. "We ought to +liven them up a little!" + +She approached the musicians. + +"Don't you know," she asked the leader, "the Slingo Sligo Slide?" + +The leader giggled, nodded, rapped with his bow upon his violin; and +Penrod, following Fanchon back upon the dancing floor, blindly brushed +with his elbow a solitary little figure standing aloof on the lawn at +the edge of the platform. + +It was Marjorie. + +In no mood to approve of anything introduced by Fanchon, she had +scornfully refused, from the first, to dance the new "step," and, +because of its bonfire popularity, found herself neglected in a society +where she had reigned as beauty and belle. Faithless Penrod, dazed by +the sweeping Fanchon, had utterly forgotten the amber curls; he had not +once asked Marjorie to dance. All afternoon the light of indignation had +been growing brighter in her eyes, though Maurice Levy's defection +to the lady from New York had not fanned this flame. From the moment +Fanchon had whispered familiarly in Penrod's ear, and Penrod had +blushed, Marjorie had been occupied exclusively with resentment against +that guilty pair. It seemed to her that Penrod had no right to allow a +strange girl to whisper in his ear; that his blushing, when the strange +girl did it, was atrocious; and that the strange girl, herself, ought to +be arrested. + +Forgotten by the merrymakers, Marjorie stood alone upon the lawn, +clenching her small fists, watching the new dance at its high tide, +and hating it with a hatred that made every inch of her tremble. And, +perhaps because jealousy is a great awakener of the virtues, she had +a perception of something in it worse than lack of dignity--something +vaguely but outrageously reprehensible. Finally, when Penrod brushed by +her, touched her with his elbow, and, did not even see her, Marjorie's +state of mind (not unmingled with emotion!) became dangerous. In fact, a +trained nurse, chancing to observe her at this juncture, would probably +have advised that she be taken home and put to bed. Marjorie was on the +verge of hysterics. + +She saw Fanchon and Penrod assume the double embrace required by the +dance; the "Slingo Sligo Slide" burst from the orchestra like the +lunatic shriek of a gin-maddened nigger; and all the little couples +began to bob and dip and sway. + +Marjorie made a scene. She sprang upon the platform and stamped her +foot. + +"Penrod Schofield!" she shouted. "You BEHAVE yourself!" + +The remarkable girl took Penrod by the ear. By his ear she swung him +away from Fanchon and faced him toward the lawn. + +"You march straight out of here!" she commanded. + +Penrod marched. + +He was stunned; obeyed automatically, without question, and had very +little realization of what was happening to him. Altogether, and without +reason, he was in precisely the condition of an elderly spouse detected +in flagrant misbehaviour. Marjorie, similarly, was in precisely the +condition of the party who detects such misbehaviour. It may be added +that she had acted with a promptness, a decision and a disregard of +social consequences all to be commended to the attention of ladies in +like predicament. + +"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" she raged, when they reached the +lawn. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" + +"What for?" he inquired, helplessly. + +"You be quiet!" + +"But what'd _I_ do, Marjorie? _I_ haven't done anything to you," he +pleaded. "I haven't even seen you, all aftern----" + +"You be quiet!" she cried, tears filling her eyes. "Keep still! You ugly +boy! Shut up!" + +She slapped him. + +He should have understood from this how much she cared for him. But he +rubbed his cheek and declared ruefully: + +"I'll never speak to you again!" + +"You will, too!" she sobbed, passionately. + +"I will not!" + +He turned to leave her, but paused. + +His mother, his sister Margaret, and their grownup friends had finished +their tea and were approaching from the house. Other parents and +guardians were with them, coming for their children; and there were +carriages and automobiles waiting in the street. But the "Slingo Slide" +went on, regardless. + +The group of grown-up people hesitated and came to a halt, gazing at the +pavilion. + +"What are they doing?" gasped Mrs. Williams, blushing deeply. "What is +it? What IS it?" + +"WHAT IS IT?" Mrs. Gelbraith echoed in a frightened whisper. "WHAT----" + +"They're Tangoing!" cried Margaret Schofield. "Or Bunny Hugging or +Grizzly Bearing, or----" + +"They're only Turkey Trotting," said Robert Williams. + +With fearful outcries the mothers, aunts, and sisters rushed upon the +pavilion. + +"Of course it was dreadful," said Mrs. Schofield, an hour later, +rendering her lord an account of the day, "but it was every bit the +fault of that one extraordinary child. And of all the quiet, demur +little things--that is, I mean, when she first came. We all spoke of how +exquisite she seemed--so well trained, so finished! Eleven years old! I +never saw anything like her in my life!" + +"I suppose it's the New Child," her husband grunted. + +"And to think of her saying there ought to have been champagne in the +lemonade!" + +"Probably she'd forgotten to bring her pocket flask," he suggested +musingly. + +"But aren't you proud of Penrod?" cried Penrod's mother. "It was just as +I told you: he was standing clear outside the pavilion----" + +"I never thought to see the day! And Penrod was the only boy not doing +it, the only one to refuse? ALL the others were----" + +"Every one!" she returned triumphantly. "Even Georgie Bassett!" + +"Well," said Mr. Schofield, patting her on the shoulder. "I guess we can +hold up our heads at last." + + + +CHAPTER XXXI OVER THE FENCE + +Penrod was out in the yard, staring at the empty marquee. The sun was on +the horizon line, so far behind the back fence, and a western window of +the house blazed in gold unbearable to the eye: his day was nearly +over. He sighed, and took from the inside pocket of his new jacket the +"sling-shot" aunt Sarah Crim had given him that morning. + +He snapped the rubbers absently. They held fast; and his next impulse +was entirely irresistible. He found a shapely stone, fitted it to the +leather, and drew back the ancient catapult for a shot. A sparrow hopped +upon a branch between him and the house, and he aimed at the sparrow, +but the reflection from the dazzling window struck in his eyes as he +loosed the leather. + +He missed the sparrow, but not the window. There was a loud crash, +and to his horror he caught a glimpse of his father, stricken in +mid-shaving, ducking a shower of broken glass, glittering razor +flourishing wildly. Words crashed with the glass, stentorian words, +fragmentary but collossal. + +Penrod stood petrified, a broken sling in his hand. He could hear his +parent's booming descent of the back stairs, instant and furious; and +then, red-hot above white lather, Mr. Schofield burst out of the kitchen +door and hurtled forth upon his son. + +"What do you mean?" he demanded, shaking Penrod by the shoulder. "Ten +minutes ago, for the very first time in our lives, your mother and I +were saying we were proud of you, and here you go and throw a rock at me +through the window when I'm shaving for dinner!" + +"I didn't!" Penrod quavered. "I was shooting at a sparrow, and the sun +got in his eyes, and the sling broke----" + +"What sling?" + +"This'n." + +"Where'd you get that devilish thing? Don't you know I've forbidden you +a thousand times----" + +"It ain't mine," said Penrod. "It's yours." + +"What?" + +"Yes, sir," said the boy meekly. "Aunt Sarah Crim gave it to me this +morning and told me to give it back to you. She said she took it away +from you thirty-five years ago. You killed her hen, she said. She told +me some more to tell you, but I've forgotten." + +"Oh!" said Mr. Schofield. + +He took the broken sling in his hand, looked at it long and +thoughtfully--and he looked longer, and quite as thoughtfully, at +Penrod. Then he turned away, and walked toward the house. + +"I'm sorry, papa," said Penrod. + +Mr. Schofield coughed, and, as he reached the door, called back, but +without turning his head. + +"Never mind, little boy. A broken window isn't much harm." + +When he had gone in, Penrod wandered down the yard to the back fence, +climbed upon it, and sat in reverie there. + +A slight figure appeared, likewise upon a fence, beyond two neighbouring +yards. + +"Yay, Penrod!" called comrade Sam Williams. + +"Yay!" returned Penrod, mechanically. + +"I caught Billy Blue Hill!" shouted Sam, describing retribution in a +manner perfectly clear to his friend. "You were mighty lucky to get out +of it." + +"I know that!" + +"You wouldn't of, if it hadn't been for Marjorie." + +"Well, don't I know that?" Penrod shouted, with heat. + +"Well, so long!" called Sam, dropping from his fence; and the friendly +voice came then, more faintly, "Many happy returns of the day, Penrod!" + +And now, a plaintive little whine sounded from below Penrod's feet, and, +looking down, he saw that Duke, his wistful, old, scraggly dog sat in +the grass, gazing seekingly up at him. + +The last shaft of sunshine of that day fell graciously and like a +blessing upon the boy sitting on the fence. Years afterward, a quiet +sunset would recall to him sometimes the gentle evening of his twelfth +birthday, and bring him the picture of his boy self, sitting in rosy +light upon the fence, gazing pensively down upon his wistful, scraggly, +little old dog, Duke. But something else, surpassing, he would remember +of that hour, for, in the side street, close by, a pink skirt flickered +from behind a shade tree to the shelter of the fence, there was a gleam +of amber curls, and Penrod started, as something like a tiny white wing +fluttered by his head, and there came to his ears the sound of a light +laugh and of light footsteps departing, the laughter tremulous, the +footsteps fleet. + +In the grass, between Duke's forepaws, there lay a white note, folded in +the shape of a cocked hat, and the sun sent forth a final amazing glory +as Penrod opened it and read: + +"Your my bow." + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Penrod, by Booth Tarkington + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PENROD *** + +***** This file should be named 402.txt or 402.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/402/ + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. Binary files differdiff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b982aa5 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #402 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/402) diff --git a/old/pnrod10.txt b/old/pnrod10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3fc5a87 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/pnrod10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8520 @@ +**The Project Gutenberg Etext of Penrod, by Booth Tarkington*** +#2 in our series by Booth Tarkington + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +Penrod + +by Booth Tarkington + +January, 1996 [Etext #402] + + +**The Project Gutenberg Etext of Penrod, by Booth Tarkington*** +*****This file should be named pnrod10.txt or pnrod10.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, pnrod11.txt. +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, pnrod10a.txt. + + +We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance +of the official release dates, for time for better editing. + +Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an +up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes +in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has +a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a +look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a +new copy has at least one byte more or less. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take +to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $4 +million dollars per hour this year as we release some eight text +files per month: thus upping our productivity from $2 million. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext +Files by the December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion] +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is 10% of the expected number of computer users by the end +of the year 2001. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/IBC", and are +tax deductible to the extent allowable by law ("IBC" is Illinois +Benedictine College). (Subscriptions to our paper newsletter go +to IBC, too) + +For these and other matters, please mail to: + +Project Gutenberg +P. O. Box 2782 +Champaign, IL 61825 + +When all other email fails try our Michael S. Hart, Executive +Director: +hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu (internet) hart@uiucvmd (bitnet) + +We would prefer to send you this information by email +(Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail). + +****** +If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please +FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives: +[Mac users, do NOT point and click. . .type] + +ftp uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu +login: anonymous +password: your@login +cd etext/etext90 through /etext96 +or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information] +dir [to see files] +get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files] +GET INDEX?00.GUT +for a list of books +and +GET NEW GUT for general information +and +MGET GUT* for newsletters. + +**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor** +(Three Pages) + + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG- +tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor +Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at +Illinois Benedictine College (the "Project"). Among other +things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext +under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this +etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors, +officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost +and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or +indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause: +[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification, +or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- + cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the etext (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the + net profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois + Benedictine College" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Illinois Benedictine College". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +BOOTH TARKINGTON + +Penrod + + + +TO + +JOHN, DONALD AND BOOTH JAMESON + +FROM A GRATEFUL UNCLE + + + + CONTENTS +CHAPTER +I. A Boy and His Dog +II. Romance +III. The Costume +IV. Desperation +V. The Pageant of the Table Round +VI. Evening +VII. Evils of Drink +VIII. School +IX. Soaring +X. Uncle John +XI. Fidelity of a Little Dog +XII. Miss Rennsdale Accepts +XIII. The Smallpox Medicine +XIV. Maurice Levy's Constitution +XV. The Two Families +XVI. The New Star +XVII. Retiring from the Show-Business +XVIII. Music +XIX. The Inner Boy +XX. Brothers of Angels +XXI. Rupe Collins +XXII. The Imitator +XXIII. Coloured Troops in Action +XXIV. "Little Gentleman" +XXV. Tar +XXVI. The Quiet Afternoon +XXVII. Conclusion of the Quiet Afternoon +XXVIII. Twelve +XXIX. Fanchon +XXX. The Birthday Party +XXXI. Over the Fence + + + +CHAPTER I +A BOY AND HIS DOG + +Penrod sat morosely upon the back fence and gazed with envy at +Duke, his wistful dog. + +A bitter soul dominated the various curved and angular +surfaces known by a careless world as the face of Penrod +Schofield. Except in solitude, that face was almost always +cryptic and emotionless; for Penrod had come into his twelfth +year wearing an expression carefully trained to be inscrutable. +Since the world was sure to misunderstand everything, mere +defensive instinct prompted him to give it as little as possible +to lay hold upon. Nothing is more impenetrable than the +face of a boy who has learned this, and Penrod's was habitually +as fathomless as the depth of his hatred this morning for the +literary activities of Mrs. Lora Rewbush--an almost universally +respected fellow citizen, a lady of charitable and poetic +inclinations, and one of his own mother's most intimate friends. + +Mrs. Lora Rewbush had written something which she called "The +Children's Pageant of the Table Round," and it was to be +performed in public that very afternoon at the Women's Arts and +Guild Hall for the benefit of the Coloured Infants' Betterment +Society. And if any flavour of sweetness remained in the nature +of Penrod Schofield after the dismal trials of the school-week +just past, that problematic, infinitesimal remnant was made +pungent acid by the imminence of his destiny to form a prominent +feature of the spectacle, and to declaim the loathsome sentiments +of a character named upon the programme the Child Sir Lancelot. + +After each rehearsal he had plotted escape, and only ten days +earlier there had been a glimmer of light: Mrs. Lora Rewbush +caught a very bad cold, and it was hoped it might develop into +pneumonia; but she recovered so quickly that not even a rehearsal +of the Children's Pageant was postponed. Darkness closed in. +Penrod had rather vaguely debated plans for a self-mutilation +such as would make his appearance as the Child Sir Lancelot +inexpedient on public grounds; it was a heroic and attractive +thought, but the results of some extremely sketchy preliminary +experiments caused him to abandon it. + +There was no escape; and at last his hour was hard upon him. +Therefore he brooded on the fence and gazed with envy at his +wistful Duke. + +The dog's name was undescriptive of his person, which was +obviously the result of a singular series of mesalliances. He +wore a grizzled moustache and indefinite whiskers; he was small +and shabby, and looked like an old postman. Penrod envied Duke +because he was sure Duke would never be compelled to be a Child +Sir Lancelot. He thought a dog free and unshackled to go or come +as the wind listeth. Penrod forgot the life he led Duke. + +There was a long soliloquy upon the fence, a plaintive +monologue without words: the boy's thoughts were adjectives, but +they were expressed by a running film of pictures in his mind's +eye, morbidly prophetic of the hideosities before him. Finally +he spoke aloud, with such spleen that Duke rose from his haunches +and lifted one ear in keen anxiety. + + "`I hight Sir Lancelot du Lake, the Child, + Gentul-hearted, meek, and mild. + What though I'm BUT a littul child, + Gentul-hearted, meek, and----' OOF!" + + +All of this except "oof" was a quotation from the Child Sir +Lancelot, as conceived by Mrs. Lora Rewbush. Choking upon it, +Penrod slid down from the fence, and with slow and thoughtful +steps entered a one-storied wing of the stable, consisting of a +single apartment, floored with cement and used as a storeroom for +broken bric-a-brac, old paint-buckets, decayed garden-hose, worn- +out carpets, dead furniture, and other condemned odds and ends +not yet considered hopeless enough to be given away. + +In one corner stood a large box, a part of the building +itself: it was eight feet high and open at the top, and it had +been constructed as a sawdust magazine from which was drawn +material for the horse's bed in a stall on the other side of the +partition. The big box, so high and towerlike, so commodious, so +suggestive, had ceased to fulfil its legitimate function; though, +providentially, it had been at least half full of sawdust when +the horse died. Two years had gone by since that passing; an +interregnum in transportation during which Penrod's father was +"thinking" (he explained sometimes) of an automobile. Meanwhile, +the gifted and generous sawdust-box had served brilliantly in war +and peace: it was Penrod's stronghold. + +There was a partially defaced sign upon the front wall of the +box; the donjon-keep had known mercantile impulses: + +The O. K. RaBiT Co. +PENROD ScHoFiELD AND CO. +iNQuiRE FOR PRicEs + + +This was a venture of the preceding vacation, and had netted, +at one time, an accrued and owed profit of $1.38. Prospects had +been brightest on the very eve of cataclysm. The storeroom was +locked and guarded, but twenty-seven rabbits and Belgian hares, +old and young, had perished here on a single night--through no +human agency, but in a foray of cats, the besiegers treacherously +tunnelling up through the sawdust from the small aperture which +opened into the stall beyond the partition. Commerce has its +martyrs. + +Penrod climbed upon a barrel, stood on tiptoe, grasped the +rim of the box; then, using a knot-hole as a stirrup, threw one +leg over the top, drew himself up, and dropped within. Standing +upon the packed sawdust, he was just tall enough to see over the +top. + +Duke had not followed him into the storeroom, but remained +near the open doorway in a concave and pessimistic attitude. +Penrod felt in a dark corner of the box and laid hands upon a +simple apparatus consisting of an old bushel-basket with a few +yards of clothes-line tied to each of its handles. He passed the +ends of the lines over a big spool, which revolved upon an axle +of wire suspended from a beam overhead, and, with the aid of this +improvised pulley, lowered the empty basket until it came to rest +in an upright position upon the floor of the storeroom at the +foot of the sawdust-box. + +"Eleva-ter!" shouted Penrod. "Ting-ting!" + +Duke, old and intelligently apprehensive, approached slowly, +in a semicircular manner, deprecatingly, but with courtesy. He +pawed the basket delicately; then, as if that were all his master +had expected of him, uttered one bright bark, sat down, and +looked up triumphantly. His hypocrisy was shallow: many a +horrible quarter of an hour had taught him his duty in this +matter. + +"El-e-VAY-ter!" shouted Penrod sternly. "You want me to +come down there to you?" + +Duke looked suddenly haggard. He pawed the basket feebly +again and, upon another outburst from on high, prostrated himself +flat. Again threatened, he gave a superb impersonation of a +worm. + +"You get in that el-e-VAY-ter!" + +Reckless with despair, Duke jumped into the basket, landing +in a dishevelled posture, which he did not alter until he had +been drawn up and poured out upon the floor of sawdust with the +box. There, shuddering, he lay in doughnut shape and presently +slumbered. + +It was dark in the box, a condition that might have been +remedied by sliding back a small wooden panel on runners, which +would have let in ample light from the alley; but Penrod +Schofield had more interesting means of illumination. He knelt, +and from a former soap-box, in a corner, took a lantern, +without a chimney, and a large oil-can, the leak in the latter +being so nearly imperceptible that its banishment from household +use had seemed to Penrod as inexplicable as it was providential. + +He shook the lantern near his ear: nothing splashed; there +was no sound but a dry clinking. But there was plenty of +kerosene in the can; and he filled the lantern, striking a match +to illumine the operation. Then he lit the lantern and hung it +upon a nail against the wall. The sawdust floor was slightly +impregnated with oil, and the open flame quivered in suggestive +proximity to the side of the box; however, some rather deep +charrings of the plank against which the lantern hung offered +evidence that the arrangement was by no means a new one, and +indicated at least a possibility of no fatality occurring this +time. + +Next, Penrod turned up the surface of the sawdust in another +corner of the floor, and drew forth a cigar-box in which were +half a dozen cigarettes, made of hayseed and thick brown wrapping +paper, a lead-pencil, an eraser, and a small note-book, the cover +of which was labelled in his own handwriting: + +"English Grammar. Penrod Schofield. Room 6, Ward School +Nomber Seventh." + +The first page of this book was purely academic; but the +study of English undefiled terminated with a slight jar at the +top of the second: "Nor must an adverb be used to modif----" + +Immediately followed: + +"HARoLD RAMoREZ THE RoADAGENT + OR WiLD LiFE AMoNG THE + ROCKY MTS." + +And the subsequent entries in the book appeared to have little +concern with Room 6, Ward School Nomber Seventh. + + + +CHAPTER II +ROMANCE + +The author of "Harold Ramorez," etc., lit one of the hayseed +cigarettes, seated himself comfortably, with his back against the +wall and his right shoulder just under the lantern, elevated his +knees to support the note-book, turned to a blank page, and +wrote, slowly and earnestly: + + "CHAPITER THE SIXTH" + + +He took a knife from his pocket, and, broodingly, his eyes +upon the inward embryos of vision, sharpened his pencil. After +that, he extended a foot and meditatively rubbed Duke's +back with the side of his shoe. Creation, with Penrod, did not +leap, full-armed, from the brain; but finally he began to +produce. He wrote very slowly at first, and then with increasing +rapidity; faster and faster, gathering momentum and growing more +and more fevered as he sped, till at last the true fire came, +without which no lamp of real literature may be made to burn. + + +Mr. Wilson reched for his gun but our hero had him covred and +soon said Well I guess you don't come any of that on me my +freind. + +Well what makes you so sure about it sneered the other +bitting his lip so savageley that the blood ran. You are nothing +but a common Roadagent any way and I do not propose to be bafled +by such, Ramorez laughed at this and kep Mr. Wilson covred by his +ottomatick + +Soon the two men were struggling together in the death-roes +but soon Mr Wilson got him bound and gaged his mouth and went +away for awhile leavin our hero, it was dark and he writhd at his +bonds writhing on the floor wile the rats came out of their holes +and bit him and vernim got all over him from the floor of that +helish spot but soon he managed to push the gag out of his mouth +with the end of his toungeu and got all his bonds off + +Soon Mr Wilson came back to tant him with his helpless +condition flowed by his gang of detectives and they said Oh look +at Ramorez sneering at his plight and tanted him with his +helpless condition because Ramorez had put the bonds back sos he +would look the same but could throw them off him when he wanted +to Just look at him now sneered they. To hear him talk you would +thought he was hot stuff and they said Look at him now, him that +was going to do so much, Oh I would not like to be in his fix + +Soon Harold got mad at this and jumped up with blasing +eyes throwin off his bonds like they were air Ha Ha sneered +he I guess you better not talk so much next time. Soon there +flowed another awful struggle and siezin his ottomatick back from +Mr Wilson he shot two of the detectives through the heart Bing +Bing went the ottomatick and two more went to meet their Maker +only two detectives left now and so he stabbed one and the +scondrel went to meet his Maker for now our hero was fighting for +his very life. It was dark in there now for night had falen and +a terrible view met the eye Blood was just all over everything +and the rats were eatin the dead men. + +Soon our hero manged to get his back to the wall for he was +fighting for his very life now and shot Mr Wilson through the +abodmen Oh said Mr Wilson you---- ---- ---- (The dashes are +Penrod's.) + +Mr Wilson stagerd back vile oaths soilin his lips for he was +in pain Why you---- ----you sneered he I will get you yet---- +----you Harold Ramorez + +The remainin scondrel had an ax which he came near our heros +head with but missed him and ramand stuck in the wall Our heros +amunition was exhaused what was he to do, the remanin scondrel +would soon get his ax lose so our hero sprung forward and bit him +till his teeth met in the flech for now our hero was fighting for +his very life. At this the remanin scondrel also cursed and +swore vile oaths. Oh sneered he---- ---- ----you Harold Ramorez +what did you bite me for Yes sneered Mr Wilson also and he has +shot me in the abdomen too the---- + +Soon they were both cursin and reviln him together Why +you---- ---- ---- ---- ----sneered they what did you want to +injure us for----you Harold Ramorez you have not got any sence +and you think you are so much but you are no better than anybody +else and you are a---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- + +Soon our hero could stand this no longer. If you could learn +to act like gentlmen said he I would not do any more to you +now and your low vile exppresions have not got any effect on me +only to injure your own self when you go to meet your Maker Oh I +guess you have had enogh for one day and I think you have learned +a lesson and will not soon atemp to beard Harold Ramorez again so +with a tantig laugh he cooly lit a cigarrete and takin the keys +of the cell from Mr Wilson poket went on out + +Soon Mr Wilson and the wonded detective manged to bind up +their wonds and got up off the floor---- ----it I will have that +dasstads life now sneered they if we have to swing for it---- +---- ---- ----him he shall not eccape us again the low down---- +---- ---- ---- ---- + +Chapiter seventh + +A mule train of heavily laden burros laden with gold from the +mines was to be seen wondering among the highest clifts and gorgs +of the Rocky Mts and a tall man with a long silken mustash and a +cartigde belt could be heard cursin vile oaths because he well +knew this was the lair of Harold Ramorez Why---- ---- ----you +you---- ---- ---- ---- mules you sneered he because the poor +mules were not able to go any quicker ---- you I will show you +Why---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----it sneered he his oaths growing +viler and viler I will whip you---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- +----you sos you will not be able to walk for a week---- ----you +you mean old---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----mules you + +Scarcly had the vile words left his lips when---- + + +"PENROD!" + +It was his mother's voice, calling from the back porch. + +Simultaneously, the noon whistles began to blow, far and +near; and the romancer in the sawdust-box, summoned prosaically +from steep mountain passes above the clouds, paused with +stubby pencil halfway from lip to knee. His eyes were shining: +there was a rapt sweetness in his gaze. As he wrote, his burden +had grown lighter; thoughts of Mrs. Lora Rewbush had almost left +him; and in particular as he recounted (even by the chaste dash) +the annoyed expressions of Mr. Wilson, the wounded detective, and +the silken moustached mule-driver, he had felt mysteriously +relieved concerning the Child Sir Lancelot. Altogether he looked +a better and a brighter boy. + +"Pen-ROD!" + +The rapt look faded slowly. He sighed, but moved not. + +"Penrod! We're having lunch early just on your account, so +you'll have plenty of time to be dressed for the pageant. +Hurry!" + +There was silence in Penrod's aerie. + +"PEN-rod!" + +Mrs. Schofields voice sounded nearer, indicating a threatened +approach. Penrod bestirred himself: he blew out the lantern, and +shouted plaintively: + +"Well, ain't I coming fast's I can?" + +"Do hurry," returned the voice, withdrawing; and the kitchen +door could be heard to close. + +Languidly, Penrod proceeded to set his house in order. + +Replacing his manuscript and pencil in the cigar-box, he +carefully buried the box in the sawdust, put the lantern and +oil-can back in the soap-box, adjusted the elevator for the +reception of Duke, and, in no uncertain tone, invited the devoted +animal to enter. + +Duke stretched himself amiably, affecting not to hear; and +when this pretence became so obvious that even a dog could keep +it up no longer, sat down in a corner, facing it, his back to his +master, and his head perpendicular, nose upward, supported by the +convergence of the two walls. This, from a dog, is the last +word, the comble of the immutable. Penrod commanded, +stormed, tried gentleness; persuaded with honeyed words and +pictured rewards. Duke's eyes looked backward; otherwise he +moved not. Time elapsed. Penrod stooped to flattery, finally to +insincere caresses; then, losing patience spouted sudden threats. + +Duke remained immovable, frozen fast to his great gesture of +implacable despair. + +A footstep sounded on the threshold of the store-room. + +"Penrod, come down from that box this instant!" + +"Ma'am?" + +"Are you up in that sawdust-box again?" As Mrs. Schofield +had just heard her son's voice issue from the box, and also, as +she knew he was there anyhow, her question must have been put for +oratorical purposes only. "Because if you are," she continued +promptly, "I'm going to ask your papa not to let you play there +any----" + +Penrod's forehead, his eyes, the tops of his ears, and most +of his hair, became visible to her at the top of the box. "I +ain't `playing!'" he said indignantly. + +"Well, what ARE you doing?" + +"Just coming down," he replied, in a grieved but patient +tone. + +"Then why don't you COME?" + +"I got Duke here. I got to get him DOWN, haven't I? You +don't suppose I want to leave a poor dog in here to starve, do +you?" + +"Well, hand him down over the side to me. Let me----" + +"I'll get him down all right," said Penrod. "I got him up +here, and I guess I can get him down!" + +"Well then, DO it!" + +"I will if you'll let me alone. If you'll go on back to the +house I promise to be there inside of two minutes. Honest!" + +He put extreme urgency into this, and his mother turned +toward the house. "If you're not there in two minutes----" + +"I will be!" + +After her departure, Penrod expended some finalities of +eloquence upon Duke, then disgustedly gathered him up in his +arms, dumped him into the basket and, shouting sternly, "All in +for the ground floor--step back there, madam--all ready, Jim!" +lowered dog and basket to the floor of the storeroom. Duke +sprang out in tumultuous relief, and bestowed frantic +affection upon his master as the latter slid down from the box. + +Penrod dusted himself sketchily, experiencing a sense of +satisfaction, dulled by the overhanging afternoon, perhaps, but +perceptible: he had the feeling of one who has been true to a +cause. The operation of the elevator was unsinful and, save for +the shock to Duke's nervous system, it was harmless; but Penrod +could not possibly have brought himself to exhibit it in the +presence of his mother or any other grown person in the world. +The reasons for secrecy were undefined; at least, Penrod did not +define them. + + + +CHAPTER III +THE COSTUME + +After lunch his mother and his sister Margaret, a pretty girl of +nineteen, dressed him for the sacrifice. They stood him near his +mother's bedroom window and did what they would to him. + +During the earlier anguishes of the process he was mute, +exceeding the pathos of the stricken calf in the shambles; but a +student of eyes might have perceived in his soul the premonitory +symptoms of a sinister uprising. At a rehearsal (in citizens' +clothes) attended by mothers and grown-up sisters, Mrs. Lora +Rewbush had announced that she wished the costuming to be +"as medieval and artistic as possible." Otherwise, and as to +details, she said, she would leave the costumes entirely to the +good taste of the children's parents. Mrs. Schofield and +Margaret were no archeologists, but they knew that their taste +was as good as that of other mothers and sisters concerned; so +with perfect confidence they had planned and executed a costume +for Penrod; and the only misgiving they felt was connected with +the tractability of the Child Sir Lancelot himself. + +Stripped to his underwear, he had been made to wash himself +vehemently; then they began by shrouding his legs in a pair of +silk stockings, once blue but now mostly whitish. Upon Penrod +they visibly surpassed mere ampleness; but they were long, and it +required only a rather loose imagination to assume that they were +tights. + +The upper part of his body was next concealed from view by a +garment so peculiar that its description becomes difficult. In +1886, Mrs. Schofield, then unmarried, had worn at her "coming-out +party" a dress of vivid salmon silk which had been remodelled +after her marriage to accord with various epochs of fashion until +a final, unskilful campaign at a dye-house had left it in a +condition certain to attract much attention to the wearer. Mrs. +Schofield had considered giving it to Della, the cook; but had +decided not to do so, because you never could tell how Della was +going to take things, and cooks were scarce. + +It may have been the word "medieval" (in Mrs. Lora Rewbush's +rich phrase) which had inspired the idea for a last conspicuous +usefulness; at all events, the bodice of that once salmon dress, +somewhat modified and moderated, now took a position, for its +farewell appearance in society, upon the back, breast, and arms +of the Child Sir Lancelot. + +The area thus costumed ceased at the waist, leaving a Jaeger- +like and unmedieval gap thence to the tops of the stockings. The +inventive genius of woman triumphantly bridged it, but in a +manner which imposes upon history almost insuperable delicacies +of narration. Penrod's father was an old-fashioned man: the +twentieth century had failed to shake his faith in red flannel +for cold weather; and it was while Mrs. Schofield was putting +away her husband's winter underwear that she perceived how +hopelessly one of the elder specimens had dwindled; and +simultaneously she received the inspiration which resulted in a +pair of trunks for the Child Sir Lancelot, and added an earnest +bit of colour, as well as a genuine touch of the Middle Ages, to +his costume. Reversed, fore to aft, with the greater part of the +legs cut off, and strips of silver braid covering the seams, this +garment, she felt, was not traceable to its original source. + +When it had been placed upon Penrod, the stockings were +attached to it by a system of safety-pins, not very perceptible +at a distance. Next, after being severely warned against +stooping, Penrod got his feet into the slippers he wore to +dancing-school--"patent-leather pumps" now decorated with large +pink rosettes. + +"If I can't stoop," he began, smolderingly, "I'd like to know +how'm I goin' to kneel in the pag----" + +"You must MANAGE!" This, uttered through pins, was +evidently thought to be sufficient. + +They fastened some ruching about his slender neck, pinned +ribbons at random all over him, and then Margaret thickly +powdered his hair. + +"Oh, yes, that's all right," she said, replying to a question +put by her mother. "They always powdered their hair in Colonial +times." + +"It doesn't seem right to me--exactly," objected Mrs. +Schofield, gently. "Sir Lancelot must have been ever so long +before Colonial times." + +"That doesn't matter," Margaret reassured her. "Nobody'll +know the difference--Mrs. Lora Rewbush least of all. I don't +think she knows a thing about it, though, of course, she does +write splendidly and the words of the pageant are just beautiful. + +Stand still, Penrod!" (The author of "Harold Ramorez" had moved +convulsively.) "Besides, powdered hair's always becoming. Look +at him. You'd hardly know it was Penrod!" + +The pride and admiration with which she pronounced this +undeniable truth might have been thought tactless, but Penrod, +not analytical, found his spirits somewhat elevated. No mirror +was in his range of vision and, though he had submitted to +cursory measurements of his person a week earlier, he had no +previous acquaintance with the costume. He began to form a not +unpleasing mental picture of his appearance, something somewhere +between the portraits of George Washington and a vivid memory of +Miss Julia Marlowe at a matinee of "Twelfth Night." + +He was additionally cheered by a sword which had been +borrowed from a neighbor, who was a Knight of Pythias. Finally +there was a mantle, an old golf cape of Margaret's. Fluffy +polka-dots of white cotton had been sewed to it generously; also +it was ornamented with a large cross of red flannel, suggested by +the picture of a Crusader in a newspaper advertisement. The +mantle was fastened to Penrod's shoulder (that is, to the +shoulder of Mrs. Schofield's ex-bodice) by means of large safety- +pins, and arranged to hang down behind him, touching his heels, +but obscuring nowise the glory of his facade. Then, at last, he +was allowed to step before a mirror. + +It was a full-length glass, and the worst immediately +happened. It might have been a little less violent, perhaps, if +Penrod's expectations had not been so richly and poetically +idealized; but as things were, the revolt was volcanic. + +Victor Hugo's account of the fight with the devil-fish, in +"Toilers of the Sea," encourages a belief that, had Hugo +lived and increased in power, he might have been equal to a +proper recital of the half hour which followed Penrod's first +sight of himself as the Child Sir Lancelot. But Mr. Wilson +himself, dastard but eloquent foe of Harold Ramorez, could not +have expressed, with all the vile dashes at his command, the +sentiments which animated Penrod's bosom when the instantaneous +and unalterable conviction descended upon him that he was +intended by his loved ones to make a public spectacle of himself +in his sister's stockings and part of an old dress of his +mother's. + +To him these familiar things were not disguised at all; there +seemed no possibility that the whole world would not know them at +a glance. The stockings were worse than the bodice. He had been +assured that these could not be recognized, but, seeing them in +the mirror, he was sure that no human eye could fail at first +glance to detect the difference between himself and the former +purposes of these stockings. Fold, wrinkle, and void shrieked +their history with a hundred tongues, invoking earthquake, +eclipse, and blue ruin. The frantic youth's final submission was +obtained only after a painful telephonic conversation between +himself and his father, the latter having been called up and +upon, by the exhausted Mrs. Schofield, to subjugate his offspring +by wire. + +The two ladies made all possible haste, after this, to +deliver Penrod into the hands of Mrs. Lora Rewbush; +nevertheless, they found opportunity to exchange earnest +congratulations upon his not having recognized the humble but +serviceable paternal garment now brilliant about the Lancelotish +middle. Altogether, they felt that the costume was a success. +Penrod looked like nothing ever remotely imagined by Sir Thomas +Malory or Alfred Tennyson;--for that matter, he looked like +nothing ever before seen on earth; but as Mrs. Schofield and +Margaret took their places in the audience at the Women's Arts +and Guild Hall, the anxiety they felt concerning Penrod's +elocutionary and gesticular powers, so soon to be put to public +test, was pleasantly tempered by their satisfaction that, owing +to their efforts, his outward appearance would be a credit to the +family. + + + +CHAPTER IV +DESPERATION + +The Child Sir Lancelot found himself in a large anteroom behind +the stage--a room crowded with excited children, all about +equally medieval and artistic. Penrod was less conspicuous than +he thought himself, but he was so preoccupied with his own shame, +steeling his nerves to meet the first inevitable taunting +reference to his sister's stockings, that he failed to perceive +there were others present in much of his own unmanned condition. +Retiring to a corner, immediately upon his entrance, he managed +to unfasten the mantle at the shoulders, and, drawing it round +him, pinned it again at his throat so that it concealed +the rest of his costume. This permitted a temporary relief, but +increased his horror of the moment when, in pursuance of the +action of the "pageant," the sheltering garment must be cast +aside. + +Some of the other child knights were also keeping their +mantles close about them. A few of the envied opulent swung +brilliant fabrics from their shoulders, airily, showing off hired +splendours from a professional costumer's stock, while one or two +were insulting examples of parental indulgence, particularly +little Maurice Levy, the Child Sir Galahad. This shrinking +person went clamorously about, making it known everywhere that +the best tailor in town had been dazzled by a great sum into +constructing his costume. It consisted of blue velvet +knickerbockers, a white satin waistcoat, and a beautifully cut +little swallow-tailed coat with pearl buttons. The medieval and +artistic triumph was completed by a mantle of yellow velvet, and +little white boots, sporting gold tassels. + +All this radiance paused in a brilliant career and addressed +the Child Sir Lancelot, gathering an immediately formed +semicircular audience of little girls. Woman was ever the +trailer of magnificence. + +"What YOU got on?" inquired Mr. Levy, after dispensing +information. "What you got on under that ole golf cape?" + +Penrod looked upon him coldly. At other times his +questioner would have approached him with deference, even with +apprehension. But to-day the Child Sir Galahad was somewhat +intoxicated with the power of his own beauty. + +"What YOU got on?" he repeated. + +"Oh, nothin'," said Penrod, with an indifference assumed at +great cost to his nervous system. + +The elate Maurice was inspired to set up as a wit. "Then +you're nakid!" he shouted exultantly. "Penrod Schofield says he +hasn't got nothin' on under that ole golf cape! He's nakid! +He's nakid." + +The indelicate little girls giggled delightedly, and a +javelin pierced the inwards of Penrod when he saw that the Child +Elaine, amber-curled and beautiful Marjorie Jones, lifted golden +laughter to the horrid jest. + +Other boys and girls came flocking to the uproar. "He's +nakid, he's nakid!" shrieked the Child Sir Galahad. "Penrod +Schofield's nakid! He's NA-A-A-KID!" + +"Hush, hush!" said Mrs. Lora Rewbush, pushing her way into +the group. "Remember, we are all little knights and ladies to- +day. Little knights and ladies of the Table Round would not make +so much noise. Now children, we must begin to take our places on +the stage. Is everybody here?" + +Penrod made his escape under cover of this diversion: he slid +behind Mrs. Lora Rewbush, and being near a door, opened it +unnoticed and went out quickly, closing it behind him. He +found himself in a narrow and vacant hallway which led to a door +marked "Janitor's Room." + +Burning with outrage, heart-sick at the sweet, cold-blooded +laughter of Marjorie Jones, Penrod rested his elbows upon a +window-sill and speculated upon the effects of a leap from the +second story. One of the reasons he gave it up was his desire to +live on Maurice Levy's account: already he was forming +educational plans for the Child Sir Galahad. + +A stout man in blue overalls passed through the hallway +muttering to himself petulantly. "I reckon they'll find that +hall hot enough NOW!" he said, conveying to Penrod an +impression that some too feminine women had sent him upon an +unreasonable errand to the furnace. He went into the Janitor's +Room and, emerging a moment later, minus the overalls, passed +Penrod again with a bass rumble--"Dern 'em!" it seemed he said-- +and made a gloomy exit by the door at the upper end of the +hallway. + +The conglomerate and delicate rustle of a large, mannerly +audience was heard as the janitor opened and closed the door; and +stage-fright seized the boy. The orchestra began an overture, +and, at that, Penrod, trembling violently, tiptoed down the hall +into the Janitor's Room. It was a cul-de-sac: There was no +outlet save by the way he had come. + +Despairingly he doffed his mantle and looked down upon +himself for a last sickening assurance that the stockings +were as obviously and disgracefully Margaret's as they had seemed +in the mirror at home. For a moment he was encouraged: perhaps +he was no worse than some of the other boys. Then he noticed +that a safety-pin had opened; one of those connecting the +stockings with his trunks. He sat down to fasten it and his eye +fell for the first time with particular attention upon the +trunks. Until this instant he had been preoccupied with the +stockings. + +Slowly recognition dawned in his eyes. + +The Schofields' house stood on a corner at the intersection +of two main-travelled streets; the fence was low, and the +publicity obtained by the washable portion of the family apparel, +on Mondays, had often been painful to Penrod; for boys have a +peculiar sensitiveness in these matters. A plain, matter-of-fact +washerwoman' employed by Mrs. Schofield, never left anything to +the imagination of the passer-by; and of all her calm display the +scarlet flaunting of his father's winter wear had most abashed +Penrod. One day Marjorie Jones, all gold and starch, had passed +when the dreadful things were on the line: Penrod had hidden +himself, shuddering. The whole town, he was convinced, knew +these garments intimately and derisively. + +And now, as he sat in the janitor's chair, the horrible and +paralyzing recognition came. He had not an instant's doubt that +every fellow actor, as well as every soul in the audience, would +recognize what his mother and sister had put upon him. For +as the awful truth became plain to himself it seemed blazoned to +the world; and far, far louder than the stockings, the trunks did +fairly bellow the grisly secret: WHOSE they were and WHAT +they were! + +Most people have suffered in a dream the experience of +finding themselves very inadequately clad in the midst of a crowd +of well-dressed people, and such dreamers' sensations are +comparable to Penrod's, though faintly, because Penrod was awake +and in much too full possession of the most active capacities for +anguish. + +A human male whose dress has been damaged, or reveals some +vital lack, suffers from a hideous and shameful loneliness which +makes every second absolutely unbearable until he is again as +others of his sex and species; and there is no act or sin +whatever too desperate for him in his struggle to attain that +condition. Also, there is absolutely no embarrassment possible +to a woman which is comparable to that of a man under +corresponding circumstances and in this a boy is a man. Gazing +upon the ghastly trunks, the stricken Penrod felt that he was a +degree worse then nude; and a great horror of himself filled his +soul. + +"Penrod Schofield!" + +The door into the hallway opened, and a voice demanded him. +He could not be seen from the hallway, but the hue and the cry +was up; and he knew he must be taken. It was only a question +of seconds. He huddled in his chair. + +"Penrod Schofield!" cried Mrs. Lora Rewbush angrily. + +The distracted boy rose and, as he did so, a long pin sank +deep into his back. He extracted it frenziedly, which brought to +his ears a protracted and sonorous ripping, too easily located by +a final gesture of horror. + +"Penrod Schofield!" Mrs. Lora Rewbush had come out into the +hallway. + +And now, in this extremity, when all seemed lost indeed, +particularly including honour, the dilating eye of the outlaw +fell upon the blue overalls which the janitor had left hanging +upon a peg. + +Inspiration and action were almost simultaneous. + + + +CHAPTER V +THE PAGEANT OF THE TABLE ROUND + + +"Penrod!" Mrs. Lora Rewbush stood in the doorway, indignantly +gazing upon a Child Sir Lancelot mantled to the heels. "Do you +know that you have kept an audience of five hundred people +waiting for ten minutes?" She, also, detained the five hundred +while she spake further. + +"Well," said Penrod contentedly, as he followed her toward +the buzzing stage, "I was just sitting there thinking." + +Two minutes later the curtain rose on a medieval castle hall +richly done in the new stage-craft made in Germany and consisting +of pink and blue cheesecloth. The Child King Arthur and +the Child Queen Guinevere were disclosed upon thrones, with the +Child Elaine and many other celebrities in attendance; while +about fifteen Child Knights were seated at a dining-room table +round, which was covered with a large Oriental rug, and displayed +(for the knights' refreshment) a banquet service of silver +loving-cups and trophies, borrowed from the Country Club and some +local automobile manufacturers. + +In addition to this splendour, potted plants and palms have +seldom been more lavishly used in any castle on the stage or off. + +The footlights were aided by a "spot-light" from the rear of the +hall; and the children were revealed in a blaze of glory. + +A hushed, multitudinous "O-OH" of admiration came from +the decorous and delighted audience. Then the children sang +feebly: + + +"Chuldrun of the Tabul Round, + Lit-tul knights and ladies we. +Let our voy-siz all resound + Faith and hope and charitee!" + + +The Child King Arthur rose, extended his sceptre with the +decisive gesture of a semaphore, and spake: + + +"Each littul knight and lady born +Has noble deeds TO perform +In THEE child-world of shivullree, +No matter how small his share may be. +Let each advance and tell in turn +What claim has each to knighthood earn." + + +The Child Sir Mordred, the villain of this piece, rose in his +place at the table round, and piped the only lines ever written +by Mrs. Lora Rewbush which Penrod Schofield could have pronounced +without loathing. Georgie Bassett, a really angelic boy, had +been selected for the role of Mordred. His perfect conduct had +earned for him the sardonic sobriquet, "The Little Gentleman," +among his boy acquaintances. (Naturally he had no friends.) +Hence the other boys supposed that he had been selected for the +wicked Mordred as a reward of virtue. He declaimed serenely: + + + "I hight Sir Mordred the Child, and I teach + Lessons of selfishest evil, and reach + Out into darkness. Thoughtless, unkind, + And ruthless is Mordred, and unrefined." + + +The Child Mordred was properly rebuked and denied the +accolade, though, like the others, he seemed to have assumed the +title already. He made a plotter's exit. Whereupon Maurice Levy +rose, bowed, announced that he highted the Child Sir Galahad, and +continued with perfect sang-froid: + + + "I am the purest of the pure. + I have but kindest thoughts each day. + I give my riches to the poor, + And follow in the Master's way." + + +This elicited tokens of approval from the Child King Arthur, +and he bade Maurice "stand forth" and come near the throne, a +command obeyed with the easy grace of conscious merit. + +It was Penrod's turn. He stepped back from his chair, the +table between him and the audience, and began in a high, +breathless monotone: + + + "I hight Sir Lancelot du Lake, the Child, + Gentul-hearted, meek, and mild. + What though I'm BUT a littul child, + Gentul-heartud, meek, and mild, + I do my share though but--though but----" + + +Penrod paused and gulped. The voice of Mrs. Lora Rewbush was +heard from the wings, prompting irritably, and the Child. Sir +Lancelot repeated: + + + "I do my share though but--though but a tot, + I pray you knight Sir Lancelot!" + + +This also met the royal favour, and Penrod was bidden to join +Sir Galahad at the throne. As he crossed the stage, Mrs. +Schofield whispered to Margaret: + +"That boy! He's unpinned his mantle and fixed it to cover +his whole costume. After we worked so hard to make it becoming!" + +"Never mind; he'll have to take the cape off in a minute," +returned Margaret. She leaned forward suddenly, narrowing her +eyes to see better. "What IS that thing hanging about his +left ankle?" she whispered uneasily. "How queer! He must have +got tangled in something." + +"Where?" asked Mrs. Schofield, in alarm. + +"His left foot. It makes him stumble. Don't you see? It +looks--it looks like an elephant's foot!" + +The Child Sir Lancelot and the Child Sir Galahad clasped +hands before their Child King. Penrod was conscious of a great +uplift; in a moment he would have to throw aside his mantle, but +even so he was protected and sheltered in the human garment of a +man. His stage-fright had passed, for the audience was but an +indistinguishable blur of darkness beyond the dazzling lights. +His most repulsive speech (that in which he proclaimed himself a +"tot") was over and done with; and now at last the small, moist +hand of the Child Sir Galahad lay within his own. Craftily his +brown fingers stole from Maurice's palm to the wrist. The two +boys declaimed in concert: + + + "We are two chuldrun of the Tabul Round + Strewing kindness all a-round. + With love and good deeds striving ever for the best, + May our littul efforts e'er be blest. + Two littul hearts we offer. See + United in love, faith, hope, and char--OW!" + + +The conclusion of the duet was marred. The Child Sir Galahad +suddenly stiffened, and, uttering an irrepressible shriek of +anguish, gave a brief exhibition of the contortionist's art. +("HE'S TWISTIN' MY WRIST! DERN YOU, LEGGO!") + +The voice of Mrs. Lora Rewbush was again heard from the +wings; it sounded bloodthirsty. Penrod released his victim; +and the Child King Arthur, somewhat disconcerted, extended his +sceptre and, with the assistance of the enraged prompter, said: + + + "Sweet child-friends of the Tabul Round, + In brotherly love and kindness abound, + Sir Lancelot, you have spoken well, + Sir Galahad, too, as clear as bell. + So now pray doff your mantles gay. + You shall be knighted this very day." + + +And Penrod doffed his mantle. + +Simultaneously, a thick and vasty gasp came from the +audience, as from five hundred bathers in a wholly unexpected +surf. This gasp was punctuated irregularly, over the auditorium, +by imperfectly subdued screams both of dismay and incredulous +joy, and by two dismal shrieks. Altogether it was an +extraordinary sound, a sound never to be forgotten by any one who +heard it. It was almost as unforgettable as the sight which +caused it; the word "sight" being here used in its vernacular +sense, for Penrod, standing unmantled and revealed in all the +medieval and artistic glory of the janitor's blue overalls, falls +within its meaning. + +The janitor was a heavy man, and his overalls, upon Penrod, +were merely oceanic. The boy was at once swaddled and lost +within their blue gulfs and vast saggings; and the left leg, too +hastily rolled up, had descended with a distinctively elephantine +effect, as Margaret had observed. Certainly, the Child Sir +Lancelot was at least a sight. + +It is probable that a great many in that hall must have had, +even then, a consciousness that they were looking on at History +in the Making. A supreme act is recognizable at sight: it bears +the birthmark of immortality. But Penrod, that marvellous boy, +had begun to declaim, even with the gesture of flinging off his +mantle for the accolade: + + + "I first, the Child Sir Lancelot du Lake, + Will volunteer to knighthood take, + And kneeling here before your throne + I vow to----" + + +He finished his speech unheard. The audience had recovered +breath, but had lost self-control, and there ensued something +later described by a participant as a sort of cultured riot. + +The actors in the "pageant" were not so dumfounded by +Penrod's costume as might have been expected. A few precocious +geniuses perceived that the overalls were the Child Lancelot's +own comment on maternal intentions; and these were profoundly +impressed: they regarded him with the grisly admiration of young +and ambitious criminals for a jail-mate about to be distinguished +by hanging. But most of the children simply took it to be the +case (a little strange, but not startling) that Penrod's mother +had dressed him like that--which is pathetic. They tried to go +on with the "pageant." + +They made a brief, manful effort. But the irrepressible +outbursts from the audience bewildered them; every time Sir +Lancelot du Lake the Child opened his mouth, the great, shadowy +house fell into an uproar, and the children into confusion. +Strong women and brave girls in the audience went out into the +lobby, shrieking and clinging to one another. Others remained, +rocking in their seats, helpless and spent. The neighbourhood of +Mrs. Schofield and Margaret became, tactfully, a desert. Friends +of the author went behind the scenes and encountered a hitherto +unknown phase of Mrs. Lora Rewbush; they said, afterward, that +she hardly seemed to know what she was doing. She begged to be +left alone somewhere with Penrod Schofield, for just a little +while. + +They led her away. + + + +CHAPTER VI +EVENING + +The sun was setting behind the back fence (though at a +considerable distance) as Penrod Schofield approached that fence +and looked thoughtfully up at the top of it, apparently having in +mind some purpose to climb up and sit there. Debating this, he +passed his fingers gently up and down the backs of his legs; and +then something seemed to decide him not to sit anywhere. He +leaned against the fence, sighed profoundly, and gazed at Duke, +his wistful dog. + +The sigh was reminiscent: episodes of simple pathos were +passing before his inward eye. About the most painful was the +vision of lovely Marjorie Jones, weeping with rage as the +Child Sir Lancelot was dragged, insatiate, from the prostrate and +howling Child Sir Galahad, after an onslaught delivered the +precise instant the curtain began to fall upon the demoralized +"pageant." And then--oh, pangs! oh, woman!--she slapped at the +ruffian's cheek, as he was led past her by a resentful janitor; +and turning, flung her arms round the Child Sir Galahad's neck. + +"PENROD SCHOFIELD, DON'T YOU DARE EVER SPEAK TO ME AGAIN +AS LONG AS YOU LIVE!" Maurice's little white boots and gold +tassels had done their work. + +At home the late Child Sir Lancelot was consigned to a locked +clothes-closet pending the arrival of his father. Mr. Schofield +came and, shortly after, there was put into practice an old +patriarchal custom. It is a custom of inconceivable antiquity: +probably primordial, certainly prehistoric, but still in vogue in +some remaining citadels of the ancient simplicities of the +Republic. + +And now, therefore, in the dusk, Penrod leaned against the +fence and sighed. + +His case is comparable to that of an adult who could have +survived a similar experience. Looking back to the sawdust-box, +fancy pictures this comparable adult a serious and inventive +writer engaged in congenial literary activities in a private +retreat. We see this period marked by the creation of some of +the most virile passages of a Work dealing exclusively in red +corpuscles and huge primal impulses. We see this thoughtful man +dragged from his calm seclusion to a horrifying publicity; forced +to adopt the stage and, himself a writer, compelled to exploit +the repulsive sentiments of an author not only personally +distasteful to him but whose whole method and school in belles +lettres he despises. + +We see him reduced by desperation and modesty to stealing a +pair of overalls. We conceive him to have ruined, then, his own +reputation, and to have utterly disgraced his family; next, to +have engaged in the duello and to have been spurned by his +lady-love, thus lost to him (according to her own declaration) +forever. Finally, we must behold: imprisonment by the +authorities; the third degree and flagellation. + +We conceive our man decided that his career had been perhaps +too eventful. Yet Penrod had condensed all of it into eight +hours. + +It appears that he had at least some shadowy perception of a +recent fulness of life, for, as he leaned against the fence, +gazing upon his wistful Duke, he sighed again and murmured aloud: + +"WELL, HASN'T THIS BEEN A DAY!" + +But in a little while a star came out, freshly lighted, from +the highest part of the sky, and Penrod, looking up, noticed it +casually and a little drowsily. He yawned. Then he sighed once +more, but not reminiscently: evening had come; the day was over. +It was a sigh of pure ennui. + + + +CHAPTER VII +EVILS OF DRINK + +Next day, Penrod acquired a dime by a simple and antique process +which was without doubt sometimes practised by the boys of +Babylon. When the teacher of his class in Sunday-school +requested the weekly contribution, Penrod, fumbling honestly (at +first) in the wrong pockets, managed to look so embarrassed that +the gentle lady told him not to mind, and said she was often +forgetful herself. She was so sweet about it that, looking into +the future, Penrod began to feel confident of a small but regular +income. + +At the close of the afternoon services he did not go +home, but proceeded to squander the funds just withheld from +China upon an orgy of the most pungently forbidden description. +In a Drug Emporium, near the church, he purchased a five-cent +sack of candy consisting for the most part of the heavily +flavoured hoofs of horned cattle, but undeniably substantial, and +so generously capable of resisting solution that the purchaser +must needs be avaricious beyond reason who did not realize his +money's worth. + +Equipped with this collation, Penrod contributed his +remaining nickel to a picture show, countenanced upon the seventh +day by the legal but not the moral authorities. Here, in cozy +darkness, he placidly insulted his liver with jaw-breaker upon +jaw-breaker from the paper sack, and in a surfeit of content +watched the silent actors on the screen. + +One film made a lasting impression upon him. It depicted +with relentless pathos the drunkard's progress; beginning with +his conversion to beer in the company of loose travelling men; +pursuing him through an inexplicable lapse into evening clothes +and the society of some remarkably painful ladies, next, +exhibiting the effects of alcohol on the victim's domestic +disposition, the unfortunate man was seen in the act of striking +his wife and, subsequently, his pleading baby daughter with an +abnormally heavy walking-stick. Their flight--through the snow-- +to seek the protection of a relative was shown, and finally, +the drunkard's picturesque behaviour at the portals of a +madhouse. + +So fascinated was Penrod that he postponed his departure +until this film came round again, by which time he had finished +his unnatural repast and almost, but not quite, decided against +following the profession of a drunkard when he grew up. + +Emerging, satiated, from the theatre, a public timepiece +before a jeweller's shop confronted him with an unexpected dial +and imminent perplexities. How was he to explain at home these +hours of dalliance? There was a steadfast rule that he return +direct from Sunday-school; and Sunday rules were important, +because on that day there was his father, always at home and at +hand, perilously ready for action. One of the hardest conditions +of boyhood is the almost continuous strain put upon the powers of +invention by the constant and harassing necessity for +explanations of every natural act. + +Proceeding homeward through the deepening twilight as rapidly +as possible, at a gait half skip and half canter, Penrod made up +his mind in what manner he would account for his long delay, and, +as he drew nearer, rehearsed in words the opening passage of his +defence. + +"Now see here," he determined to begin; "I do not wished to +be blamed for things I couldn't help, nor any other boy. I was +going along the street by a cottage and a lady put her head out +of the window and said her husband was drunk and whipping her +and her little girl, and she asked me wouldn't I come in and help +hold him. So I went in and tried to get hold of this drunken +lady's husband where he was whipping their baby daughter, but he +wouldn't pay any attention, and I TOLD her I ought to be +getting home, but she kep' on askin' me to stay----" + +At this point he reached the corner of his own yard, where a +coincidence not only checked the rehearsal of his eloquence but +happily obviated all occasion for it. A cab from the station +drew up in front of the gate, and there descended a troubled lady +in black and a fragile little girl about three. Mrs. Schofield +rushed from the house and enfolded both in hospitable arms. + +They were Penrod's Aunt Clara and cousin, also Clara, from +Dayton, Illinois, and in the flurry of their arrival everybody +forgot to put Penrod to the question. It is doubtful, however, +if he felt any relief; there may have been even a slight, +unconscious disappointment not altogether dissimilar to that of +an actor deprived of a good part. + +In the course of some really necessary preparations for +dinner he stepped from the bathroom into the pink-and-white +bedchamber of his sister, and addressed her rather thickly +through a towel. + +"When'd mamma find out Aunt Clara and Cousin Clara were +coming?" + +"Not till she saw them from the window. She just happened to +look out as they drove up. Aunt Clara telegraphed this morning, +but it wasn't delivered." + +"How long they goin' to stay?" + +"I don't know." + +Penrod ceased to rub his shining face, and thoughtfully +tossed the towel through the bathroom door. "Uncle John won't +try to make 'em come back home, I guess, will he?" (Uncle John +was Aunt Clara's husband, a successful manufacturer of stoves, +and his lifelong regret was that he had not entered the Baptist +ministry.) "He'll let 'em stay here quietly, won't he?" + +"What ARE you talking about?" demanded Margaret, turning +from her mirror. "Uncle John sent them here. Why shouldn't he +let them stay?" + +Penrod looked crestfallen. "Then he hasn't taken to drink?" + +"Certainly not!" She emphasized the denial with a pretty peal +of soprano laughter. + +"Then why," asked her brother gloomily, "why did Aunt Clara +look so worried when she got here?" + +"Good gracious! Don't people worry about anything except +somebody's drinking? Where did you get such an idea?" + +"Well," he persisted, "you don't KNOW it ain't that." + +She laughed again, wholeheartedly. "Poor Uncle John! He +won't even allow grape juice or ginger ale in his house. +They came because they were afraid little Clara might catch the +measles. She's very delicate, and there's such an epidemic of +measles among the children over in Dayton the schools had to be +closed. Uncle John got so worried that last night he dreamed +about it; and this morning he couldn't stand it any longer and +packed them off over here, though he thinks its wicked to travel +on Sunday. And Aunt Clara was worried when she got here because +they'd forgotten to check her trunk and it will have to be sent +by express. Now what in the name of the common sense put it into +your head that Uncle John had taken to----" + +"Oh, nothing." He turned lifelessly away and went downstairs, +a new-born hope dying in his bosom. Life seems so needlessly +dull sometimes. + + + +CHAPTER VIII +SCHOOL + +Next morning, when he had once more resumed the dreadful burden +of education, it seemed infinitely duller. And yet what +pleasanter sight is there than a schoolroom well filled with +children of those sprouting years just before the 'teens? The +casual visitor, gazing from the teacher's platform upon these +busy little heads, needs only a blunted memory to experience the +most agreeable and exhilarating sensations. Still, for the +greater part, the children are unconscious of the happiness of +their condition; for nothing is more pathetically true than that +we "never know when we are well off." The boys in a +public school are less aware of their happy state than are the +girls; and of all the boys in his room, probably Penrod himself +had the least appreciation of his felicity. + +He sat staring at an open page of a textbook, but not +studying; not even reading; not even thinking. Nor was he lost +in a reverie: his mind's eye was shut, as his physical eye might +well have been, for the optic nerve, flaccid with ennui, +conveyed nothing whatever of the printed page upon which the orb +of vision was partially focused. Penrod was doing something very +unusual and rare, something almost never accomplished except by +coloured people or by a boy in school on a spring day: he was +doing really nothing at all. He was merely a state of being. + +From the street a sound stole in through the open window, and +abhorring Nature began to fill the vacuum called Penrod +Schofield; for the sound was the spring song of a mouth-organ, +coming down the sidewalk. The windows were intentionally above +the level of the eyes of the seated pupils; but the picture of +the musician was plain to Penrod, painted for him by a quality in +the runs and trills, partaking of the oboe, of the calliope, and +of cats in anguish; an excruciating sweetness obtained only by +the wallowing, walloping yellow-pink palm of a hand whose back +was Congo black and shiny. The music came down the street and +passed beneath the window, accompanied by the care-free shuffling +of a pair of old shoes scuffing syncopations on the cement +sidewalk. It passed into the distance; became faint and blurred; +was gone. Emotion stirred in Penrod a great and poignant desire, +but (perhaps fortunately) no fairy godmother made her appearance. + +Otherwise Penrod would have gone down the street in a black skin, +playing the mouth-organ, and an unprepared coloured youth would +have found himself enjoying educational advantages for which he +had no ambition whatever. + +Roused from perfect apathy, the boy cast about the schoolroom +an eye wearied to nausea by the perpetual vision of the neat +teacher upon the platform, the backs of the heads of the pupils +in front of him, and the monotonous stretches of blackboard +threateningly defaced by arithmetical formulae and other insignia +of torture. Above the blackboard, the walls of the high room +were of white plaster--white with the qualified whiteness of old +snow in a soft coal town. This dismal expanse was broken by four +lithographic portraits, votive offerings of a thoughtful +publisher. The portraits were of good and great men, kind men; +men who loved children. Their faces were noble and benevolent. +But the lithographs offered the only rest for the eyes of +children fatigued by the everlasting sameness of the schoolroom. +Long day after long day, interminable week in and interminable +week out, vast month on vast month, the pupils sat with those +four portraits beaming kindness down upon them. The faces +became permanent in the consciousness of the children; they +became an obsession--in and out of school the children were never +free of them. The four faces haunted the minds of children +falling asleep; they hung upon the minds of children waking at +night; they rose forebodingly in the minds of children waking in +the morning; they became monstrously alive in the minds of +children lying sick of fever. Never, while the children of that +schoolroom lived, would they be able to forget one detail of the +four lithographs: the hand of Longfellow was fixed, for them, +forever, in his beard. And by a simple and unconscious +association of ideas, Penrod Schofield was accumulating an +antipathy for the gentle Longfellow and for James Russell Lowell +and for Oliver Wendell Holmes and for John Greenleaf Whittier, +which would never permit him to peruse a work of one of those +great New Englanders without a feeling of personal resentment. + +His eyes fell slowly and inimically from the brow of Whittier +to the braid of reddish hair belonging to Victorine Riordan, the +little octoroon girl who sat directly in front of him. +Victorine's back was as familiar to Penrod as the necktie of +Oliver Wendell Holmes. So was her gayly coloured plaid waist. +He hated the waist as he hated Victorine herself, without knowing +why. Enforced companionship in large quantities and on an equal +basis between the sexes appears to sterilize the affections, +and schoolroom romances are few. + +Victorine's hair was thick, and the brickish glints in it +were beautiful, but Penrod was very tired of it. A tiny knot of +green ribbon finished off the braid and kept it from unravelling; +and beneath the ribbon there was a final wisp of hair which was +just long enough to repose upon Penrod's desk when Victorine +leaned back in her seat. It was there now. Thoughtfully, he +took the braid between thumb and forefinger, and, without +disturbing Victorine, dipped the end of it and the green ribbon +into the inkwell of his desk. He brought hair and ribbon forth +dripping purple ink, and partially dried them on a blotter, +though, a moment later when Victorine leaned forward, they were +still able to add a few picturesque touches to the plaid waist. + +Rudolph Krauss, across the aisle from Penrod, watched the +operation with protuberant eyes, fascinated. Inspired to +imitation, he took a piece of chalk from his pocket and wrote +"RATS" across the shoulder-blades of the boy in front of him, +then looked across appealingly to Penrod for tokens of +congratulation. Penrod yawned. It may not be denied that at +times he appeared to be a very self-centred boy. + + + +CHAPTER IX +SOARING + +Half the members of the class passed out to a recitation-room, +the empurpled Victorine among them, and Miss Spence started the +remaining half through the ordeal of trial by mathematics. +Several boys and girls were sent to the blackboard, and Penrod, +spared for the moment, followed their operations a little while +with his eyes, but not with his mind; then, sinking deeper in his +seat, limply abandoned the effort. His eyes remained open, but +saw nothing; the routine of the arithmetic lesson reached his +ears in familiar, meaningless sounds, but he heard nothing; and +yet, this time, he was profoundly occupied. He had +drifted away from the painful land of facts, and floated now in a +new sea of fancy which he had just discovered. + +Maturity forgets the marvellous realness of a boy's day- +dreams, how colourful they glow, rosy and living, and how opaque +the curtain closing down between the dreamer and the actual +world. That curtain is almost sound-proof, too, and causes more +throat-trouble among parents than is suspected. + +The nervous monotony of the schoolroom inspires a sometimes +unbearable longing for something astonishing to happen, and as +every boy's fundamental desire is to do something astonishing +himself, so as to be the centre of all human interest and awe, it +was natural that Penrod should discover in fancy the delightful +secret of self-levitation. He found, in this curious series of +imaginings, during the lesson in arithmetic, that the atmosphere +may be navigated as by a swimmer under water, but with infinitely +greater ease and with perfect comfort in breathing. In his mind +he extended his arms gracefully, at a level with his shoulders, +and delicately paddled the air with his hands, which at once +caused him to be drawn up out of his seat and elevated gently to +a position about midway between the floor and the ceiling, where +he came to an equilibrium and floated; a sensation not the less +exquisite because of the screams of his fellow pupils, appalled +by the miracle. Miss Spence herself was amazed and +frightened, but he only smiled down carelessly upon her when +she commanded him to return to earth; and then, when she climbed +upon a desk to pull him down, he quietly paddled himself a little +higher, leaving his toes just out of her reach. Next, he swam +through a few slow somersaults to show his mastery of the new +art, and, with the shouting of the dumfounded scholars ringing in +his ears, turned on his side and floated swiftly out of the +window, immediately rising above the housetops, while people in +the street below him shrieked, and a trolley car stopped dead in +wonder. + +With almost no exertion he paddled himself, many yards at a +stroke, to the girls' private school where Marjorie Jones was a +pupil--Marjorie Jones of the amber curls and the golden voice! +Long before the "Pageant of the Table Round," she had offered +Penrod a hundred proofs that she considered him wholly +undesirable and ineligible. At the Friday Afternoon Dancing +Class she consistently incited and led the laughter at him +whenever Professor Bartet singled him out for admonition in +matters of feet and decorum. And but yesterday she had chid him +for his slavish lack of memory in daring to offer her a greeting +on the way to Sunday-school. "Well! I expect you must forgot I +told you never to speak to me again! If I was a boy, I'd be too +proud to come hanging around people that don't speak to me, even +if I WAS the Worst Boy in Town!" So she flouted him. +But now, as he floated in through the window of her classroom and +swam gently along the ceiling like an escaped toy balloon, she +fell upon her knees beside her little desk, and, lifting up her +arms toward him, cried with love and admiration: + +"Oh, PENrod!" + +He negligently kicked a globe from the high chandelier, and, +smiling coldly, floated out through the hall to the front steps +of the school, while Marjorie followed, imploring him to grant +her one kind look. + +In the street an enormous crowd had gathered, headed by Miss +Spence and a brass band; and a cheer from a hundred thousand +throats shook the very ground as Penrod swam overhead. Marjorie +knelt upon the steps and watched adoringly while Penrod took the +drum-major's baton and, performing sinuous evolutions above the +crowd, led the band. Then he threw the baton so high that it +disappeared from sight; but he went swiftly after it, a double +delight, for he had not only the delicious sensation of rocketing +safely up and up into the blue sky, but also that of standing in +the crowd below, watching and admiring himself as he dwindled to +a speck, disappeared and then, emerging from a cloud, came +speeding down, with the baton in his hand, to the level of the +treetops, where he beat time for the band and the vast throng and +Marjorie Jones, who all united in the "Star-spangled Banner" in +honour of his aerial achievements. It was a great moment. + +It was a great moment, but something seemed to threaten it. +The face of Miss Spence looking up from the crowd grew too +vivid--unpleasantly vivid. She was beckoning him and shouting, +"Come down, Penrod Schofield! Penrod Schofield, come down here!" + +He could hear her above the band and the singing of the +multitude; she seemed intent on spoiling everything. Marjorie +Jones was weeping to show how sorry she was that she had formerly +slighted him, and throwing kisses to prove that she loved him; +but Miss Spence kept jumping between him and Marjorie, +incessantly calling his name. + +He grew more and more irritated with her; he was the most +important person in the world and was engaged in proving it to +Marjorie Jones and the whole city, and yet Miss Spence seemed to +feel she still had the right to order him about as she did in the +old days when he was an ordinary schoolboy. He was furious; he +was sure she wanted him to do something disagreeable. It seemed +to him that she had screamed "Penrod Schofield!" thousands of +times. + +From the beginning of his aerial experiments in his own +schoolroom, he had not opened his lips, knowing somehow that one +of the requirements for air floating is perfect silence on the +part of the floater; but, finally, irritated beyond measure by +Miss Spence's clamorous insistence, he was unable to restrain an +indignant rebuke and immediately came to earth with a frightful +bump. + +Miss Spence--in the flesh--had directed toward the physical +body of the absent Penrod an inquiry as to the fractional +consequences of dividing seventeen apples, fairly, among three +boys, and she was surprised and displeased to receive no answer +although to the best of her knowledge and belief, he was looking +fixedly at her. She repeated her question crisply, without +visible effect; then summoned him by name with increasing +asperity. Twice she called him, while all his fellow pupils +turned to stare at the gazing boy. She advanced a step from the +platform. + +"Penrod Schofield!" + +"Oh, my goodness!" he shouted suddenly. "Can't you keep +still a MINUTE?" + + + +CHAPTER X +UNCLE JOHN + +Miss Spence gasped. So did the pupils. + +The whole room filled with a swelling conglomerate "O-O-O- +O-H!" + +As for Penrod himself, the walls reeled with the shock. He +sat with his mouth open, a mere lump of stupefaction. For the +appalling words that he had hurled at the teacher were as +inexplicable to him as to any other who heard them. + +Nothing is more treacherous than the human mind; nothing else +so loves to play the Iscariot. Even when patiently bullied into +a semblance of order and training, it may prove but a base and +shifty servant. And Penrod's mind was not his servant; +it was a master, with the April wind's whims; and it had just +played him a diabolical trick. The very jolt with which he came +back to the schoolroom in the midst of his fancied flight jarred +his day-dream utterly out of him; and he sat, open-mouthed in +horror at what he had said. + +The unanimous gasp of awe was protracted. Miss Spence, +however, finally recovered her breath, and, returning +deliberately to the platform, faced the school. "And then for a +little while," as pathetic stories sometimes recount, "everything +was very still." It was so still, in fact, that Penrod's newborn +notoriety could almost be heard growing. This grisly silence was +at last broken by the teacher. + +"Penrod Schofield, stand up!" + +The miserable child obeyed. + +"What did you mean by speaking to me in that way?" + +He hung his head, raked the floor with the side of his shoe, +swayed, swallowed, looked suddenly at his hands with the air of +never having seen them before, then clasped them behind him. The +school shivered in ecstatic horror, every fascinated eye upon +him; yet there was not a soul in the room but was profoundly +grateful to him for the sensation--including the offended teacher +herself. Unhappily, all this gratitude was unconscious and +altogether different from the kind which, results in +testimonials and loving-cups. On the contrary! + +"Penrod Schofield!" + +He gulped. + +"Answer me at once! Why did you speak to me like that?" + +"I was----" He choked, unable to continue. + +"Speak out!" + +"I was just--thinking," he managed to stammer. + +"That will not do," she returned sharply. "I wish to know +immediately why you spoke as you did." + +The stricken Penrod answered helplessly: + +"Because I was just thinking." + +Upon the very rack he could have offered no ampler truthful +explanation. It was all he knew about it. + +"Thinking what?" + +"Just thinking." + +Miss Spence's expression gave evidence that her power of +self-restraint was undergoing a remarkable test. However, after +taking counsel with herself, she commanded: + +"Come here!" + +He shuffled forward, and she placed a chair upon the platform +near her own. + +"Sit there!" + +Then (but not at all as if nothing had happened), she +continued the lesson in arithmetic. Spiritually the children may +have learned a lesson in very small fractions indeed as they +gazed at the fragment of sin before them on the stool of +penitence. They all stared at him attentively with hard and +passionately interested eyes, in which there was never one trace +of pity. It cannot be said with precision that he writhed; his +movement was more a slow, continuous squirm, effected with a +ghastly assumption of languid indifference; while his gaze, in +the effort to escape the marble-hearted glare of his schoolmates, +affixed itself with apparent permanence to the waistcoat button +of James Russell Lowell just above the "U" in "Russell." + +Classes came and classes went, grilling him with eyes. +Newcomers received the story of the crime in darkling whispers; +and the outcast sat and sat and sat, and squirmed and squirmed +and squirmed. (He did one or two things with his spine which a +professional contortionist would have observed with real +interest.) And all this while of freezing suspense was but the +criminal's detention awaiting trial. A known punishment may be +anticipated with some measure of equanimity; at least, the +prisoner may prepare himself to undergo it; but the unknown looms +more monstrous for every attempt to guess it. Penrod's crime was +unique; there were no rules to aid him in estimating the +vengeance to fall upon him for it. What seemed most probable was +that he would be expelled from the schools in the presence of his +family, the mayor, and council, and afterward whipped by his +father upon the State House steps, with the entire city as +audience by invitation of the authorities. + +Noon came. The rows of children filed out, every head +turning for a last unpleasingly speculative look at the outlaw. +Then Miss Spence closed the door into the cloakroom and that into +the big hall, and came and sat at her desk, near Penrod. The +tramping of feet outside, the shrill calls and shouting and the +changing voices of the older boys ceased to be heard--and there +was silence. Penrod, still affecting to be occupied with Lowell, +was conscious that Miss Spence looked at him intently. + +"Penrod," she said gravely, "what excuse have you to offer +before I report your case to the principal?" + +The word "principal" struck him to the vitals. Grand +Inquisitor, Grand Khan, Sultan, Emperor, Tsar, Caesar Augustus-- +these are comparable. He stopped squirming instantly, and sat +rigid. + +"I want an answer. Why did you shout those words at me?" + +"Well," he murmured, "I was just--thinking." + +"Thinking what?" she asked sharply. + +"I don't know." + +"That won't do!" + +He took his left ankle in his right hand and regarded it +helplessly. + +"That won't do, Penrod Schofield," she repeated +severely. "If that is all the excuse you have to offer I shall +report your case this instant!" + +And she rose with fatal intent. + +But Penrod was one of those whom the precipice inspires. +"Well, I HAVE got an excuse." + +"Well"--she paused impatiently--"what is it?" + +He had not an idea, but he felt one coming, and replied +automatically, in a plaintive tone: + +"I guess anybody that had been through what I had to go +through, last night, would think they had an excuse." + +Miss Spence resumed her seat, though with the air of being +ready to leap from it instantly. + +"What has last night to do with your insolence to me this +morning?" + +"Well, I guess you'd see," he returned, emphasizing the +plaintive note, "if you knew what I know." + +"Now, Penrod," she said, in a kinder voice, "I have a high +regard for your mother and father, and it would hurt me to +distress them, but you must either tell me what was the matter +with you or I'll have to take you to Mrs. Houston." + +"Well, ain't I going to?" he cried, spurred by the dread +name. "It's because I didn't sleep last night." + +"Were you ill?" The question was put with some dryness. + +He felt the dryness. "No'm; _I_ wasn't." + +"Then if someone in your family was so ill that even you +were kept up all night, how does it happen they let you come to +school this morning?" + +"It wasn't illness," he returned, shaking his head +mournfully. "It was lots worse'n anybody's being sick. It was-- +it was--well, it was jest awful." + +"WHAT was?" He remarked with anxiety the incredulity in +her tone. + +"It was about Aunt Clara," he said. + +"Your Aunt Clara!" she repeated. "Do you mean your mother's +sister who married Mr. Farry of Dayton, Illinois?" + +"Yes--Uncle John," returned Penrod sorrowfully. "The trouble +was about him." + +Miss Spence frowned a frown which he rightly interpreted as +one of continued suspicion. "She and I were in school together," +she said. "I used to know her very well, and I've always heard +her married life was entirely happy. I don't----" + +"Yes, it was," he interrupted, "until last year when Uncle +John took to running with travelling men----" + +"What?" + +"Yes'm." He nodded solemnly. "That was what started it. At +first he was a good, kind husband, but these travelling men would +coax him into a saloon on his way home from work, and they got +him to drinking beer and then ales, wines, liquors, and +cigars----" + +"Penrod!" + +"Ma'am?" + +"I'm not inquiring into your Aunt Clara's private affairs; +I'm asking you if you have anything to say which would +palliate----" + +"That's what I'm tryin' to TELL you about, Miss Spence," +he pleaded,--"if you'd jest only let me. When Aunt Clara and her +little baby daughter got to our house last night----" + +"You say Mrs. Farry is visiting your mother?" + +"Yes'm--not just visiting--you see, she HAD to come. +Well of course, little baby Clara, she was so bruised up and +mauled, where he'd been hittin' her with his cane----" + +"You mean that your uncle had done such a thing as THAT!" +exclaimed Miss Spence, suddenly disarmed by this scandal. + +"Yes'm, and mamma and Margaret had to sit up all night +nursin' little Clara--and AUNT Clara was in such a state +SOMEBODY had to keep talkin' to HER, and there wasn't +anybody but me to do it, so I----" + +"But where was your father?" she cried. + +"Ma'am?" + +"Where was your father while----" + +"Oh--papa?" Penrod paused, reflected; then brightened. +"Why, he was down at the train, waitin' to see if Uncle John +would try to follow 'em and make 'em come home so's he could +persecute 'em some more. I wanted to do that, but they said if +he did come I mightn't be strong enough to hold him and----" +The brave lad paused again, modestly. Miss Spence's expression +was encouraging. Her eyes were wide with astonishment, and there +may have been in them, also, the mingled beginnings of admiration +and self-reproach. Penrod, warming to his work, felt safer every +moment. + +"And so," he continued, "I had to sit up with Aunt Clara. +She had some pretty big bruises, too, and I had to----" + +"But why didn't they send for a doctor?" However, this +question was only a flicker of dying incredulity. + +"Oh, they didn't want any DOCTOR," exclaimed the inspired +realist promptly. "They don't want anybody to HEAR about it +because Uncle John might reform--and then where'd he be if +everybody knew he'd been a drunkard and whipped his wife and baby +daughter?" + +"Oh!" said Miss Spence. + +"You see, he used to be upright as anybody," he went on +explanatively. "It all begun----" + +"Began, Penrod." + +"Yes'm. It all commenced from the first day he let those +travelling men coax him into the saloon." Penrod narrated the +downfall of his Uncle John at length. In detail he was nothing +short of plethoric; and incident followed incident, sketched with +such vividness, such abundance of colour, and such verisimilitude +to a drunkard's life as a drunkard's life should be, that had +Miss Spence possessed the rather chilling attributes of William +J. Burns himself, the last trace of skepticism must have vanished +from her mind. Besides, there are two things that will be +believed of any man whatsoever, and one of them is that he has +taken to drink. And in every sense it was a moving picture +which, with simple but eloquent words, the virtuous Penrod set +before his teacher. + +His eloquence increased with what it fed on; and as with the +eloquence so with self-reproach in the gentle bosom of the +teacher. She cleared her throat with difficulty once or twice, +during his description of his ministering night with Aunt Clara. +"And I said to her, `Why, Aunt Clara, what's the use of takin' on +so about it?' And I said, `Now, Aunt Clara, all the crying in +the world can't make things any better.' And then she'd just +keep catchin' hold of me, and sob and kind of holler, and I'd +say, `DON'T cry, Aunt Clara--PLEASE don't cry."' + +Then, under the influence of some fragmentary survivals of +the respectable portion of his Sunday adventures, his theme +became more exalted; and, only partially misquoting a phrase from +a psalm, he related how he had made it of comfort to Aunt Clara, +and how he had besought her to seek Higher guidance in her +trouble. + +The surprising thing about a structure such as Penrod was +erecting is that the taller it becomes the more ornamentation it +will stand. Gifted boys have this faculty of building +magnificence upon cobwebs--and Penrod was gifted. Under the +spell of his really great performance, Miss Spence gazed more and +more sweetly upon the prodigy of spiritual beauty and goodness +before her, until at last, when Penrod came to the explanation of +his "just thinking," she was forced to turn her head away. + +"You mean, dear," she said gently, "that you were all worn +out and hardly knew what you were saying?" + +"Yes'm." + +"And you were thinking about all those dreadful things so +hard that you forgot where you were?" + +"I was thinking," he said simply, "how to save Uncle John." + +And the end of it for this mighty boy was that the teacher +kissed him! + + + +CHAPTER XI +FIDELITY OF A LITTLE DOG + +The returning students, that afternoon, observed that Penrod's +desk was vacant--and nothing could have been more impressive than +that sinister mere emptiness. The accepted theory was that +Penrod had been arrested. How breathtaking, then, the sensation +when, at the beginning of the second hour, he strolled--in with +inimitable carelessness and, rubbing his eyes, somewhat +noticeably in the manner of one who has snatched an hour of much +needed sleep, took his place as if nothing in particular had +happened. This, at first supposed to be a superhuman exhibition +of sheer audacity, became but the more dumfounding when +Miss Spence--looking up from her desk--greeted him with a +pleasant little nod. Even after school, Penrod gave numerous +maddened investigators no relief. All he would consent to say +was: + +"Oh, I just TALKED to her." + +A mystification not entirely unconnected with the one thus +produced was manifested at his own family. dinner-table the +following evening. Aunt Clara had been out rather late, and came +to the table after the rest were seated. She wore a puzzled +expression. + +"Do you ever see Mary Spence nowadays?" she inquired, as she +unfolded her napkin, addressing Mrs. Schofield. Penrod abruptly +set down his soup-spoon and gazed at his aunt with flattering +attention. + +"Yes; sometimes," said Mrs. Schofield. "She's Penrod's +teacher." + +"Is she?" said Mrs. Farry. "Do you--" She paused. "Do +people think her a little--queer, these days?" + +"Why, no," returned her sister. "What makes you say that?" + +"She has acquired a very odd manner," said Mrs. Farry +decidedly. "At least, she seemed odd to ME. I met her at +the corner just before I got to the house, a few minutes ago, and +after we'd said howdy-do to each other, she kept hold of my hand +and looked as though she was going to cry. She seemed to be +trying to say something, and choking----" + +"But I don't think that's so very queer, Clara. She knew you +in school, didn't she?" + +"Yes, but----" + +"And she hadn't seen you for so many years, I think it's +perfectly natural she----" + +"Wait! She stood there squeezing my hand, and struggling to +get her voice--and I got really embarrassed--and then finally she +said, in a kind of tearful whisper, `Be of good cheer--this trial +will pass!'" + +"How queer!" exclaimed Margaret. + +Penrod sighed, and returned somewhat absently to his soup. + +"Well, I don't know," said Mrs. Schofield thoughtfully. "Of +course she's heard about the outbreak of measles in Dayton, since +they had to close the schools, and she knows you live there----" + +"But doesn't it seem a VERY exaggerated way," suggested +Margaret, "to talk about measles?" + +"Wait!" begged Aunt Clara. "After she said that, she said +something even queerer, and then put her handkerchief to her eyes +and hurried away." + +Penrod laid down his spoon again and moved his chair slightly +back from the table. A spirit of prophecy was upon him: he knew +that someone was going to ask a question which he felt might +better remain unspoken. + +"What WAS the other thing she said?" Mr. Schofield +inquired, thus immediately fulfilling his son's premonition. + +"She said," returned Mrs. Farry slowly, looking about the +table, "she said, `I know that Penrod is a great, great comfort +to you!'" + +There was a general exclamation of surprise. It was a +singular thing, and in no manner may it be considered +complimentary to Penrod, that this speech of Miss Spence's should +have immediately confirmed Mrs. Farry's doubts about her in the +minds of all his family. + +Mr. Schofield shook his head pityingly. + +"I'm afraid she's a goner," he went so far as to say. + +"Of all the weird ideas!" cried Margaret. + +"I never heard anything like it in my life!" Mrs. Schofield +exclaimed. "Was that ALL she said?" + +"Every word!" + +Penrod again resumed attention to his soup. His mother +looked at him curiously, and then, struck by a sudden thought, +gathered the glances of the adults of the table by a significant +movement of the head, and, by another, conveyed an admonition to +drop the subject until later. Miss Spence was Penrod's teacher: +it was better, for many reasons, not to discuss the subject of +her queerness before him. This was Mrs. Schofield's thought at +the time. Later she had another, and it kept her awake. + +The next afternoon, Mr. Schofield, returning at five o'clock +from the cares of the day, found the house deserted, and sat down +to read his evening paper in what appeared to be an uninhabited +apartment known to its own world as the "drawing-room." A +sneeze, unexpected both to him and the owner, informed him of the +presence of another person. + +"Where are you, Penrod?" the parent asked, looking about. + +"Here," said Penrod meekly. + +Stooping, Mr. Schofield discovered his son squatting under +the piano, near an open window--his wistful Duke lying beside +him. + +"What are you doing there?" + +"Me?" + +"Why under the piano?" + +"Well," the boy returned, with grave sweetness, "I was just +kind of sitting here--thinking." + +"All right." Mr. Schofield, rather touched, returned to the +digestion of a murder, his back once more to the piano; and +Penrod silently drew from beneath his jacket (where he had +slipped it simultaneously with the sneeze) a paper-backed volume +entitled: "Slimsy, the Sioux City Squealer, or, `Not Guilty, +Your Honor.'" + +In this manner the reading-club continued in peace, absorbed, +contented, the world well forgot--until a sudden, violently +irritated slam-bang of the front door startled the members; +and Mrs. Schofield burst into the room and threw herself into a +chair, moaning. + +"What's the matter, mamma?" asked her husband laying aside +his paper. + +"Henry Passloe Schofield," returned the lady, "I don't know +what IS to be done with that boy; I do NOT!" + +"You mean Penrod?" + +"Who else could I mean?" She sat up, exasperated, to stare +at him. "Henry Passloe Schofield, you've got to take this matter +in your hands--it's beyond me!" + +"Well, what has he----" + +"Last night I got to thinking," she began rapidly, "about +what Clara told us--thank Heaven she and Margaret and little +Clara have gone to tea at Cousin Charlotte's!--but they'll be +home soon--about what she said about Miss Spence----" + +"You mean about Penrod's being a comfort?" + +"Yes, and I kept thinking and thinking and thinking about it +till I couldn't stand it any----" + +"By GEORGE!" shouted Mr. Schofield startlingly, stooping +to look under the piano. A statement that he had suddenly +remembered his son's presence would be lacking in accuracy, for +the highly sensitized Penrod was, in fact, no longer present. No +more was Duke, his faithful dog. + +"What's the matter?" + +"Nothing," he returned, striding to the open window and +looking out. "Go on." + +"Oh," she moaned, "it must be kept from Clara--and I'll never +hold up my head again if John Farry ever hears of it!" + +"Hears of WHAT?" + +"Well, I just couldn't stand it, I got so curious; and I +thought of course if Miss Spence HAD become a little +unbalanced it was my duty to know it, as Penrod's mother and she +his teacher; so I thought I would just call on her at her +apartment after school and have a chat and see and I did and-- +oh----" + +"Well?" + +"I've just come from there, and she told me--she told me! +Oh, I've NEVER known anything like this!" + +"WHAT did she tell you?" + +Mrs. Schofield, making a great effort, managed to assume a +temporary appearance of calm. "Henry," she said solemnly, "bear +this in mind: whatever you do to Penrod, it must be done in some +place when Clara won't hear it. But the first thing to do is to +find him." + +Within view of the window from which Mr. Schofield was gazing +was the closed door of the storeroom in the stable, and just +outside this door Duke was performing a most engaging trick. + +His young master had taught Duke to "sit up and beg" when +he wanted anything, and if that didn't get it, to "speak." Duke +was facing the closed door and sitting up and begging, and now he +also spoke--in a loud, clear bark. + +There was an open transom over the door, and from this +descended--hurled by an unseen agency--a can half filled with old +paint. + +It caught the small besieger of the door on his thoroughly +surprised right ear, encouraged him to some remarkable +acrobatics, and turned large portions of him a dull blue. +Allowing only a moment to perplexity, and deciding, after a +single and evidently unappetizing experiment, not to cleanse +himself of paint, the loyal animal resumed his quaint, upright +posture. + +Mr. Schofield seated himself on the window-sill, whence he +could keep in view that pathetic picture of unrequited love. + +"Go on with your story, mamma," he said. "I think I can find +Penrod when we want him." + +And a few minutes later he added, "And I think I know the +place to do it in." + +Again the faithful voice of Duke was heard, pleading outside +the bolted door. + + + +CHAPTER XII +MISS RENNSDALE ACCEPTS + +"One-two-three; one-two-three--glide!" said Professor Bartet, +emphasizing his instructions by a brisk collision of his palms at +"glide." "One-two-three; one-two-three--glide!" + +The school week was over, at last, but Penrod's troubles were +not. + +Round and round the ballroom went the seventeen struggling +little couples of the Friday Afternoon Dancing Class. Round and +round went their reflections with them, swimming rhythmically in +the polished, dark floor--white and blue and pink for the girls; +black, with dabs of white, for the white-collared, white- +gloved boys; and sparks and slivers of high light everywhere as +the glistening pumps flickered along the surface like a school of +flying fish. Every small pink face--with one exception--was +painstaking and set for duty. It was a conscientious little +merry-go-round. + +"One-two-three; one-two-three--glide! One-two-three; one- +two-three--glide! One-two-th--Ha! Mister Penrod Schofield, you +lose the step. Your left foot! No, no! This is the left! +See--like me! Now again! One-two-three; one-two-three--glide! +Better! Much better! Again! One-two-three; one-two-three--gl-- +Stop! Mr. Penrod Schofield, this dancing class is provided by +the kind parents of the pupilses as much to learn the mannerss of +good societies as to dance. You think you shall ever see a +gentleman in good societies to tickle his partner in the dance +till she say Ouch? Never! I assure you it is not done. Again! +Now then! Piano, please! One-two-three; one-two-three--glide! +Mr. Penrod Schofield, your right foot--your right foot! No, no! +Stop!" + +The merry-go-round came to a standstill. + +"Mr. Penrod Schofield and partner"--Professor Bartet wiped +his brow--"will you kindly observe me? One-two-three--glide! +So! Now then--no; you will please keep your places, ladies and +gentlemen. Mr. Penrod Schofield, I would puttickly like your +attention, this is for you!" + +"Pickin' on me again!" murmured the smouldering Penrod to his +small, unsympathetic partner. "Can't let me alone a minute!" + +"Mister Georgie Bassett, please step to the centre," said the +professor. + +Mr. Bassett complied with modest alacrity. + +"Teacher's pet!" whispered Penrod hoarsely. He had nothing +but contempt for Georgie Bassett. The parents, guardians, aunts, +uncles, cousins, governesses, housemaids, cooks, chauffeurs and +coachmen, appertaining to the members of the dancing class, all +dwelt in the same part of town and shared certain communal +theories; and among the most firmly established was that which +maintained Georgie Bassett to be the Best Boy in Town. +Contrariwise, the unfortunate Penrod, largely because of his +recent dazzling but disastrous attempts to control forces far +beyond him, had been given a clear title as the Worst Boy in +Town. (Population, 135,000.) To precisely what degree his +reputation was the product of his own energies cannot be +calculated. It was Marjorie Jones who first applied the +description, in its definite simplicity, the day after the +"pageant," and, possibly, her frequent and effusive repetitions +of it, even upon wholly irrelevant occasions, had something to do +with its prompt and quite perfect acceptance by the community. + +"Miss Rennsdale will please do me the fafer to be Mr. Georgie +Bassett's partner for one moment," said Professor Bartet. +"Mr. Penrod Schofield will please give his attention. Miss +Rennsdale and Mister Bassett, obliche me, if you please. Others +please watch. Piano, please! Now then!" + +Miss Rennsdale, aged eight--the youngest lady in the class-- +and Mr. Georgie Bassett one-two-three--glided with consummate +technique for the better education of Penrod Schofield. It is +possible that amber-curled, beautiful Marjorie felt that she, +rather than Miss Rennsdale, might have been selected as the +example of perfection--or perhaps her remark was only woman. + +"Stopping everybody for that boy!" said Marjorie. + +Penrod, across the circle from her, heard distinctly--nay, he +was obviously intended to hear; but over a scorched heart he +preserved a stoic front. Whereupon Marjorie whispered derisively +in the ear of her partner, Maurice Levy, who wore a pearl pin in +his tie. + +"Again, please, everybody--ladies and gentlemen!" cried +Professor Bartet. "Mister Penrod Schofield, if you please, pay +puttickly attention! Piano, please! Now then!" + +The lesson proceeded. At the close of the hour Professor +Bartet stepped to the centre of the room and clapped his hands +for attention. + +"Ladies and gentlemen, if you please to seat yourselves +quietly," he said; "I speak to you now about to-morrow. As +you all know--Mister Penrod Schofield, I am not sticking up in a +tree outside that window! If you do me the fafer to examine I am +here, insides of the room. Now then! Piano, pl--no, I do not +wish the piano! As you all know, this is the last lesson of the +season until next October. Tomorrow is our special afternoon; +beginning three o'clock, we dance the cotillon. But this +afternoon comes the test of mannerss. You must see if each know +how to make a little formal call like a grown-up people in good +societies. You have had good, perfect instruction; let us see if +we know how to perform like societies ladies and gentlemen +twenty-six years of age. + +"Now, when you're dismissed each lady will go to her home and +prepare to receive a call. The gentlemen will allow the ladies +time to reach their houses and to prepare to receive callers; +then each gentleman will call upon a lady and beg the pleasure to +engage her for a partner in the cotillon to-morrow. You all know +the correct, proper form for these calls, because didn't I work +teaching you last lesson till I thought I would drop dead? Yes! +Now each gentleman, if he reach a lady's house behind some-other +gentleman, then he must go somewhere else to a lady's house, and +keep calling until he secures a partner; so, as there are the +same number of both, everybody shall have a partner. + +"Now please all remember that if in case--Mister Penrod +Schofield, when you make your call on a lady I beg you to please +remember that gentlemen in good societies do not scratch the back +in societies as you appear to attempt; so please allow the hands +to rest carelessly in the lap. Now please all remember that if +in case--Mister Penrod Schofield, if you please! Gentlemen in +societies do not scratch the back by causing frictions between it +and the back of your chair, either! Nobody else is itching here! +_I_ do not itch! I cannot talk if you must itch! In the name +of Heaven, why must you always itch? What was I saying? Where +ah! the cotillon--yes! For the cotillon it is important nobody +shall fail to be here tomorrow; but if any one should be so very +ill he cannot possible come he must write a very polite note of +regrets in the form of good societies to his engaged partner to +excuse himself--and he must give the reason. + +"I do not think anybody is going to be that sick to-morrow-- +no; and I will find out and report to parents if anybody would +try it and not be. But it is important for the cotillon that we +have an even number of so many couples, and if it should happen +that someone comes and her partner has sent her a polite note +that he has genuine reasons why he cannot come, the note must be +handed at once to me, so that I arrange some other partner. Is +all understood? Yes. The gentlemen will remember now to allow +the ladies plenty of time to reach their houses and prepare +to receive calls. Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your +polite attention." + +It was nine blocks to the house of Marjorie Jones; but Penrod +did it in less than seven minutes from a flying start--such was +his haste to lay himself and his hand for the cotillon at the +feet of one who had so recently spoken unamiably of him in +public. He had not yet learned that the only safe male rebuke to +a scornful female is to stay away from her--especially if that is +what she desires. However, he did not wish to rebuke her; simply +and ardently he wished to dance the cotillon with her. +Resentment was swallowed up in hope. + +The fact that Miss Jones' feeling for him bore a striking +resemblance to that of Simon Legree for Uncle Tom, deterred him +not at all. Naturally, he was not wholly unconscious that when +he should lay his hand for the cotillon at her feet it would be +her inward desire to step on it; but he believed that if he were +first in the field Marjorie would have to accept. These things +are governed by law. + +It was his fond intention to reach her house even in advance +of herself, and with grave misgiving he beheld a large automobile +at rest before the sainted gate. Forthwith, a sinking feeling +became a portent inside him as little Maurice Levy emerged from +the front door of the house. + +"'Lo, Penrod!" said Maurice airily. + +"What you doin' in there?" inquired Penrod. + +"In where?" + +"In Marjorie's." + +"Well, what shouldn't I be doin' in Marjorie's?" Mr. Levy +returned indignantly. "I was inviting her for my partner in the +cotillon--what you s'pose?" + +"You haven't got any right to!" Penrod protested hotly. "You +can't do it yet." + +"I did do it yet!" said Maurice. + +"You can't!" insisted Penrod. "You got to allow them time +first. He said the ladies had to be allowed time to prepare." + +"Well, ain't she had time to prepare?" + +"When?" Penrod demanded, stepping close to his rival +threateningly. "I'd like to know when----" + +"When?" echoed the other with shrill triumph. "When? Why, +in mamma's sixty-horse powder limousine automobile, what Marjorie +came home with me in! I guess that's when!" + +An impulse in the direction of violence became visible upon +the countenance of Penrod. + +"I expect you need some wiping down," he began dangerously. +"I'll give you sumpthing to remem----" + +"Oh, you will!" Maurice cried with astonishing truculence, +contorting himself into what he may have considered a posture of +defense. "Let's see you try it, you--you itcher!" + +For the moment, defiance from such a source was +dumfounding. Then, luckily, Penrod recollected something and +glanced at the automobile. + +Perceiving therein not only the alert chauffeur but the +magnificent outlines of Mrs. Levy, his enemy's mother, he +manoeuvred his lifted hand so that it seemed he had but meant to +scratch his ear. + +"Well, I guess I better be goin'," he said casually. "See +you tomorrow!" + +Maurice mounted to the lap of luxury, and Penrod strolled +away with an assumption of careless ease which was put to a +severe strain when, from the rear window of the car, a sudden +protuberance in the nature of a small, dark, curly head shrieked +scornfully: + +"Go on--you big stiff!" + +The cotillon loomed dismally before Penrod now; but it was +his duty to secure a partner and he set about it with a dreary +heart. The delay occasioned by his fruitless attempt on Marjorie +and the altercation with his enemy at her gate had allowed other +ladies ample time to prepare for callers--and to receive them. +Sadly he went from house to house, finding that he had been +preceded in one after the other. Altogether his hand for the +cotillon was declined eleven times that afternoon on the +legitimate ground of previous engagement. This, with Marjorie, +scored off all except five of the seventeen possible partners; +and four of the five were also sealed away from him, as he +learned in chance encounters with other boys upon the street. + +One lady alone remained; he bowed to the inevitable and +entered this lorn damsel's gate at twilight with an air of great +discouragement. The lorn damsel was Miss Rennsdale, aged eight. + +We are apt to forget that there are actually times of life +when too much youth is a handicap. Miss Rennsdale was beautiful; +she danced like a premiere; she had every charm but age. On that +account alone had she been allowed so much time to prepare to +receive callers that it was only by the most manful efforts she +could keep her lip from trembling. + +A decorous maid conducted the long-belated applicant to her +where she sat upon a sofa beside a nursery governess. The +decorous maid announced him composedly as he made his entrance. + +"Mr. Penrod Schofield!" + +Miss Rennsdale suddenly burst into loud sobs. + +"Oh!" she wailed. "I just knew it would be him!" + +The decorous maid's composure vanished at once--likewise her +decorum. She clapped her hand over her mouth and fled, uttering +sounds. The governess, however, set herself to comfort her +heartbroken charge, and presently succeeded in restoring Miss +Rennsdale to a semblance of that poise with which a lady receives +callers and accepts invitations to dance cotillons. But she +continued to sob at intervals. + +Feeling himself at perhaps a disadvantage, Penrod made offer +of his hand for the morrow with a little embarrassment. +Following the form prescribed by Professor Bartet, he +advanced several paces toward the stricken lady and bowed +formally. + +"I hope," he said by rote, "you're well, and your parents +also in good health. May I have the pleasure of dancing the +cotillon as your partner t'-morrow afternoon?" + +The wet eyes of Miss Rennsdale searched his countenance +without pleasure, and a shudder wrung her small shoulders; but +the governess whispered to her instructively, and she made a +great effort. + +"I thu-thank you fu-for your polite invu-invu-invutation; and +I ac----" Thus far she progressed when emotion overcame her +again. She beat frantically upon the sofa with fists and heels. +"Oh, I DID want it to be Georgie Bassett!" + +"No, no, no!" said the governess, and whispered urgently, +whereupon Miss Rennsdale was able to complete her acceptance. + +"And I ac-accept wu-with pu-pleasure!" she moaned, and +immediately, uttering a loud yell, flung herself face downward +upon the sofa, clutching her governess convulsively. + +Somewhat disconcerted, Penrod bowed again. + +"I thank you for your polite acceptance," he murmured +hurriedly; "and I trust--I trust--I forget. Oh, yes--I trust we +shall have a most enjoyable occasion. Pray present my +compliments to your parents; and I must now wish you a very good +afternoon." + +Concluding these courtly demonstrations with another bow he +withdrew in fair order, though thrown into partial confusion in +the hall by a final wail from his crushed hostess: + +"Oh! Why couldn't it be anybody but HIM!" + + + +CHAPTER XIII +THE SMALLPOX MEDICINE + +Next morning Penrod woke in profound depression of spirit, the +cotillon ominous before him. He pictured Marjorie Jones and +Maurice, graceful and light-hearted, flitting by him fairylike, +loosing silvery laughter upon him as he engaged in the struggle +to keep step with a partner about four years and two feet his +junior. It was hard enough for Penrod to keep step with a girl +of his size. + +The foreboding vision remained with him, increasing in +vividness, throughout the forenoon. He found himself unable to +fix his mind upon anything else, and, having bent his gloomy +footsteps toward the sawdust-box, after breakfast, +presently descended therefrom, abandoning Harold Ramorez where he +had left him the preceding Saturday. Then, as he sat communing +silently with wistful Duke, in the storeroom, coquettish fortune +looked his way. + +It was the habit of Penrod's mother not to throw away +anything whatsoever until years of storage conclusively proved +there would never be a use for it; but a recent house-cleaning +had ejected upon the back porch a great quantity of bottles and +other paraphernalia of medicine, left over from illnesses in the +family during a period of several years. This debris Della, the +cook, had collected in a large market basket, adding to it some +bottles of flavouring extracts that had proved unpopular in the +household; also, old catsup bottles; a jar or two of preserves +gone bad; various rejected dental liquids--and other things. And +she carried the basket out to the storeroom in the stable. + +Penrod was at first unaware of what lay before him. Chin on +palms, he sat upon the iron rim of a former aquarium and stared +morbidly through the open door at the checkered departing back of +Della. It was another who saw treasure in the basket she had +left. + +Mr. Samuel Williams, aged eleven, and congenial to Penrod in +years, sex, and disposition, appeared in the doorway, shaking +into foam a black liquid within a pint bottle, stoppered by a +thumb. + +"Yay, Penrod!" the visitor gave greeting. + +"Yay," said Penrod with slight enthusiasm. "What you got?" + +"Lickrish water." + +"Drinkin's!" demanded Penrod promptly. This is equivalent to +the cry of "Biters" when an apple is shown, and establishes +unquestionable title. + +"Down to there!" stipulated Sam, removing his thumb to affix +it firmly as a mark upon the side of the bottle a check upon +gormandizing that remained carefully in place while Penrod drank. + +This rite concluded, the visitor's eye fell upon the basket +deposited by Della. He emitted tokens of pleasure. + +"Looky! Looky! Looky there! That ain't any good pile o' +stuff--oh, no!" + +"What for?" + +"Drug store!" shouted Sam. "We'll be partners----" + +"Or else," Penrod suggested, "I'll run the drug store and you +be a customer----" + +"No! Partners!" insisted Sam with such conviction that his +host yielded; and within ten minutes the drug store was doing a +heavy business with imaginary patrons. Improvising counters with +boards and boxes, and setting forth a very druggish-looking stock +from the basket, each of the partners found occupation to his +taste--Penrod as salesman and Sam as prescription clerk. + +"Here you are, madam!" said Penrod briskly, offering a +vial of Sam's mixing to an invisible matron. "This will cure +your husband in a few minutes. Here's the camphor, mister. Call +again! Fifty cents' worth of pills? Yes, madam. There you are! +Hurry up with that dose for the nigger lady, Bill!" + +"I'll 'tend to it soon's I get time, Jim," replied the +prescription clerk. "I'm busy fixin' the smallpox medicine for +the sick policeman downtown." + +Penrod stopped sales to watch this operation. Sam had found +an empty pint bottle and, with the pursed lips and measuring eye +of a great chemist, was engaged in filling it from other bottles. + +First, he poured into it some of the syrup from the condemned +preserves; and a quantity of extinct hair oil; next the remaining +contents of a dozen small vials cryptically labelled with +physicians' prescriptions; then some remnants of catsup and +essence of beef and what was left in several bottles of +mouthwash; after that a quantity of rejected flavouring extract-- +topping off by shaking into the mouth of the bottle various +powders from small pink papers, relics of Mr. Schofield's +influenza of the preceding winter. + +Sam examined the combination with concern, appearing +unsatisfied. "We got to make that smallpox medicine good and +strong!" he remarked; and, his artistic sense growing more +powerful than his appetite, he poured about a quarter of the +licorice water into the smallpox medicine. + +"What you doin'?" protested Penrod. "What you +want to waste that lickrish water for? We ought to keep it to +drink when we're tired." + +"I guess I got a right to use my own lickrish water any way I +want to," replied the prescription clerk. "I tell you, you can't +get smallpox medicine too strong. Look at her now!" He held the +bottle up admiringly. "She's as black as lickrish. I bet you +she's strong all right!" + +"I wonder how she tastes?" said Penrod thoughtfully. + +"Don't smell so awful much," observed Sam, sniffing the +bottle--"a good deal, though!" + +"I wonder if it'd make us sick to drink it?" said Penrod. + +Sam looked at the bottle thoughtfully; then his eye, +wandering, fell upon Duke, placidly curled up near the door, and +lighted with the advent of an idea new to him, but old, old in +the world--older than Egypt! + +"Let's give Duke some!" he cried. + +That was the spark. They acted immediately; and a minute +later Duke, released from custody with a competent potion of the +smallpox medicine inside him, settled conclusively their doubts +concerning its effect. The patient animal, accustomed to expect +the worst at all times, walked out of the door, shaking his head +with an air of considerable annoyance, opening and closing his +mouth with singular energy--and so repeatedly that they began to +count the number of times he did it. Sam thought it was +thirty-nine times, but Penrod had counted forty-one before other +and more striking symptoms appeared. + +All things come from Mother Earth and must return--Duke +restored much at this time. Afterward, he ate heartily of grass; +and then, over his shoulder, he bent upon his master one +inscrutable look and departed feebly to the front yard. + +The two boys had watched the process with warm interest. "I +told you she was strong!" said Mr. Williams proudly. + +"Yes, sir--she is!" Penrod was generous enough to admit. "I +expect she's strong enough----" He paused in thought, and added: + +"We haven't got a horse any more." + +"I bet you she'd fix him if you had!" said Sam. And it may +be that this was no idle boast. + +The pharmaceutical game was not resumed; the experiment upon +Duke had made the drug store commonplace and stimulated the +appetite for stronger meat. Lounging in the doorway, the near- +vivisectionists sipped licorice water alternately and conversed. + +"I bet some of our smallpox medicine would fix ole P'fessor +Bartet all right!" quoth Penrod. "I wish he'd come along and ask +us for some." + +"We could tell him it was lickrish water," added Sam, liking +the idea. "The two bottles look almost the same." + +"Then we wouldn't have to go to his ole cotillon this +afternoon," Penrod sighed. "There wouldn't be any!" + +"Who's your partner, Pen?" + +"Who's yours?" + +"Who's yours? I just ast you." + +"Oh, she's all right!" And Penrod smiled boastfully. + +"I bet you wanted to dance with Marjorie!" said his friend. + +"Me? I wouldn't dance with that girl if she begged me to! I +wouldn't dance with her to save her from drowning! I wouldn't +da----" + +"Oh, no--you wouldn't!" interrupted Mr. Williams skeptically. + +Penrod changed his tone and became persuasive. + +"Looky here, Sam," he said confidentially. "I've got 'a +mighty nice partner, but my mother don't like her mother; and so +I've been thinking I better not dance with her. I'll tell you +what I'll do; I've got a mighty good sling in the house, and I'll +give it to you if you'll change partners." + +"You want to change and you don't even know who mine is!" +said Sam, and he made the simple though precocious deduction: +"Yours must be a lala! Well, I invited Mabel Rorebeck, and she +wouldn't let me change if I wanted to. Mabel Rorebeck'd rather +dance with me," he continued serenely, "than anybody; and she +said she was awful afraid you'd ast her. But I ain't goin' +to dance with Mabel after all, because this morning she sent me a +note about her uncle died last night--and P'fessor Bartet'll have +to find me a partner after I get there. Anyway I bet you haven't +got any sling--and I bet your partner's Baby Rennsdale!" + +"What if she is?" said Penrod. "She's good enough for +ME!" This speech held not so much modesty in solution as +intended praise of the lady. Taken literally, however, it was an +understatement of the facts and wholly insincere. + +"Yay!" jeered Mr. Williams, upon whom his friend's hypocrisy +was quite wasted. "How can your mother not like her mother? +Baby Rennsdale hasn't got any mother! You and her'll be a +sight!" + +That was Penrod's own conviction; and with this corroboration +of it he grew so spiritless that he could offer no retort. He +slid to a despondent sitting posture upon the door sill and gazed +wretchedly upon the ground, while his companion went to replenish +the licorice water at the hydrant--enfeebling the potency of the +liquor no doubt, but making up for that in quantity. + +"Your mother goin' with you to the cotillon?" asked Sam when +he returned. + +"No. She's goin' to meet me there. She's goin' somewhere +first." + +"So's mine," said Sam. "I'll come by for you." + +"All right." + +"I better go before long. Noon whistles been blowin'." + +"All right," Penrod repeated dully. + +Sam turned to go, but paused. A new straw hat was +peregrinating along the fence near the two boys. This hat +belonged to someone passing upon the sidewalk of the cross- +street; and the someone was Maurice Levy. Even as they stared, +he halted and regarded them over the fence with two small, dark +eyes. + +Fate had brought about this moment and this confrontation. + + + +CHAPTER XIV +MAURICE LEVY'S CONSTITUTION + +"Lo, Sam!" said Maurice cautiously. "What you doin'?" + +Penrod at that instant had a singular experience--an +intellectual shock like a flash of fire in the brain. Sitting in +darkness, a great light flooded him with wild brilliance. He +gasped! + +"What you doin'?" repeated Mr. Levy. + +Penrod sprang to his feet, seized the licorice bottle, shook +it with stoppering thumb, and took a long drink with histrionic +unction. + +"What you doin'?" asked Maurice for the third time, Sam +Williams not having decided upon a reply. + +It was Penrod who answered. + +"Drinkin' lickrish water," he said simply, and wiped his +mouth with such delicious enjoyment that Sam's jaded thirst was +instantly stimulated. He took the bottle eagerly from Penrod. + +"A-a-h!" exclaimed Penrod, smacking his lips. "That was a +good un!" + +The eyes above the fence glistened. + +"Ask him if he don't want some," Penrod whispered urgently. +"Quit drinkin' it! It's no good any more. Ask him!" + +"What for?" demanded the practical Sam. + +"Go on and ask him!" whispered Penrod fiercely. + +"Say, M'rice!" Sam called, waving the bottle. "Want some?" + +"Bring it here!" Mr. Levy requested. + +"Come on over and get some," returned Sam, being prompted. + +"I can't. Penrod Schofield's after me." + +"No, I'm not," said Penrod reassuringly. "I won't touch you, +M'rice. I made up with you yesterday afternoon--don't you +remember? You're all right with me, M'rice." + +Maurice looked undecided. But Penrod had the delectable +bottle again, and tilting it above his lips, affected to let the +cool liquid purl enrichingly into him, while with his right hand +he stroked his middle facade ineffably. Maurice's mouth watered. + +"Here!" cried Sam, stirred again by the superb manifestations +of his friend. "Gimme that!" + +Penrod brought the bottle down, surprisingly full after so +much gusto, but withheld it from Sam; and the two scuffled for +its possession. Nothing in the world could have so worked upon +the desire of the yearning observer beyond the fence. + +"Honest, Penrod--you ain't goin' to touch me if I come in +your yard?" he called. "Honest?" + +"Cross my heart!" answered Penrod, holding the bottle away +from Sam. "And we'll let you drink all you want." + +Maurice hastily climbed the fence, and while he was thus +occupied Mr. Samuel Williams received a great enlightenment. +With startling rapidity Penrod, standing just outside the +storeroom door, extended his arm within the room, deposited the +licorice water upon the counter of the drug store, seized in its +stead the bottle of smallpox medicine, and extended it cordially +toward the advancing Maurice. + +Genius is like that--great, simple, broad strokes! + +Dazzled, Mr. Samuel Williams leaned against the wall. He had +the sensations of one who comes suddenly into the presence of a +chef-d'oeuvre. Perhaps his first coherent thought was that +almost universal one on such huge occasions: "Why couldn't _I_ +have done that!" + +Sam might have been even more dazzled had he guessed +that he figured not altogether as a spectator in the sweeping and +magnificent conception of the new Talleyrand. Sam had no partner +for the cotillon. If Maurice was to be absent from that +festivity--as it began to seem he might be--Penrod needed a male +friend to take care of Miss Rennsdale and he believed he saw his +way to compel Mr. Williams to be that male friend. For this he +relied largely upon the prospective conduct of Miss Rennsdale +when he should get the matter before her--he was inclined to +believe she would favour the exchange. As for Talleyrand Penrod +himself, he was going to dance that cotillon with Marjorie Jones! + +"You can have all you can drink at one pull, M'rice," said +Penrod kindly. + +"You said I could have all I want!" protested Maurice, +reaching for the bottle. + +"No, I didn't," returned Penrod quickly, holding it away from +the eager hand. + +"He did, too! Didn't he, Sam?" + +Sam could not reply; his eyes, fixed upon the bottle, +protruded strangely. + +"You heard him--didn't you, Sam?" + +"Well, if I did say it I didn't mean it!" said Penrod +hastily, quoting from one of the authorities. "Looky here, +M'rice," he continued, assuming a more placative and reasoning +tone, "that wouldn't be fair to us. I guess we want some of our +own lickrish water, don't we? The bottle ain't much over two- +thirds full anyway. What I meant was, you can have all you +can drink at one pull." + +"How do you mean?" + +"Why, this way: you can gulp all you want, so long as you +keep swallering; but you can't take the bottle out of your mouth +and commence again. Soon's you quit swallering it's Sam's turn." + +"No; you can have next, Penrod," said Sam. + +"Well, anyway, I mean M'rice has to give the bottle up the +minute he stops swallering." + +Craft appeared upon the face of Maurice, like a poster pasted +on a wall. + +"I can drink so long I don't stop swallering?" + +"Yes; that's it." + +"All right!" he cried. "Gimme the bottle!" + +And Penrod placed it in his hand. + +"You promise to let me drink until I quit swallering?" +Maurice insisted. + +"Yes!" said both boys together. + +With that, Maurice placed the bottle to his lips and began to +drink. Penrod and Sam leaned forward in breathless excitement. +They had feared Maurice might smell the contents of the bottle; +but that danger was past--this was the crucial moment. Their +fondest hope was that he would make his first swallow a voracious +one--it was impossible to imagine a second. They expected one +big, gulping swallow and then an explosion, with fountain +effects. + +Little they knew the mettle of their man! Maurice +swallowed once; he swallowed twice--and thrice--and he continued +to swallow! No Adam's apple was sculptured on that juvenile +throat, but the internal progress of the liquid was not a whit +the less visible. His eyes gleamed with cunning and malicious +triumph, sidewise, at the stunned conspirators; he was fulfilling +the conditions of the draught, not once breaking the thread of +that marvelous swallering. + +His audience stood petrified. Already Maurice had swallowed +more than they had given Duke and still the liquor receded in the +uplifted bottle! And now the clear glass gleamed above the dark +contents full half the vessel's length--and Maurice went on +drinking! Slowly the clear glass increased in its dimensions-- +slowly the dark diminished. + +Sam Williams made a horrified movement to check him--but +Maurice protested passionately with his disengaged arm, and made +vehement vocal noises remindful of the contract; whereupon Sam +desisted and watched the continuing performance in a state of +grisly fascination. + +Maurice drank it all! He drained the last drop and threw the +bottle in the air, uttering loud ejaculations of triumph and +satisfaction. + +"Hah!" he cried, blowing out his cheeks, inflating his chest, +squaring his shoulders, patting his stomach, and wiping his mouth +contentedly. "Hah! Aha! Waha! Wafwah! But that was good!" + +The two boys stood looking at him in stupor. + +"Well, I gotta say this," said Maurice graciously: "You +stuck to your bargain all right and treated me fair." + +Stricken with a sudden horrible suspicion, Penrod entered the +storeroom in one stride and lifted the bottle of licorice water +to his nose--then to his lips. It was weak, but good; he had +made no mistake. And Maurice had really drained--to the dregs-- +the bottle of old hair tonics, dead catsups, syrups of +undesirable preserves, condemned extracts of vanilla and lemon, +decayed chocolate, ex-essence of beef, mixed dental preparations, +aromatic spirits of ammonia, spirits of nitre, alcohol, arnica, +quinine, ipecac, sal volatile, nux vomica and licorice water-- +with traces of arsenic, belladonna and strychnine. + +Penrod put the licorice water out of sight and turned to face +the others. Maurice was seating himself on a box just outside +the door and had taken a package of cigarettes from his pocket. + +"Nobody can see me from here, can they?" he said, striking a +match. "You fellers smoke?" + +"No," said Sam, staring at him haggardly. + +"No," said Penrod in a whisper. + +Maurice lit his cigarette and puffed showily. + +"Well, sir," he remarked, "you fellers are certainly square-- +I gotta say that much. Honest, Penrod, I thought you was after +me! I did think so," he added sunnily; "but now I guess you like +me, or else you wouldn't of stuck to it about lettin' me +drink it all if I kept on swallering." + +He chatted on with complete geniality, smoking his cigarette +in content. And as he ran from one topic to another his hearers +stared at him in a kind of torpor. Never once did they exchange +a glance with each other; their eyes were frozen to Maurice. The +cheerful conversationalist made it evident that he was not +without gratitude. + +"Well," he said as he finished his cigarette and rose to go, +"you fellers have treated me nice and some day you come over to +my yard; I'd like to run with you fellers. You're the kind of +fellers I like." + +Penrod's jaw fell; Sam's mouth had been open all the time. +Neither spoke. + +"I gotta go," observed Maurice, consulting a handsome watch. +"Gotta get dressed for the cotillon right after lunch. Come on, +Sam. Don't you have to go, too?" + +Sam nodded dazedly. + +"Well, good-bye, Penrod," said Maurice cordially. "I'm glad +you like me all right. Come on, Sam." + +Penrod leaned against the doorpost and with fixed and glazing +eyes watched the departure of his two visitors. Maurice was +talking volubly, with much gesticulation, as they went; but Sam +walked mechanically and in silence, staring at his brisk +companion and keeping at a little distance from him. + +They passed from sight, Maurice still conversing gayly-- +and Penrod slowly betook himself into the house, his head bowed +upon his chest. + + +Some three hours later, Mr. Samuel Williams, waxen clean and +in sweet raiment, made his reappearance in Penrod's yard, +yodelling a code-signal to summon forth his friend. He yodelled +loud, long, and frequently, finally securing a faint response +from the upper air. + +"Where are you?" shouted Mr. Williams, his roving glance +searching ambient heights. Another low-spirited yodel reaching +his ear, he perceived the head and shoulders of his friend +projecting above the roofridge of the stable. The rest of +Penrod's body was concealed from view, reposing upon the opposite +slant of the gable and precariously secured by the crooking of +his elbows over the ridge. + +"Yay! What you doin' up there?" + +"Nothin'." + +"You better be careful!" Sam called. "You'll slide off and +fall down in the alley if you don't look out. I come pert' near +it last time we was up there. Come on down! Ain't you goin' to +the cotillon?" + +Penrod made no reply. Sam came nearer. + +"Say," he called up in a guarded voice, "I went to our +telephone a while ago and ast him how he was feelin', and he said +he felt fine!" + +"So did I," said Penrod. "He told me he felt bully!" + +Sam thrust his hands in his pockets and brooded. The opening +of the kitchen door caused a diversion. It was Della. + +"Mister Penrod," she bellowed forthwith, "come ahn down fr'm +up there! Y'r mamma's at the dancin' class waitin' fer ye, an' +she's telephoned me they're goin' to begin--an' what's the matter +with ye? Come ahn down fr'm up there!" + +"Come on!" urged Sam. "We'll be late. There go Maurice and +Marjorie now." + +A glittering car spun by, disclosing briefly a genre picture +of Marjorie Jones in pink, supporting a monstrous sheaf of +American Beauty roses. Maurice, sitting shining and joyous +beside her, saw both boys and waved them a hearty greeting as the +car turned the corner. + +Penrod uttered some muffled words and then waved both arms-- +either in response or as an expression of his condition of mind; +it may have been a gesture of despair. How much intention there +was in this act--obviously so rash, considering the position he +occupied--it is impossible to say. Undeniably there must remain +a suspicion of deliberate purpose. + +Della screamed and Sam shouted. Penrod had disappeared from +view. + +The delayed dance was about to begin a most uneven cotillon +when Samuel Williams arrived. + +Mrs. Schofield hurriedly left the ballroom; while Miss +Rennsdale, flushing with sudden happiness, curtsied profoundly to +Professor Bartet and obtained his attention. + +"I have telled you fifty times," he informed her passionately +ere she spoke, "I cannot make no such changes. If your partner +comes you have to dance with him. You are going to drive me +crazy, sure! What is it? What now? What you want?" + +The damsel curtsied again and handed him the following +communication, addressed to herself: + + +"Dear madam Please excuse me from dancing the cotilon with +you this afternoon as I have fell off the barn +"Sincerly yours +"PENROD SCHOFIELD." + + + +CHAPTER XV +THE TWO FAMILIES + +Penrod entered the schoolroom, Monday picturesquely leaning upon +a man's cane shortened to support a cripple approaching the age +of twelve. He arrived about twenty minutes late, limping deeply, +his brave young mouth drawn with pain, and the sensation he +created must have been a solace to him; the only possible +criticism of this entrance being that it was just a shade too +heroic. Perhaps for that reason it failed to stagger Miss +Spence, a woman so saturated with suspicion that she penalized +Penrod for tardiness as promptly and as coldly as if he had been +a mere, ordinary, unmutilated boy. Nor would she +entertain any discussion of the justice of her ruling. It +seemed, almost, that she feared to argue with him. + +However, the distinction of cane and limp remained to him, +consolations which he protracted far into the week--until +Thursday evening, in fact, when Mr. Schofield, observing from a +window his son's pursuit of Duke round and round the backyard, +confiscated the cane, with the promise that it should not remain +idle if he saw Penrod limping again. Thus, succeeding a +depressing Friday, another Saturday brought the necessity for new +inventions. + +It was a scented morning in apple-blossom time. At about ten +of the clock Penrod emerged hastily from the kitchen door. His +pockets bulged abnormally; so did his checks, and he swallowed +with difficulty. A threatening mop, wielded by a cooklike arm in +a checkered sleeve, followed him through the doorway, and he was +preceded by a small, hurried, wistful dog with a warm doughnut in +his mouth. The kitchen door slammed petulantly, enclosing the +sore voice of Della, whereupon Penrod and Duke seated themselves +upon the pleasant sward and immediately consumed the spoils of +their raid. + +From the cross-street which formed the side boundary of the +Schofields' ample yard came a jingle of harness and the cadenced +clatter of a pair of trotting horses, and Penrod, looking up, +beheld the passing of a fat acquaintance, torpid amid the +conservative splendours of a rather old-fashioned victoria. +This was Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, a fellow sufferer at +the Friday Afternoon Dancing Class, but otherwise not often a +companion: a home-sheltered lad, tutored privately and preserved +against the coarsening influences of rude comradeship and +miscellaneous information. Heavily overgrown in all physical +dimensions, virtuous, and placid, this cloistered mutton was +wholly uninteresting to Penrod Schofield. Nevertheless, Roderick +Magsworth Bitts, Junior, was a personage on account of the +importance of the Magsworth Bitts family; and it was Penrod's +destiny to increase Roderick's celebrity far, far beyond its +present aristocratic limitations. + +The Magsworth Bittses were important because they were +impressive; there was no other reason. And they were impressive +because they believed themselves important. The adults of the +family were impregnably formal; they dressed with reticent +elegance, and wore the same nose and the same expression--an +expression which indicated that they knew something exquisite and +sacred which other people could never know. Other people, in +their presence, were apt to feel mysteriously ignoble and to +become secretly uneasy about ancestors, gloves, and +pronunciation. The Magsworth Bitts manner was withholding and +reserved, though sometimes gracious, granting small smiles as +great favours and giving off a chilling kind of preciousness. +Naturally, when any citizen of the community did anything +unconventional or improper, or made a mistake, or had a relative +who went wrong, that citizen's first and worst fear was that the +Magsworth Bittses would hear of it. In fact, this painful family +had for years terrorized the community, though the community had +never realized that it was terrorized, and invariably spoke of +the family as the "most charming circle in town." By common +consent, Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts officiated as the supreme +model as well as critic-in-chief of morals and deportment for all +the unlucky people prosperous enough to be elevated to her +acquaintance. + +Magsworth was the important part of the name. Mrs. Roderick +Magsworth Bitts was a Magsworth born, herself, and the Magsworth +crest decorated not only Mrs. Magsworth Bitts' note-paper but was +on the china, on the table linen, on the chimney-pieces, on the +opaque glass of the front door, on the victoria, and on the +harness, though omitted from the garden-hose and the lawn-mower. + +Naturally, no sensible person dreamed of connecting that +illustrious crest with the unfortunate and notorious Rena +Magsworth whose name had grown week by week into larger and +larger type upon the front pages of newspapers, owing to the +gradually increasing public and official belief that she had +poisoned a family of eight. However, the statement that no +sensible person could have connected the Magsworth Bitts +family with the arsenical Rena takes no account of Penrod +Schofield. + +Penrod never missed a murder, a hanging or an electrocution +in the newspapers; he knew almost as much about Rena Magsworth as +her jurymen did, though they sat in a court-room two hundred +miles away, and he had it in mind--so frank he was--to ask +Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, if the murderess happened to be +a relative. + +The present encounter, being merely one of apathetic +greeting, did not afford the opportunity. Penrod took off his +cap, and Roderick, seated between his mother and one of his +grown-up sisters, nodded sluggishly, but neither Mrs. Magsworth +Bitts nor her daughter acknowledged the salutation of the boy in +the yard. They disapproved of him as a person of little +consequence, and that little, bad. Snubbed, Penrod thoughtfully +restored his cap to his head. A boy can be cut as effectually as +a man, and this one was chilled to a low temperature. He +wondered if they despised him because they had seen a last +fragment of doughnut in his hand; then he thought that perhaps it +was Duke who had disgraced him. Duke was certainly no +fashionable looking dog. + +The resilient spirits of youth, however, presently revived, +and discovering a spider upon one knee and a beetle +simultaneously upon the other, Penrod forgot Mrs. Roderick +Magsworth Bitts in the course of some experiments infringing upon +the domain of Doctor Carrel. Penrod's efforts--with the aid +of a pin--to effect a transference of living organism were +unsuccessful; but he convinced himself forever that a spider +cannot walk with a beetle's legs. Della then enhanced zoological +interest by depositing upon the back porch a large rat-trap from +the cellar, the prison of four live rats awaiting execution. + +Penrod at once took possession, retiring to the empty stable, +where he installed the rats in a small wooden box with a sheet of +broken window-glass--held down by a brickbat--over the top. Thus +the symptoms of their agitation, when the box was shaken or +hammered upon, could be studied at leisure. Altogether this +Saturday was starting splendidly. + +After a time, the student's attention was withdrawn from his +specimens by a peculiar smell, which, being followed up by a +system of selective sniffing, proved to be an emanation leaking +into the stable from the alley. He opened the back door. + +Across the alley was a cottage which a thrifty neighbour had +built on the rear line of his lot and rented to negroes; and the +fact that a negro family was now in process of "moving in" was +manifested by the presence of a thin mule and a ramshackle wagon, +the latter laden with the semblance of a stove and a few other +unpretentious household articles. + +A very small darky boy stood near the mule. In his hand +was a rusty chain, and at the end of the chain the delighted +Penrod perceived the source of the special smell he was tracing-- +a large raccoon. Duke, who had shown not the slightest interest +in the rats, set up a frantic barking and simulated a ravening +assault upon the strange animal. It was only a bit of acting, +however, for Duke was an old dog, had suffered much, and desired +no unnecessary sorrow, wherefore he confined his demonstrations +to alarums and excursions, and presently sat down at a distance +and expressed himself by intermittent threatenings in a quavering +falsetto. + +"What's that 'coon's name?" asked Penrod, intending no +discourtesy. + +"Aim gommo mame," said the small darky. + +"What?" + +"Aim gommo mame." + +"WHAT?" + +The small darky looked annoyed. + +"Aim GOMMO mame, I hell you," he said impatiently. + +Penrod conceived that insult was intended. + +"What's the matter of you?" he demanded advancing. "You get +fresh with ME, and I'll----" + +"Hyuh, white boy!" A coloured youth of Penrod's own age +appeared in the doorway of the cottage. "You let 'at brothuh +mine alone. He ain' do nothin' to you." + +"Well, why can't he answer?" + +"He can't. He can't talk no better'n what he WAS +talkin'. He tongue-tie'." + +"Oh," said Penrod, mollified. Then, obeying an impulse so +universally aroused in the human breast under like circumstances +that it has become a quip, he turned to the afflicted one. + +"Talk some more," he begged eagerly. + +"I hoe you ackoom aim gommo mame," was the prompt response, +in which a slight ostentation was manifest. Unmistakable tokens +of vanity had appeared upon the small, swart countenance. + +"What's he mean?" asked Penrod, enchanted. + +"He say he tole you 'at 'coon ain' got no name." + +"What's YOUR name?" + +"I'm name Herman." + +"What's his name?" Penrod pointed to the tongue-tied boy. + +"Verman." + +"What!" + +"Verman. Was three us boys in ow fam'ly. Ol'est one name +Sherman. 'N'en come me; I'm Herman. 'N'en come him; he Verman. +Sherman dead. Verman, he de littles' one." + +"You goin' to live here?" + +"Umhuh. Done move in f'm way outen on a fahm." + +He pointed to the north with his right hand, and Penrod's +eyes opened wide as they followed the gesture. Herman had +no forefinger on that hand. + +"Look there!" exclaimed Penrod. "You haven't got any +finger!" + +"_I_ mum map," said Verman, with egregious pride. + +"HE done 'at," interpreted Herman, chuckling. "Yessuh; +done chop 'er spang off, long 'go. He's a playin' wif a ax an' I +lay my finguh on de do'-sill an' I say, `Verman, chop 'er off!' +So Verman he chop 'er right spang off up to de roots! Yessuh." + +"What FOR?" + +"Jes' fo' nothin'." + +"He hoe me hoo," remarked Verman. + +"Yessuh, I tole him to," said Herman, "an' he chop 'er off, +an' ey ain't airy oth' one evuh grown on wheres de ole one use to +grow. Nosuh!" + +"But what'd you tell him to do it for?" + +"Nothin'. I 'es' said it 'at way--an' he jes' chop er off!" + +Both brothers looked pleased and proud. Penrod's profound +interest was flatteringly visible, a tribute to their +unusualness. + +"Hem bow goy," suggested Verman eagerly. + +"Aw ri'," said Herman. "Ow sistuh Queenie, she a growed-up +woman; she got a goituh." + +"Got a what?" + +"Goituh. Swellin' on her neck--grea' big swellin'. She +heppin' mammy move in now. You look in de front-room winduh +wheres she sweepin'; you kin see it on her." + +Penrod looked in the window and was rewarded by a fine view +of Queenie's goitre. He had never before seen one, and only the +lure of further conversation on the part of Verman brought him +from the window. + +"Verman say tell you 'bout pappy," explained Herman. "Mammy +an' Queenie move in town an' go git de house all fix up befo' +pappy git out." + +"Out of where?" + +"Jail. Pappy cut a man, an' de police done kep' him in jail +evuh sense Chris'mus-time; but dey goin' tuhn him loose ag'in +nex' week." + +"What'd he cut the other man with?" + +"Wif a pitchfawk." + +Penrod began to feel that a lifetime spent with this +fascinating family were all too short. The brothers, glowing +with amiability, were as enraptured as he. For the first time in +their lives they moved in the rich glamour of sensationalism. +Herman was prodigal of gesture with his right hand; and Verman, +chuckling with delight, talked fluently, though somewhat +consciously. They cheerfully agreed to keep the raccoon--already +beginning to be mentioned as "our 'coon" by Penrod--in Mr. +Schofield's empty stable, and, when the animal had been chained +to the wall near the box of rats and supplied with a pan of fair +water, they assented to their new friend's suggestion (inspired +by a fine sense of the artistic harmonies) that the +heretofore nameless pet be christened Sherman, in honour of their +deceased relative. + +At this juncture was heard from the front yard the sound of +that yodelling which is the peculiar accomplishment of those +whose voices have not "changed." Penrod yodelled a response; and +Mr. Samuel Williams appeared, a large bundle under his arm. + +"Yay, Penrod!" was his greeting, casual enough from without; +but, having entered, he stopped short and emitted a prodigious +whistle. "YA-A-AY!" he then shouted. "Look at the 'coon!" + +"I guess you better say, `Look at the 'coon!'" Penrod +returned proudly. "They's a good deal more'n him to look at, +too. Talk some, Verman." Verman complied. + +Sam was warmly interested. "What'd you say his name was?" he +asked. + +"Verman." + +"How d'you spell it?" + +"V-e-r-m-a-n," replied Penrod, having previously received +this information from Herman. + +"Oh!" said Sam. + +"Point to sumpthing, Herman," Penrod commanded, and Sam's +excitement, when Herman pointed was sufficient to the occasion. + +Penrod, the discoverer, continued his exploitation of the +manifold wonders of the Sherman, Herman, and Verman +collection. With the air of a proprietor he escorted Sam into +the alley for a good look at Queenie (who seemed not to care for +her increasing celebrity) and proceeded to a dramatic climax--the +recital of the episode of the pitchfork and its consequences. + +The cumulative effect was enormous, and could have but one +possible result. The normal boy is always at least one half +Barnum. + +"Let's get up a SHOW!" + +Penrod and Sam both claimed to have said it first, a question +left unsettled in the ecstasies of hurried preparation. The +bundle under Sam's arm, brought with no definite purpose, proved +to have been an inspiration. It consisted of broad sheets of +light yellow wrapping-paper, discarded by Sam's mother in her +spring house-cleaning. There were half-filled cans and buckets +of paint in the storeroom adjoining the carriage-house, and +presently the side wall of the stable flamed information upon the +passer-by from a great and spreading poster. + +"Publicity," primal requisite of all theatrical and +amphitheatrical enterprise thus provided, subsequent arrangements +proceeded with a fury of energy which transformed the empty hay- +loft. True, it is impossible to say just what the hay-loft was +transformed into, but history warrantably clings to the statement +that it was transformed. Duke and Sherman were secured to the +rear wall at a considerable distance from each other, after +an exhibition of reluctance on the part of Duke, during which he +displayed a nervous energy and agility almost miraculous in so +small and middle-aged a dog. Benches were improvised for +spectators; the rats were brought up; finally the rafters, corn- +crib, and hay-chute were ornamented with flags and strips of +bunting from Sam Williams' attic, Sam returning from the +excursion wearing an old silk hat, and accompanied (on account of +a rope) by a fine dachshund encountered on the highway. In the +matter of personal decoration paint was generously used: an +interpretation of the spiral, inclining to whites and greens, +becoming brilliantly effective upon the dark facial backgrounds +of Herman and Verman; while the countenances of Sam and Penrod +were each supplied with the black moustache and imperial, lacking +which, no professional showman can be esteemed conscientious. + +It was regretfully decided, in council, that no attempt be +made to add Queenie to the list of exhibits, her brothers warmly +declining to act as ambassadors in that cause. They were certain +Queenie would not like the idea, they said, and Herman +picturesquely described her activity on occasions when she had +been annoyed by too much attention to her appearance. However, +Penrod's disappointment was alleviated by an inspiration which +came to him in a moment of pondering upon the dachshund, and the +entire party went forth to add an enriching line to the +poster. + +They found a group of seven, including two adults, already +gathered in the street to read and admire this work. + + + SCHoFiELD & WiLLiAMS + BiG SHOW + ADMiSSioN 1 CENT oR 20 PiNS + MUSUEM oF CURioSiTES + Now GoiNG oN + SHERMAN HERMAN & VERMAN + THiER FATHERS iN JAiL STABED A + MAN WiTH A + PiTCHFORK + SHERMAN THE WiLD ANIMAL + CAPTURED iN AFRiCA + HERMAN THE ONE FiNGERED TATOOD + WILD MAN VERMAN THE SAVAGE TATOOD + WILD BoY TALKS ONLY iN HiS NAiTiVE + LANGUAGS. Do NoT FAIL TO SEE DUKE + THE INDiAN DOG ALSO THE MiCHiGAN + TRAiNED RATS + + +A heated argument took place between Sam and Penrod, the +point at issue being settled, finally, by the drawing of straws; +whereupon Penrod, with pardonable self-importance--in the +presence of an audience now increased to nine--slowly painted the +words inspired by the dachshund: + + + IMPoRTENT Do NoT MISS THE SoUTH + AMERiCAN DoG PART ALLIGATOR. + + + +CHAPTER XVI +THE NEW STAR + +Sam, Penrod, Herman, and Verman withdrew in considerable state +from non-paying view, and, repairing to the hay-loft, declared +the exhibition open to the public. Oral proclamation was made by +Sam, and then the loitering multitude was enticed by the +seductive strains of a band; the two partners performing upon +combs and paper, Herman and Verman upon tin pans with sticks. + +The effect was immediate. Visitors appeared upon the +stairway and sought admission. Herman and Verman took position +among the exhibits, near the wall; Sam stood at the entrance, +officiating as barker and ticket-seller; while Penrod, +with debonair suavity, acted as curator, master of ceremonies, +and lecturer. He greeted the first to enter with a courtly bow. +They consisted of Miss Rennsdale and her nursery governess, and +they paid spot cash for their admission. + +"Walk in, lay-deeze, walk right in--pray do not obstruck the +passageway," said Penrod, in a remarkable voice. "Pray be +seated; there is room for each and all." + +Miss Rennsdale and governess were followed by Mr. Georgie +Bassett and baby sister (which proves the perfection of Georgie's +character) and six or seven other neighbourhood children--a most +satisfactory audience, although, subsequent to Miss Rennsdale and +governess, admission was wholly by pin. + +"GEN-til-mun and LAY-deeze," shouted Penrod, "I will +first call your at-tain-shon to our genuine South American dog, +part alligator!" He pointed to the dachshund, and added, in his +ordinary tone, "That's him." Straightway reassuming the +character of showman, he bellowed: "NEXT, you see Duke, the +genuine, full-blooded Indian dog from the far Western Plains and +Rocky Mountains. NEXT, the trained Michigan rats, captured +way up there, and trained to jump and run all around the box at +the--at the--at the slightest PRE-text!" He paused, partly +to take breath and partly to enjoy his own surprised +discovery that this phrase was in his vocabulary. + +"At the slightest PRE-text!" he repeated, and continued, +suiting the action to the word: "I will now hammer upon the box +and each and all may see these genuine full-blooded Michigan rats +perform at the slightest PRE-text! There! (That's all they +do now, but I and Sam are goin' to train 'em lots more before +this afternoon.) GEN-til-mun and LAY-deeze I will kindly +now call your at-tain-shon to Sherman, the wild animal from +Africa, costing the lives of the wild trapper and many of his +companions. NEXT, let me kindly interodoos Herman and +Verman. Their father got mad and stuck his pitchfork right +inside of another man, exactly as promised upon the +advertisements outside the big tent, and got put in jail. Look +at them well, gen-til-mun and lay-deeze, there is no extra +charge, and RE-MEM-BUR you are each and all now looking at +two wild, tattooed men which the father of is in jail. Point, +Herman. Each and all will have a chance to see. Point to +sumpthing else, Herman. This is the only genuine one-fingered +tattooed wild man. Last on the programme, gen-til-mun and lay- +deeze, we have Verman, the savage tattooed wild boy, that can't +speak only his native foreign languages. Talk some, Verman." + +Verman obliged and made an instantaneous hit. He was encored +rapturously, again and again; and, thrilling with the unique +pleasure of being appreciated and misunderstood at the same time, +would have talked all day but too gladly. Sam Williams, +however, with a true showman's foresight, whispered to Penrod, +who rang down on the monologue. + +"GEN-til-mun and LAY-deeze, this closes our +pufformance. Pray pass out quietly and with as little jostling +as possible. As soon as you are all out there's goin' to be a +new pufformance, and each and all are welcome at the same and +simple price of admission. Pray pass out quietly and with as +little jostling as possible. RE-MEM-BUR the price is only +one cent, the tenth part of a dime, or twenty pins, no bent ones +taken. Pray pass out quietly and with as little jostling as +possible. The Schofield and Williams Military Band will play +before each pufformance, and each and all are welcome for the +same and simple price of admission. Pray pass out quietly and +with as little jostling as possible." + +Forthwith, the Schofield and Williams Military Band began a +second overture, in which something vaguely like a tune was at +times distinguishable; and all of the first audience returned, +most of them having occupied the interval in hasty excursions for +more pins; Miss Rennsdale and governess, however, again paying +coin of the Republic and receiving deference and the best seats +accordingly. And when a third performance found all of the same +inveterate patrons once more crowding the auditorium, and seven +recruits added, the pleasurable excitement of the partners in +their venture will be understood by any one who has seen a +metropolitan manager strolling about the foyer of his theatre +some evening during the earlier stages of an assured "phenomenal +run." + +From the first, there was no question which feature of the +entertainment was the attraction extraordinary: Verman--Verman, +the savage tattooed wild boy, speaking only his native foreign +languages--Verman was a triumph! Beaming, wreathed in smiles, +melodious, incredibly fluent, he had but to open his lips and a +dead hush fell upon the audience. Breathless, they leaned +forward, hanging upon his every semi-syllable, and, when Penrod +checked the flow, burst into thunders of applause, which Verman +received with happy laughter. + +Alas! he delayed not o'er long to display all the +egregiousness of a new star; but for a time there was no caprice +of his too eccentric to be forgiven. During Penrod's lecture +upon the other curios, the tattooed wild boy continually stamped +his foot, grinned, and gesticulated, tapping his tiny chest, and +pointing to himself as it were to say: "Wait for Me! I am the +Big Show." So soon they learn; so soon they learn! And (again +alas!) this spoiled darling of public favour, like many another, +was fated to know, in good time, the fickleness of that favour. + +But during all the morning performances he was the idol of +his audience and looked it! The climax of his popularity came +during the fifth overture of the Schofield and Williams +Military Band, when the music was quite drowned in the agitated +clamours of Miss Rennsdale, who was endeavouring to ascend the +stairs in spite of the physical dissuasion of her governess. + +"I WON'T go home to lunch!" screamed Miss Rennsdale, her +voice accompanied by a sound of ripping. "I WILL hear the +tattooed wild boy talk some more! It's lovely--I WILL hear +him talk! I WILL! I WILL! I want to listen to Verman-- +I WANT to--I WANT to----" + +Wailing, she was borne away--of her sex not the first to be +fascinated by obscurity, nor the last to champion its eloquence. + +Verman was almost unendurable after this, but, like many, +many other managers, Schofield and Williams restrained their +choler, and even laughed fulsomely when their principal +attraction essayed the role of a comedian in private, and capered +and squawked in sheer, fatuous vanity. + +The first performance of the afternoon rivalled the successes +of the morning, and although Miss Rennsdale was detained at home, +thus drying up the single source of cash income developed before +lunch, Maurice Levy appeared, escorting Marjorie Jones, and paid +coin for two admissions, dropping the money into Sam's hand with +a careless--nay, a contemptuous--gesture. At sight of Marjorie, +Penrod Schofield flushed under his new moustache (repainted +since noon) and lectured as he had never lectured before. A +new grace invested his every gesture; a new sonorousness rang in +his voice; a simple and manly pomposity marked his very walk as +he passed from curio to curio. And when he fearlessly handled +the box of rats and hammered upon it with cool insouciance, +he beheld--for the first time in his life--a purl of admiration +eddying in Marjorie's lovely eye, a certain softening of that +eye. And then Verman spake and Penrod was forgotten. Marjorie's +eye rested upon him no more. + +A heavily equipped chauffeur ascended the stairway, bearing +the message that Mrs. Levy awaited her son and his lady. +Thereupon, having devoured the last sound permitted (by the +managers) to issue from Verman, Mr. Levy and Miss Jones departed +to a real matinee at a real theatre, the limpid eyes of Marjorie +looking back softly over her shoulder--but only at the tattooed +wild boy. Nearly always it is woman who puts the irony into +life. + +After this, perhaps because of sated curiosity, perhaps on +account of a pin famine, the attendance began to languish. Only +four responded to the next call of the band; the four dwindled to +three; finally the entertainment was given for one blase +auditor, and Schofield and Williams looked depressed. Then +followed an interval when the band played in vain. + +About three o'clock Schofield and Williams were gloomily +discussing various unpromising devices for +startling the public into a renewal of interest, when another +patron unexpectedly appeared and paid a cent for his admission. +News of the Big Show and Museum of Curiosities had at last +penetrated the far, cold spaces of interstellar niceness, for +this new patron consisted of no less than Roderick Magsworth +Bitts, Junior, escaped in a white "sailor suit" from the Manor +during a period of severe maternal and tutorial preoccupation. + +He seated himself without parley, and the pufformance was +offered for his entertainment with admirable conscientiousness. +True to the Lady Clara caste and training, Roderick's pale, fat +face expressed nothing except an impervious superiority and, as +he sat, cold and unimpressed upon the front bench, like a large, +white lump, it must be said that he made a discouraging audience +"to play to." He was not, however, unresponsive--far from it. +He offered comment very chilling to the warm grandiloquence of +the orator. + +"That's my uncle Ethelbert's dachshund," he remarked, at the +beginning of the lecture. "You better take him back if you don't +want to get arrested." And when Penrod, rather uneasily ignoring +the interruption, proceeded to the exploitation of the genuine, +full-blooded Indian dog, Duke, "Why don't you try to give that +old dog away?" asked Roderick. "You couldn't sell him." + +"My papa would buy me a lots better 'coon than that," +was the information volunteered a little later, "only I wouldn't +want the nasty old thing." + +Herman of the missing finger obtained no greater indulgence. +"Pooh!" said Roderick. "We have two fox-terriers in our stables +that took prizes at the kennel show, and their tails were BIT +off. There's a man that always bites fox-terriers' tails off." + +"Oh, my gosh, what a lie!" exclaimed Sam Williams ignorantly. + +"Go on with the show whether he likes it or not, Penrod. He's +paid his money." + +Verman, confident in his own singular powers, chuckled openly +at the failure of the other attractions to charm the frosty +visitor, and, when his turn came, poured forth a torrent of +conversation which was straightway damned. + +"Rotten," said Mr. Bitts languidly. "Anybody could talk like +that. _I_ could do it if I wanted to." + +Verman paused suddenly. + +"YES, you could!" exclaimed Penrod, stung. "Let's hear +you do it, then." + +"Yessir!" the other partner shouted. "Let's just hear you +DO it!" + +"I said I could if I wanted to," responded Roderick. "I +didn't say I WOULD." + +"Yay! Knows he can't!" sneered Sam. + +"I can, too, if I try." + +"Well, let's hear you try!" + +So challenged, the visitor did try, but, in the absence of an +impartial jury, his effort was considered so pronounced a +failure that he was howled down, derided, and mocked with great +clamours. + +"Anyway," said Roderick, when things had quieted down, "if I +couldn't get up a better show than this I'd sell out and leave +town." + +Not having enough presence of mind to inquire what he would +sell out, his adversaries replied with mere formless yells of +scorn. + +"I could get up a better show than this with my left hand," +Roderick asserted. + +"Well, what would you have in your ole show?" asked Penrod, +condescending to language. + +"That's all right, what I'd HAVE. I'd have enough!" + +"You couldn't get Herman and Verman in your ole show." + +"No, and I wouldn't want 'em, either!" + +"Well, what WOULD you have?" insisted Penrod derisively. +"You'd have to have SUMPTHING--you couldn't be a show +yourself!" + +"How do YOU know?" This was but meandering while waiting +for ideas, and evoked another yell. + +"You think you could be a show all by yourself?" demanded +Penrod. + +"How do YOU know I couldn't?" + +Two white boys and two black boys shrieked their scorn of the +boaster. + +"I could, too!" Roderick raised his voice to a sudden howl, +obtaining a hearing. + +"Well, why don't you tell us how?" + +"Well, _I_ know HOW, all right," said Roderick. "If +anybody asks you, you can just tell him I know HOW, all +right." + +"Why, you can't DO anything," Sam began argumentatively. +"You talk about being a show all by yourself; what could you try +to do? Show us sumpthing you can do." + +"I didn't say I was going to DO anything," returned the +badgered one, still evading. + +"Well, then, how'd you BE a show?" Penrod demanded. +"WE got a show here, even if Herman didn't point or Verman +didn't talk. Their father stabbed a man with a pitchfork, I +guess, didn't he?" + +"How do _I_ know?" + +"Well, I guess he's in jail, ain't he?" + +"Well, what if their father is in jail? I didn't say he +wasn't, did I?" + +"Well, YOUR father ain't in jail, is he?" + +"Well, I never said he was, did I?" + +"Well, then," continued Penrod, "how could you be a----" He +stopped abruptly, staring at Roderick, the birth of an idea +plainly visible in his altered expression. He had suddenly +remembered his intention to ask Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, +about Rena Magsworth, and this recollection collided in his mind +with the irritation produced by Roderick's claiming some +mysterious attainment which would warrant his setting up as a +show in his single person. Penrod's whole manner changed +instantly. + +"Roddy," he asked, almost overwhelmed by a prescience of +something vast and magnificent, "Roddy, are you any relation of +Rena Magsworth?" + +Roderick had never heard of Rena Magsworth, although a +concentration of the sentence yesterday pronounced upon her had +burned, black and horrific, upon the face of every newspaper in +the country. He was not allowed to read the journals of the day +and his family's indignation over the sacrilegious coincidence of +the name had not been expressed in his presence. But he saw that +it was an awesome name to Penrod Schofield and Samuel Williams. +Even Herman and Verman, though lacking many educational +advantages on account of a long residence in the country, were +informed on the subject of Rena Magsworth through hearsay, and +they joined in the portentous silence. + +"Roddy," repeated Penrod, "honest, is Rena Magsworth some +relation of yours?" + +There is no obsession more dangerous to its victims than a +conviction especially an inherited one--of superiority: this +world is so full of Missourians. And from his earliest years +Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, had been trained to believe in +the importance of the Magsworth family. At every meal he +absorbed a sense of Magsworth greatness, and yet, in his +infrequent meetings with persons of his own age and sex, he +was treated as negligible. Now, dimly, he perceived that there +was a Magsworth claim of some sort which was impressive, even to +boys. Magsworth blood was the essential of all true distinction +in the world, he knew. Consequently, having been driven into a +cul-de-sac, as a result of flagrant and unfounded boasting, +he was ready to take advantage of what appeared to be a triumphal +way out. + +"Roddy," said Penrod again, with solemnity, "is Rena +Magsworth some relation of yours?" + +"IS she, Roddy?" asked Sam, almost hoarsely. + +"She's my aunt!" shouted Roddy. + +Silence followed. Sam and Penrod, spellbound, gazed upon +Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior. So did Herman and Verman. +Roddy's staggering lie had changed the face of things utterly. +No one questioned it; no one realized that it was much too good +to be true. + +"Roddy," said Penrod, in a voice tremulous with hope, "Roddy, +will you join our show?" + +Roddy joined. + +Even he could see that the offer implied his being starred as +the paramount attraction of a new order of things. It was +obvious that he had swelled out suddenly, in the estimation of +the other boys, to that importance which he had been taught to +believe his native gift and natural right. The sensation was +pleasant. He had often been treated with effusion by grown- +up callers and by acquaintances of his mothers and sisters; he +had heard ladies speak of him as "charming" and "that delightful +child," and little girls had sometimes shown him deference, but +until this moment no boy had ever allowed him, for one moment, to +presume even to equality. Now, in a trice, he was not only +admitted to comradeship, but patently valued as something rare +and sacred to be acclaimed and pedestalled. In fact, the very +first thing that Schofield and Williams did was to find a box for +him to stand upon. + +The misgivings roused in Roderick's bosom by the subsequent +activities of the firm were not bothersome enough to make him +forego his prominence as Exhibit A. He was not a "quick-minded" +boy, and it was long (and much happened) before he thoroughly +comprehended the causes of his new celebrity. He had a shadowy +feeling that if the affair came to be heard of at home it might +not be liked, but, intoxicated by the glamour and bustle which +surround a public character, he made no protest. On the +contrary, he entered whole-heartedly into the preparations for +the new show. Assuming, with Sam's assistance, a blue moustache +and "side-burns," he helped in the painting of a new poster, +which, supplanting the old one on the wall of the stable facing +the cross-street, screamed bloody murder at the passers in that +rather populous thoroughfare. + + + SCHoFiELD & WiLLiAMS + NEW BIG SHoW +RoDERiCK MAGSWoRTH BiTTS JR + ONLY LiViNG NEPHEW + oF + RENA MAGSWORTH + THE FAMOS + MUDERESS GoiNG To BE HUNG + NEXT JULY KiLED EiGHT PEOPLE + PUT ARSiNECK iN THiER MiLK ALSO + SHERMAN HERMAN AND VERMAN +THE MiCHiGAN RATS DOG PART +ALLiGATOR DUKE THE GENUiNE + InDiAN DoG ADMISSioN 1 CENT oR + 20 PINS SAME AS BEFORE Do NoT + MISS THIS CHANSE TO SEE RoDERICK +ONLY LiViNG NEPHEW oF RENA + MAGSWORTH THE GREAT FAMOS + MUDERESS + GoiNG To BE + HUNG + + + +CHAPTER VII +RETIRING FROM THE SHOW BUSINESS + +Megaphones were constructed out of heavy wrapping-paper, and +Penrod, Sam, and Herman set out in different directions, +delivering vocally the inflammatory proclamation of the poster to +a large section of the residential quarter, and leaving Roderick +Magsworth Bitts, Junior, with Verman in the loft, shielded from +all deadhead eyes. Upon the return of the heralds, the Schofield +and Williams Military Band played deafeningly, and an awakened +public once more thronged to fill the coffers of the firm. + +Prosperity smiled again. The very first audience +after the acquisition of Roderick was larger than the +largest of the morning. Master Bitts--the only exhibit placed +upon a box--was a supercurio. All eyes fastened upon him and +remained, hungrily feasting, throughout Penrod's luminous +oration. + +But the glory of one light must ever be the dimming of +another. We dwell in a vale of seesaws--and cobwebs spin fastest +upon laurel. Verman, the tattooed wild boy, speaking only in his +native foreign languages, Verman the gay, Verman the caperer, +capered no more; he chuckled no more, he beckoned no more, nor +tapped his chest, nor wreathed his idolatrous face in smiles. +Gone, all gone, were his little artifices for attracting the +general attention to himself; gone was every engaging mannerism +which had endeared him to the mercurial public. He squatted +against the wall and glowered at the new sensation. It was the +old story--the old, old story of too much temperament: Verman +was suffering from artistic jealousy. + +The second audience contained a cash-paying adult, a +spectacled young man whose poignant attention was very +flattering. He remained after the lecture, and put a few +questions to Roddy, which were answered rather confusedly upon +promptings from Penrod. The young man went away without having +stated the object of his interrogations, but it became quite +plain, later in the day. This same object caused the spectacled +young man to make several brief but stimulating calls +directly after leaving the Schofield and Williams Big Show, and +the consequences thereof loitered not by the wayside. + +The Big Show was at high tide. Not only was the auditorium +filled and throbbing; there was an indubitable line--by no means +wholly juvenile--waiting for admission to the next pufformance. +A group stood in the street examining the poster earnestly as it +glowed in the long, slanting rays of the westward sun, and people +in automobiles and other vehicles had halted wheel in the street +to read the message so piquantly given to the world. These were +the conditions when a crested victoria arrived at a gallop, and a +large, chastely magnificent and highly flushed woman descended, +and progressed across the yard with an air of violence. + +At sight of her, the adults of the waiting line hastily +disappeared, and most of the pausing vehicles moved instantly on +their way. She was followed by a stricken man in livery. + +The stairs to the auditorium were narrow and steep; Mrs. +Roderick Magsworth Bitts was of a stout favour; and the voice of +Penrod was audible during the ascent. + +"RE-MEM-BUR, gentilmun and lay-deeze, each and all are +now gazing upon Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, the only living +nephew of the great Rena Magsworth. She stuck ars'nic in the +milk of eight separate and distinck people to put in their coffee +and each and all of 'em died. The great ars'nic murderess, +Rena Magsworth, gentilmun and lay-deeze, and Roddy's her only +living nephew. She's a relation of all the Bitts family, but +he's her one and only living nephew. RE-MEM-BUR! Next July +she's goin' to be hung, and, each and all, you now see before +you----" + +Penrod paused abruptly, seeing something before himself--the +august and awful presence which filled the entryway. And his +words (it should be related) froze upon his lips. + +Before HERSELF, Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts saw her +son--her scion--wearing a moustache and sideburns of blue, and +perched upon a box flanked by Sherman and Verman, the Michigan +rats, the Indian dog Duke, Herman, and the dog part alligator. + +Roddy, also, saw something before himself. It needed no +prophet to read the countenance of the dread apparition in the +entryway. His mouth opened--remained open--then filled to +capacity with a calamitous sound of grief not unmingled with +apprehension. + +Penrod's reason staggered under the crisis. For a horrible +moment he saw Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts approaching like some +fatal mountain in avalanche. She seemed to grow larger and +redder; lightnings played about her head; he had a vague +consciousness of the audience spraying out in flight, of the +squealings, tramplings and dispersals of a stricken +field. The mountain was close upon him---- + +He stood by the open mouth of the hay-chute which went +through the floor to the manger below. Penrod also went through +the floor. He propelled himself into the chute and shot down, +but not quite to the manger, for Mr. Samuel Williams had +thoughtfully stepped into the chute a moment in advance of his +partner. Penrod lit upon Sam. + +Catastrophic noises resounded in the loft; volcanoes seemed +to romp upon the stairway. + +There ensued a period when only a shrill keening marked the +passing of Roderick as he was borne to the tumbril. Then all was +silence. + + +. . . Sunset, striking through a western window, rouged the +walls of the Schofields' library, where gathered a joint family +council and court martial of four--Mrs. Schofield, Mr. Schofield, +and Mr. and Mrs. Williams, parents of Samuel of that ilk. Mr. +Williams read aloud a conspicuous passage from the last edition +of the evening paper: + +"Prominent people here believed close relations of woman +sentenced to hang. Angry denial by Mrs. R. Magsworth Bitts. +Relationship admitted by younger member of family. His statement +confirmed by boy-friends----" + +"Don't!" said Mrs. Williams, addressing her husband +vehemently. "We've all read it a dozen times. We've got +plenty of trouble on our hands without hearing THAT again!" + +Singularly enough, Mrs. Williams did not look troubled; she +looked as if she were trying to look troubled. Mrs. Schofield +wore a similar expression. So did Mr. Schofield. So did Mr. +Williams. + +"What did she say when she called YOU up?" Mrs. Schofield +inquired breathlessly of Mrs. Williams. + +"She could hardly speak at first, and then when she did talk, +she talked so fast I couldn't understand most of it, and----" + +"It was just the same when she tried to talk to me," said +Mrs. Schofield, nodding. + +"I never did hear any one in such a state before," continued +Mrs. Williams. "So furious----" + +"Quite justly, of course," said Mrs. Schofield. + +"Of course. And she said Penrod and Sam had enticed Roderick +away from home--usually he's not allowed to go outside the yard +except with his tutor or a servant--and had told him to say that +horrible creature was his aunt----" + +"How in the world do you suppose Sam and Penrod ever thought +of such a thing as THAT!" exclaimed Mrs. Schofield. "It must +have been made up just for their `show.' Della says there were +just STREAMS going in and out all day. Of course it wouldn't +have happened, but this was the day Margaret and I spend every +month in the country with Aunt Sarah, and I didn't DREAM----" + +"She said one thing I thought rather tactless," interrupted +Mrs. Williams. "Of course we must allow for her being dreadfully +excited and wrought up, but I do think it wasn't quite delicate +in her, and she's usually the very soul of delicacy. She said +that Roderick had NEVER been allowed to associate with-- +common boys----" + +"Meaning Sam and Penrod," said Mrs. Schofield. "Yes, she +said that to me, too." + +"She said that the most awful thing about it," Mrs. Williams +went on, "was that, though she's going to prosecute the +newspapers, many people would always believe the story, and----" + +"Yes, I imagine they will," said Mrs. Schofield musingly. +"Of course you and I and everybody who really knows the Bitts and +Magsworth families understand the perfect absurdity of it; but I +suppose there are ever so many who'll believe it, no matter what +the Bittses and Magsworths say." + +"Hundreds and hundreds!" said Mrs. Williams. "I'm afraid it +will be a great come-down for them." + +"I'm afraid so," said Mrs. Schofield gently. "A very great +one--yes, a very, very great one." + +"Well," observed Mrs. Williams, after a thoughtful pause, +"there's only one thing to be done, and I suppose it had better +be done right away." + +She glanced toward the two gentlemen. + +"Certainly," Mr. Schofield agreed. "But where ARE they?" + +"Have you looked in the stable?" asked his wife. + +"I searched it. They've probably started for the far West." + +"Did you look in the sawdust-box?" + +"No, I didn't." + +"Then that's where they are." + +Thus, in the early twilight, the now historic stable was +approached by two fathers charged to do the only thing to be +done. They entered the storeroom. + +"Penrod!" said Mr. Schofield. + +"Sam!" said Mr. Williams. + +Nothing disturbed the twilight hush. + +But by means of a ladder, brought from the carriage-house, +Mr. Schofield mounted to the top of the sawdust-box. He looked +within, and discerned the dim outlines of three quiet figures, +the third being that of a small dog. + +The two boys rose, upon command, descended the ladder after +Mr. Schofield, bringing Duke with them, and stood before the +authors of their being, who bent upon them sinister and +threatening brows. With hanging heads and despondent +countenances, each still ornamented with a moustache and an +imperial, Penrod and Sam awaited sentence. + +This is a boy's lot: anything he does, anything whatever, may +afterward turn out to have been a crime--he never knows. + +And punishment and clemency are alike inexplicable. + +Mr. Williams took his son by the ear. + +"You march home!" he commanded. + +Sam marched, not looking back, and his father followed the +small figure implacably. + +"You goin' to whip me?" quavered Penrod, alone with Justice. + +"Wash your face at that hydrant," said his father sternly. + +About fifteen minutes later, Penrod, hurriedly entering the +corner drug store, two blocks distant, was astonished to perceive +a familiar form at the soda counter. + +"Yay, Penrod," said Sam Williams. "Want some sody? Come on. + +He didn't lick me. He didn't do anything to me at all. He gave +me a quarter." + +"So'd mine," said Penrod. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII +MUSIC + +Boyhood is the longest time in life for a boy. The last term of +the school-year is made of decades, not of weeks, and living +through them is like waiting for the millennium. But they do +pass, somehow, and at last there came a day when Penrod was one +of a group that capered out from the gravelled yard of "Ward +School, Nomber Seventh," carolling a leave-taking of the +institution, of their instructress, and not even forgetting Mr. +Capps, the janitor. + + "Good-bye, teacher! Good-bye, school! + Good-bye, Cappsie, dern ole fool!" + +Penrod sang the loudest. For every boy, there is an age when +he "finds his voice." Penrod's had not "changed," but he had +found it. Inevitably that thing had come upon his family and the +neighbours; and his father, a somewhat dyspeptic man, quoted +frequently the expressive words of the "Lady of Shalott," but +there were others whose sufferings were as poignant. + +Vacation-time warmed the young of the world to pleasant +languor; and a morning came that was like a brightly coloured +picture in a child's fairy story. Miss Margaret Schofield, +reclining in a hammock upon the front porch, was beautiful in the +eyes of a newly made senior, well favoured and in fair raiment, +beside her. A guitar rested lightly upon his knee, and he was +trying to play--a matter of some difficulty, as the floor of the +porch also seemed inclined to be musical. From directly under +his feet came a voice of song, shrill, loud, incredibly piercing +and incredibly flat, dwelling upon each syllable with +incomprehensible reluctance to leave it. + + "I have lands and earthly pow-wur. + I'd give all for a now-wur, + Whi-ilst setting at MY-Y-Y dear old mother's knee-ee, + So-o-o rem-mem-bur whilst you're young----" + +Miss Schofield stamped heartily upon the musical floor. + +"It's Penrod," she explained. "The lattice at the end of the +porch is loose, and he crawls under and comes out all bugs. +He's been having a dreadful singing fit lately--running away to +picture shows and vaudeville, I suppose." + +Mr. Robert Williams looked upon her yearningly. He touched a +thrilling chord on his guitar and leaned nearer. "But you said +you have missed me," he began. I----" + +The voice of Penrod drowned all other sounds. + + "So-o-o rem-mem-bur, whi-i-ilst you're young, + That the day-a-ys to you will come, + When you're o-o-old and only in the way, + Do not scoff at them BEE-cause----" + +"PENROD!" Miss Schofield stamped again. + +"You DID say you'd missed me," said Mr. Robert Williams, +seizing hurriedly upon the silence. "Didn't you say----" + +A livelier tune rose upward. + + "Oh, you talk about your fascinating beauties, + Of your dem-O-zells, your belles, + But the littil dame I met, while in the city, + She's par excellaws the queen of all the swells. + She's sweeter far----" + +Margaret rose and jumped up and down repeatedly in a well- +calculated area, whereupon the voice of Penrod cried chokedly, +"QUIT that!" and there were subterranean coughings and +sneezings. + +"You want to choke a person to death?" he inquired severely, +appearing at the end of the porch, a cobweb upon his brow. And, +continuing, he put into practice a newly acquired phrase, +"You better learn to be more considerick of other people's +comfort." + +Slowly and grievedly he withdrew, passed to the sunny side of +the house, reclined in the warm grass beside his wistful Duke, +and presently sang again. + + "She's sweeter far than the flower I named her after, + And the memery of her smile it haunts me YET! + When in after years the moon is soffly beamun' + And at eve I smell the smell of mignonette + I will re-CALL that----" + +"Pen-ROD!" + +Mr. Schofield appeared at an open window upstairs, a book in +his hand. + +"Stop it!" he commanded. "Can't I stay home with a headache +ONE morning from the office without having to listen to--I +never DID hear such squawking!" He retired from the window, +having too impulsively called upon his Maker. Penrod, shocked +and injured, entered the house, but presently his voice was again +audible as far as the front porch. He was holding converse with +his mother, somewhere in the interior. + +"Well, what of it? Sam Williams told me his mother said if +Bob ever did think of getting married to Margaret, his mother +said she'd like to know what in the name o' goodness they expect +to----" + +Bang! Margaret thought it better to close the front door. + +The next minute Penrod opened it. "I suppose you want the +whole family to get a sunstroke," he said reprovingly. "Keepin' +every breath of air out o' the house on a day like this!" + +And he sat down implacably in the doorway. + +The serious poetry of all languages has omitted the little +brother; and yet he is one of the great trials of love--the +immemorial burden of courtship. Tragedy should have found place +for him, but he has been left to the haphazard vignettist of Grub +Street. He is the grave and real menace of lovers; his head is +sacred and terrible, his power illimitable. There is one way-- +only one--to deal with him; but Robert Williams, having a brother +of Penrod's age, understood that way. + +Robert had one dollar in the world. He gave it to Penrod +immediately. + +Enslaved forever, the new Rockefeller rose and went forth +upon the highway, an overflowing heart bursting the floodgates of +song. + +"In her eyes the light of love was soffly gleamun', + So sweetlay, + So neatlay. +On the banks the moon's soff light was brightly streamun', + Words of love I then spoke TO her. + She was purest of the PEW-er: +`Littil sweetheart, do not sigh, +Do not weep and do not cry. +I will build a littil cottige just for yew-EW-EW and I.'" + +In fairness, it must be called to mind that boys older than +Penrod have these wellings of pent melody; a wife can never tell +when she is to undergo a musical morning, and even the golden +wedding brings her no security, a man of ninety is liable to +bust-loose in song, any time. + +Invalids murmured pitifully as Penrod came within hearing; +and people trying to think cursed the day that they were born, +when he went shrilling by. His hands in his pockets, his shining +face uplifted to the sky of June, he passed down the street, +singing his way into the heart's deepest hatred of all who heard +him. + + "One evuning I was sturow-ling + Midst the city of the DEAD, + I viewed where all a-round me + Their PEACE-full graves was SPREAD. + But that which touched me mostlay----" + +He had reached his journey's end, a junk-dealer's shop +wherein lay the long-desired treasure of his soul--an accordion +which might have possessed a high quality of interest for an +antiquarian, being unquestionably a ruin, beautiful in decay, and +quite beyond the sacrilegious reach of the restorer. But it was +still able to disgorge sounds--loud, strange, compelling sounds, +which could be heard for a remarkable distance in all directions; +and it had one rich calf-like tone that had gone to Penrod's +heart. He obtained the instrument for twenty-two cents, a +price long since agreed upon with the junk-dealer, who +falsely claimed a loss of profit, Shylock that he was! He had +found the wreck in an alley. + +With this purchase suspended from his shoulder by a faded +green cord, Penrod set out in a somewhat homeward direction, but +not by the route he had just travelled, though his motive for the +change was not humanitarian. It was his desire to display +himself thus troubadouring to the gaze of Marjorie Jones. +Heralding his advance by continuous experiments in the music of +the future, he pranced upon his blithesome way, the faithful Duke +at his heels. (It was easier for Duke than it would have been +for a younger dog, because, with advancing age, he had begun to +grow a little deaf.) + +Turning the corner nearest to the glamoured mansion of the +Joneses, the boy jongleur came suddenly face to face with +Marjorie, and, in the delicious surprise of the encounter, ceased +to play, his hands, in agitation, falling from the instrument. + +Bareheaded, the sunshine glorious upon her amber curls, +Marjorie was strolling hand-in-hand with her baby brother, +Mitchell, four years old. She wore pink that day--unforgettable +pink, with a broad, black patent-leather belt, shimmering +reflections dancing upon its surface. How beautiful she was! +How sacred the sweet little baby brother, whose privilege it was +to cling to that small hand, delicately powdered with freckles. + +"Hello, Marjorie," said Penrod, affecting carelessness. + +"Hello!" said Marjorie, with unexpected cordiality. She +bent over her baby brother with motherly affectations. "Say +`howdy' to the gentymuns, Mitchy-Mitch," she urged sweetly, +turning him to face Penrod. + +"WON'T!" said Mitchy-Mitch, and, to emphasize his +refusal, kicked the gentymuns upon the shin. + +Penrod's feelings underwent instant change, and in the sole +occupation of disliking Mitchy-Mitch, he wasted precious seconds +which might have been better employed in philosophic +consideration of the startling example, just afforded, of how a +given law operates throughout the universe in precisely the same +manner perpetually. Mr. Robert Williams would have understood +this, easily. + +"Oh, oh!" Marjorie cried, and put Mitchy-Mitch behind her +with too much sweetness. "Maurice Levy's gone to Atlantic City +with his mamma," she remarked conversationally, as if the kicking +incident were quite closed. + +"That's nothin'," returned Penrod, keeping his eye uneasily +upon Mitchy-Mitch. "I know plenty people been better places than +that--Chicago and everywhere." + +There was unconscious ingratitude in his low rating of +Atlantic City, for it was largely to the attractions of that +resort he owed Miss Jones' present attitude of friendliness. + +Of course, too, she was curious about the accordion. It would be +dastardly to hint that she had noticed a paper bag which bulged +the pocket of Penrod's coat, and yet this bag was undeniably +conspicuous--"and children are very like grown people sometimes!" + +Penrod brought forth the bag, purchased on the way at a drug +store, and till this moment UNOPENED, which expresses in a +word the depth of his sentiment for Marjorie. It contained an +abundant fifteen-cents' worth of lemon drops, jaw-breakers, +licorice sticks, cinnamon drops, and shopworn choclate creams. + +"Take all you want," he said, with off-hand generosity. + +"Why, Penrod Schofield," exclaimed the wholly thawed damsel, +"you nice boy!" + +"Oh, that's nothin'," he returned airily. "I got a good deal +of money, nowadays." + +"Where from?" + +"Oh--just around." With a cautious gesture he offered a jaw- +breaker to Mitchy-Mitch, who snatched it indignantly and set +about its absorption without delay. + +"Can you play on that?" asked Marjorie, with some difficulty, +her cheeks being rather too hilly for conversation. + +"Want to hear me?" + +She nodded, her eyes sweet with anticipation. + +This was what he had come for. He threw back his head, +lifted his eyes dreamily, as he had seen real musicians lift +theirs, and distended the accordion preparing to produce the +wonderful calf-like noise which was the instrument's great charm. + +But the distention evoked a long wail which was at once drowned +in another one. + +"Ow! Owowaoh! Wowohah! WaowWOW!" shrieked Mitchy-Mitch +and the accordion together. + +Mitchy-Mitch, to emphasize his disapproval of the accordion, +opening his mouth still wider, lost therefrom the jaw-breaker, +which rolled in the dust. Weeping, he stooped to retrieve it, +and Marjorie, to prevent him, hastily set her foot upon it. +Penrod offered another jaw-breaker; but Mitchy-Mitch struck it +from his hand, desiring the former, which had convinced him of +its sweetness. + +Marjorie moved inadvertently; whereupon Mitchy-Mitch pounced +upon the remains of his jaw-breaker and restored them, with +accretions, to his mouth. His sister, uttering a cry of horror, +sprang to the rescue, assisted by Penrod, whom she prevailed upon +to hold Mitchy-Mitch's mouth open while she excavated. This +operation being completed, and Penrod's right thumb severely +bitten, Mitchy-Mitch closed his eyes tightly, stamped, squealed, +bellowed, wrung his hands, and then, unexpectedly, kicked Penrod +again. + +Penrod put a hand in his pocket and drew forth a copper +two-cent piece, large, round, and fairly bright. + +He gave it to Mitchy-Mitch. + +Mitchy-Mitch immediately stopped crying and gazed upon his +benefactor with the eyes of a dog. + +This world! + +Thereafter did Penrod--with complete approval from Mitchy- +Mitch--play the accordion for his lady to his heart's content, +and hers. Never had he so won upon her; never had she let him +feel so close to her before. They strolled up and down upon the +sidewalk, eating, one thought between them, and soon she had +learned to play the accordion almost as well as he. So passed a +happy hour, which the Good King Rene of Anjou would have envied +them, while Mitchy-Mitch made friends with Duke, romped about his +sister and her swain, and clung to the hand of the latter, at +intervals, with fondest affection and trust. + +The noon whistles failed to disturb this little Arcady; only +the sound of Mrs. Jones' voice for the third time summoning +Marjorie and Mitchy-Mitch to lunch--sent Penrod on his way. + +"I could come back this afternoon, I guess," he said, in +parting. + +"I'm not goin' to be here. I'm goin' to Baby Rennsdale's +party." + +Penrod looked blank, as she intended he should. Having thus +satisfied herself, she added: + +"There aren't goin' to be any boys there." + +He was instantly radiant again. + +"Marjorie----" + +"Hum?" + +"Do you wish I was goin' to be there?" + +She looked shy, and turned away her head. + +"MARJORIE JONES!" (This was a voice from home.) "HOW +MANY MORE TIMES SHALL I HAVE TO CALL YOU?" + +Marjorie moved away, her face still hidden from Penrod. + +"Do you?" he urged. + +At the gate, she turned quickly toward him, and said over her +shoulder, all in a breath: "Yes! Come again to-morrow morning +and I'll be on the corner. Bring your 'cordion!" + +And she ran into the house, Mitchy-Mitch waving a loving hand +to the boy on the sidewalk until the front door closed. + + + +CHAPTER XIX +THE INNER BOY + +Penrod went home in splendour, pretending that he and Duke were a +long procession; and he made enough noise to render the auricular +part of the illusion perfect. His own family were already at the +lunch-table when he arrived, and the parade halted only at the +door of the dining-room. + +"Oh SOMETHING!" shouted Mr. Schofield, clasping his +bilious brow with both hands. "Stop that noise! Isn't it awful +enough for you to SING? Sit DOWN! Not with that thing +on! Take that green rope off your shoulder! Now take that thing +out of the dining-room and throw it in the ash-can! +Where did you get it?" + +"Where did I get what, papa?" asked Penrod meekly, depositing +the accordion in the hall just outside the dining-room door. + +"That da--that third-hand concertina." + +"It's a 'cordian," said Penrod, taking his place at the +table, and noticing that both Margaret and Mr. Robert Williams +(who happened to be a guest) were growing red. + +"I don't care what you call it," said Mr. Schofield +irritably. "I want to know where you got it." + +Penrod's eyes met Margaret's: hers had a strained expression. + +She very slightly shook her head. Penrod sent Mr. Williams a +grateful look, and might have been startled if he could have seen +himself in a mirror at that moment; for he regarded Mitchy-Mitch +with concealed but vigorous aversion and the resemblance would +have horrified him. + +"A man gave it to me," he answered gently, and was rewarded +by the visibly regained ease of his patron's manner, while +Margaret leaned back in her chair and looked at her brother with +real devotion. + +"I should think he'd have been glad to," said Mr. Schofield. +"Who was he?" + +"Sir?" In spite of the candy which he had consumed in +company with Marjorie and Mitchy-Mitch, Penrod had begun to +eat lobster croquettes earnestly. + +"Who WAS he?" + +"Who do you mean, papa?" + +"The man that gave you that ghastly Thing!" + +"Yessir. A man gave it to me." + +"I say, Who WAS he?" shouted Mr. Schofield. + +"Well, I was just walking along, and the man came up to me--it +was right down in front of Colgate's, where most of the paint's +rubbed off the fence----" + +"Penrod!" The father used his most dangerous tone. + +"Sir?" + +"Who was the man that gave you the concertina?" + +"I don't know. I was walking along----" + +"You never saw him before?" + +"No, sir. I was just walk----" + +"That will do," said Mr. Schofield, rising. "I suppose every +family has its secret enemies and this was one of ours. I must +ask to be excused!" + +With that, he went out crossly, stopping in the hall a moment +before passing beyond hearing. And, after lunch, Penrod sought +in vain for his accordion; he even searched the library where his +father sat reading, though, upon inquiry, Penrod explained that +he was looking for a misplaced schoolbook. He thought he ought +to study a little every day, he said, even during vacation-time. +Much pleased, Mr. Schofield rose and joined the search, +finding the missing work on mathematics with singular ease--which +cost him precisely the price of the book the following September. + +Penrod departed to study in the backyard. There, after a +cautious survey of the neighbourhood, he managed to dislodge the +iron cover of the cistern, and dropped the arithmetic within. A +fine splash rewarded his listening ear. Thus assured that when +he looked for that book again no one would find it for him, he +replaced the cover, and betook himself pensively to the highway, +discouraging Duke from following by repeated volleys of stones, +some imaginary and others all too real. + +Distant strains of brazen horns and the throbbing of drums +were borne to him upon the kind breeze, reminding him that the +world was made for joy, and that the Barzee and Potter Dog and +Pony Show was exhibiting in a banlieue not far away. So, thither +he bent his steps--the plentiful funds in his pocket burning hot +holes all the way. He had paid twenty-two cents for the +accordion, and fifteen for candy; he had bought the mercenary +heart of Mitchy-Mitch for two: it certainly follows that there +remained to him of his dollar, sixty-one cents--a fair fortune, +and most unusual. + +Arrived upon the populous and festive scene of the Dog and +Pony Show, he first turned his attention to the brightly +decorated booths which surrounded the tent. The cries of +the peanut vendors, of the popcorn men, of the toy-balloon +sellers, the stirring music of the band, playing before the +performance to attract a crowd, the shouting of excited children +and the barking of the dogs within the tent, all sounded +exhilaratingly in Penrod's ears and set his blood a-tingle. +Nevertheless, he did not squander his money or fling it to the +winds in one grand splurge. Instead, he began cautiously with +the purchase of an extraordinarily large pickle, which he +obtained from an aged negress for his odd cent, too obvious a +bargain to be missed. At an adjacent stand he bought a glass of +raspberry lemonade (so alleged) and sipped it as he ate the +pickle. He left nothing of either. + +Next, he entered a small restaurant-tent and for a modest +nickel was supplied with a fork and a box of sardines, previously +opened, it is true, but more than half full. He consumed the +sardines utterly, but left the tin box and the fork, after which +he indulged in an inexpensive half-pint of lukewarm cider, at one +of the open booths. Mug in hand, a gentle glow radiating toward +his surface from various centres of activity deep inside him, he +paused for breath--and the cool, sweet cadences of the watermelon +man fell delectably upon his ear: + +"Ice-cole WATER-melon; ice-cole water-MELON; the +biggest slice of ICE-cole, ripe, red, ICE-cole, rich an' +rare; the biggest slice of ice-cole watermelon ever cut by +the hand of man! BUY our ICE-cole water-melon?" + +Penrod, having drained the last drop of cider, complied with +the watermelon man's luscious entreaty, and received a round +slice of the fruit, magnificent in circumference and something +over an inch in thickness. Leaving only the really dangerous +part of the rind behind him, he wandered away from the vicinity +of the watermelon man and supplied himself with a bag of peanuts, +which, with the expenditure of a dime for admission, left a +quarter still warm in his pocket. However, he managed to "break" +the coin at a stand inside the tent, where a large, oblong paper +box of popcorn was handed him, with twenty cents change. The box +was too large to go into his pocket, but, having seated himself +among some wistful Polack children, he placed it in his lap and +devoured the contents at leisure during the performance. The +popcorn was heavily larded with partially boiled molasses, and +Penrod sandwiched mouthfuls of peanuts with gobs of this mass +until the peanuts were all gone. After that, he ate with less +avidity; a sense almost of satiety beginning to manifest itself +to him, and it was not until the close of the performance that he +disposed of the last morsel. + +He descended a little heavily to the outflowing crowd in the +arena, and bought a caterwauling toy balloon, but showed no great +enthusiasm in manipulating it. Near the exit, as he came +out, was a hot-waffle stand which he had overlooked, and a sense +of duty obliged him to consume the three waffles, thickly +powdered with sugar, which the waffle man cooked for him upon +command. + +They left a hottish taste in his mouth; they had not been +quite up to his anticipation, indeed, and it was with a sense of +relief that he turned to the "hokey-pokey" cart which stood close +at hand, laden with square slabs of "Neapolitan ice-cream" +wrapped in paper. He thought the ice-cream would be cooling, but +somehow it fell short of the desired effect, and left a peculiar +savour in his throat. + +He walked away, too languid to blow his balloon, and passed a +fresh-taffy booth with strange indifference. A bare-armed man +was manipulating the taffy over a hook, pulling a great white +mass to the desired stage of "candying," but Penrod did not pause +to watch the operation; in fact, he averted his eyes (which were +slightly glazed) in passing. He did not analyze his motives: +simply, he was conscious that he preferred not to look at the +mass of taffy. + +For some reason, he put a considerable distance between +himself and the taffy-stand, but before long halted in the +presence of a red-faced man who flourished a long fork over a +small cooking apparatus and shouted jovially: "Winnies! +HERE'S your hot winnies! Hot winny-WURST! Food for the +over-worked brain, nourishing for the weak stummick, +entertaining for the tired business man! HERE'S your hot +winnies, three for a nickel, a half-a-dime, the twentieth-pot-of- +a-dollah!" + +This, above all nectar and ambrosia, was the favourite dish +of Penrod Schofield. Nothing inside him now craved it--on the +contrary! But memory is the great hypnotist; his mind argued +against his inwards that opportunity knocked at his door: "winny- +wurst" was rigidly forbidden by the home authorities. Besides, +there was a last nickel in his pocket; and nature protested +against its survival. Also, the redfaced man had himself +proclaimed his wares nourishing for the weak stummick. + +Penrod placed the nickel in the red hand of the red-faced +man. + +He ate two of the three greasy, cigarlike shapes cordially +pressed upon him in return. The first bite convinced him that he +had made a mistake; these winnies seemed of a very inferior +flavour, almost unpleasant, in fact. But he felt obliged to +conceal his poor opinion of them, for fear of offending the red- +faced man. He ate without haste or eagerness--so slowly, indeed, +that he began to think the redfaced man might dislike him, as a +deterrent of trade. Perhaps Penrod's mind was not working well, +for he failed to remember that no law compelled him to remain +under the eye of the red-faced man, but the virulent repulsion +excited by his attempt to take a bite of the third sausage +inspired him with at least an excuse for postponement. + +"Mighty good," he murmured feebly, placing the sausage in the +pocket of his jacket with a shaking hand. "Guess I'll save this +one to eat at home, after--after dinner." + +He moved sluggishly away, wishing he had not thought of +dinner. A side-show, undiscovered until now, failed to arouse +his interest, not even exciting a wish that he had known of its +existence when he had money. For a time he stared without +attraction; the weather-worn colours conveying no meaning to +comprehension at a huge canvas poster depicting the chief his +torpid eye. Then, little by little, the poster became more vivid +to his consciousness. There was a greenish-tinted person in the +tent, it seemed, who thrived upon a reptilian diet. + +Suddenly, Penrod decided that it was time to go home. + + + +CHAPTER XX +BROTHERS OF ANGELS + +"Indeed, doctor," said Mrs. Schofield, with agitation and +profound conviction, just after eight o'clock that evening, "I +shall ALWAYS believe in mustard plasters--mustard plasters and +hot--water bags. If it hadn't been for them I don't believed +he'd have LIVED till you got here--I do NOT!" + +"Margaret," called Mr. Schofield from the open door of a +bedroom, "Margaret, where did you put that aromatic ammonia? +Where's Margaret?" + +But he had to find the aromatic spirits of ammonia himself, +for Margaret was not in the house. She stood in the shadow +beneath a maple tree near the street corner, a guitar- +case in her hand; and she scanned with anxiety a briskly +approaching figure. The arc light, swinging above, revealed this +figure as that of him she awaited. He was passing toward the +gate without seeing her, when she arrested him with a fateful +whisper. + +"BOB!" + +Mr. Robert Williams swung about hastily. "Why, Margaret!" + +"Here, take your guitar," she whispered hurriedly. "I was +afraid if father happened to find it he'd break it all to +pieces!" + +"What for?" asked the startled Robert. + +"Because I'm sure he knows it's yours." "But what----" + +"Oh, Bob," she moaned, "I was waiting here to tell you. I +was so afraid you'd try to come in----" + +"TRY!" exclaimed the unfortunate young man, quite +dumfounded. "TRY to come----" + +"Yes, before I warned you. I've been waiting here to tell +you, Bob, you mustn't come near the house if I were you I'd stay +away from even this neighbourhood--far away! For a while I don't +think it would be actually SAFE for----" + +"Margaret, will you please----" + +"It's all on account of that dollar you gave Penrod this +morning," she walled. "First, he bought that horrible concertina +that made papa so furious "But Penrod didn't tell that +I----" + +"Oh, wait!" she cried lamentably. "Listen! He didn't tell +at lunch, but he got home about dinner-time in the most--well! +I've seen pale people before, but nothing like Penrod. Nobody +could IMAGINE it--not unless they'd seen him! And he looked, +so STRANGE, and kept making such unnatural faces, and at +first all he would say was that he'd eaten a little piece of +apple and thought it must have some microbes on it. But he got +sicker and sicker, and we put him to bed--and then we all thought +he was going to die--and, of COURSE, no little piece of apple +would have--well, and he kept getting worse and then he said he'd +had a dollar. He said he'd spent it for the concertina, and +watermelon, and chocolate-creams, and licorice sticks, and lemon- +drops, and peanuts, and jaw-breakers, and sardines, and raspberry +lemonade, and pickles, and popcorn, and ice-cream, and cider, and +sausage--there was sausage in his pocket, and mamma says his +jacket is ruined--and cinnamon drops--and waffles--and he ate +four or five lobster croquettes at lunch--and papa said, `Who +gave you that dollar?' Only he didn't say `WHO'--he said +something horrible, Bob! And Penrod thought he was going to die, +and he said you gave it to him, and oh! it was just pitiful to +hear the poor child, Bob, because he thought he was dying, you +see, and he blamed you for the whole thing. He said if you'd +only let him alone and not given it to him, he'd have grown +up to be a good man--and now he couldn't! I never heard anything +so heart-rending--he was so weak he could hardly whisper, but he +kept trying to talk, telling us over and over it was all your +fault." + +In the darkness Mr. Williams' facial expression could not be +seen, but his voice sounded hopeful. + +"Is he--is he still in a great deal of pain?" + +"They say the crisis is past," said Margaret, "but the +doctor's still up there. He said it was the acutest case of +indigestion he had ever treated in the whole course of his +professional practice." + +"Of course _I_ didn't know what he'd do with the dollar," +said Robert. + +She did not reply. + +He began plaintively, "Margaret, you don't----" + +"I've never seen papa and mamma so upset about anything," she +said, rather primly. + +"You mean they're upset about ME?" + +"We ARE all very much upset," returned Margaret, more +starch in her tone as she remembered not only Penrod's sufferings +but a duty she had vowed herself to perform. + +"Margaret! YOU don't----" + +"Robert," she said firmly and, also, with a rhetorical +complexity which breeds a suspicion of pre-rehearsal--"Robert, +for the present I can only look at it in one way: when you gave +that money to Penrod you put into the hands of an unthinking +little child a weapon which might be, and, indeed was, the means +of his undoing. Boys are not respon----" + +"But you saw me give him the dollar, and you didn't----" + +"Robert!" she checked him with increasing severity. "I am +only a woman and not accustomed to thinking everything out on the +spur of the moment; but I cannot change my mind. Not now, at +least." + +"And you think I'd better not come in to-night?" + +"To-night!" she gasped. "Not for WEEKS! Papa would----" + +"But Margaret," he urged plaintively, "how can you blame me +for----" + +"I have not used the word `blame,'" she interrupted. "But I +must insist that for your carelessness to--to wreak such havoc-- +cannot fail to--to lessen my confidence in your powers of +judgment. I cannot change my convictions in this matter--not to- +night--and I cannot remain here another instant. The poor child +may need me. Robert, good-night." + +With chill dignity she withdrew, entered the house, and +returned to the sick-room, leaving the young man in outer +darkness to brood upon his crime--and upon Penrod. + + +That sincere invalid became convalescent upon the third day; +and a week elapsed, then, before he found an opportunity to +leave the house unaccompanied--save by Duke. But at last he set +forth and approached the Jones neighbourhood in high spirits, +pleasantly conscious of his pallor, hollow cheeks, and other +perquisites of illness provocative of interest. + +One thought troubled him a little because it gave him a sense +of inferiority to a rival. He believed, against his will, that +Maurice Levy could have successfully eaten chocolate-creams, +licorice sticks, lemon-drops, jaw-breakers, peanuts, waffles, +lobster croquettes, sardines, cinnamon-drops, watermelon, +pickles, popcorn, ice-cream and sausage with raspberry lemonade +and cider. Penrod had admitted to himself that Maurice could do +it and afterward attend to business, or pleasure, without the +slightest discomfort; and this was probably no more than a fair +estimate of one of the great constitutions of all time. As a +digester, Maurice Levy would have disappointed a Borgia. + +Fortunately, Maurice was still at Atlantic City--and now the +convalescent's heart leaped. In the distance he saw Marjorie +coming--in pink again, with a ravishing little parasol over her +head. And alone! No Mitchy-Mitch was to mar this meeting. + +Penrod increased the feebleness of his steps, now and then +leaning upon the fence as if for support. + +"How do you do, Marjorie?" he said, in his best sick-room +voice, as she came near. + +To his pained amazement, she proceeded on her way, her nose +at a celebrated elevation--an icy nose. + +She cut him dead. + +He threw his invalid's airs to the winds, and hastened after +her. + +"Marjorie," he pleaded, "what's the matter? Are you mad? +Honest, that day you said to come back next morning, and you'd be +on the corner, I was sick. Honest, I was AWFUL sick, +Marjorie! I had to have the doctor----" + +"DOCTOR!" She whirled upon him, her lovely eyes blazing. + +"I guess WE'VE had to have the doctor enough at OUR +house, thanks to you, Mister Penrod Schofield. Papa says you +haven't got NEAR sense enough to come in out of the rain, +after what you did to poor little Mitchy-Mitch----" + +"What?" + +"Yes, and he's sick in bed YET!" Marjorie went on, with +unabated fury. "And papa says if he ever catches you in this +part of town----" + +"WHAT'D I do to Mitchy-Mitch?" gasped Penrod. + +"You know well enough what you did to Mitchy-Mitch!" she +cried. "You gave him that great, big, nasty two-cent piece!" + +"Well, what of it?" + +"Mitchy-Mitch swallowed it!" + +"What!" + +"And papa says if he ever just lays eyes on you, once, in +this neighbourhood----" + +But Penrod had started for home. + +In his embittered heart there was increasing a critical +disapproval of the Creator's methods. When He made pretty girls, +thought Penrod, why couldn't He have left out their little +brothers! + + + +CHAPTER XXI +RUPE COLLINS + +For several days after this, Penrod thought of growing up to be a +monk, and engaged in good works so far as to carry some kittens +(that otherwise would have been drowned) and a pair of Margaret's +outworn dancing-slippers to a poor, ungrateful old man sojourning +in a shed up the alley. And although Mr. Robert Williams, after +a very short interval, began to leave his guitar on the front +porch again, exactly as if he thought nothing had happened, +Penrod, with his younger vision of a father's mood, remained +coldly distant from the Jones neighbourhood. With his own family +his manner was gentle, proud and sad, but not for long +enough to frighten them. The change came with mystifying +abruptness at the end of the week. + +It was Duke who brought it about. + +Duke could chase a much bigger dog out of the Schofields' +yard and far down the street. This might be thought to indicate +unusual valour on the part of Duke and cowardice on that of the +bigger dogs whom he undoubtedly put to rout. On the contrary, +all such flights were founded in mere superstition, for dogs are +even more superstitious than boys and coloured people; and the +most firmly established of all dog superstitions is that any +dog--be he the smallest and feeblest in the world--can whip any +trespasser whatsoever. + +A rat-terrier believes that on his home grounds he can whip +an elephant. It follows, of course, that a big dog, away from +his own home, will run from a little dog in the little dog's +neighbourhood. Otherwise, the big dog must face a charge of +inconsistency, and dogs are as consistent as they are +superstitious. A dog believes in war, but he is convinced that +there are times when it is moral to run; and the thoughtful +physiognomist, seeing a big dog fleeing out of a little dog's +yard, must observe that the expression of the big dog's face is +more conscientious than alarmed: it is the expression of a person +performing a duty to himself. + +Penrod understood these matters perfectly; he knew that +the gaunt brown hound Duke chased up the alley had fled only out +of deference to a custom, yet Penrod could not refrain from +bragging of Duke to the hound's owner, a fat-faced stranger of +twelve or thirteen, who had wandered into the neighbourhood. + +"You better keep that ole yellow dog o' yours back," said +Penrod ominously, as he climbed the fence. "You better catch him +and hold him till I get mine inside the yard again. Duke's +chewed up some pretty bad bulldogs around here." + +The fat-faced boy gave Penrod a fishy stare. "You'd oughta +learn him not to do that," he said. "It'll make him sick." + +"What will?" + +The stranger laughed raspingly and gazed up the alley, where +the hound, having come to a halt, now coolly sat down, and, with +an expression of roguish benevolence, patronizingly watched the +tempered fury of Duke, whose assaults and barkings were becoming +perfunctory. + +"What'll make Duke sick?" Penrod demanded. + +"Eatin' dead bulldogs people leave around here." + +This was not improvisation but formula, adapted from other +occasions to the present encounter; nevertheless, it was new to +Penrod, and he was so taken with it that resentment lost itself +in admiration. Hastily committing the gem to memory for use upon +a dog-owning friend, he inquired in a sociable tone: + +"What's your dog's name?" + +"Dan. You better call your ole pup, 'cause Dan eats LIVE +dogs." + +Dan's actions poorly supported his master's assertion, for, +upon Duke's ceasing to bark, Dan rose and showed the most +courteous interest in making the little, old dog's acquaintance. +Dan had a great deal of manner, and it became plain that Duke was +impressed favourably in spite of former prejudice, so that +presently the two trotted amicably back to their masters and sat +down with the harmonious but indifferent air of having known each +other intimately for years. + +They were received without comment, though both boys looked +at them reflectively for a time. It was Penrod who spoke first. + +"What number you go to?" (In an "oral lesson in English," +Penrod had been instructed to put this question in another form: +"May I ask which of our public schools you attend?") + +"Me? What number do I go to?" said the stranger, +contemptuously. "I don't go to NO number in vacation!" + +"I mean when it ain't." + +"Third," returned the fat-faced boy. "I got 'em ALL +scared in THAT school." + +"What of?" innocently asked Penrod, to whom "the Third"--in a +distant part of town--was undiscovered country. + +"What of? I guess you'd soon see what of, if you ever +was in that school about one day. You'd be lucky if you got out +alive!" + +"Are the teachers mean?" + +The other boy frowned with bitter scorn. "Teachers! +Teachers don't order ME around, I can tell you! They're +mighty careful how they try to run over Rupe Collins." + +"Who's Rupe Collins?" + +"Who is he?" echoed the fat-faced boy incredulously. "Say, +ain't you got ANY sense?" + +"What?" + +"Say, wouldn't you be just as happy if you had SOME +sense?" + +"Ye-es." Penrod's answer, like the look he lifted to the +impressive stranger, was meek and placative. "Rupe Collins is +the principal at your school, guess." + +The other yelled with jeering laughter, and mocked Penrod's +manner and voice. "`Rupe Collins is the principal at your +school, I guess!'" He laughed harshly again, then suddenly +showed truculence. "Say, 'bo, whyn't you learn enough to go in +the house when it rains? What's the matter of you, anyhow?" + +"Well," urged Penrod timidly, "nobody ever TOLD me who +Rupe Collins is: I got a RIGHT to think he's the principal, +haven't I?" + +The fat-faced boy shook his head disgustedly. "Honest, you +make me sick!" + +Penrod's expression became one of despair. Well, who IS +he?" he cried. + +"`Who IS he?'" mocked the other, with a scorn that +withered. "`Who IS he?' ME!" + +"Oh!" Penrod was humiliated but relieved: he felt that he had +proved himself criminally ignorant, yet a peril seemed to have +passed. "Rupe Collins is your name, then, I guess. I kind of +thought it was, all the time." + +The fat-faced boy still appeared embittered, burlesquing this +speech in a hateful falsetto. "`Rupe Collins is YOUR name, +then, I guess!' Oh, you `kind of thought it was, all the time,' +did you?" Suddenly concentrating his brow into a histrionic +scowl he thrust his face within an inch of Penrod's. "Yes, +sonny, Rupe Collins is my name, and you better look out what you +say when he's around or you'll get in big trouble! YOU +UNDERSTAND THAT, 'BO?" + +Penrod was cowed but fascinated: he felt that there was +something dangerous and dashing about this newcomer. + +"Yes," he said, feebly, drawing back. "My name's Penrod +Schofield." + +"Then I reckon your father and mother ain't got good sense," +said Mr. Collins promptly, this also being formula. + +"Why?" + +"'Cause if they had they'd of give you a good name!" And the +agreeable youth instantly rewarded himself for the wit with +another yell of rasping laughter, after which he pointed suddenly +at Penrod's right hand. + +"Where'd you get that wart on your finger?" he demanded +severely. + +"Which finger?" asked the mystified Penrod, extending his +hand. + +"The middle one." + +"Where?" + +"There!" exclaimed Rupe Collins, seizing and vigorously +twisting the wartless finger naively offered for his inspection. + +"Quit!" shouted Penrod in agony. "QUEE-yut!" + +"Say your prayers!" commanded Rupe, and continued to twist +the luckless finger until Penrod writhed to his knees. + +"OW!" The victim, released, looked grievously upon the +still painful finger. + +At this Rupe's scornful expression altered to one of +contrition. "Well, I declare!" he exclaimed remorsefully. "I +didn't s'pose it would hurt. Turn about's fair play; so now you +do that to me." + +He extended the middle finger of his left hand and Penrod +promptly seized it, but did not twist it, for he was instantly +swung round with his back to his amiable new acquaintance: Rupe's +right hand operated upon the back of Penrod's slender neck; +Rupe's knee tortured the small of Penrod's back. + +"OW!" Penrod bent far forward involuntarily and went to +his knees again. + +"Lick dirt," commanded Rupe, forcing the captive's face to +the sidewalk; and the suffering Penrod completed this ceremony. + +Mr. Collins evinced satisfaction by means of his horse laugh. + +"You'd last jest about one day up at the Third!" he said. "You'd +come runnin' home, yellin' `MOM-MUH, MOM-muh,' before recess +was over!" + +"No, I wouldn't," Penrod protested rather weakly, dusting his +knees. + +"You would, too!" + +"No, I w---- + +"Looky here," said the fat-faced boy, darkly, "what you mean, +counterdicking me?" + +He advanced a step and Penrod hastily qualified his +contradiction. + +"I mean, I don't THINK I would. I----" + +"You better look out!" Rupe moved closer, and unexpectedly +grasped the back of Penrod's neck again. "Say, `I WOULD run +home yellin' "MOM-muh!" + +"Ow! I WOULD run home yellin' `Mom-muh.'" + +"There!" said Rupe, giving the helpless nape a final squeeze. +"That's the way we do up at the Third." + +Penrod rubbed his neck and asked meekly: + +"Can you do that to any boy up at the Third?" + +"See here now," said Rupe, in the tone of one goaded beyond +all endurance, "YOU say if I can! You better say it quick, +or----" + +"I knew you could," Penrod interposed hastily, with the +pathetic semblance of a laugh. "I only said that in fun." + +"In `fun'!" repeated Rupe stormily. "You better look out how +you----" + +"Well, I SAID I wasn't in earnest!" Penrod retreated a +few steps. "_I_ knew you could, all the time. I expect _I_ +could do it to some of the boys up at the Third, myself. +Couldn't I?" + +"No, you couldn't." + +"Well, there must be SOME boy up there that I could----" + +"No, they ain't! You better----" + +"I expect not, then," said Penrod, quickly. + +"You BETTER `expect not.' Didn't I tell you once you'd +never get back alive if you ever tried to come up around the +Third? You want me to SHOW you how we do up there, 'bo?" + +He began a slow and deadly advance, whereupon Penrod timidly +offered a diversion: + +"Say, Rupe, I got a box of rats in our stable under a glass +cover, so you can watch 'em jump around when you hammer on the +box. Come on and look at 'em." + +"All right," said the fat-faced boy, slightly mollified. +"We'll let Dan kill 'em." + +"No, SIR! I'm goin' to keep 'em. They're kind of pets; +I've had 'em all summer--I got names for em, and----" + +"Looky here, 'bo. Did you hear me say we'll let `Dan kill +'em?" + +"Yes, but I won't----" + +"WHAT won't you?" Rupe became sinister immediately. "It +seems to me you're gettin' pretty fresh around here." + +"Well, I don't want----" + +Mr. Collins once more brought into play the dreadful eye-to- +eye scowl as practised "up at the Third," and, sometimes, also by +young leading men upon the stage. Frowning appallingly, and +thrusting forward his underlip, he placed his nose almost in +contact with the nose of Penrod, whose eyes naturally became +crossed. + +"Dan kills the rats. See?" hissed the fat-faced boy, +maintaining the horrible juxtaposition. + +"Well, all right," said Penrod, swallowing. "I don't want +'em much." And when the pose had been relaxed, he stared at his +new friend for a moment, almost with reverence. Then he +brightened. + +"Come on, Rupe!" he cried enthusiastically, as he climbed the +fence. "We'll give our dogs a little live meat--'bo!" + + + +CHAPTER XXII +THE IMITATOR + +At the dinner-table, that evening, Penrod Surprised his family by +remarking, in a voice they had never heard him attempt--a law- +giving voice of intentional gruffness: + +"Any man that's makin' a hunderd dollars a month is makin' +good money." + +"What?" asked Mr. Schofield, staring, for the previous +conversation had concerned the illness of an infant relative in +Council Bluffs. + +"Any man that's makin' a hunderd dollars a month is makin' +good money." + +"What IS he talking about!" Margaret appealed to the +invisible. + +"Well," said Penrod, frowning, "that's what foremen at the +ladder works get." + +"How in the world do you know?" asked his mother. + +"Well, I KNOW it! A hunderd dollars a month is good +money, I tell you!" + +"Well, what of it?" said the father, impatiently. + +"Nothin'. I only said it was good money." + +Mr. Schofield shook his head, dismissing the subject; and +here he made a mistake: he should have followed up his son's +singular contribution to the conversation. That would have +revealed the fact that there was a certain Rupe Collins whose +father was a foreman at the ladder works. All clues are +important when a boy makes his first remark in a new key. + +"`Good money'?" repeated Margaret, curiously. "What is +`good' money?" + +Penrod turned upon her a stern glance. "Say, wouldn't you be +just as happy if you had SOME sense?" + +"Penrod!" shouted his father. But Penrod's mother gazed with +dismay at her son: he had never before spoken like that to his +sister. + +Mrs. Schofield might have been more dismayed than she was, if +she had realized that it was the beginning of an epoch. After +dinner, Penrod was slightly scalded in the back as the result of +telling Della, the cook, that there was a wart on the middle +finger of her right hand. Della thus proving poor material for +his new manner to work upon, he approached Duke, in the backyard, +and, bending double, seized the lowly animal by the forepaws. + +"I let you know my name's Penrod Schofield," hissed the boy. +He protruded his underlip ferociously, scowled, and thrust +forward his head until his nose touched the dog's. "And you +better look out when Penrod Schofield's around, or you'll get in +big trouble! YOU UNDERSTAN' THAT, 'BO?" + +The next day, and the next, the increasing change in Penrod +puzzled and distressed his family, who had no idea of its source. + +How might they guess that hero-worship takes such forms? They +were vaguely conscious that a rather shabby boy, not of the +neighbourhood, came to "play" with Penrod several times; but they +failed to connect this circumstance with the peculiar behaviour +of the son of the house, whose ideals (his father remarked) +seemed to have suddenly become identical with those of Gyp the +Blood. + +Meanwhile, for Penrod himself, "life had taken on new +meaning, new richness." He had become a fighting man--in +conversation at least. "Do you want to know how I do when they +try to slip up on me from behind?" he asked Della. And he +enacted for her unappreciative eye a scene of fistic manoeuvres +wherein he held an imaginary antagonist helpless in a net of +stratagems. + +Frequently, when he was alone, he would outwit, and pummel +this same enemy, and, after a cunning feint, land a dolorous +stroke full upon a face of air. "There! I guess you'll know +better next time. That's the way we do up at the Third!" + +Sometimes, in solitary pantomime, he encountered more than +one opponent at a time, for numbers were apt to come upon him +treacherously, especially at a little after his rising hour, when +he might be caught at a disadvantage--perhaps standing on one leg +to encase the other in his knickerbockers. Like lightning, he +would hurl the trapping garment from him, and, ducking and +pivoting, deal great sweeping blows among the circle of sneaking +devils. (That was how he broke the clock in his bedroom.) And +while these battles were occupying his attention, it was a waste +of voice to call him to breakfast, though if his mother, losing +patience, came to his room, she would find him seated on the bed +pulling at a stocking. "Well, ain't I coming fast as I CAN?" + +At the table and about the house generally he was bumptious, +loud with fatuous misinformation, and assumed a domineering tone, +which neither satire nor reproof seemed able to reduce: but it +was among his own intimates that his new superiority was most +outrageous. He twisted the fingers and squeezed the necks of all +the boys of the neighbourhood, meeting their indignation with a +hoarse and rasping laugh he had acquired after short practice in +the stable, where he jeered and taunted the lawn-mower, the +garden-scythe and the wheelbarrow quite out of countenance. + +Likewise he bragged to the other boys by the hour, Rupe +Collins being the chief subject of encomium--next to Penrod +himself. "That's the way we do up at the Third," became staple +explanation of violence, for Penrod, like Tartarin, was plastic +in the hands of his own imagination, and at times convinced +himself that he really was one of those dark and murderous +spirits exclusively of whom "the Third" was composed--according +to Rupe Collins. + +Then, when Penrod had exhausted himself repeating to nausea +accounts of the prowess of himself and his great friend, he would +turn to two other subjects for vainglory. These were his father +and Duke. + +Mothers must accept the fact that between babyhood and +manhood their sons do not boast of them. The boy, with boys, is +a Choctaw; and either the influence or the protection of women is +shameful. "Your mother won't let you," is an insult. But, "My +father won't let me," is a dignified explanation and cannot be +hooted. A boy is ruined among his fellows if he talks much of +his mother or sisters; and he must recognize it as his duty to +offer at least the appearance of persecution to all things ranked +as female, such as cats and every species of fowl. But he must +champion his father and his dog, and, ever, ready to pit +either against any challenger, must picture both as ravening for +battle and absolutely unconquerable. + +Penrod, of course, had always talked by the code, but, under +the new stimulus, Duke was represented virtually as a cross +between Bob, Son of Battle, and a South American vampire; and +this in spite of the fact that Duke himself often sat close by, a +living lie, with the hope of peace in his heart. As for Penrod's +father, that gladiator was painted as of sentiments and +dimensions suitable to a super-demon composed of equal parts of +Goliath, Jack Johnson and the Emperor Nero. + +Even Penrod's walk was affected; he adopted a gait which was +a kind of taunting swagger; and, when he passed other children on +the street, he practised the habit of feinting a blow; then, as +the victim dodged, he rasped the triumphant horse laugh which he +gradually mastered to horrible perfection. He did this to +Marjorie Jones--ay! this was their next meeting, and such is +Eros, young! What was even worse, in Marjorie's opinion, he went +on his way without explanation, and left her standing on the +corner talking about it, long after he was out of hearing. + +Within five days from his first encounter with Rupe Collins, +Penrod had become unbearable. He even almost alienated Sam +Williams, who for a time submitted to finger twisting and neck +squeezing and the new style of conversation, but finally +declared that Penrod made him "sick." He made the statement with +fervour, one sultry afternoon, in Mr. Schofield's stable, in the +presence of Herman and Verman. + +"You better look out, 'bo," said Penrod, threateningly. +"I'll show you a little how we do up at the Third." + +"Up at the Third!" Sam repeated with scorn. "You haven't +ever been up there." + +"I haven't?" cried Penrod. "I HAVEN'T?" + +"No, you haven't!" + +"Looky here!" Penrod, darkly argumentative, prepared to +perform the eye-to-eye business. "When haven't I been up there?" + +"You haven't NEVER been up there!" In spite of Penrod's +closely approaching nose Sam maintained his ground, and appealed +for confirmation. "Has he, Herman?" + +"I don' reckon so," said Herman, laughing. + +"WHAT!" Penrod transferred his nose to the immediate +vicinity of Herman's nose. "You don't reckon so, 'bo, don't you? +You better look out how you reckon around here! YOU +UNDERSTAN' THAT, 'BO?" + +Herman bore the eye-to-eye very well; indeed, it seemed to +please him, for he continued to laugh while Verman chuckled +delightedly. The brothers had been in the country picking +berries for a week, and it happened that this was their +first experience of the new manifestation of Penrod. + +"HAVEN'T I been up at the Third?" the sinister Penrod +demanded. + +"I don' reckon so. How come you ast ME?" + +"Didn't you just hear me SAY I been up there?" + +"Well," said Herman mischievously, "hearin' ain't believin'!" + +Penrod clutched him by the back of the neck, but Herman, +laughing loudly, ducked and released himself at once, retreating +to the wall. + +"You take that back!" Penrod shouted, striking out wildly. + +"Don' git mad," begged the small darky, while a number of +blows falling upon his warding arms failed to abate his +amusement, and a sound one upon the cheek only made him laugh the +more unrestrainedly. He behaved exactly as if Penrod were +tickling him, and his brother, Verman, rolled with joy in a +wheelbarrow. Penrod pummelled till he was tired, and produced no +greater effect. + +"There!" he panted, desisting finally. "NOW I reckon you +know whether I been up there or not!" + +Herman rubbed his smitten cheek. "Pow!" he exclaimed. "Pow- +ee! You cert'ny did lan' me good one NAT time! Oo-ee! she +HURT!" + +"You'll get hurt worse'n that," Penrod assured him, "if you +stay around here much. Rupe Collins is comin' this afternoon, he +said. We're goin' to make some policemen's billies out of +the rake handle." + +"You go' spoil new rake you' pa bought?" + +"What do WE care? I and Rupe got to have billies, +haven't we?" + +"How you make 'em?" + +"Melt lead and pour in a hole we're goin' to make in the end +of 'em. Then we're goin' to carry 'em in our pockets, and if +anybody says anything to us--OH, oh! look out! They won't +get a crack on the head--OH, no!" + +"When's Rupe Collins coming?" Sam Williams inquired rather +uneasily. He had heard a great deal too much of this personage, +but as yet the pleasure of actual acquaintance had been denied +him. + +"He's liable to be here any time," answered Penrod. "You +better look out. You'll be lucky if you get home alive, if you +stay till HE comes." + +"I ain't afraid of him," Sam returned, conventionally. + +"You are, too!" (There was some truth in the retort.) +"There ain't any boy in this part of town but me that wouldn't be +afraid of him. You'd be afraid to talk to him. You wouldn't get +a word out of your mouth before old Rupie'd have you where you'd +wished you never come around HIM, lettin' on like you was so +much! YOU wouldn't run home yellin' `Mom-muh' or nothin'! +OH, no!" + +"Who Rupe Collins?" asked Herman. + +"`Who Rupe Collins?'" Penrod mocked, and used his rasping +laugh, but, instead of showing fright, Herman appeared to think +he was meant to laugh, too; and so he did, echoed by Verman. +"You just hang around here a little while longer," Penrod added, +grimly, "and you'll find out who Rupe Collins is, and I pity +YOU when you do!" + +"What he go' do?" + +"You'll see; that's all! You just wait and----" + +At this moment a brown hound ran into the stable through the +alley door, wagged a greeting to Penrod, and fraternized with +Duke. The fat-faced boy appeared upon the threshold and gazed +coldly about the little company in the carriage-house, whereupon +the coloured brethren, ceasing from merriment, were instantly +impassive, and Sam Williams moved a little nearer the door +leading into the yard. + +Obviously, Sam regarded the newcomer as a redoubtable if not +ominous figure. He was a head taller than either Sam or Penrod; +head and shoulders taller than Herman, who was short for his age; +and Verman could hardly be used for purposes of comparison at +all, being a mere squat brown spot, not yet quite nine years on +this planet. And to Sam's mind, the aspect of Mr. Collins +realized Penrod's portentous foreshadowings. Upon the fat face +there was an expression of truculent intolerance which had been +cultivated by careful habit to such perfection that Sam's heart +sank at sight of it. A somewhat enfeebled twin to this +expression had of late often decorated the visage of Penrod, and +appeared upon that ingenuous surface now, as he advanced to +welcome the eminent visitor. + +The host swaggered toward the door with a great deal of +shoulder movement, carelessly feinting a slap at Verman in +passing, and creating by various means the atmosphere of a man +who has contemptuously amused himself with underlings while +awaiting an equal. + +"Hello, 'bo!" Penrod said in the deepest voice possible to +him. + +"Who you callin' 'bo?" was the ungracious response, +accompanied by immediate action of a similar nature. Rupe held +Penrod's head in the crook of an elbow and massaged his temples +with a hard-pressing knuckle. + +"I was only in fun, Rupie," pleaded the sufferer, and then, +being set free, "Come here, Sam," he said. + +"What for?" + +Penrod laughed pityingly. "Pshaw, I ain't goin' to hurt you. +Come on." Sam, maintaining his position near the other door, +Penrod went to him and caught him round the neck. + +"Watch me, Rupie!" Penrod called, and performed upon Sam the +knuckle operation which he had himself just undergone, Sam +submitting mechanically, his eyes fixed with increasing +uneasiness upon Rupe Collins. Sam had a premonition that +something even more painful than Penrod's knuckle was going +to be inflicted upon him. + +"THAT don' hurt," said Penrod, pushing him away. + +"Yes, it does, too!" Sam rubbed his temple. + +"Puh! It didn't hurt me, did it, Rupie? Come on in, Rupe: +show this baby where he's got a wart on his finger." + +"You showed me that trick," Sam objected. "You already did +that to me. You tried it twice this afternoon and I don't know +how many times before, only you weren't strong enough after the +first time. Anyway, I know what it is, and I don't----" + +"Come on, Rupe," said Penrod. "Make the baby lick dirt." + +At this bidding, Rupe approached, while Sam, still +protesting, moved to the threshold of the outer door; but Penrod +seized him by the shoulders and swung him indoors with a shout. + +"Little baby wants to run home to its Mom-muh! Here he is, +Rupie." + +Thereupon was Penrod's treachery to an old comrade properly +rewarded, for as the two struggled, Rupe caught each by the back +of the neck, simultaneously, and, with creditable impartiality, +forced both boys to their knees. + +"Lick dirt!" he commanded, forcing them still forward, until +their faces were close to the stable floor. + +At this moment he received a real surprise. With a loud +whack something struck the back of his head, and, turning, he +beheld Verman in the act of lifting a piece of lath to strike +again. + +"Em moys ome!" said Verman, the Giant Killer. + +"He tongue-tie'," Herman explained. "He say, let 'em boys +alone." + +Rupe addressed his host briefly: + +"Chase them nigs out o' here!" + +"Don' call me nig," said Herman. "I mine my own biznuss. +You let 'em boys alone." + +Rupe strode across the still prostrate Sam, stepped upon +Penrod, and, equipping his countenance with the terrifying scowl +and protruded jaw, lowered his head to the level of Herman's. + +"Nig, you'll be lucky if you leave here alive!" And he +leaned forward till his nose was within less than an inch of +Herman's nose. + +It could be felt that something awful was about to happen, +and Penrod, as he rose from the floor, suffered an unexpected +twinge of apprehension and remorse: he hoped that Rupe wouldn't +REALLY hurt Herman. A sudden dislike of Rupe and Rupe's ways +rose within him, as he looked at the big boy overwhelming the +little darky with that ferocious scowl. Penrod, all at once, +felt sorry about something indefinable; and, with equal +vagueness, he felt foolish. "Come on, Rupe," he suggested, +feebly, "let Herman go, and let's us make our billies out of the +rake handle." + +The rake handle, however, was not available, if Rupe had +inclined to favour the suggestion. Verman had discarded his lath +for the rake, which he was at this moment lifting in the air. + +"You ole black nigger," the fat-faced boy said venomously to +Herman, "I'm agoin' to----" + +But he had allowed his nose to remain too long near Herman's. + +Penrod's familiar nose had been as close with only a ticklish +spinal effect upon the not very remote descendant of Congo man- +eaters. The result produced by the glare of Rupe's unfamiliar +eyes, and by the dreadfully suggestive proximity of Rupe's +unfamiliar nose, was altogether different. Herman's and Verman's +Bangala great-grandfathers never considered people of their own +jungle neighbourhood proper material for a meal, but they looked +upon strangers especially truculent strangers--as distinctly +edible. + +Penrod and Sam heard Rupe suddenly squawk and bellow; saw him +writhe and twist and fling out his arms like flails, though +without removing his face from its juxtaposition; indeed, for a +moment, the two heads seemed even closer. + +Then they separated--and battle was on! + + + +CHAPTER XXIII +COLOURED TROOPS IN ACTION + +How neat and pure is the task of the chronicler who has the tale +to tell of a "good rousing fight" between boys or men who fight +in the "good old English way," according to a model set for +fights in books long before Tom Brown went to Rugby. There are +seconds and rounds and rules of fair-play, and always there is +great good feeling in the end--though sometimes, to vary the +model, "the Butcher" defeats the hero--and the chronicler who +stencils this fine old pattern on his page is certain of applause +as the stirrer of "red blood." There is no surer recipe. + +But when Herman and Verman set to 't the record must be no +more than a few fragments left by the expurgator. It has been +perhaps sufficiently suggested that the altercation in Mr. +Schofield's stable opened with mayhem in respect to the +aggressor's nose. Expressing vocally his indignation and the +extremity of his pained surprise, Mr. Collins stepped backward, +holding his left hand over his nose, and striking at Herman with +his right. Then Verman hit him with the rake. + +Verman struck from behind. He struck as hard as he could. +And he struck with the tines down--For, in his simple, direct +African way he wished to kill his enemy, and he wished to kill +him as soon as possible. That was his single, earnest purpose. + +On this account, Rupe Collins was peculiarly unfortunate. He +was plucky and he enjoyed conflict, but neither his ambitions nor +his anticipations had ever included murder. He had not learned +that an habitually aggressive person runs the danger of colliding +with beings in one of those lower stages of evolution wherein +theories about "hitting below the belt" have not yet made their +appearance. + +The rake glanced from the back of Rupe's head to his +shoulder, but it felled him. Both darkies jumped full upon him +instantly, and the three rolled and twisted upon the stable- +floor, unloosing upon the air sincere maledictions closely +connected with complaints of cruel and unusual treatment; while +certain expressions of feeling presently emanating from +Herman and Verman indicated that Rupe Collins, in this extremity, +was proving himself not too slavishly addicted to fighting by +rule. Dan and Duke, mistaking all for mirth, barked gayly. + +From the panting, pounding, yelling heap issued words and +phrases hitherto quite unknown to Penrod and Sam; also, a hoarse +repetition in the voice of Rupe concerning his ear left it not to +be doubted that additional mayhem was taking place. Appalled, +the two spectators retreated to the doorway nearest the yard, +where they stood dumbly watching the cataclysm. + +The struggle increased in primitive simplicity: time and +again the howling Rupe got to his knees only to go down again as +the earnest brothers, in their own way, assisted him to a more +reclining position. Primal forces operated here, and the two +blanched, slightly higher products of evolution, Sam and Penrod, +no more thought of interfering than they would have thought of +interfering with an earthquake. + +At last, out of the ruck rose Verman, disfigured and +maniacal. With a wild eye he looked about him for his trusty +rake; but Penrod, in horror, had long since thrown the rake out +into the yard. Naturally, it had not seemed necessary to remove +the lawn-mower. + +The frantic eye of Verman fell upon the lawn-mower, and +instantly he leaped to its handle. Shrilling a wordless war-cry, +he charged, propelling the whirling, deafening knives straight +upon the prone legs of Rupe Collins. The lawn-mower was +sincerely intended to pass longitudinally over the body of Mr. +Collins from heel to head; and it was the time for a death-song. +Black Valkyrie hovered in the shrieking air. + +"Cut his gizzud out!" shrieked Herman, urging on the whirling +knives. + +They touched and lacerated the shin of Rupe, as, with the +supreme agony of effort a creature in mortal peril puts forth +before succumbing, he tore himself free of Herman and got upon +his feet. + +Herman was up as quickly. He leaped to the wall and seized +the garden-scythe that hung there. + +"I'm go to cut you' gizzud out," he announced definitely, +"an' eat it!" + +Rupe Collins had never run from anybody (except his father) +in his life; he was not a coward; but the present situation was +very, very unusual. He was already in a badly dismantled +condition, and yet Herman and Verman seemed discontented with +their work: Verman was swinging the grass-cutter about for a new +charge, apparently still wishing to mow him, and Herman had made +a quite plausible statement about what he intended to do with the +scythe. + +Rupe paused but for an extremely condensed survey of the +horrible advance of the brothers, and then, uttering a +blood-curdled scream of fear, ran out of the stable and up the +alley at a speed he had never before attained, so that even Dan +had hard work to keep within barking distance. And a +'cross-shoulder glance, at the corner, revealing Verman and +Herman in pursuit, the latter waving his scythe overhead, Mr. +Collins slackened not his gait, but, rather, out of great +anguish, increased it; the while a rapidly developing purpose +became firm in his mind--and ever after so remained--not only to +refrain from visiting that neighbourhood again, but never by any +chance to come within a mile of it. + +From the alley door, Penrod and Sam watched the flight, and +were without words. When the pursuit rounded the corner, the two +looked wanly at each other, but neither spoke until the return of +the brothers from the chase. + +Herman and Verman came back, laughing and chuckling. + +"Hiyi!" cackled Herman to Verman, as they came, "See 'at ole +boy run!" + +"Who-ee!" Verman shouted in ecstasy. + +"Nev' did see boy run so fas'!" Herman continued, tossing the +scythe into the wheelbarrow. "I bet he home in bed by viss +time!" + +Verman roared with delight, appearing to be wholly +unconscious that the lids of his right eye were swollen shut and +that his attire, not too finical before the struggle, now +entitled him to unquestioned rank as a sansculotte. +Herman was a similar ruin, and gave as little heed to his +condition. + +Penrod looked dazedly from Herman to Verman and back again. +So did Sam Williams. + +"Herman," said Penrod, in a weak voice, "you wouldn't +HONEST of cut his gizzard out, would you?" + +"Who? Me? I don' know. He mighty mean ole boy!" Herman +shook his head gravely, and then, observing that Verman was again +convulsed with unctuous merriment, joined laughter with his +brother. "Sho'! I guess I uz dess TALKIN' whens I said 'at! +Reckon he thought I meant it, f'm de way he tuck an' run. Hiyi! +Reckon he thought ole Herman bad man! No, suh! I uz dess +talkin', 'cause I nev' would cut NObody! I ain' tryin' git +in no jail--NO, suh!" + +Penrod looked at the scythe: he looked at Herman. He looked +at the lawn-mower, and he looked at Verman. Then he looked out +in the yard at the rake. So did Sam Williams. + +"Come on, Verman," said Herman. "We ain' go' 'at stove-wood +f' supper yit." + +Giggling reminiscently, the brothers disappeared leaving +silence behind them in the carriage-house. Penrod and Sam +retired slowly into the shadowy interior, each glancing, now and +then, with a preoccupied air, at the open, empty doorway where +the late afternoon sunshine was growing ruddy. At intervals one +or the other scraped the floor reflectively with the side of +his shoe. Finally, still without either having made any effort +at conversation, they went out into the yard and stood, +continuing their silence. + +"Well," said Sam, at last, "I guess it's time I better be +gettin' home. So long, Penrod!" + +"So long, Sam," said Penrod, feebly. + +With a solemn gaze he watched his friend out of sight. Then +he went slowly into the house, and after an interval occupied in +a unique manner, appeared in the library, holding a pair of +brilliantly gleaming shoes in his hand. + +Mr. Schofield, reading the evening paper, glanced frowningly +over it at his offspring. + +"Look, papa," said Penrod. "I found your shoes where you'd +taken 'em off in your room, to put on your slippers, and they +were all dusty. So I took 'em out on the back porch and gave 'em +a good blacking. They shine up fine, don't they?" + +"Well, I'll be d-dud-dummed!" said the startled Mr. +Schofield. + +Penrod was zigzagging back to normal. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV +"LITTLE GENTLEMAN" + +The midsummer sun was stinging hot outside the little barber-shop +next to the corner drug store and Penrod, undergoing a toilette +preliminary to his very slowly approaching twelfth birthday, was +adhesive enough to retain upon his face much hair as it fell from +the shears. There is a mystery here: the tonsorial processes are +not unagreeable to manhood; in truth, they are soothing; but the +hairs detached from a boy's head get into his eyes, his ears, his +nose, his mouth, and down his neck, and he does everywhere itch +excruciatingly. Wherefore he blinks, winks, weeps, twitches, +condenses his countenance, and squirms; and perchance +the barber's scissors clip more than intended--belike an outlying +flange of ear. + +"Um--muh--OW!" said Penrod, this thing having happened. + +"D' I touch y' up a little?" inquired the barber, smiling +falsely. + +"Ooh--UH!" The boy in the chair offered inarticulate +protest, as the wound was rubbed with alum. + +"THAT don't hurt!" said the barber. "You WILL get +it, though, if you don't sit stiller," he continued, nipping in +the bud any attempt on the part of his patient to think that he +already had "it." + +"Pfuff!" said Penrod, meaning no disrespect, but endeavoring +to dislodge a temporary moustache from his lip. + +"You ought to see how still that little Georgie Bassett +sits," the barber went on, reprovingly. "I hear everybody says +he's the best boy in town." + +"Pfuff! PHIRR!" There was a touch of intentional +contempt in this. + +"I haven't heard nobody around the neighbourhood makin' no +such remarks," added the barber, "about nobody of the name of +Penrod Schofield." + +"Well," said Penrod, clearing his mouth after a struggle, +"who wants 'em to? Ouch!" + +"I hear they call Georgie Bassett the `little gentleman,'" +ventured the barber, provocatively, meeting with instant success. + +"They better not call ME that," returned Penrod +truculently. "I'd like to hear anybody try. Just once, that's +all! I bet they'd never try it ag---- OUCH!" + +"Why? What'd you do to 'em?" + +"It's all right what I'd DO! I bet they wouldn't want to +call me that again long as they lived!" + +"What'd you do if it was a little girl? You wouldn't hit +her, would you?" + +"Well, I'd---- Ouch!" + +"You wouldn't hit a little girl, would you?" the barber +persisted, gathering into his powerful fingers a mop of hair from +the top of Penrod's head and pulling that suffering head into an +unnatural position. "Doesn't the Bible say it ain't never right +to hit the weak sex?" + +"Ow! SAY, look OUT!" + +"So you'd go and punch a pore, weak, little girl, would you?" +said the barber, reprovingly. + +"Well, who said I'd hit her?" demanded the chivalrous Penrod. "I +bet I'd FIX her though, all right. She'd see!" + +"You wouldn't call her names, would you?" + +"No, I wouldn't! What hurt is it to call anybody names?" + +"Is that SO!" exclaimed the barber. "Then you was +intending what I heard you hollering at Fisher's grocery delivery +wagon driver fer a favour, the other day when I was goin' by your +house, was you? I reckon I better tell him, because he says +to me after-WERDS if he ever lays eyes on you when you ain't +in your own yard, he's goin' to do a whole lot o' things you +ain't goin' to like! Yessir, that's what he says to ME!" + +"He better catch me first, I guess, before he talks so much." + +"Well," resumed the barber, "that ain't sayin' what you'd do +if a young lady ever walked up and called you a little gentleman. +_I_ want to hear what you'd do to her. I guess I know, +though--come to think of it." + +"What?" demanded Penrod. + +"You'd sick that pore ole dog of yours on her cat, if she had +one, I expect," guessed the barber derisively. + +"No, I would not!" + +"Well, what WOULD you do?" + +"I'd do enough. Don't worry about that!" + +"Well, suppose it was a boy, then: what'd you do if a boy +come up to you and says, `Hello, little gentleman'?" + +"He'd be lucky," said Penrod, with a sinister frown, "if he +got home alive." + +"Suppose it was a boy twice your size?" + +"Just let him try," said Penrod ominously. "You just let him +try. He'd never see daylight again; that's all!" + +The barber dug ten active fingers into the helpless +scalp before him and did his best to displace it, while the +anguished Penrod, becoming instantly a seething crucible of +emotion, misdirected his natural resentment into maddened +brooding upon what he would do to a boy "twice his size" who +should dare to call him "little gentleman." The barber shook him +as his father had never shaken him; the barber buffeted him, +rocked him frantically to and fro; the barber seemed to be trying +to wring his neck; and Penrod saw himself in staggering zigzag +pictures, destroying large, screaming, fragmentary boys who had +insulted him. + +The torture stopped suddenly; and clenched, weeping eyes +began to see again, while the barber applied cooling lotions +which made Penrod smell like a coloured housemaid's ideal. + +"Now what," asked the barber, combing the reeking locks +gently, "what would it make you so mad fer, to have somebody call +you a little gentleman? It's a kind of compliment, as it were, +you might say. What would you want to hit anybody fer THAT +fer?" + +To the mind of Penrod, this question was without meaning or +reasonableness. It was within neither his power nor his desire +to analyze the process by which the phrase had become offensive +to him, and was now rapidly assuming the proportions of an +outrage. He knew only that his gorge rose at the thought of it. + +"You just let 'em try it!" he said threateningly, as he +slid down from the chair. And as he went out of the door, after +further conversation on the same subject, he called back those +warning words once more: "Just let 'em try it! Just once-- +that's all _I_ ask 'em to. They'll find out what they +GET!" + +The barber chuckled. Then a fly lit on the barber's nose and +he slapped at it, and the slap missed the fly but did not miss +the nose. The barber was irritated. At this moment his birdlike +eye gleamed a gleam as it fell upon customers approaching: the +prettiest little girl in the world, leading by the hand her baby +brother, Mitchy-Mitch, coming to have Mitchy-Mitch's hair +clipped, against the heat. + +It was a hot day and idle, with little to feed the mind--and +the barber was a mischievous man with an irritated nose. He did +his worst. + +Meanwhile, the brooding Penrod pursued his homeward way; no +great distance, but long enough for several one-sided conflicts +with malign insulters made of thin air. "You better NOT call +me that!" he muttered. "You just try it, and you'll get what +other people got when THEY tried it. You better not ack +fresh with ME! Oh, you WILL, will you?" He delivered a +vicious kick full upon the shins of an iron fence-post, which +suffered little, though Penrod instantly regretted his +indiscretion. "Oof!" he grunted, hopping; and went on after +bestowing a look of awful hostility upon the fence-post. "I +guess you'll know better next time," he said, in parting, to +this antagonist. "You just let me catch you around here again +and I'll----" His voice sank to inarticulate but ominous +murmurings. He was in a dangerous mood. + +Nearing home, however, his belligerent spirit was diverted to +happier interests by the discovery that some workmen had left a +caldron of tar in the cross-street, close by his father's stable. +He tested it, but found it inedible. Also, as a substitute for +professional chewing-gum it was unsatisfactory, being +insufficiently boiled down and too thin, though of a pleasant, +lukewarm temperature. But it had an excess of one quality--it +was sticky. It was the stickiest tar Penrod had ever used for +any purposes whatsoever, and nothing upon which he wiped his +hands served to rid them of it; neither his polka-dotted shirt +waist nor his knickerbockers; neither the fence, nor even Duke, +who came unthinkingly wagging out to greet him, and retired +wiser. + +Nevertheless, tar is tar. Much can be done with it, no +matter what its condition; so Penrod lingered by the caldron, +though from a neighbouring yard could be heard the voices of +comrades, including that of Sam Williams. On the ground about +the caldron were scattered chips and sticks and bits of wood to +the number of a great multitude. Penrod mixed quantities of this +refuse into the tar, and interested himself in seeing how much of +it he could keep moving in slow swirls upon the ebon surface. + +Other surprises were arranged for the absent workmen. The +caldron was almost full, and the surface of the tar near the rim. + +Penrod endeavoured to ascertain how many pebbles and brickbats, +dropped in, would cause an overflow. Labouring heartily to this +end, he had almost accomplished it, when he received the +suggestion for an experiment on a much larger scale. Embedded at +the corner of a grassplot across the street was a whitewashed +stone, the size of a small watermelon and serving no purpose +whatever save the questionable one of decoration. It was easily +pried up with a stick; though getting it to the caldron tested +the full strength of the ardent labourer. Instructed to perform +such a task, he would have sincerely maintained its impossibility +but now, as it was unbidden, and promised rather destructive +results, he set about it with unconquerable energy, feeling +certain that he would be rewarded with a mighty splash. +Perspiring, grunting vehemently, his back aching and all muscles +strained, he progressed in short stages until the big stone lay +at the base of the caldron. He rested a moment, panting, then +lifted the stone, and was bending his shoulders for the heave +that would lift it over the rim, when a sweet, taunting voice, +close behind him, startled him cruelly. + +"How do you do, LITTLE GENTLEMAN!" + +Penrod squawked, dropped the stone, and shouted, "Shut up, +you dern fool!" purely from instinct, even before his about- +face made him aware who had so spitefully addressed him. + +It was Marjorie Jones. Always dainty, and prettily dressed, +she was in speckless and starchy white to-day, and a refreshing +picture she made, with the new-shorn and powerfully scented +Mitchy-Mitch clinging to her hand. They had stolen up behind the +toiler, and now stood laughing together in sweet merriment. +Since the passing of Penrod's Rupe Collins period he had +experienced some severe qualms at the recollection of his last +meeting with Marjorie and his Apache behaviour; in truth, his +heart instantly became as wax at sight of her, and he would have +offered her fair speech; but, alas! in Marjorie's wonderful eyes +there shone a consciousness of new powers for his undoing, and +she denied him opportunity. + +"Oh, OH!" she cried, mocking his pained outcry. "What a +way for a LITTLE GENTLEMAN to talk! Little gentleman don't +say wicked----" + +"Marjorie!" Penrod, enraged and dismayed, felt himself stung +beyond all endurance. Insult from her was bitterer to endure +than from any other. "Don't you call me that again!" + +"Why not, LITTLE GENTLEMAN?" + +He stamped his foot. "You better stop!" + +Marjorie sent into his furious face her lovely, spiteful +laughter. + +"Little gentleman, little gentleman, little gentleman!" +she said deliberately. "How's the little gentleman, this +afternoon? Hello, little gentleman!" + +Penrod, quite beside himself, danced eccentrically. "Dry +up!" he howled. "Dry up, dry up, dry up, dry UP!" + +Mitchy-Mitch shouted with delight and applied a finger to the +side of the caldron--a finger immediately snatched away and wiped +upon a handkerchief by his fastidious sister. + +"'Ittle gellamun!" said Mitchy-Mitch. + +"You better look out!" Penrod whirled upon this small +offender with grim satisfaction. Here was at least something +male that could without dishonour be held responsible. "You say +that again, and I'll give you the worst----" + +"You will NOT!" snapped Marjorie, instantly vitriolic. +"He'll say just whatever he wants to, and he'll say it just as +MUCH as he wants to. Say it again, Mitchy-Mitch!" + +"'Ittle gellamun!" said Mitchy-Mitch promptly. + +"Ow-YAH!" Penrod's tone-production was becoming affected +by his mental condition. "You say that again, and I'll----" + +"Go on, Mitchy-Mitch," cried Marjorie. "He can't do a thing. +He don't DARE! Say it some more, Mitchy-Mitch--say it a +whole lot!" + +Mitchy-Mitch, his small, fat face shining with confidence in +his immunity, complied. + +"'Ittle gellamun!" he squeaked malevolently. "'Ittle +gellamun! 'Ittle gellamun! 'Ittle gellamun!" + +The desperate Penrod bent over the whitewashed rock, lifted +it, and then--outdoing Porthos, John Ridd, and Ursus in one +miraculous burst of strength--heaved it into the air. + +Marjorie screamed. + +But it was too late. The big stone descended into the +precise midst of the caldron and Penrod got his mighty splash. +It was far, far beyond his expectations. + +Spontaneously there were grand and awful effects--volcanic +spectacles of nightmare and eruption. A black sheet of eccentric +shape rose out of the caldron and descended upon the three +children, who had no time to evade it. + +After it fell, Mitchy-Mitch, who stood nearest the caldron, +was the thickest, though there was enough for all. Br'er Rabbit +would have fled from any of them. + + + +CHAPTER XXV +TAR + +When Marjorie and Mitchy-Mitch got their breath, they used it +vocally; and seldom have more penetrating sounds issued from +human throats. Coincidentally, Marjorie, quite baresark, laid +hands upon the largest stick within reach and fell upon Penrod +with blind fury. He had the presence of mind to flee, and they +went round and round the caldron, while Mitchy-Mitch feebly +endeavoured to follow--his appearance, in this pursuit, being +pathetically like that of a bug fished out of an ink-well, alive +but discouraged. + +Attracted by the riot, Samuel Williams made his appearance, +vaulting a fence, and was immediately followed by Maurice Levy +and Georgie Bassett. They stared incredulously at the +extraordinary spectacle before them. + +"Little GEN-TIL-MUN!" shrieked Marjorie, with a wild stroke +that landed full upon Penrod's tarry cap. + +"OOOCH!" bleated Penrod. + +"It's Penrod!" shouted Sam Williams, recognizing him by the +voice. For an instant he had been in some doubt. + +"Penrod Schofield!" exclaimed Georgie Bassett. "WHAT +does this mean?" That was Georgie's style, and had helped to win +him his title. + +Marjorie leaned, panting, upon her stick. "I cu-called--uh-- +him--oh!" she sobbed--"I called him a lul-little--oh--gentleman! +And oh--lul-look!--oh! lul-look at my du-dress! Lul-look at Mu- +mitchy--oh--Mitch--oh!" + + Unexpectedly, she smote again--with results--and then, +seizing the indistinguishable hand of Mitchy-Mitch, she ran +wailing homeward down the street. + +"`Little gentleman'?" said Georgie Bassett, with some +evidences of disturbed complacency. "Why, that's what they call +ME!" + +"Yes, and you ARE one, too!" shouted the maddened Penrod. +"But you better not let anybody call ME that! I've stood +enough around here for one day, and you can't run over ME, +Georgie Bassett. Just you put that in your gizzard and smoke +it!" + +"Anybody has a perfect right," said Georgie, with, +dignity, "to call a person a little gentleman. There's lots +of names nobody ought to call, but this one's a NICE----" + +"You better look out!" + +Unavenged bruises were distributed all over Penrod, both upon +his body and upon his spirit. Driven by subtle forces, he had +dipped his hands in catastrophe and disaster: it was not for a +Georgie Bassett to beard him. Penrod was about to run amuck. + +"I haven't called you a little gentleman, yet," said Georgie. +"I only said it. Anybody's got a right to SAY it." + +"Not around ME! You just try it again and----" + +"I shall say it," returned Georgie, "all I please. Anybody +in this town has a right to SAY `little gentleman'----" + +Bellowing insanely, Penrod plunged his right hand into the +caldron, rushed upon Georgie and made awful work of his hair and +features. + +Alas, it was but the beginning! Sam Williams and Maurice +Levy screamed with delight, and, simultaneously infected, danced +about the struggling pair, shouting frantically: + +"Little gentleman! Little gentleman! Sick him, Georgie! +Sick him, little gentleman! Little gentleman! Little +gentleman!" + +The infuriated outlaw turned upon them with blows and more +tar, which gave Georgie Bassett his opportunity and later +seriously impaired the purity of his fame. Feeling himself +hopelessly tarred, he dipped both hands repeatedly into the +caldron and applied his gatherings to Penrod. It was bringing +coals to Newcastle, but it helped to assuage the just wrath of +Georgie. + +The four boys gave a fine imitation of the Laocoon group +complicated by an extra figure frantic splutterings and chokings, +strange cries and stranger words issued from this tangle; hands +dipped lavishly into the inexhaustible reservoir of tar, with +more and more picturesque results. The caldron had been elevated +upon bricks and was not perfectly balanced; and under a heavy +impact of the struggling group it lurched and went partly over, +pouring forth a Stygian tide which formed a deep pool in the +gutter. + +It was the fate of Master Roderick Bitts, that exclusive and +immaculate person, to make his appearance upon the chaotic scene +at this juncture. All in the cool of a white "sailor suit," he +turned aside from the path of duty--which led straight to the +house of a maiden aunt--and paused to hop with joy upon the +sidewalk. A repeated epithet continuously half panted, half +squawked, somewhere in the nest of gladiators, caught his ear, +and he took it up excitedly, not knowing why. + +"Little gentleman!" shouted Roderick, jumping up and down in +childish glee. "Little gentleman! Little gentleman! Lit----" + +A frightful figure tore itself free from the group, +encircled this innocent bystander with a black arm, and +hurled him headlong. Full length and flat on his face went +Roderick into the Stygian pool. The frightful figure was Penrod. + +Instantly, the pack flung themselves upon him again, and, +carrying them with him, he went over upon Roderick, who from that +instant was as active a belligerent as any there. + +Thus began the Great Tar Fight, the origin of which proved, +afterward, so difficult for parents to trace, owing to the +opposing accounts of the combatants. Marjorie said Penrod began +it; Penrod said Mitchy-Mitch began it; Sam Williams said Georgie +Bassett began it; Georgie and Maurice Levy said Penrod began it; +Roderick Bitts, who had not recognized his first assailant, said +Sam Williams began it. + +Nobody thought of accusing the barber. But the barber did +not begin it; it was the fly on the barber's nose that began it-- +though, of course, something else began the fly. Somehow, we +never manage to hang the real offender. + +The end came only with the arrival of Penrod's mother, who +had been having a painful conversation by telephone with Mrs. +Jones, the mother of Marjorie, and came forth to seek an errant +son. It is a mystery how she was able to pick out her own, for +by the time she got there his voice was too hoarse to be +recognizable. Mr. Schofield's version of things was that Penrod +was insane. "He's a stark, raving lunatic!" declared the +father, descending to the library from a before-dinner interview +with the outlaw, that evening. "I'd send him to military school, +but I don't believe they'd take him. Do you know WHY he says +all that awfulness happened?" + +"When Margaret and I were trying to scrub him," responded +Mrs. Schofield wearily, "he said `everybody' had been calling him +names." + +"`Names!'" snorted her husband. "`Little gentleman!' +THAT'S the vile epithet they called him! And because of it +he wrecks the peace of six homes!" + +"SH! Yes; he told us about it," said Mrs. Schofield, +moaning. "He told us several hundred times, I should guess, +though I didn't count. He's got it fixed in his head, and we +couldn't get it out. All we could do was to put him in the +closet. He'd have gone out again after those boys if we hadn't. +I don't know WHAT to make of him!" + +"He's a mystery to ME!" said her husband. "And he +refuses to explain why he objects to being called `little +gentleman.' Says he'd do the same thing--and worse--if anybody +dared to call him that again. He said if the President of the +United States called him that he'd try to whip him. How long did +you have him locked up in the closet?" + +"SH!" said Mrs. Schofield warningly. "About two hours; +but I don't think it softened his spirit at all, because when I +took him to the barber's to get his hair clipped again, on +account of the tar in it, Sammy Williams and Maurice Levy were +there for the same reason, and they just WHISPERED `little +gentleman,' so low you could hardly hear them--and Penrod began +fighting with them right before me, and it was really all the +barber and I could do to drag him away from them. The barber was +very kind about it, but Penrod----" + +"I tell you he's a lunatic!" Mr. Schofield would have said +the same thing of a Frenchman infuriated by the epithet "camel." +The philosophy of insult needs expounding. + +"SH!" said Mrs. Schofield. "It does seem a kind of +frenzy." + +"Why on earth should any sane person mind being called----" + +"SH!" said Mrs. Schofield. "It's beyond ME!" + +"What are you SH-ing me for?" demanded Mr. Schofield +explosively. + +"SH!" said Mrs. Schofield. "It's Mr. Kinosling, the new +rector of Saint Joseph's." + +"Where?" + +"SH! On the front porch with Margaret; he's going to +stay for dinner. I do hope----" + +"Bachelor, isn't he?" + +"Yes." + +"OUR old minister was speaking of him the other day," +said Mr. Schofield, "and he didn't seem so terribly impressed." + +"SH! Yes; about thirty, and of course so superior to +most of Margaret's friends--boys home from college. She thinks +she likes young Robert Williams, I know--but he laughs so much! +Of course there isn't any comparison. Mr. Kinosling talks so +intellectually; it's a good thing for Margaret to hear that kind +of thing, for a change and, of course, he's very spiritual. He +seems very much interested in her." She paused to muse. "I +think Margaret likes him; he's so different, too. It's the third +time he's dropped in this week, and I----" + +"Well," said Mr. Schofield grimly, "if you and Margaret want +him to come again, you'd better not let him see Penrod." + +"But he's asked to see him; he seems interested in meeting +all the family. And Penrod nearly always behaves fairly well at +table." She paused, and then put to her husband a question +referring to his interview with Penrod upstairs. "Did you--did +you--do it?" + +"No," he answered gloomily. "No, I didn't, but----" He was +interrupted by a violent crash of china and metal in the kitchen, +a shriek from Della, and the outrageous voice of Penrod. The +well-informed Della, ill-inspired to set up for a wit, had +ventured to address the scion of the house roguishly as "little +gentleman," and Penrod, by means of the rapid elevation of his +right foot, had removed from her supporting hands a laden tray. +Both parents, started for the kitchen, Mr. Schofield +completing his interrupted sentence on the way. + +"But I will, now!" + +The rite thus promised was hastily but accurately performed +in that apartment most distant from the front porch; and, twenty +minutes later, Penrod descended to dinner. The Rev. Mr. +Kinosling had asked for the pleasure of meeting him, and it had +been decided that the only course possible was to cover up the +scandal for the present, and to offer an undisturbed and smiling +family surface to the gaze of the visitor. + +Scorched but not bowed, the smouldering Penrod was led +forward for the social formulae simultaneously with the somewhat +bleak departure of Robert Williams, who took his guitar with him, +this time, and went in forlorn unconsciousness of the powerful +forces already set in secret motion to be his allies. + +The punishment just undergone had but made the haughty and +unyielding soul of Penrod more stalwart in revolt; he was +unconquered. Every time the one intolerable insult had been +offered him, his resentment had become the hotter, his vengeance +the more instant and furious. And, still burning with outrage, +but upheld by the conviction of right, he was determined to +continue to the last drop of his blood the defense of his honour, +whenever it should be assailed, no matter how mighty or august +the powers that attacked it. In all ways, he was a very +sore boy. + +During the brief ceremony of presentation, his usually +inscrutable countenance wore an expression interpreted by his +father as one of insane obstinacy, while Mrs. Schofield found it +an incentive to inward prayer. The fine graciousness of Mr. +Kinosling, however, was unimpaired by the glare of virulent +suspicion given him by this little brother: Mr. Kinosling mistook +it for a natural curiosity concerning one who might possibly +become, in time, a member of the family. He patted Penrod upon +the head, which was, for many reasons, in no condition to be +patted with any pleasure to the patter. Penrod felt himself in +the presence of a new enemy. + +"How do you do, my little lad," said Mr. Kinosling. "I trust +we shall become fast friends." + +To the ear of his little lad, it seemed he said, "A trost we +shall bick-home fawst frainds." Mr. Kinosling's pronunciation +was, in fact, slightly precious; and, the little lad, simply +mistaking it for some cryptic form of mockery of himself, assumed +a manner and expression which argued so ill for the proposed +friendship that Mrs. Schofield hastily interposed the suggestion +of dinner, and the small procession went in to the dining-room. + +"It has been a delicious day," said Mr. Kinosling, presently; +"warm but balmy." With a benevolent smile he addressed +Penrod, who sat opposite him. "I suppose, little gentleman, you +have been indulging in the usual outdoor sports of vacation?" + +Penrod laid down his fork and glared, open-mouthed at Mr. +Kinosling. + +"You'll have another slice of breast of the chicken?" Mr. +Schofield inquired, loudly and quickly. + +"A lovely day!" exclaimed Margaret, with equal promptitude +and emphasis. "Lovely, oh, lovely! Lovely!" + +"Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!" said Mrs. Schofield, and +after a glance at Penrod which confirmed her impression that he +intended to say something, she continued, "Yes, beautiful, +beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful beautiful!" + +Penrod closed his mouth and sank back in his chair--and his +relatives took breath. + +Mr. Kinosling looked pleased. This responsive family, with +its ready enthusiasm, made the kind of audience he liked. He +passed a delicate white hand gracefully over his tall, pale +forehead, and smiled indulgently. + +"Youth relaxes in summer," he said. "Boyhood is the age of +relaxation; one is playful, light, free, unfettered. One runs +and leaps and enjoys one's self with one's companions. It is +good for the little lads to play with their friends; they jostle, +push, and wrestle, and simulate little, happy struggles with one +another in harmless conflict. The young muscles are +toughening. It is good. Boyish chivalry develops, enlarges, +expands. The young learn quickly, intuitively, spontaneously. +They perceive the obligations of noblesse oblige. They begin +to comprehend the necessity of caste and its requirements. They +learn what birth means--ah,--that is, they learn what it means to +be well born. They learn courtesy in their games; they learn +politeness, consideration for one another in their pastimes, +amusements, lighter occupations. I make it my pleasure to join +them often, for I sympathize with them in all their wholesome +joys as well as in their little bothers and perplexities. I +understand them, you see; and let me tell you it is no easy +matter to understand the little lads and lassies." He sent to +each listener his beaming glance, and, permitting it to come to +rest upon Penrod, inquired: + +"And what do you say to that, little gentleman?" + +Mr. Schofield uttered a stentorian cough. "More? You'd +better have some more chicken! More! Do!" + +"More chicken!" urged Margaret simultaneously. "Do please! +Please! More! Do! More!" + +"Beautiful, beautiful," began Mrs. Schofield. "Beautiful, +beautiful, beautiful, beautiful----" + +It is not known in what light Mr. Kinosling viewed the +expression of Penrod's face. Perhaps he mistook it for awe; +perhaps he received no impression at all of its extraordinary +quality. He was a rather self-engrossed young man, just then +engaged in a double occupation, for he not only talked, but +supplied from his own consciousness a critical though favourable +auditor as well, which of course kept him quite busy. Besides, +it is oftener than is expected the case that extremely peculiar +expressions upon the countenances of boys are entirely +overlooked, and suggest nothing to the minds of people staring +straight at them. Certainly Penrod's expression--which, to the +perception of his family, was perfectly horrible--caused not the +faintest perturbation in the breast of Mr. Kinosling. + +Mr. Kinosling waived the chicken, and continued to talk. +"Yes, I think I may claim to understand boys," he said, smiling +thoughtfully. "One has been a boy one's self. Ah, it is not all +playtime! I hope our young scholar here does not overwork +himself at his Latin, at his classics, as I did, so that at the +age of eight years I was compelled to wear glasses. He must be +careful not to strain the little eyes at his scholar's tasks, not +to let the little shoulders grow round over his scholar's desk. +Youth is golden; we should keep it golden, bright, glistening. +Youth should frolic, should be sprightly; it should play its +cricket, its tennis, its hand-ball. It should run and leap; it +should laugh, should sing madrigals and glees, carol with the +lark, ring out in chanties, folk-songs, ballads, roundelays----" + +He talked on. At any instant Mr. Schofield held himself +ready to cough vehemently and shout, "More chicken," to +drown out Penrod in case the fatal words again fell from those +eloquent lips; and Mrs. Schofield and Margaret kept themselves +prepared at all times to assist him. So passed a threatening +meal, which Mrs. Schofield hurried, by every means with decency, +to its conclusion. She felt that somehow they would all be safer +out in the dark of the front porch, and led the way thither as +soon as possible. + +"No cigar, I thank you." Mr. Kinosling, establishing himself +in a wicker chair beside Margaret, waved away her father's +proffer. "I do not smoke. I have never tasted tobacco in any +form." Mrs. Schofield was confirmed in her opinion that this +would be an ideal son-in-law. Mr. Schofield was not so sure. + +"No," said Mr. Kinosling. "No tobacco for me. No cigar, no +pipe, no cigarette, no cheroot. For me, a book--a volume of +poems, perhaps. Verses, rhymes, lines metrical and cadenced-- +those are my dissipation. Tennyson by preference: `Maud,' or +`Idylls of the King'--poetry of the sound Victorian days; there +is none later. Or Longfellow will rest me in a tired hour. Yes; +for me, a book, a volume in the hand, held lightly between the +fingers." + +Mr. Kinosling looked pleasantly at his fingers as he spoke, +waving his hand in a curving gesture which brought it into the +light of a window faintly illumined from the interior of the +house. Then he passed those graceful fingers over his hair, +and turned toward Penrod, who was perched upon the railing in a +dark corner. + +"The evening is touched with a slight coolness," said Mr. +Kinosling. "Perhaps I may request the little gentleman----" + +"B'gr-r-RUFF!" coughed Mr. Schofield. "You'd better +change your mind about a cigar." + +"No, I thank you. I was about to request the lit----" + +"DO try one," Margaret urged. "I'm sure papa's are nice +ones. Do try----" + +"No, I thank you. I remarked a slight coolness in the air, +and my hat is in the hallway. I was about to request----" + +"I'll get it for you," said Penrod suddenly. + +"If you will be so good," said Mr. Kinosling. "It is a black +bowler hat, little gentleman, and placed upon a table in the +hall." + +"I know where it is." Penrod entered the door, and a feeling +of relief, mutually experienced, carried from one to another of +his three relatives their interchanged congratulations that he +had recovered his sanity. + +"`The day is done, and the darkness,'" began Mr. Kinosling-- +and recited that poem entire. He followed it with "The +Children's Hour," and after a pause, at the close, to allow his +listeners time for a little reflection upon his rendition, he +passed his handagain over his head, and called, in the +direction of the doorway: + +"I believe I will take my hat now, little gentleman." + +"Here it is," said Penrod, unexpectedly climbing over the +porch railing, in the other direction. His mother and father and +Margaret had supposed him to be standing in the hallway out of +deference, and because he thought it tactful not to interrupt the +recitations. All of them remembered, later, that this supposed +thoughtfulness on his part struck them as unnatural. + +"Very good, little gentleman!" said Mr. Kinosling, and being +somewhat chilled, placed the hat firmly upon his head, pulling it +down as far as it would go. It had a pleasant warmth, which he +noticed at once. The next instant, he noticed something else, a +peculiar sensation of the scalp--a sensation which he was quite +unable to define. He lifted his hand to take the hat off, and +entered upon a strange experience: his hat seemed to have decided +to remain where it was. + +"Do you like Tennyson as much as Longfellow, Mr. Kinosling?" +inquired Margaret. + +"I--ah--I cannot say," he returned absently. "I--ah--each +has his own--ugh! flavour and savour, each his--ah--ah----" + +Struck by a strangeness in his tone, she peered at him +curiously through the dusk. His outlines were indistinct, but +she made out that his arms were, uplifted in a singular +gesture. He seemed to be wrenching at his head. + +"Is--is anything the matter?" she asked anxiously. "Mr. +Kinosling, are you ill?" + +"Not at--ugh!--all," he replied, in the same odd tone. "I-- +ah--I believe--UGH!" + +He dropped his hands from his hat, and rose. His manner was +slightly agitated. "I fear I may have taken a trifling--ah-- +cold. I should--ah--perhaps be--ah--better at home. I will-- +ah--say good-night." + +At the steps, he instinctively lifted his hand to remove his +hat, but did not do so, and, saying "Goodnight," again in a +frigid voice, departed with visible stiffness from that house, to +return no more. + +"Well, of all----!" cried Mrs. Schofield, astounded. "What +was the matter? He just went--like that!" She made a flurried +gesture. "In heaven's name, Margaret, what DID you say to +him?" + +"_I_!" exclaimed Margaret indignantly. "Nothing! He just +WENT!" + +"Why, he didn't even take off his hat when he said good- +night!" said Mrs. Schofield. + +Margaret, who had crossed to the doorway, caught the ghost of +a whisper behind her, where stood Penrod. + +"YOU BET HE DIDN'T!" + +He knew not that he was overheard. + +A frightful suspicion flashed through Margaret's mind--a +suspicion that Mr. Kinosling's hat would have to be either boiled +off or shaved off. With growing horror she recalled Penrod's +long absence when he went to bring the hat. + +"Penrod," she cried, "let me see your hands!" + +She had toiled at those hands herself late that afternoon, +nearly scalding her own, but at last achieving a lily purity. + +"Let me see your hands!" + +She seized them. + +Again they were tarred! + + + +CHAPTER XXVI +THE QUIET AFTERNOON + +Perhaps middle-aged people might discern Nature's real intentions +in the matter of pain if they would examine a boy's punishments +and sorrows, for he prolongs neither beyond their actual +duration. With a boy, trouble must be of Homeric dimensions to +last overnight. To him, every next day is really a new day. +Thus, Penrod woke, next morning, with neither the unspared rod, +nor Mr. Kinosling in his mind. Tar, itself, so far as his +consideration of it went, might have been an undiscovered +substance. His mood was cheerful and mercantile; some process +having worked mysteriously within him, during the +night, to the result that his first waking thought was of profits +connected with the sale of old iron--or perhaps a ragman had +passed the house, just before he woke. + +By ten o'clock he had formed a partnership with the indeed +amiable Sam, and the firm of Schofield and Williams plunged +headlong into commerce. Heavy dealings in rags, paper, old iron +and lead gave the firm a balance of twenty-two cents on the +evening of the third day; but a venture in glassware, following, +proved disappointing on account of the scepticism of all the +druggists in that part of town, even after seven laborious hours +had been spent in cleansing a wheelbarrow-load of old medicine +bottles with hydrant water and ashes. Likewise, the partners +were disheartened by their failure to dispose of a crop of +"greens," although they had uprooted specimens of that decorative +and unappreciated flower, the dandelion, with such persistence +and energy that the Schofields' and Williams' lawns looked +curiously haggard for the rest of that summer. + +The fit passed: business languished; became extinct. The +dog-days had set in. + +One August afternoon was so hot that even boys sought indoor +shade. In the dimness of the vacant carriage-house of the +stable, lounged Masters Penrod Schofield, Samuel Williams, +Maurice Levy, Georgie Bassett, and Herman. They sat still and +talked. It is a hot day, in rare truth, when boys devote +themselves principally to conversation, and this day was +that hot. + +Their elders should beware such days. Peril hovers near when +the fierceness of weather forces inaction and boys in groups are +quiet. The more closely volcanoes, Western rivers, +nitroglycerin, and boys are pent, the deadlier is their action at +the point of outbreak. Thus, parents and guardians should look +for outrages of the most singular violence and of the most +peculiar nature during the confining weather of February and +August. + +The thing which befell upon this broiling afternoon began to +brew and stew peacefully enough. All was innocence and languor; +no one could have foretold the eruption. + +They were upon their great theme: "When I get to be a man!" +Being human, though boys, they considered their present estate +too commonplace to be dwelt upon. So, when the old men gather, +they say: "When I was a boy!" It really is the land of nowadays +that we never discover. + +"When I'm a man," said Sam Williams, "I'm goin' to hire me a +couple of coloured waiters to swing me in a hammock and keep +pourin' ice-water on me all day out o' those waterin'-cans they +sprinkle flowers from. I'll hire you for one of 'em, Herman." + +"No; you ain' goin' to," said Herman promptly. "You ain' no +flowuh. But nev' min' nat, anyway. Ain' nobody goin' haih +me whens _I_'m a man. Goin' be my own boss. _I_'m go' be a +rai'road man!" + +"You mean like a superintendent, or sumpthing like that, and +sell tickets?" asked Penrod. + +"Sup'in--nev' min' nat! Sell ticket? NO suh! Go' be a +PO'tuh! My uncle a po'tuh right now. Solid gole buttons-- +oh, oh!" + +"Generals get a lot more buttons than porters," said Penrod. +"Generals----" + +"Po'tuhs make the bes' l'vin'," Herman interrupted. "My +uncle spen' mo' money 'n any white man n'is town." + +"Well, I rather be a general," said Penrod, "or a senator, or +sumpthing like that." + +"Senators live in Warshington," Maurice Levy contributed the +information. "I been there. Warshington ain't so much; Niag'ra +Falls is a hundred times as good as Warshington. So's 'Tlantic +City, I was there, too. I been everywhere there is. I----" + +"Well, anyway," said Sam Williams, raising his voice in order +to obtain the floor, "anyway, I'm goin' to lay in a hammock all +day, and have ice-water sprinkled on top o' me, and I'm goin' to +lay there all night, too, and the next day. I'm goin' to lay +there a couple o' years, maybe." + +"I bet you don't!" exclaimed Maurice. "What'd you do in +winter?" + +"What?" + +"What you goin' to do when it's winter, out in a hammock +with water sprinkled on top o' you all day? I bet you----" + +"I'd stay right there," Sam declared, with strong conviction, +blinking as he looked out through the open doors at the dazzling +lawn and trees, trembling in the heat. "They couldn't sprinkle +too much for ME!" + +"It'd make icicles all over you, and----" + +"I wish it would," said Sam. "I'd eat 'em up." + +"And it'd snow on you----" + +"Yay! I'd swaller it as fast as it'd come down. I wish I +had a BARREL o' snow right now. I wish this whole barn was +full of it. I wish they wasn't anything in the whole world +except just good ole snow." + +Penrod and Herman rose and went out to the hydrant, where +they drank long and ardently. Sam was still talking about snow +when they returned. + +"No, I wouldn't just roll in it. I'd stick it all round +inside my clo'es, and fill my hat. No, I'd freeze a big pile of +it all hard, and I'd roll her out flat and then I'd carry her +down to some ole tailor's and have him make me a SUIT out of +her, and----" + +"Can't you keep still about your ole snow?" demanded Penrod +petulantly. "Makes me so thirsty I can't keep still, and I've +drunk so much now I bet I bust. That ole hydrant water's mighty +near hot anyway." + +"I'm goin' to have a big store, when I grow up," volunteered +Maurice. + +"Candy store?" asked Penrod. + +"NO, sir! I'll have candy in it, but not to eat, so much. + It's goin' to be a deportment store: ladies' clothes, +gentlemen's clothes, neckties, china goods, leather goods, nice +lines in woollings and lace goods----" + +"Yay! I wouldn't give a five-for-a-cent marble for your +whole store," said Sam. "Would you, Penrod?" + +"Not for ten of 'em; not for a million of 'em! _I_'m goin' +to have----" + +"Wait!" clamoured Maurice. "You'd be foolish, because they'd +be a toy deportment in my store where they'd be a hunderd +marbles! So, how much would you think your five-for-a-cent +marble counts for? And when I'm keepin' my store I'm goin' to +get married." + +"Yay!" shrieked Sam derisively. "MARRIED! Listen!" +Penrod and Herman joined in the howl of contempt. + +"Certumly I'll get married," asserted Maurice stoutly. "I'll +get married to Marjorie Jones. She likes me awful good, and I'm +her beau." + +"What makes you think so?" inquired Penrod in a cryptic +voice. + +"Because she's my beau, too," came the prompt answer. "I'm +her beau because she's my beau; I guess that's plenty reason! +I'll get married to her as soon as I get my store running nice." + +Penrod looked upon him darkly, but, for the moment, held his +peace. + +"Married!" jeered Sam Williams. "Married to Marjorie Jones! +You're the only boy I ever heard say he was going to get married. +I wouldn't get married for--why, I wouldn't for--for----" Unable +to think of any inducement the mere mention of which would not be +ridiculously incommensurate, he proceeded: "I wouldn't do it! +What you want to get married for? What do married people do, +except just come home tired, and worry around and kind of scold? +You better not do it, M'rice; you'll be mighty sorry." + +"Everybody gets married," stated Maurice, holding his ground. + +"They gotta." + +"I'll bet _I_ don't!" Sam returned hotly. "They better +catch me before they tell ME I have to. Anyway, I bet nobody +has to get married unless they want to." + +"They do, too," insisted Maurice. "They GOTTA!" + +"Who told you?" + +"Look at what my own papa told me!" cried Maurice, heated +with argument. "Didn't he tell me your papa had to marry your +mamma, or else he never'd got to handle a cent of her money? +Certumly, people gotta marry. Everybody. You don't know anybody +over twenty years old that isn't married--except maybe teachers." + +"Look at policemen!" shouted Sam triumphantly. `You +don't s'pose anybody can make policemen get married, I reckon, do +you?" + +"Well, policemen, maybe," Maurice was forced to admit. +"Policemen and teachers don't, but everybody else gotta." + +"Well, I'll be a policeman," said Sam. "THEN I guess +they won't come around tellin' me I have to get married. What +you goin' to be, Penrod?" + +"Chief police," said the laconic Penrod. + +"What you?" Sam inquired of quiet Georgie Bassett. + +"I am going to be," said Georgie, consciously, "a minister." + +This announcement created a sensation so profound that it was +followed by silence. Herman was the first to speak. + +"You mean preachuh?" he asked incredulously. "You go' +PREACH?" + +"Yes," answered Georgie, looking like Saint Cecilia at the +organ. + +Herman was impressed. "You know all 'at preachuh talk?" + +"I'm going to learn it," said Georgie simply. + +"How loud kin you holler?" asked Herman doubtfully. + +"He can't holler at all," Penrod interposed with scorn. "He +hollers like a girl. He's the poorest hollerer in town!" + +Herman shook his head. Evidently he thought Georgie's +chance of being ordained very slender. Nevertheless, a final +question put to the candidate by the coloured expert seemed to +admit one ray of hope. + +"How good kin you clim a pole?" + +"He can't climb one at all," Penrod answered for Georgie. +"Over at Sam's turning-pole you ought to see him try to----" + +"Preachers don't have to climb poles," Georgie said with +dignity. + +"GOOD ones do," declared Herman. "Bes' one ev' _I_ +hear, he clim up an' down same as a circus man. One n'em big +'vivals outen whens we livin' on a fahm, preachuh clim big pole +right in a middle o' the church, what was to hol' roof up. He +clim way high up, an' holler: `Goin' to heavum, goin' to heavum, +goin' to heavum NOW. Hallelujah, praise my Lawd!' An' he +slide down little, an' holler: `Devil's got a hol' o' my coat- +tails; devil tryin' to drag me down! Sinnuhs, take wawnun! +Devil got a hol' o' my coat-tails; I'm a-goin' to hell, oh Lawd!' +Nex', he clim up little mo', an' yell an' holler: `Done shuck +ole devil loose; goin' straight to heavum agin! Goin' to heavum, +goin' to heavum, my Lawd!' Nex', he slide down some mo' an' +holler, `Leggo my coat-tails, ole devil! Goin' to hell agin, +sinnuhs! Goin' straight to hell, my Lawd!' An' he clim an' he +slide, an' he slide, an' he clim, an' all time holler: `Now 'm +a-goin' to heavum; now 'm a-goin' to hell! Goin'to heavum, +heavum, heavum, my Lawd!' Las' he slide all a-way down, +jes' a-squallin' an' a-kickin' an' a-rarin' up an' squealin', +`Goin' to hell. Goin' to hell! Ole Satum got my soul! Goin' to +hell! Goin' to hell! Goin' to hell, hell, hell!" + +Herman possessed that extraordinary facility for vivid acting +which is the great native gift of his race, and he enchained his +listeners. They sat fascinated and spellbound. + +"Herman, tell that again!" said Penrod, breathlessly. + +Herman, nothing loath, accepted the encore and repeated the +Miltonic episode, expanding it somewhat, and dwelling with a fine +art upon those portions of the narrative which he perceived to be +most exciting to his audience. Plainly, they thrilled less to +Paradise gained than to its losing, and the dreadful climax of +the descent into the Pit was the greatest treat of all. + +The effect was immense and instant. Penrod sprang to his +feet. + +"Georgie Bassett couldn't do that to save his life," he +declared. "_I_'m goin' to be a preacher! I'D be all right +for one, wouldn't I, Herman?" + +"So am I!" Sam Williams echoed loudly. "I guess I can do it +if YOU can. I'd be better'n Penrod, wouldn't I, Herman?" + +"I am, too!" Maurice shouted. "I got a stronger voice than +anybody here, and I'd like to know what----" + +The three clamoured together indistinguishably, each +asserting his qualifications for the ministry according to +Herman's theory, which had been accepted by these sudden converts +without question. + +"Listen to ME!" Maurice bellowed, proving his claim to at +least the voice by drowning the others. "Maybe I can't climb a +pole so good, but who can holler louder'n this? Listen to +ME-E-E!" + +"Shut up!" cried Penrod, irritated. "Go to heaven; go to +hell!" + +"Oo-o-oh!" exclaimed Georgie Bassett, profoundly shocked. + +Sam and Maurice, awed by Penrod's daring, ceased from +turmoil, staring wide-eyed. + +"You cursed and swore!" said Georgie. + +"I did not!" cried Penrod, hotly. "That isn't swearing." + +"You said, `Go to a big H'!" said Georgie. + +"I did not! I said, `Go to heaven,' before I said a big H. +That isn't swearing, is it, Herman? It's almost what the +preacher said, ain't it, Herman? It ain't swearing now, any +more--not if you put `go to heaven' with it, is it, Herman? You +can say it all you want to, long as you say `go to heaven' first, +CAN'T you, Herman? Anybody can say it if the preacher says +it, can't they, Herman? I guess I know when I ain't swearing, +don't I, Herman?" + +Judge Herman ruled for the defendant, and Penrod was +considered to have carried his point. With fine +consistency, the conclave established that it was proper for the +general public to "say it," provided "go to heaven" should in all +cases precede it. This prefix was pronounced a perfect +disinfectant, removing all odour of impiety or insult; and, with +the exception of Georgie Bassett (who maintained that the +minister's words were "going" and "gone," not "go"), all the boys +proceeded to exercise their new privilege so lavishly that they +tired of it. + +But there was no diminution of evangelical ardour; again were +heard the clamours of dispute as to which was the best qualified +for the ministry, each of the claimants appealing passionately to +Herman, who, pleased but confused, appeared to be incapable of +arriving at a decision. + +During a pause, Georgie Bassett asserted his prior rights. +"Who said it first, I'd like to know?" he demanded. "I was going +to be a minister from long back of to-day, I guess. And I guess +I said I was going to be a minister right to-day before any of +you said anything at all. DIDN'T I, Herman? YOU heard +me, didn't you, Herman? That's the very thing started you +talking about it, wasn't it, Herman?" + +"You' right," said Herman. "You the firs' one to say it." + +Penrod, Sam, and Maurice immediately lost faith in Herman. + +"What if you did say it first?" Penrod shouted. "You +couldn't BE a minister if you were a hunderd years old!" + +"I bet his mother wouldn't let him be one," said Sam. "She +never lets him do anything." + +"She would, too," retorted Georgie. "Ever since I was +little, she----" + +"He's too sissy to be a preacher!" cried Maurice. "Listen at +his squeaky voice!" + +"I'm going to be a better minister," shouted Georgie, "than +all three of you put together. I could do it with my left hand!" + +The three laughed bitingly in chorus. They jeered, derided, +scoffed, and raised an uproar which would have had its effect +upon much stronger nerves than Georgie's. For a time he +contained his rising choler and chanted monotonously, over and +over: "I COULD! I COULD, TOO! I COULD! I COULD, TOO!" +But their tumult wore upon him, and he decided to avail himself +of the recent decision whereby a big H was rendered innocuous and +unprofane. Having used the expression once, he found it +comforting, and substituted it for: "I could! I could, too!" + +But it relieved him only temporarily. His tormentors were +unaffected by it and increased their howlings, until at last +Georgie lost his head altogether. Badgered beyond bearing, his +eyes shining with a wild light, he broke through the besieging +trio, hurling little Maurice from his path with a frantic +hand. + +"I'll show you!" he cried, in this sudden frenzy. "You give +me a chance, and I'll prove it right NOW!" + +"That's talkin' business!" shouted Penrod. "Everybody keep +still a minute. Everybody!" + +He took command of the situation at once, displaying a fine +capacity for organization and system. It needed only a few +minutes to set order in the place of confusion and to determine, +with the full concurrence of all parties, the conditions under +which Georgie Bassett was to defend his claim by undergoing what +may be perhaps intelligibly defined as the Herman test. Georgie +declared he could do it easily. He was in a state of great +excitement and in no condition to think calmly or, probably, he +would not have made the attempt at all. Certainly he was +overconfident. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII +CONCLUSION OF THE QUIET AFTERNOON + +It was during the discussion of the details of this enterprise +that Georgie's mother, a short distance down the street, received +a few female callers, who came by appointment to drink a glass of +iced tea with her, and to meet the Rev. Mr. Kinosling. Mr. +Kinosling was proving almost formidably interesting to the women +and girls of his own and other flocks. What favour of his fellow +clergymen a slight precociousness of manner and pronunciation +cost him was more than balanced by the visible ecstasies of +ladies. They blossomed at his touch. + +He had just entered Mrs. Bassett's front door, when the son +of the house, followed by an intent and earnest company of four, +opened the alley gate and came into the yard. The unconscious +Mrs. Bassett was about to have her first experience of a fatal +coincidence. It was her first, because she was the mother of a +boy so well behaved that he had become a proverb of +transcendency. Fatal coincidences were plentiful in the +Schofield and Williams families, and would have been familiar to +Mrs. Bassett had Georgie been permitted greater intimacy with +Penrod and Sam. + +Mr. Kinosling sipped his iced tea and looked about, him +approvingly. Seven ladies leaned forward, for it was to be seen +that he meant to speak. + +"This cool room is a relief," he said, waving a graceful hand +in a neatly limited gesture, which everybody's eyes followed, his +own included. "It is a relief and a retreat. The windows open, +the blinds closed--that is as it should be. It is a retreat, a +fastness, a bastion against the heat's assault. For me, a quiet +room--a quiet room and a book, a volume in the hand, held lightly +between the fingers. A volume of poems, lines metrical and +cadenced; something by a sound Victorian. We have no later +poets." + +"Swinburne?" suggested Miss Beam, an eager spinster. +"Swinburne, Mr. Kinosling? Ah, SWINBURNE!" + +"Not Swinburne," said Mr. Kinosling chastely. "No." + +That concluded all the remarks about Swinburne. + + +Miss Beam retired in confusion behind another lady; and +somehow there became diffused an impression that Miss Beam was +erotic. + +"I do not observe your manly little son, "Mr. Kinosling +addressed his hostess. + +"He's out playing in the yard," Mrs. Bassett returned. "I +heard his voice just now, I think." + +"Everywhere I hear wonderful report of him," said Mr. +Kinosling. "I may say that I understand boys, and I feel that he +is a rare, a fine, a pure, a lofty spirit. I say spirit, for +spirit is the word I hear spoken of him." + +A chorus of enthusiastic approbation affirmed the accuracy of +this proclamation, and Mrs. Bassett flushed with pleasure. +Georgie's spiritual perfection was demonstrated by instances of +it, related by the visitors; his piety was cited, and wonderful +things he had said were quoted. + +"Not all boys are pure, of fine spirit, of high mind," said +Mr. Kinosling, and continued with true feeling: "You have a +neighbour, dear Mrs. Bassett, whose household I indeed really +feel it quite impossible to visit until such time when better, +firmer, stronger handed, more determined discipline shall +prevail. I find Mr. and Mrs. Schofield and their daughter +charming----" + +Three or four ladies said "Oh!" and spoke a name +simultaneously. It was as if they had said, "Oh, the bubonic +plague!" + +"Oh! Penrod Schofield!" + +"Georgie does not play with him," said Mrs. Bassett quickly-- +"that is, he avoids him as much as he can without hurting +Penrod's feelings. Georgie is very sensitive to giving pain. I +suppose a mother should not tell these things, and I know people +who talk about their own children are dreadful bores, but it was +only last Thursday night that Georgie looked up in my face so +sweetly, after he had said his prayers and his little cheeks +flushed, as he said: "Mamma, I think it would be right for me to +go more with Penrod. I think it would make him a better boy." + +A sibilance went about the room. "Sweet! How sweet! The +sweet little soul! Ah, SWEET!" + +"And that very afternoon," continued Mrs. Bassett, "he had +come home in a dreadful state. Penrod had thrown tar all over +him." + +"Your son has a forgiving spirit!" said Mr. Kinosling with +vehemence. "A too forgiving spirit, perhaps." He set down his +glass. "No more, I thank you. No more cake, I thank you. Was +it not Cardinal Newman who said----" + +He was interrupted by the sounds of an altercation just +outside the closed blinds of the window nearest him. + +"Let him pick his tree!" It was the voice of Samuel +Williams. "Didn't we come over here to give him one of his own +trees? Give him a fair show, can't you?" + +"The little lads!" Mr. Kinosling smiled. "They have their +games, their outdoor sports, their pastimes. The young muscles +are toughening. The sun will not harm them. They grow; they +expand; they learn. They learn fair play, honour, courtesy, from +one another, as pebbles grow round in the brook. They learn more +from themselves than from us. They take shape, form, outline. +Let them." + +"Mr. Kinosling!" Another spinster--undeterred by what had +happened to Miss Beam--leaned fair forward, her face shining and +ardent. "Mr. Kinosling, there's a question I DO wish to ask +you." + +"My dear Miss Cosslit," Mr. Kinosling responded, again waving +his hand and watching it, "I am entirely at your disposal." + +"WAS Joan of Arc," she asked fervently, "inspired by +spirits?" + +He smiled indulgently. "Yes--and no," he said. "One must +give both answers. One must give the answer, yes; one must give +the answer, no." + +"Oh, THANK you!" said Miss Cosslit, blushing. + +"She's one of my great enthusiasms, you know." + +"And I have a question, too," urged Mrs. Lora Rewbush, +after a moment's hasty concentration. "'I've never been able to +settle it for myself, but NOW----" + +"Yes?" said Mr. Kinosling encouragingly. + +"Is--ah--is--oh, yes: Is Sanskrit a more difficult language +than Spanish, Mr. Kinosling?" + +"It depends upon the student," replied the oracle smiling. +"One must not look for linguists everywhere. In my own especial +case--if one may cite one's self as an example--I found no great, +no insurmountable difficulty in mastering, in conquering either." + +"And may _I_ ask one?" ventured Mrs. Bassett. "Do you +think it is right to wear egrets?" + +"There are marks of quality, of caste, of social +distinction," Mr. Kinosling began, "which must be permitted, +allowed, though perhaps regulated. Social distinction, one +observes, almost invariably implies spiritual distinction as +well. Distinction of circumstances is accompanied by mental +distinction. Distinction is hereditary; it descends from father +to son, and if there is one thing more true than `Like father, +like son,' it is--" he bowed gallantly to Mrs. Bassett--"it is, +`Like mother, like son.' What these good ladies have said this +afternoon of YOUR----" + +This was the fatal instant. There smote upon all ears the +voice of Georgie, painfully shrill and penetrating--fraught with +protest and protracted, strain. His plain words consisted +of the newly sanctioned and disinfected curse with a big H. + +With an ejaculation of horror, Mrs. Bassett sprang to the +window and threw open the blinds. + +Georgie's back was disclosed to the view of the tea-party. +He was endeavouring to ascend a maple tree about twelve feet from +the window. Embracing the trunk with arms and legs, he had +managed to squirm to a point above the heads of Penrod and +Herman, who stood close by, watching him earnestly--Penrod being +obviously in charge of the performance. Across the yard were Sam +Williams and Maurice Levy, acting as a jury on the question of +voice-power, and it was to a complaint of theirs that Georgie had +just replied. + +"That's right, Georgie," said Penrod encouragingly. "They +can, too, hear you. Let her go!" + +"Going to heaven!" shrieked Georgie, squirming up another +inch. "Going to heaven, heaven, heaven!" + +His mother's frenzied attempts to attract his attention +failed utterly. Georgie was using the full power of his lungs, +deafening his own ears to all other sounds. Mrs. Bassett called +in vain; while the tea-party stood petrified in a cluster about +the window. + +"Going to heaven!" Georgie bellowed. "Going to heaven! +Going to heaven, my Lord! Going to heaven, heaven, heaven!" + +He tried to climb higher, but began to slip downward, +his exertions causing damage to his apparel. A button flew into +the air, and his knickerbockers and his waistband severed +relations. + +"Devil's got my coat-tails, sinners! Old devil's got my +coat-tails!" he announced appropriately. Then he began to slide. + +He relaxed his clasp of the tree and slid to the ground. + +"Going to hell!" shrieked Georgie, reaching a high pitch of +enthusiasm in this great climax. "Going to hell! Going to hell! +I'm gone to hell, hell, hell!" + +With a loud scream, Mrs. Bassett threw herself out of the +window, alighting by some miracle upon her feet with ankles +unsprained. + +Mr. Kinosling, feeling that his presence as spiritual adviser +was demanded in the yard, followed with greater dignity through +the front door. At the corner of the house a small departing +figure collided with him violently. It was Penrod, tactfully +withdrawing from what promised to be a family scene of unusual +painfulness. + +Mr. Kinosling seized him by the shoulders and, giving way to +emotion, shook him viciously. + +"You horrible boy!" exclaimed Mr. Kinosling. "You ruffianly +creature! Do you know what's going to happen to you when you +grow up? Do you realize what you're going to BE!" + +With flashing eyes, the indignant boy made know his unshaken +purpose. He shouted the reply: + +"A minister!" + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII +TWELVE + +This busy globe which spawns us is as incapable of flattery and +as intent upon its own affair, whatever that is, as a gyroscope; +it keeps steadily whirling along its lawful track, and, thus far +seeming to hold a right of way, spins doggedly on, with no +perceptible diminution of speed to mark the most gigantic human +events--it did not pause to pant and recuperate even when what +seemed to Penrod its principal purpose was accomplished, and an +enormous shadow, vanishing westward over its surface, marked the +dawn of his twelfth birthday. + +To be twelve is an attainment worth the struggle. A boy, +just twelve, is like a Frenchman just elected to the Academy. + +Distinction and honour wait upon him. Younger boys show +deference to a person of twelve: his experience is guaranteed, +his judgment, therefore, mellow; consequently, his influence is +profound. Eleven is not quite satisfactory: it is only an +approach. Eleven has the disadvantage of six, of nineteen, of +forty-four, and of sixty-nine. But, like twelve, seven is an +honourable age, and the ambition to attain it is laudable. +People look forward to being seven. Similarly, twenty is worthy, +and so, arbitrarily, is twenty-one; forty-five has great +solidity; seventy is most commendable and each year thereafter an +increasing honour. Thirteen is embarrassed by the beginnings of +a new colthood; the child becomes a youth. But twelve is the +very top of boyhood. + +Dressing, that morning, Penrod felt that the world was +changed from the world of yesterday. For one thing, he seemed to +own more of it; this day was HIS day. And it was a day worth +owning; the midsummer sunshine, pouring gold through his window, +came from a cool sky, and a breeze moved pleasantly in his hair +as he leaned from the sill to watch the tribe of clattering +blackbirds take wing, following their leader from the trees in +the yard to the day's work in the open country. The blackbirds +were his, as the sunshine and the breeze were his, for they +all belonged to the day which was his birthday and therefore most +surely his. Pride suffused him: he was twelve! + +His father and his mother and Margaret seemed to understand +the difference between to-day and yesterday. They were at the +table when he descended, and they gave him a greeting which of +itself marked the milestone. Habitually, his entrance into a +room where his elders sat brought a cloud of apprehension: they +were prone to look up in pathetic expectancy, as if their thought +was, "What new awfulness is he going to start NOW?" But this +morning they laughed; his mother rose and kissed him twelve +times, so did Margaret; and his father shouted, "Well, well! +How's the MAN?" + +Then his mother gave him a Bible and "The Vicar of +Wakefield"; Margaret gave him a pair of silver-mounted hair +brushes; and his father gave him a "Pocket Atlas" and a small +compass. + +"And now, Penrod," said his mother, after breakfast, "I'm +going to take you out in the country to pay your birthday +respects to Aunt Sarah Crim." + +Aunt Sarah Crim, Penrod's great-aunt, was his oldest living +relative. She was ninety, and when Mrs. Schofield and Penrod +alighted from a carriage at her gate they found her digging with +a spade in the garden. + +"I'm glad you brought him," she said, desisting from +labour. "Jinny's baking a cake I'm going to send for his +birthday party. Bring him in the house. I've got something for +him." + +She led the way to her "sitting-room," which had a pleasant +smell, unlike any other smell, and, opening the drawer of a +shining old what-not, took therefrom a boy's "sling-shot," made +of a forked stick, two strips of rubber and a bit of leather. + +"This isn't for you," she said, placing it in Penrod's eager +hand. "No. It would break all to pieces the first time you +tried to shoot it, because it is thirty-five years old. I want +to send it back to your father. I think it's time. You give it +to him from me, and tell him I say I believe I can trust him with +it now. I took it away from him thirty-five years ago, one day +after he'd killed my best hen with it, accidentally, and broken a +glass pitcher on the back porch with it--accidentally. He +doesn't look like a person who's ever done things of that sort, +and I suppose he's forgotten it so well that he believes he never +DID, but if you give it to him from me I think he'll +remember. You look like him, Penrod. He was anything but a +handsome boy." + +After this final bit of reminiscence--probably designed to be +repeated to Mr. Schofield--she disappeared in the direction of +the kitchen, and returned with a pitcher of lemonade and a blue +china dish sweetly freighted with flat ginger cookies of a +composition that was her own secret. Then, having set this +collation before her guests, she presented Penrod with a superb, +intricate, and very modern machine of destructive capacities +almost limitless. She called it a pocket-knife. + +"I suppose you'll do something horrible with it," she said, +composedly. "I hear you do that with everything, anyhow, so you +might as well do it with this, and have more fun out of it. They +tell me you're the Worst Boy in Town." + +"Oh, Aunt Sarah!" Mrs. Schofield lifted a protesting hand. + +"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Crim. + +"But on his birthday!" + +"That's the time to say it. Penrod, aren't you the Worst Boy +in Town?" + +Penrod, gazing fondly upon his knife and eating cookies +rapidly, answered as a matter of course, and absently, "Yes'm." + +"Certainly!" said Mrs. Crim. "Once you accept a thing about +yourself as established and settled, it's all right. Nobody +minds. Boys are just people, really." + +"No, no!" Mrs. Schofield cried, involuntarily. + +"Yes, they are," returned Aunt Sarah. "Only they're not +quite so awful, because they haven't learned to cover themselves +all over with little pretences. When Penrod grows up he'll be +just the same as he is now, except that whenever he does +what he wants to do he'll tell himself and other people a +little story about it to make his reason for doing it seem nice +and pretty and noble." + +"No, I won't!" said Penrod suddenly. + +"There's one cookie left," observed Aunt Sarah. "Are you +going to eat it?" + +"Well," said her great-nephew, thoughtfully, "I guess I +better." + +"Why?" asked the old lady. "Why do you guess you'd +`better'?" + +"Well," said Penrod, with a full mouth, "it might get all +dried up if nobody took it, and get thrown out and wasted." + +"You're beginning finely," Mrs. Crim remarked. "A year ago +you'd have taken the cookie without the same sense of thrift." + +"Ma'am?" + +"Nothing. I see that you're twelve years old, that's all. +There are more cookies, Penrod." She went away, returning with a +fresh supply and the observation, "Of course, you'll be sick +before the day's over; you might as well get a good start." + +Mrs. Schofield looked thoughtful. "Aunt Sarah," she +ventured, "don't you really think we improve as we get older?" + +"Meaning," said the old lady, "that Penrod hasn't much chance +to escape the penitentiary if he doesn't? Well, we do learn to +restrain ourselves in some things; and there are people who +really want someone else to take the last cookie, though +they aren't very common. But it's all right, the world seems to +be getting on." She gazed whimsically upon her great-nephew and +added, "Of course, when you watch a boy and think about him, it +doesn't seem to be getting on very fast." + +Penrod moved uneasily in his chair; he was conscious that he +was her topic but unable to make out whether or not her +observations were complimentary; he inclined to think they were +not. Mrs. Crim settled the question for him. + +"I suppose Penrod is regarded as the neighbourhood curse?" + +"Oh, no," cried Mrs. Schofield. "He----" + +"I dare say the neighbours are right," continued the old lady +placidly. "He's had to repeat the history of the race and go +through all the stages from the primordial to barbarism. You +don't expect boys to be civilized, do you?" + +"Well, I----" + +"You might as well expect eggs to crow. No; you've got to +take boys as they are, and learn to know them as they are." + +"Naturally, Aunt Sarah," said Mrs. Schofield, "I KNOW +Penrod." + +Aunt Sarah laughed heartily. "Do you think his father knows +him, too?" + +"Of course, men are different," Mrs. Schofield returned, +apologetically. "But a mother knows----" + +"Penrod," said Aunt Sarah, solemnly, "does your father +understand you?" + +"Ma'am?" + +"About as much as he'd understand Sitting Bull!" she laughed. + +"And I'll tell you what your mother thinks you are, Penrod. Her +real belief is that you're a novice in a convent." + +"Ma'am?" + +"Aunt Sarah!" + +"I know she thinks that, because whenever you don't behave +like a novice she's disappointed in you. And your father really +believes that you're a decorous, well-trained young business man, +and whenever you don't live up to that standard you get on his +nerves and he thinks you need a walloping. I'm sure a day very +seldom passes without their both saying they don't know what on +earth to do with you. Does whipping do you any good, Penrod?" + +"Ma'am?" + +"Go on and finish the lemonade; there's about glassful left. +Oh, take it, take it; and don't say why! Of COURSE you're a +little pig." + +Penrod laughed gratefully, his eyes fixed upon her over the +rim of his uptilted glass. + +"Fill yourself up uncomfortably," said the old lady. "You're +twelve years old, and you ought to be happy--if you aren't +anything else. It's taken over nineteen hundred years of +Christianity and some hundreds of thousands of years of other +things to produce you, and there you sit!" + +"Ma'am?" + +"It'll be your turn to struggle and muss things up, for the +betterment of posterity, soon enough," said Aunt Sarah Crim. +"Drink your lemonade!" + + +CHAPTER XXIX +FANCHON + +"Aunt Sarah's a funny old lady," Penrod observed, on the way back +to the town. "What's she want me to give papa this old sling +for? Last thing she said was to be sure not to forget to give it +to him. HE don't want it; and she said, herself, it ain't +any good. She's older than you or papa, isn't she?" + +"About fifty years older," answered Mrs. Schofield, turning +upon him a stare of perplexity. "Don't cut into the leather with +your new knife, dear; the livery man might ask us to pay if---- +No. I wouldn't scrape the paint off, either--nor whittle +your shoe with it. COULDN'T you put it up until we get +home?" + +"We goin' straight home?" + +"No. We're going to stop at Mrs. Gelbraith's and ask a +strange little girl to come to your party, this afternoon." + +"Who?" + +"Her name is Fanchon. She's Mrs. Gelbraith's little niece." + +"What makes her so queer?" + +"I didn't say she's queer." + +"You said----" + +"No; I mean that she is a stranger. She lives in New York +and has come to visit here." + +"What's she live in New York for?" + +"Because her parents live there. You must be very nice to +her, Penrod; she has been very carefully brought up. Besides, +she doesn't know the children here, and you must help to keep her +from feeling lonely at your party." + +"Yes'm." + +When they reached Mrs. Gelbraith's, Penrod sat patiently +humped upon a gilt chair during the lengthy exchange of greetings +between his mother. and Mrs. Gelbraith. That is one of the +things a boy must learn to bear: when his mother meets a compeer +there is always a long and dreary wait for him, while the two +appear to be using strange symbols of speech, talking for the +greater part, it seems to him, simultaneously, and employing +a wholly incomprehensible system of emphasis at other times not +in vogue. Penrod twisted his legs, his cap and his nose. + +"Here she is!" Mrs. Gelbraith cried, unexpectedly, and a +dark-haired, demure person entered the room wearing a look of +gracious social expectancy. In years she was eleven, in manner +about sixty-five, and evidently had lived much at court. She +performed a curtsey in acknowledgment of Mrs. Schofield's +greeting, and bestowed her hand upon Penrod, who had entertained +no hope of such an honour, showed his surprise that it should +come to him, and was plainly unable to decide what to do about +it. + +"Fanchon, dear," said Mrs. Gelbraith, "take Penrod out in the +yard for a while, and play." + +"Let go the little girl's hand, Penrod," Mrs. Schofield +laughed, as the children turned toward the door. + +Penrod hastily dropped the small hand, and exclaiming, with +simple honesty, "Why, _I_ don't want it!" followed Fanchon out +into the sunshiny yard, where they came to a halt and surveyed +each other. + +Penrod stared awkwardly at Fanchon, no other occupation +suggesting itself to him, while Fanchon, with the utmost +coolness, made a very thorough visual examination of Penrod, +favouring him with an estimating scrutiny which lasted until he +literally wiggled. Finally, she spoke. + +"Where do you buy your ties?" she asked. + +"What?" + +"Where do you buy your neckties? Papa gets his at Skoone's. +You ought to get yours there. I'm sure the one you're wearing +isn't from Skoone's." + +"Skoone's?" Penrod repeated. "Skoone's?" + +"On Fifth Avenue," said Fanchon. "It's a very smart shop, +the men say." + +"Men?" echoed Penrod, in a hazy whisper. "Men?" + +"Where do your people go in summer?" inquired the lady. +"WE go to Long Shore, but so many middle-class people have +begun coming there, mamma thinks of leaving. The middle classes +are simply awful, don't you think?" + +"What?" + +"They're so boorjaw. You speak French, of course?" + +"Me?" + +"We ran over to Paris last year. It's lovely, don't you +think? Don't you LOVE the Rue de la Paix?" + +Penrod wandered in a labyrinth. This girl seemed to be +talking, but her words were dumfounding, and of course there was +no way for him to know that he was really listening to her +mother. It was his first meeting with one of those grown-up +little girls, wonderful product of the winter apartment and +summer hotel; and Fanchon, an only child, was a star of the +brand. He began to feel resentful. + +"I suppose," she went on, "I'll find everything here +fearfully Western. Some nice people called yesterday, +though. Do you know the Magsworth Bittses? Auntie says they're +charming. Will Roddy be at your party?" + +"I guess he will," returned Penrod, finding this +intelligible. "The mutt!" + +"Really!" Fanchon exclaimed airily. "Aren't you great pals +with him?" + +"What's `pals'?" + +"Good heavens! Don't you know what it means to say you're +`great pals' with any one? You ARE an odd child!" + +It was too much. + +"Oh, Bugs!" said Penrod. + +This bit of ruffianism had a curious effect. Fanchon looked +upon him with sudden favour. + +"I like you, Penrod!" she said, in an odd way, and, whatever +else there may have been in her manner, there certainly was no +shyness. + +"Oh, Bugs!" This repetition may have lacked gallantry, but +it was uttered in no very decided tone. Penrod was shaken. + +"Yes, I do!" She stepped closer to him, smiling. "Your hair +is ever so pretty." + +Sailors' parrots swear like mariners, they say; and gay +mothers ought to realize that all children are imitative, for, as +the precocious Fanchon leaned toward Penrod, the manner in which +she looked into his eyes might have made a thoughtful observer +wonder where she had learned her pretty ways. + +Penrod was even more confused than he had been by her +previous mysteries: but his confusion was of a distinctly +pleasant and alluring nature: he wanted more of it. Looking +intentionally into another person's eyes is an act unknown to +childhood; and Penrod's discovery that it could be done was +sensational. He had never thought of looking into the eyes of +Marjorie Jones. + +Despite all anguish, contumely, tar, and Maurice Levy, he +still secretly thought of Marjorie, with pathetic constancy, as +his "beau"--though that is not how he would have spelled it. +Marjorie was beautiful; her curls were long and the colour of +amber; her nose was straight and her freckles were honest; she +was much prettier than this accomplished visitor. But beauty is +not all. + +"I do!" breathed Fanchon, softly. + +She seemed to him a fairy creature from some rosier world +than this. So humble is the human heart, it glorifies and makes +glamorous almost any poor thing that says to it: "I like you!" + +Penrod was enslaved. He swallowed, coughed, scratched the +back of his neck, and said, disjointedly: + +"Well--I don't care if you want to. I just as soon." + +"We'll dance together," said Fanchon, "at your party." + +"I guess so. I just as soon." + +"Don't you want to, Penrod?" + +"Well, I'm willing to." + +"No. Say you WANT to!" + +"Well----" + +He used his toe as a gimlet, boring into the ground, his wide +open eyes staring with intense vacancy at a button on his sleeve. + +His mother appeared upon the porch in departure, calling +farewells over her shoulder to Mrs. Gelbraith, who stood in the +doorway. + +"Say it!" whispered Fanchon. + +"Well, I just as SOON." + +She seemed satisfied. + + + +CHAPTER XXX +THE BIRTHDAY PARTY + +A dancing floor had been laid upon a platform in the yard, when +Mrs. Schofield and her son arrived at their own abode; and a +white and scarlet striped canopy was in process of erection +overhead, to shelter the dancers from the sun. Workmen were busy +everywhere under the direction of Margaret, and the smitten heart +of Penrod began to beat rapidly. All this was for him; he was +Twelve! + +After lunch, he underwent an elaborate toilette and murmured +not. For the first time in his life he knew the wish to be sand- +papered, waxed, and polished to the highest possible +degree. And when the operation was over, he stood before the +mirror in new bloom, feeling encouraged to hope that his +resemblance to his father was not so strong as Aunt Sarah seemed +to think. + +The white gloves upon his hands had a pleasant smell, he +found; and, as he came down the stairs, he had great content in +the twinkling of his new dancing slippers. He stepped twice on +each step, the better to enjoy their effect and at the same time +he deeply inhaled the odour of the gloves. In spite of +everything, Penrod had his social capacities. Already it is to +be perceived that there were in him the makings of a cotillon +leader. + +Then came from the yard a sound of tuning instruments, squeak +of fiddle, croon of 'cello, a falling triangle ringing and +tinkling to the floor; and he turned pale. + +Chosen guests began to arrive, while Penrod, suffering from +stage-fright and perspiration, stood beside his mother, in the +"drawing-room," to receive them. He greeted unfamiliar +acquaintances and intimate fellow-criminals with the same +frigidity, murmuring: "'M glad to see y'," to all alike, largely +increasing the embarrassment which always prevails at the +beginning of children's festivities. His unnatural pomp and +circumstance had so thoroughly upset him, in truth, that Marjorie +Jones received a distinct shock, now to be related. Doctor +Thrope, the kind old clergyman who had baptized Penrod, came +in for a moment to congratulate the boy, and had just moved away +when it was Marjorie's turn, in the line of children, to speak to +Penrod. She gave him what she considered a forgiving look, and, +because of the occasion, addressed him in a perfectly courteous +manner. + +"I wish you many happy returns of the day, Penrod." + +"Thank you, sir!" he returned, following Dr. Thrope with a +glassy stare in which there was absolutely no recognition of +Marjorie. Then he greeted Maurice Levy, who was next to +Marjorie: "'M glad to see y'!" + +Dumfounded, Marjorie turned aside, and stood near, observing +Penrod with gravity. It was the first great surprise of her +life. Customarily, she had seemed to place his character +somewhere between that of the professional rioter and that of the +orang-outang; nevertheless, her manner at times just hinted a +consciousness that this Caliban was her property. Wherefore, she +stared at him incredulously as his head bobbed up and down, in +the dancing-school bow, greeting his guests. Then she heard an +adult voice, near her, exclaim: + +"What an exquisite child!" + +Mariorie galanced up--a little consciously, though she was +used to it--naturally curious to ascertain who was speaking of +her. It was Sam Williams' mother addressing Mrs. Bassett, +both being present to help Mrs. Schofield make the festivities +festive. + +"Exquisite!" + +Here was a second heavy surprise for Marjorie: they were not +looking at her. They were looking with beaming approval at a +girl she had never seen; a dark and modish stranger of singularly +composed and yet modest aspect. Her downcast eyes, becoming in +one thus entering a crowded room, were all that produced the +effect of modesty, counteracting something about her which might +have seemed too assured. She was very slender, very dainty, and +her apparel was disheartening to the other girls; it was of a +knowing picturesqueness wholly unfamiliar to them. There was a +delicate trace of powder upon the lobe of Fanchon's left ear, and +the outlines of her eyelids, if very closely scrutinized, would +have revealed successful experimentation with a burnt match. + +Marjorie's lovely eyes dilated: she learned the meaning of +hatred at first sight. Observing the stranger with instinctive +suspicion, all at once she seemed, to herself, awkward. Poor +Marjorie underwent that experience which hearty, healthy, little +girls and big girls undergo at one time or another--from heels to +head she felt herself, somehow, too THICK. + +Fanchon leaned close to Penrod and whispered in his ear: + +"Don't you forget!" + +Penrod blushed. + +Marjorie saw the blush. Her lovely eyes opened even wider, +and in them there began to grow a light. It was the light of +indignation;--at least, people whose eyes glow with that light +always call it indignation. + +Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, approached Fanchon, when +she had made her courtesy to Mrs. Schofield. Fanchon whispered +in Roderick's ear also. + +"Your hair is pretty, Roddy! Don't forget what you said +yesterday!" + +Roderick likewise blushed. + +Maurice Levy, captivated by the newcomer's appearance, +pressed close to Roderick. + +"Give us an intaduction, Roddy?" + +Roddy being either reluctant or unable to perform the rite, +Fanchon took matters into her own hands, and was presently +favourably impressed with Maurice, receiving the information that +his tie had been brought to him by his papa from Skoone's, +whereupon she privately informed him that she liked wavy hair, +and arranged to dance with him. Fanchon also thought sandy hair +attractive, Sam Williams discovered, a few minutes later, and so +catholic was her taste that a ring of boys quite encircled her +before the musicians in the yard struck up their thrilling march, +and Mrs. Schofield brought Penrod to escort the lady from +out-of-town to the dancing pavilion. + +Headed by this pair, the children sought partners and paraded +solemnly out of the front door and round a corner of the house. +There they found the gay marquee; the small orchestra seated on +the lawn at one side of it, and a punch bowl of lemonade inviting +attention, under a tree. Decorously the small couples stepped +upon the platform, one after another, and began to dance. + +"It's not much like a children's party in our day," Mrs. +Williams said to Penrod's mother. "We'd have been playing +`Quaker-meeting,' `Clap-in, Clap-out,' or `Going to Jerusalem,' I +suppose." + +"Yes, or `Post-office' and `Drop-the-handkerchief,'" said +Mrs. Schofield. "Things change so quickly. Imagine asking +little Fanchon Gelbraith to play `London Bridge'! Penrod seems +to be having a difficult time with her, poor boy; he wasn't a +shining light in the dancing class." + +However, Penrod's difficulty was not precisely of the kind +his mother supposed. Fanchon was showing him a new step, which +she taught her next partner in turn, continuing instructions +during the dancing. The children crowded the floor, and in the +kaleidoscopic jumble of bobbing heads and intermingling figures +her extremely different style of motion was unobserved by the +older people, who looked on, nodding time benevolently. + +Fanchon fascinated girls as well as boys. Many of the +former eagerly sought her acquaintance and thronged about her +between the dances, when, accepting the deference due a +cosmopolitan and an oracle of the mode, she gave demonstrations +of the new step to succeeding groups, professing astonishment to +find it unknown: it had been "all the go," she explained, at the +Long Shore Casino for fully two seasons. She pronounced "slow" a +"Fancy Dance" executed during an intermission by Baby Rennsdale +and Georgie Bassett, giving it as her opinion that Miss Rennsdale +and Mr. Bassett were "dead ones"; and she expressed surprise that +the punch bowl contained lemonade and not champagne. + +The dancing continued, the new step gaining instantly in +popularity, fresh couples adventuring with every number. The +word "step" is somewhat misleading, nothing done with the feet +being vital to the evolutions introduced by Fanchon. Fanchon's +dance came from the Orient by a roundabout way; pausing in Spain, +taking on a Gallic frankness in gallantry at the Bal Bullier in +Paris, combining with a relative from the South Seas encountered +in San Francisco, flavouring itself with a carefree negroid +abandon in New Orleans, and, accumulating, too, something +inexpressible from Mexico and South America, it kept, throughout +its travels, to the underworld, or to circles where nature is +extremely frank and rank, until at last it reached the dives of +New York, when it immediately broke out in what is called +civilized society. Thereafter it spread, in variously modified +forms--some of them disinfected--to watering-places, and thence, +carried by hundreds of older male and female Fanchons, over the +country, being eagerly adopted everywhere and made wholly pure +and respectable by the supreme moral axiom that anything is all +right if enough people do it. Everybody was doing it. + +Not quite everybody. It was perhaps some test of this dance +that earth could furnish no more grotesque sight than that of +children doing it. + +Earth, assisted by Fanchon, was furnishing this sight at +Penrod's party. By the time ice-cream and cake arrived, about +half the guests had either been initiated into the mysteries by +Fanchon or were learning by imitation, and the education of the +other half was resumed with the dancing, when the attendant +ladies, unconscious of what was happening, withdrew into the +house for tea. + +"That orchestra's a dead one," Fanchon remarked to Penrod. +"We ought to liven them up a little!" + +She approached the musicians. + +"Don't you know," she asked the leader, "the Slingo Sligo +Slide?" + +The leader giggled, nodded, rapped with his bow upon his +violin; and Penrod, following Fanchon back upon the dancing +floor, blindly brushed with his elbow a solitary little figure +standing aloof on the lawn at the edge of the platform. + +It was Marjorie. + +In no mood to approve of anything introduced by Fanchon, she +had scornfully refused, from the first, to dance the new "step," +and, because of its bonfire popularity, found herself neglected +in a society where she had reigned as beauty and belle. +Faithless Penrod, dazed by the sweeping Fanchon, had utterly +forgotten the amber curls; he had not once asked Marjorie to +dance. All afternoon the light of indignation had been growing +brighter in her eyes, though Maurice Levy's defection to the lady +from New York had not fanned this flame. From the moment Fanchon +had whispered familiarly in Penrod's ear, and Penrod had blushed, +Marjorie had been occupied exclusively with resentment against +that guilty pair. It seemed to her that Penrod had no right to +allow a strange girl to whisper in his ear; that his blushing, +when the strange girl did it, was atrocious; and that the strange +girl, herself, ought to be arrested. + +Forgotten by the merrymakers, Marjorie stood alone upon the +lawn, clenching her small fists, watching the new dance at its +high tide, and hating it with a hatred that made every inch of +her tremble. And, perhaps because jealousy is a great awakener +of the virtues, she had a perception of something in it worse +than lack of dignity--something vaguely but outrageously +reprehensible. Finally, when Penrod brushed by her, touched her +with his elbow, and, did not even see her, Marjorie's state +of mind (not unmingled with emotion!) became dangerous. In fact, +a trained nurse, chancing to observe her at this juncture, would +probably have advised that she be taken home and put to bed. +Marjorie was on the verge of hysterics. + +She saw Fanchon and Penrod assume the double embrace required +by the dance; the "Slingo Sligo Slide" burst from the orchestra +like the lunatic shriek of a gin-maddened nigger; and all the +little couples began to bob and dip and sway. + +Marjorie made a scene. She sprang upon the platform and +stamped her foot. + +"Penrod Schofield!" she shouted. "You BEHAVE yourself!" + +The remarkable girl took Penrod by the ear. By his ear she +swung him away from Fanchon and faced him toward the lawn. + +"You march straight out of here!" she commanded. + +Penrod marched. + +He was stunned; obeyed automatically, without question, and +had very little realization of what was happening to him. +Altogether, and without reason, he was in precisely the condition +of an elderly spouse detected in flagrant misbehaviour. +Marjorie, similarly, was in precisely the condition of the party +who detects such misbehaviour. It may be added that she had +acted with a promptness, a decision and a disregard of +social consequences all to be commended to the attention of +ladies in like predicament. + +"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" she raged, when they +reached the lawn. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" + +"What for?" he inquired, helplessly. + +"You be quiet!" + +"But what'd _I_ do, Marjorie? _I_ haven't done anything +to you," he pleaded. "I haven't even seen you, all aftern----" + +"You be quiet!" she cried, tears filling her eyes. "Keep +still! You ugly boy! Shut up!" + +She slapped him. + +He should have understood from this how much she cared for +him. But he rubbed his cheek and declared ruefully: + +"I'll never speak to you again!" + +"You will, too!" she sobbed, passionately. + +"I will not!" + +He turned to leave her, but paused. + +His mother, his sister Margaret, and their grownup friends +had finished their tea and were approaching from the house. +Other parents and guardians were with them, coming for their +children; and there were carriages and automobiles waiting in the +street. But the "Slingo Slide" went on, regardless. + +The group of grown-up people hesitated and came to a halt, +gazing at the pavilion. + +"What are they doing?" gasped Mrs. Williams, +blushing deeply. "What is it? What IS it?" + +"WHAT IS IT?" Mrs. Gelbraith echoed in a frightened +whisper. "WHAT----" + +"They're Tangoing!" cried Margaret Schofield. "Or Bunny +Hugging or Grizzly Bearing, or----" + +"They're only Turkey Trotting," said Robert Williams. + +With fearful outcries the mothers, aunts, and sisters rushed +upon the pavilion. + +"Of course it was dreadful," said Mrs. Schofield, an hour +later, rendering her lord an account of the day, "but it was +every bit the fault of that one extraordinary child. And of all +the quiet, demur little things--that is, I mean, when she first +came. We all spoke of how exquisite she seemed--so well trained, +so finished! Eleven years old! I never saw anything like her in +my life!" + +"I suppose it's the New Child," her husband grunted. + +"And to think of her saying there ought to have been +champagne in the lemonade!" + +"Probably she'd forgotten to bring her pocket flask," he +suggested musingly. + +"But aren't you proud of Penrod?" cried Penrod's mother. "It +was just as I told you: he was standing clear outside the +pavilion----" + +"I never thought to see the day! And Penrod was the only boy +not doing it, the only one to refuse? ALL the others +were----" + +"Every one!" she returned triumphantly. "Even Georgie +Bassett!" + +"Well," said Mr. Schofield, patting her on the shoulder. "I +guess we can hold up our heads at last." + + + +CHAPTER XXXI +OVER THE FENCE + +Penrod was out in the yard, staring at the empty marquee. The +sun was on the horizon line, so far behind the back fence, and a +western window of the house blazed in gold unbearable to the eye: +his day was nearly over. He sighed, and took from the inside +pocket of his new jacket the "sling-shot" aunt Sarah Crim had +given him that morning. + +He snapped the rubbers absently. They held fast; and his +next impulse was entirely irresistible. He found a shapely +stone, fitted it to the leather, and drew back the ancient +catapult for a shot. A sparrow hopped upon a +branch between him and the house, and he aimed at the sparrow, +but the reflection from the dazzling window struck in his eyes as +he loosed the leather. + +He missed the sparrow, but not the window. There was a loud +crash, and to his horror he caught a glimpse of his father, +stricken in mid-shaving, ducking a shower of broken glass, +glittering razor flourishing wildly. Words crashed with the +glass, stentorian words, fragmentary but collossal. + +Penrod stood petrified, a broken sling in his hand. He could +hear his parent's booming descent of the back stairs, instant and +furious; and then, red-hot above white lather, Mr. Schofield +burst out of the kitchen door and hurtled forth upon his son. + +"What do you mean?" he demanded, shaking Penrod by the +shoulder. "Ten minutes ago, for the very first time in our +lives, your mother and I were saying we were proud of you, and +here you go and throw a rock at me through the window when I'm +shaving for dinner!" + +"I didn't!" Penrod quavered. "I was shooting at a sparrow, +and the sun got in his eyes, and the sling broke----" + +"What sling?" + +"This'n." + +"Where'd you get that devilish thing? Don't you know I've +forbidden you a thousand times----" + +"It ain't mine," said Penrod. "It's yours." + +"What?" + +"Yes, sir," said the boy meekly. "Aunt Sarah Crim gave it to +me this morning and told me to give it back to you. She said she +took it away from you thirty-five years ago. You killed her hen, +she said. She told me some more to tell you, but I've +forgotten." + +"Oh!" said Mr. Schofield. + +He took the broken sling in his hand, looked at it long and +thoughtfully--and he looked longer, and quite as thoughtfully, at +Penrod. Then he turned away, and walked toward the house. + +"I'm sorry, papa," said Penrod. + +Mr. Schofield coughed, and, as he reached the door, called +back, but without turning his head. + +"Never mind, little boy. A broken window isn't much harm." + +When he had gone in, Penrod wandered down the yard to the +back fence, climbed upon it, and sat in reverie there. + +A slight figure appeared, likewise upon a fence, beyond two +neighbouring yards. + +"Yay, Penrod!" called comrade Sam Williams. + +"Yay!" returned Penrod, mechanically. + +"I caught Billy Blue Hill!" shouted Sam, describing +retribution in a manner perfectly clear to his friend. "You were +mighty lucky to get out of it." + +"I know that!" + +"You wouldn't of, if it hadn't been for Marjorie." + +"Well, don't I know that?" Penrod shouted, with heat. + +"Well, so long!" called Sam, dropping from his fence; and the +friendly voice came then, more faintly, "Many happy returns of +the day, Penrod!" + +And now, a plaintive little whine sounded from below Penrod's +feet, and, looking down, he saw that Duke, his wistful, old, +scraggly dog sat in the grass, gazing seekingly up at him. + +The last shaft of sunshine of that day fell graciously and +like a blessing upon the boy sitting on the fence. Years +afterward, a quiet sunset would recall to him sometimes the +gentle evening of his twelfth birthday, and bring him the picture +of his boy self, sitting in rosy light upon the fence, gazing +pensively down upon his wistful, scraggly, little old dog, Duke. +But something else, surpassing, he would remember of that hour, +for, in the side street, close by, a pink skirt flickered from +behind a shade tree to the shelter of the fence, there was a +gleam of amber curls, and Penrod started, as something like a +tiny white wing fluttered by his head, and there came to his ears +the sound of a light laugh and of light footsteps departing, the +laughter tremulous, the footsteps fleet. + +In the grass, between Duke's forepaws, there lay a white +note, folded in the shape of a cocked hat, and the sun sent forth +a final amazing glory as Penrod opened it and read: + +"Your my bow." + + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Penrod, by Booth Tarkington + diff --git a/old/pnrod10.zip b/old/pnrod10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9491b3f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/pnrod10.zip |