Penrod

I

BOOTH TARKINGTOM

University of California • Berkeley
From the Bequest

of
DOROTHY K. THOMAS

PENROD

- ter.' " shouted Pernod. " !Ttngf -

DOMROD

Byj> BOOTH
TARRINGTON

ILLUSTRATED BY
CORDON! CRAMT

GARDEN CITY NEW YORK.,

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE © COMPANY

1014

Copyright, 1914, by
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

All rights reserved, including that of

translation into foreign languages,

including the Scandinavian

Episodes in this book are also protected by following copyrights,

COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY BUTTERICK PUBLISHING CO.

COPYRIGHT, 1913, 1914, BY HEARST CO.

COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY CURTIS PUBLISHING CO.

COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY METROPOLITAN MAGAZINE CO.

To
John, Donald and Booth Jameson

From a Grateful Uncle

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

THE BEAUTIFUL LADY

THE FLIRT

THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA

THE GUEST OF QUESNAY

HIS OWN PEOPLE

IN THE ARENA
MONSIEUR BEAUCAIRE
THE TWO VANREVELS

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. A Boy and His Dog .... 3

II. Romance . ... . . ..'*'• 12

III. The Costume . . . . | . 21

IV. Desperation . . . . . . . 30

V. The Pageant of the Table Round 38

VI. Evening . ... . . . ., 47

VII. Evils of Drink ...... 51

VIII. School , . . 58

IX. Soaring . . . . , . . . 64

X. Uncle John . .... « . 71

XI. Fidelity of a Little Dog . . . .^ 84

XII. Miss Rennsdale Accepts ... 93

XIII. The Smallpox Medicine . . . 107

XIV. Maurice Levy's Constitution . . 118
XV. The Two Families ..... 131

XVI. The New Star ..... : 149

XVII. Retiring from the Show-Business 167

XVIII. Music 177

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

XIX. The Inner Boy

XX. Brothers of Angels . . . . . . 203

XXL Rupe Collins. . . ... . 212

XXII. The Imitator . . . Vv. . 225

XXIII. Coloured Troops in Action . . . 241

XXIV. "Little Gentleman" .... 249
XXV. Tar 262

XXVI. The Quiet Afternoon .... 283

XXVII. Conclusion of the Quiet Afternoon 299

XXVIII. Twelve 308

XXIX. Fanchon ......... 318

XXX. The Birthday Party 326

XXXI. Over the Fence 341

viii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Eleva-ter ! " shouted Penrod. " Ting-ting ! "

Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

"Oh, that's all right," said Margaret. "They
always powdered their hair in Colonial
days" 25

The outcast sat, and sat and sat, and squirmed,
and squirmed and squirmed . . ... 75

Following the form prescribed by Professor
Bartel, he advanced several paces toward
the stricken lady, and bowed 105

Penrod stopped sales to watch this operation 111

At about ten of the clock Penrod emerged
hastily from the kitchen door 133

Maurice Levy appeared escorting Marjorie
Jones, and paid coin for two admissions . 155

Never had he so won upon her; never had she
let him feel so close to her before . . . . 189

The first bite convinced him that he had made
a mistake 201

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

" Yes, sonny, Rupe Collins is my name, and
you better look out what you say when he's
around!"

Thus began the Great Tar Fight 267

By his ear she swung him away from Fanchon
and faced him toward the lawn . . 337

PEMRQD

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 every
thing, mere defensive instinct prompted him to give

3

4 PENROD

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 fathom
less as the depth of his hatred this morning for the
literary activities of Mrs. Lora Rewbush — an al
most 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 program
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;

A BOY AND HIS DOG 5

but she recovered so quickly that not even a rehear
sal of the Children's Pageant was postponed. Dark
ness 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 plain
tive monologue without words: the boy's thoughts
were adjectives, but they were expressed by a run
ning film of pictures in his mind's eye, morbidly
prophetic of the hideosities before him. Finally he

6 PENROD

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 Rew-
bush. 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 build
ing 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 func
tion; though, providentially, it had been at least

A BOY AND HIS DOG 7

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 automo
bile. 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 mer
cantile 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. Com
merce has its martyrs.

8 PENROD

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 him
self 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 con
sisting 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 over
head, 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, ap
proached slowly, in a semicircular manner, depre-
catingly, 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

A BOY AND HIS DOG 9

shallow: many a horrible quarter of an hour had
taught him his duty in this matter.

"El-e-#ai/-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 threat
ened, 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 within 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 Pen-
rod as inexplicable as it was providential.

10 PENROD

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; how
ever, 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 in
dicated at least a possibility of no fatality occurring
this time.

Next, Penrod turned up the surface of the saw
dust 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 "

A BOY AND HIS DOG 11

Immediately followed:

"HAKoLD RAMoRES 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 H

ROMANCE

THE author of "Harold Ramorez," etc., lit
one of the hayseed cigarettes, seated him
self 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, sharp
ened his pencil. After that, he extended a foot and

12

ROMANCE IS

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 pro
duce. 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
comon 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 deathroes
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 manged 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 con
dition 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

14 PENROD

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 biasing 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 remand stuck in the wall
Our heros amumition 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 abodmen too the

ROMANCE 15

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 Ram
orez again so with a tanting 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 mus-
tash 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

16 PENROD

"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 half
way 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!"

ROMANCE 17

Mrs. Schofield's 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; per
suaded with honeyed words and pictured rewards.
Duke's eyes looked backward; otherwise he moved
not. Time elapsed. Penrod stooped to flattery,

18 PENROD

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 or
atorical 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 indig
nantly.

"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?"

ROMANCE 19

;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 min
utes. 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 final
ities 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
sence of satisfaction, dulled by the overhanging
afternoon, perhaps, but perceptible: he had the feel
ing of one who has been true to a cause. The oper-

20 PENROD

ation 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 Mar
garet, 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) at
tended by mothers and grown-up sisters, Mrs. Lora

Rewbush had announced that she wished the cos-

21

22 PENROD

turning 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 archseologists, 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 de
scription 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

THE COSTUME 23

attract much attention to the wearer. Mrs. Scho-
field had considered giving it to Delia, the cook; but
had decided not to do so, because you never could
tell how Delia 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 and conspicuous usefulness; at all
events, the bodice of that once salmon dress, some
what 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

24 PENROD

Lancelot, and added an earnest bit of colour, as well
as a genuine touch of the Middle Ages, to his cos
tume. 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 stock
ings 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!'9 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 pow
dered their hair in Colonial times."

"It doesn't seem right to me — exactly," ob-

Oh, that's all right" said Margaret. " They^always pow
dered their hair in Colonial times"

26 PENROD

jected Mrs. Schofield, gently. "Sir Lancelot must
have been ever so long before Colonial times."

"That doesn't matter," Margaret reassured her.
"Nobody '11 know the difference — Mrs. Lora Rew-
bush 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 Ra-
morez" had moved convulsively.) "Besides, pow
dered hair's always becoming. Look at him. You'd
hardly know it was Penrod!"

The pride and admiration with which she pro
nounced 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 neighbour, who was a

THE COSTUME 27

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 fas
tened 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 fagade. Then, at last, he was allowed to step
before a mirror.

It was a full-length glass, and the worst immedi
ately 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 Ra-
morez, could not have expressed, with all the vile

28 PENROD

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 stock
ings 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 earth
quake, 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 Rew-
bush; nevertheless, they found opportunity to ex-

THE COSTUME 29

change earnest congratulations upon his not having
recognized the humble but serviceable paternal gar
ment 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 Pen-
rod'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 con
spicuous 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

30

DESPERATION 31

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 shelter
ing 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 profes
sional costumer's stock, while one or two were insult
ing examples of parental indulgence, particularly little
Maurice Levy, the Child Sir Galahad. This shrink
ing person went clamourously 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 im
mediately formed semicircular audience of little girls.
Woman was ever the trailer of magnificence.

32 PENROD

"What you got on?" inquired Mr. Levy, after dis
pensing 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 def
erence, 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 up
roar. "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

DESPERATION 33

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 diver
sion: 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, con
veying to Penrod an impression that some too femi
nine 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

34 PENROD

overalls, passed Penrod again with a bass rumble —
"Dern Jem!" 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 Mar
garet'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 no
ticed that a safety-pin had opened; one of those con
necting 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

DESPERATION 35

portion of the family apparel, on Mondays, had
often been painful to Penrod ; for boys have a pecu
liar 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 Pen-
rod. 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 hor
rible 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 bla
zoned 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 experi
ence of finding themselves very inadequately clad
in the midst of a crowd of well-dressed people, and
such dreamers' sensations are comparable to Pen-

36 PENROD

rod's, though faintly, because Penrod was awake and
in much too full possession of the most active ca
pacities 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 ab
solutely 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 embarrass
ment 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 than 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 hall
way, 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

DESPERATION 37

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

PAGEANT OF THE TABLE ROUND 39

in Germany and consisting of pink and blue cheese
cloth. The Child King Arthur and the Child Queen
Guinevere were disclosed upon thrones, with the
Child Elaine and many other celebrities in attend
ance; 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 Coun
try Club and some local automobile manufactu
rers.

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 "0-o/i" 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 seep-

40 PENROD

tre 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 acquain
tances. (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 de
claimed 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."

PAGEANT OF THE TABLE ROUND 41

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..

42 PENROD

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

PAGEANT OF THE TABLE ROUND 43

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 be
yond 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 ex
hibition of the contortionist's art. ("He's tvristin*
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,

44 PENROD

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 for
gotten 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

PAGEANT OF THE TABLE ROUND 45

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 parti
cipant as a sort of cultured riot.

The actors in the "pageant" were not so dum-
founded 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

46 PENROD

impressed: they regarded him with the grisly admi
ration 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 ir
repressible 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
R-ewbush; 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 Pen-
rod 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 some
thing 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

47

48 PENROD

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 howl
ing 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 turn
ing, 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

EVENING 49

could have survived a similar experience. Looking
back to the sawdust-box, fancy pictures this com
parable 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 ex
clusively 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
tl e repulsive sentiments of an author not only per
sonally 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 1dm 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 flagel
lation.

We conceive our man deciding that his career had
been perhaps too eventful. Yet Penrod had con
densed all of it into eight hours.

50 PENROD

It appears that he had at least some shadowy per
ception 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.

N

CHAPTER VII

EVILS OF DRINK

EXT day, Penrod acquired a dime by a sim
ple 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 con
fident of a small but regular income.

51

52 PENROD

At the close of the afternoon services he did not go
home, but proceeded to squander the funds just with
held 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

EVILS OF DRINK 53

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 pro
fession 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 dal
liance? 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 twi
light as rapidly as possible, at a gait half skip and

54 PENROD

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

EVILS OF DRINK 55

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, uncon
scious 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 ad
dressed 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 de
livered."

"How long they goin' to stay? "

"I don't know."

Penrod ceased to rub his shining face, and thought
fully 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?"

56 PENROD

"What are you talking about?" demanded Mar
garet, 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 any
thing 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 , whole-heartedly . ' ' 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 it's wicked to travel on Sun
day. And Aunt Clara was worried when she got

EVILS OF DRINK 57

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 re
sumed 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

SB

SCHOOL 59

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 studyii ?; 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 witii 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;

60 PENROD

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 side
walk. 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. Other
wise Penrod would have gone down the street in a
black skin, playing the mouth-organ, and an unpre
pared coloured youth would have found himself en
joying 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 per
petual 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 threat
eningly 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

SCHOOL 61

lithographic portraits, votive offerings of a thought
ful publisher. The portraits were of good and great
men, kind men; men who loved children. Their
faces were noble and benevolent. But the litho
graphs offered the only rest for the eyes of children
fatigued by the everlasting sameness of the school
room. 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 chil
dren; 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 chil
dren 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 Long
fellow and for James Russell Lowell and for Oliver

62 PENROD

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 school
room 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 Vic
torine 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 ink-

SCHOOL 63

well 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 pic
turesque touches to the plaid waist.

Rudolph Krauss, across the aisle from Penrod,
watched the operation with protuberant eyes, fas
cinated. 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 mathe
matics. Several boys and girls were sent to the
blackboard, and Penrod, spared for the moment, fol
lowed 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 re
mained open, but saw nothing; the routine of the
arithmetic lesson reached his ears in familiar, mean-

64

SOARING 65

ingless 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 in
spires a sometimes unbearable longing for something
astonishing to happen, and as every boy's fundamen
tal 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 navi
gated as by a swimmer under water, but with in
finitely greater ease and with perfect comfort in
breathing. In his mind he extended his arms grace
fully, 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

66 PENROD

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, im
mediately 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

SOARING 67

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 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 chan
delier, and, smiling coldly, floated out through the
hall to the front steps of the school, while Marjorie
f ollov/ed, 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 sinu-

68 PENROD

ous 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 rocket
ing safely up and up into the blue sky, but also that
of standing in the crowd below, watching and admir
ing 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 spoil
ing 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.

SOARING 69

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 sur
prised 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

70 PENROD

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.

"PenrodSchofield!"

"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 "0-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

71

72 PENROD

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 new
born 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 shiv
ered in ecstatic horror, every fascinated eye upon

UNCLE JOHN 73

him; yet there was not a soul in the room but was
profoundly grateful to him for the sensation — in
cluding 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 :

74 PENROD

"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 passion
ately 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, con
tinuous 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 waist
coat 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

The outcast sat, and sat and sat, and squirmed, and
squirmed and squirmed

75

76 PENROD

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 shout
ing 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

UNCLE JOHN 77

you to offer before I report your case to the prin
cipal?"

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 rignt hand and re
garded 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

78 PENROD

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, emphasiz
ing 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 some one 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."

UNCLE JOHN 79

"What was?" He marked 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 sorrow
fully. "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 hus
band, but these travelling men would coax him into
a saloon on his way 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

80 PENROD

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 dis
armed 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

UNCLE JOHN 81

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 encour
aging. Her eyes were wide with astonishment, and
there may have been in them, also, the mingled be
ginnings 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."

m PENROD

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 verisi
militude 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

UNCLE JOHN 83

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 cob
webs — 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 think
ing," 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 im
pressive than that sinister mere emptiness. The
accepted theory was that Penrod had been arrested.
How breath-taking then, the sensation when, at the
beginning of the second hour, he strolled in with in
imitable 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

84

FIDELITY OF A LITTLE DOG 85

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 investiga
tors 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.

86 PENROD

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 try
ing 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 em
barrassed — 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 thought
fully. "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?"

FIDELITY OF A LITTLE DOG 87

"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 proph
ecy was upon him: he knew that some one was
going to ask a question which he felt might better
remain unspoken.

"What was the other thing she said?" Mr. Scho-
field 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?"

88 PENROD

"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 apart
ment known to its own world as the "drawing-room."
A sneeze, unexpected both to him and the owner, in
formed 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 squat
ting under the piano, near an open window — his
wistful Duke lying beside him.

"What are you doing there?"

FIDELITY OF A LITTLE DOG 89

"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, re
turned 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 simul
taneously 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 hus
band, 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, exas
perated, to stare at him. "Henry Passloe Scho-

90 PENROD

field, 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 think
ing 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 sensi
tized 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 win
dow 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
Earry ever hears of it ! "

"Hears of what?"

"Well, I just couldn't stand it, I got so curious;

FIDELITY OF A LITTLE DOG 91

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!"

66 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. Scho
field 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.

92 PENROD

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 por
tions 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, plead
ing outside the bolted door.

CHAPTER XII

MISS RENNSDALE ACCEPTS

ONE-TWO-THREE ; one-two-three—glide ! "
said Professor Bartet, emphasizing his in
structions 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 re
flections with them, swimming rhythmically in the
polished, dark floor — white and blue and pink for

93

'94 PENROD

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 man-
nerss 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

MISS RENNSDALE ACCEPTS 95

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 gentle
men. Mr. Penrod Schofield, I would puttickly like
your attention; this is for you!"

"Pickin' on me again!" murmured the smoulder
ing 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, govern
esses, 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. Con
trariwise, 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

96 PENROD

was the product of his own energies cannot be cal
culated. 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 pos
sible 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. Where-

MISS RENNSDALE ACCEPTS 97

upon Marjorie whispered derisively in the ear of her
partner, Maurice Levy, who wore a pearl pin in his tie.

"Again, please, everybody — ladies and gentle
men!" 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 out
side that window ! If you do me the f af er to examine
I am here, insides of the room. Now then! Piano,
pi — no, I do not wish the piano ! As you all know,
this is the last lesson of the season until next October.
To-morrow 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, per
fect instruction; let us see if we know how to perform
like societies ladies and gentlemen twenty-six years
of age.

08 PENROD

"Now, when you are dismissed each lady will go to
her home and prepare to receive a call. The gentle
men will allow the ladies time to reach their houses
and to prepare to receive callers; then each gentle
man 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 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 remem
ber 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 itch
ing here ! / do not itch ! I cannot talk if you must

MISS RENNSDALE ACCEPTS 99

itch ! In the name of Heaven, why must you always
itch? What was I saying? Where — ah! the co
tillon — yes ! For the cotillon it is important no
body shall fail to be here to-morrow; 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 some one comes and her partner has sent her a
polite note that he has genuine reasons why he can
not come, the note must be handed at once to me, so
that I arrange some other partner. Is all under
stood? 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

100 PENROD

so recently spoken unamiably of him in public. He
had not yet learned that the only safe male re
buke 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. Resent
ment 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?"

"InMarjorie's."

MISS RENNSDALE ACCEPTS 101

"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 be
gan dangerously. "I'll give you sumpthing to re-
mem -

"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!"

102 PENROD

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 t '-morrow!"

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 na
ture 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 alter
cation with his enemy at her gate had allowed other
ladies ample time to prepare for callers — and to re
ceive 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 legiti-

MISS RENNSDALE ACCEPTS 103

mate 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 en
counters with other boys upon the street.

One lady alone remained; he bowed to the inevi
table 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 prem
iere; 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 ap
plicant to her where she sat upon a sofa beside a
nursery governess. The decorous maid announced
him composedly as he made his entrance.

"Mr. PenrodSchofield!"

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

104 PENROD

- likewise her decorum. She clapped her hand over
her mouth and fled, uttering sounds. The gover
ness, 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 pleas
ure of dancing the cotillon as your partner t'-mor-
row 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 fran
tically upon the sofa with fists and heels. "Oh, I
did want it to be Georgie Bassett!"

Following the form prescribed by Professor Bartet, he
advanced several paces toward the stricken lady, and bowed
formally

106

106 PENROD

"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 an-
'Otherbowhe 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 be
fore 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 part
ner 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, increas
ing 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 de-

107

108 PENROD

scended 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 Delia, the cook, had collected in a large market
basket, adding to it some bottles of flavouring ex
tracts 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 Delia.
It was another who saw treasure in the basket she
had left.

THE SMALLPOX MEDICINE 109

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 re
mained carefully in place while Penrod drank. This
rite concluded, the visitor's eye fell upon the basket
deposited by Delia. 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 part
ners "

"Or else," Penrod suggested, "I'll run the drug
store and you be a customer "

"No! Partners!" insisted Sam with such con-

110 PENROD

viction that his host yielded; and within ten minutes
the drug store was doing a heavy business with im
aginary 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

Penrod stopped sales to watch this operation

111

PENROD

remnants of catsup and essence of beef and what
was left in several bottles of mouth wash; 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. Scho-
field's influenza of the preceding winter.

Sam examined the combination with concern, ap
pearing unsatisfied. "We got to make that small
pox medicine good and strong!" he remarked; and,
his artistic sense growing more powerful than his ap
petite, 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 thought
fully.

"Don't smell so awful much," observed Sam,
sniffing the bottle — "a good deal, though!"

THE SMALLPOX MEDICINE 113

"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 ex
pect the worst at all times, walked out of the door,
shaking his head with an air of considerable annoy
ance, 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 re
turn — Duke restored much at this time. After
ward, 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.

114 PENROD

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?"

THE SMALLPOX MEDICINE 115

"Who's yours?"

"Who's yours? I just ast you."

"Oh, she's all right!" And Penrod smiled boast
fully.

"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. Wil
liams 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

116 PENROD

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'fes-
sor 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 '11 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 pos
ture upon the doorsill 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.

THE SMALLPOX MEDICINE 117

"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 some one passing upon the
sidewalk of the cross-street; and the some one 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 con
frontation.

CHAPTER XIV

MAURICE LEVY'S CONSTITUTION

CSAM!" 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.

118

MAURICE LEVY'S CONSTITUTION 119

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 whis
pered 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,

120 PENROD

affected to let the cool liquid purl enrichingly into
him, while with his right hand he stroked his mid
dle 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!

MAURICE LEVY'S CONSTITUTION

Dazzled, Mr. Samuel Williams leaned against the
wall. He had the sensations of one who comes sud
denly 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 / 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 co
tillon. If Maurice was to be absent from that fes
tivity — 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.

PENROD

"No, I didn't," returned Penrod quickly, hold
ing 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 placa-
tive 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?"

MAURICE LEVY'S CONSTITUTION 123

"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 s waller-
ing?" Maurice insisted.

"Yes!" said both boys together.

With that, Maurice placed the bottle to his lips
anc 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! Mau
rice 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 con
spirators; he was fulfilling the conditions of the
draught, not once breaking the thread of that mar
vellous swallering.

124 PENROD

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 con
tents 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 ejacula
tions 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 a 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

MAURICE LEVY'S CONSTITUTION 125

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 mis
take. And Maurice had really drained — to the
dregs — the bottle of old hair tonics, dead catsups,
syrups of undesirable preserves, condemned ex
tracts 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 cer
tainly 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

126 PENROD

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 co
tillon right after lunch. Come on, Sam. Don't
you have to go, too?"

Sam nodded dazedly.

"Well, good-bye, Penrod," said Maurice cor
dially. "I'm glad you like me all right. Come on,
Sam."

Penrod leaned against the doorpost and with fixed

MAURICE LEVY'S CONSTITUTION

and glazing eyes watched the departure of his two
visitors. Maurice was talking volubly, with much
gesticulation, as they went; but Sam walked mechani
cally 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 reappear
ance 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 doin5 up there?"

"NothinV

128 PENROD

"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 Delia.

"Mister Penrod," she bellowed forthwith, "come
ahn down f r'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 mon
strous sheaf of American Beauty roses. Maurice,
sitting shining and joyous beside her, saw both boys,

MAURICE LEVY'S CONSTITUTION 129

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 oc
cupied — it is impossible to say. Undeniably there
must remain a suspicion of deliberate purpose.

Delia screamed and Sam shouted. Penrod had
disappeared from view.

The delayed dancing class was about to begin a
most uneven cotillon under the direction of its
slightly frenzied instructor, 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?"

130 PENROD

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
morning, picturesquely leaning upon a man's
cane shortened to support a cripple ap
proaching 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 crit
icism 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

131

132 PENROD

promptly and as coldly as if he had been a mere,
ordinary, unmutilated boy. Nor would she enter
tain 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 re
mained 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 back
yard, 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 abnor
mally; so did his cheeks, and he swallowed with dif
ficulty. 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 Delia, whereupon Penrod and Duke
seated themselves upon the pleasant sward and
immediately consumed the spoils of their raid.

At about ten of the clock Penrod emerged hastily from the
kitchen door

133

134 PENROD

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 pre
served against the coarsening influences of rude com
radeship and miscellaneous information. Heavily
overgrown in all physical dimensions, virtuous, and
placid, this cloistered mutton was wholly uninterest
ing 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

THE TWO FAMILIES 135

elegance, and wore the same nose and the same ex
pression — 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 ig
noble and to become secretly uneasy about ancestors,
gloves, and pronunciation. The Magsworth Bitts
manner was withholding and reserved, though some
times 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 mis
take, 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 su
preme 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

136 PENROD

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 con
necting 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 gradu
ally increasing public and official belief that she
had poisoned a family of eight. However, the state
ment 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 apa
thetic greeting, did not afford the opportunity. Pen-

THE TWO FAMILIES 137

rod took off his cap, and Roderick, seated between his
mother and one of his grown-up sisters, nodded slug
gishly, but neither Mrs. Mags worth 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 Mags worth 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. Delia
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.

138 PENROD

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 splen
didly.

After a time, the student's attention was with
drawn 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.

THE TWO FAMILIES 139

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, in
tending no discourtesy.

"Aim gommo mame," said the small darky.

"What?"

"Aim gommo mame."

The small darky looked annoyed.

"Aim gommo mame, I hell you," he said impa
tiently.

Penrod conceived that insult was intended.

"What's the matter of you?" he demanded ad
vancing. "You get fresh with me, and I'll - "

"Hyuh, white boy!" A coloured youth of Pen-
rod's own age appeared in the doorway of the cot
tage. "You let 'at brothuh mine alone. He am"
do nofhin' to you."

140 PENROD

"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 ap
peared 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?"

THE TWO FAMILIES 141

"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!"

"7 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 /or?"

"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 grow on wheres
de ole one use to grow. Nosuh!"

"But what'd you tell him to do it for?"

"Nothin'. I jes' said it 'at way — an' he jes' chop
'eroff!"

Both brothers looked pleased and proud. Pen-
rod's profound interest was flatteringly visible, a
tribute to their unusualness.

142 PENROD

"Hem bow goy," suggested Verman eagerly.

"Aw ri'," said Herman. "Ow sistuh Queenie,
she a gro wed-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 con
versation 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

THE TWO FAMILIES 143

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 some
what 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 har
monies) that the heretofore nameless pet be chris
tened 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

144 PENROD

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 sump thing, Herman," Penrod com
manded, 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

THE TWO FAMILIES 145

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, subse
quent 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 trans
formed into, but history warrantably clings to the
statement that it was transformed. Duke and
Sherman were secured to the rear wall at a consider
able distance from each other, after an exhibition
of reluctance on the part of Duke, during which he
displayed a nervous energy and agility almost mirac
ulous 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

146 PENROD

Sam Williams' attic, Sam returning from the excur
sion wearing an old silk hat, and accompanied
(on account of a rope) by a fine dachshund encount
ered on the highway. In the matter of personal
decoration paint was generously used: an inter
pretation 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 at
tempt 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 pictur
esquely described her activity on occasions when she
had been annoyed by too much attention to her ap
pearance. 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,

THE TWO FAMILIES 147

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

MANWiTHA

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

148 PENROD

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

149

150 PENROD

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 ob-
struck 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 Zai/-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 char
acter 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

THE NEW STAR 151

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-iextl " he repeated, and con
tinued, 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-textl There! (That's all they do
now, but I and Sam are goin' to train 'em lots more
before this afternoon.) GWi-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-
sump thing else, Herman. This is the only genuine

152 PENROD

one-fingered tattooed wild man. Last on the pro
gramme, 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, how
ever, with a true showman's foresight, whispered
to Penrod, who rang down on the monologue.

" Gen-til-mun and lay-deeze, this closes our puffor-
mance. 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 ad
mission. 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 puffor
mance, 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."

THE NEW STAR 153

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 in
veterate 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 even
ing during the earlier stages of an assured "phe
nomenal run."

From the first, there was no question which feature
of the entertainment was the attraction extraordi
nary : 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

154 PENROD

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. Dur
ing Penrod's lecture upon the other curios, the tat
tooed 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! / 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 wont go home to lunch ! " screamed Miss Renns
dale, 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!

•<$

'^^'

Maurice Levy appeared, escorting Marjorie Jones, and paid
coin for two admissions

155

156 PENROD

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.

Ve^rman 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 Renns-
dale was detained at home, thus drying up the single
source of cash income developed before lunch, Mau
rice Levy appeared, escorting Marjorie Jones, and
paid coin for two admissions, dropping the money
into Sam's hand with a careless — nay, a contempt
uous — gesture. At sight of Marjorie, Penrod Scho
field 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 fear-

THE NEW STAR 157

lessly 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 stair
way, bearing the message that Mrs. Levy awaited
her son and his lady. Thereupon, having de
voured 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

158 PENROD

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 Mags-
worth 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 puffor-
mance was offered for his entertainment with ad
mirable 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 ar
rested." And when Penrod, rather uneasily ignoring

THE NEW STAR 159

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 Wil
liams 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 dammed.

"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."

160 PENROD

" 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 ab
sence 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!"

THE NEW STAR 161

"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 argu-
mentatively. "You talk about being a show all by
yourself; what could you try to do? Show us sump-
thing 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 de
manded. "We got a show here, even if Herman
didn't point or Verman didn't talk. Their father

162 PENROD

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 Roder
ick, the birth of an idea plainly visible in his altered
expression. He had suddenly remembered his inten
tion 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 pre
science 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.

THE NEW STAR 163

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 resi
dence 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 Mags-
worth 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 Mis-
sourians. And from his earliest years Roderick Mags-
worth 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. Conse-

164 PENROD

quently, 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 Mags worth 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

THE NEW STAR 165

mother 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 bother
some 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-heart
edly into the preparations for the new show. As
suming, with Sam's assistance, a blue moustache
and "sideburns," he helped in the painting of a new
poster, which, supplanting the old one on the wall

166 PENROD

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 RoD-

ERiCK

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, de
livering 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.

167

168 PENROD

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 dim
ming 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 at
tention was very flattering. He remained after the
lecture, and put a few questions to Roddy, which

RETIRING FROM BUSINESS

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 in
dubitable line — by no means wholly juvenile —
waiting for admission to the next pufformance. A
group stood in the street examining the poster ear
nestly 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.

170 PENROD

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.

RETIRING FROM BUSINESS 171

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 Mags worth
Bitts approaching like some fatal mountain in av
alanche. 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 thought
fully stepped into the chute a moment in advance
of his partner. Penrod lit upon Sam.

Catastrophic noises resounded in the loft; volca
noes seemed to romp upon the stairway.

There ensued a period when only a shrill keen-

172 PENROD

ing marked the passing of Roderick as he was borne
to the tumbril. Then all was silence.

. . . Sunset, striking through a western win
dow, rouged the walls of the Schofields' library,
where gathered a joint family council and court mar
tial of four — Mrs. Schofield, Mr. Schofield, and
Mr. and Mrs. Williams, parents of Samuel of that
ilk. Mr. Williams read aloud a conspicuous pas
sage 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 con
firmed 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.

RETIRING FROM BUSINESS 173

"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 Pen-
rod ever thought of such a thing as that!" exclaimed
Mrs. Schofield. "It must have been made up just
for their ' show/ Delia 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,

174 PENROD

^nd she's usually the very soul of delicacy. She
said that Roderick had never been allowed to asso
ciate with — 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 a be 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 thought
ful 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?"

RETIRING FROM BUSINESS 175

" 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 im
perial, Penrod and Sam awaited sentence.

This is a boy's lot: anything he does, anything

176 PENROD

whatever, may afterward turn out to have been a
crime — he never knows.

And punishment and clemency are alike inex
plicable.

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!"
177

178 PENROD

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 diffi
culty, 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 in
comprehensible 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 "

MUSIC 179

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 da-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,

180 PENROD

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 in
quired 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 com
fort."

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

Iwillre-CALLthat "

"Pen-rod!"

Mr. Schofield appeared at an open window up
stairs, a book in his hand.

"Stop it!" he commanded. "Can't I stay home

MUSIC 181

with a headache one morning from the office without
having to listen to — I never did hear such squawk
ing!" He retired from the window, having too im
pulsively 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;

182 PENROD

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 mel
ody: 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.

MUSIC 183

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 unques
tionably a ruin, beautiful in decay, and quite beyond
the sacrilegious reach of the restorer. But it was
still able to disgorge sounds — loud, strange, com
pelling sounds, which could be heard for a remark
able 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,

184 PENROD

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 him
self thus troubadouring to the gaze of Marjorie
Jones. Heralding his advance by continuous experi
ments 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 sud
denly 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!

MUSIC 185

How sacred the sweet little baby brother, whose privi
lege it was to cling to that small hand, delicately
powdered with freckles.

"Hello, Marjorie," said Penrod, affecting care
lessness.

"Hello!" said Marjorie, with unexpected cor
diality. She bent over her baby brother with
motherly affectations. "Say 'howdy' to the genty-
muns, 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.

186 PENROD

"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 at
tractions 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, arid shopworn chocolate 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."

MUSIC 187

"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 ! W&owwow ! " 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

188 PENROD

struck it from his hand, desiring the former, which
had convinced him of its sweetness.

Mar jorie 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,

Never had he so won upon her; never had she let him feel
so close to her before

189

190 PENROD

and soon she had learned to play the accordion al
most 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 yon 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?"

MUSIC 191

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, pretend,
ing that he and Duke were a long proces
sion; 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

192

THE INNER BOY 193

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 'cordion," 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 him
self 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 de
votion.

194 PENROD

"I should think he'd have been glad to," said Mr.
Schofield. "Who was he? "

"Sir?" In spite of the candy which he had con
sumed 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
Colgates', 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? "

4 ' I don't know . I was walking along and ' '

" 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 ! "

THE INNER BOY 195

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 school-
book. 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,

196 PENROD

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 lem-

THE INNER BOY 197

onade (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 in
dulged 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 water
melon man fell delectably upon his ear:

"Ice-cole water-melon; ice-cole water-melon; the
biggest slice of ice-cole, ripe, red, zee-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 en
treaty, and received a round slice of the fruit, mag
nificent in circumference and something over an
inch in thickness. Leaving only the really danger
ous part of the rind behind him, he wandered away
from the vicinity of the watermelon man and sup-

198 PENROD

plied 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 him
self 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 manip
ulating 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.

THE INNER BOY 199

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 indiffer
ence. 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 con
scious 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 flour
ished 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,

200 PENROD

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 red-faced 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 offend
ing the red-faced man. He ate without haste or
eagerness — so slowly, indeed, that he began to think
the red-faced man might dislike him, as a deterrent
of trade. Perhaps Penrod 's mind was not working

The first bite convinced him that he had made a mistake

201

202 PENROD

well, for he failed to remember that no law com
pelled him to remain under the eye of the red-faced
man, but the virulent repulsion excited by his at
tempt 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 inside 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 compre
hension at a huge canvas poster depicting the chief
attraction; the weather-worn colours conveying no
meaning to 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 believe 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 am-

203

204 PENROD

monia 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

BROTHERS OF ANGELS 205

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 wailed. "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 had 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 con
certina, 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,

206 PENROD

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 lob
ster 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 7 didn't know what he'd do with the
dollar," said Robert.

BROTHERS OF ANGELS 207

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 rhe
torical 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 re-
spon "

"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 mo
ment; but I cannot change my mind. Not now,
at least."

208 PENROD

"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 inter
rupted. "But I must insist that for your careless
ness 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 unaccom
panied — 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.

BROTHERS OF ANGELS 209

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 rasp
berry lemonade and cider. Penrod had admitted
to himself that Maurice could do it and afterward
attend to business, or pleasure, without the slight
est discomfort; and this was probably no more
than a fair estimate of one of the great constitu
tions 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.

210 PENROD

She cut him dead.

He threw his invalid's airs to the winds, and has
tened 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!"

BROTHERS OF ANGELS

"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

KUPE 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 neigh-

212

RUPE COLLINS 213

bourhood. 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 super
stition, for dogs are even more superstitious than
boys and coloured people; and the most firmly estab
lished 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. Other
wise, 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 thought
ful physiognomist, seeing a big dog fleeing out of a

214 PENROD

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 thir
teen, 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 be
coming perfunctory.

RUPE COLLINS 215

"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; never
theless, 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 asser
tion, 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 pres
ently 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

216 PENROD

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 num
ber 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 un
discovered 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. "Teach
ers! 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 incredu
lously. " Say, ain't you got any sense? "

"What?"

"Say, wouldn't you be just as happy if you had
some sense?"

RUPE COLLINS 217

" 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, I
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. " Wel^
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."

218 PENROD

The fat-faced boy still appeared embittered, bur
lesquing 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?" Sud
denly 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 re
warded 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.

Yes, sonny, Rupe Collins is my name, and you better
look out what you say when he's around! "

219

220 PENROD

"Which finger?" asked the mystified Penrod,
extending his hand.

"The middle one."

"Where?"

"There!" exclaimed Rupe Collins, seizing and vig
orously twisting the wartless finger naively offered
for his inspection.

' ' Quit !" shout ed Penrod in agony . " Q uee-y ut ! "

"Say your prayers!" commanded Rupe, and con
tinued 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 re
morsefully. "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 ami
able 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.

RUPE COLLINS

"Lick dirt," commanded Rupe, forcing the cap
tive'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' 'Jfom-muh, mom-muh,' before recess was
over!"

"No, I wouldn't, "Penrod protested rather weakly >
dusting his knees.

"You would, too!"

"No, Iw "

"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

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 re
treated a few steps. "7 knew you could, all the
time. I expect / 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:

RUPE COLLINS 223

" 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 molli
fied. " 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
DankiU'em?"

"Yes, but I won't "

"What won't you?" Rupe became sinister im
mediately. "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 thrust
ing forward his underlip, he placed his nose almost
in contact with the nose of Penrod, whose eyes nat
urally became crossed.

"Dan kills the rats. See?" hissed the fat-faced
boy, maintaining the horrible juxtaposition.

PENROD

"Well, all right," said Penrod, swallowing. "Z
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

A 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 gruff ness:

"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."

225

226 PENROD

"What is he talking about!" Margaret appealed
to the invisible.

"Well," said Penrod, frowning, "that's what fore
men 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 sub
ject; and here he made a mistake: he should have
followed up his son's singular contribution to the con
versation. 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.

THE IMITATOR 227

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
Delia, the cook, that there was a wart on the middle
finger of her right hand. Delia thus proving poor
material for his new manner to work upon, he ap
proached 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 fero
ciously, 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 understand that, 9bo ? "

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 neigh
bourhood, 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.

228 PENROD

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 Delia. And he enacted
for her unappreciative eye a scene of fistic ma
noeuvres 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 encoun
tered 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,

THE IMITATOR 229

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 misinforma
tion, 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 neighbour
hood, 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 en
comium — next to Penrod himself. "That's the
way we do up at the Third," became staple explana
tion 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 re-

230 PENROD

peating to nausea accounts of the prowess of him
self 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 baby
hood and manhood their sons do not boast of them.
The boy, with boys, is a Choctaw; and either the in
fluence 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

THE IMITATOR 231

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 out the triumphant horse
laugh which he gradually mastered to horrible per
fection. 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 sub
mitted 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 fervor, one sultry afternoon, in Mr. Schofield's
stable, in the presence of Herman and Verman.

"You better look out, 'bo, "said Penrod, threaten-

PENROD

ingly. "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 im
mediate vicinity of Herman's nose. "You don't
reckon so, 'bo, don't you? You better look out
how you reckon around here! You under stan' 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.

THE IMITATOR 233

"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 him
self 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 unre
strainedly. 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 Ian' me good
one not time! Oo-ee! she hurt /"

"You'll get hurt worse'n that," Penrod assured

234 PENROD

him, "if you stay around here much. Rupe Col
lins 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 Pen-
rod. "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, conven
tionally.

"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

THE IMITATOR 235

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 Col
lins 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 Pen-
rod, 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 re
doubtable if not ominous figure. He was a head

236 PENROD

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 com
parison 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 foreshado wings. Upon the fat face there
was an expression of truculent intolerance which
had been cultivated by careful habit to such per
fection that Sam's heart sank at sight of it. A some
what 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 contemptu
ously 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 re
sponse, accompanied by immediate action of a simi
lar nature. Rupe held Penrod's head in the crook

THE IMITATOR 237

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 per
formed upon Sam the knuckle operation which he
had himself just undergone, Sam submitting me
chanically, 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

'238 PENROD

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
door4, 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 com
rade properly rewarded, for as the two struggled,
Rupe caught each by the back of the neck, simul
taneously, 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."

THE IMITATOR 239

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 some
thing 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. Ver-

240 PENROD

man 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 unfa
miliar eyes, and by the dreadfully suggestive proxim
ity of Rupe's unfamiliar nose, was altogether different.
Herman's and Verman's Bangala great-grandfathers
never considered people of their own jungle neigh
bourhood 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 chroni
cler who has the tale to tell of a "good rous
ing 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.

241

PENROD

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 sug
gested 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 con
flict, 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

COLOURED TROOPS IN ACTION 243

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 com
plaints 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 slav
ishly 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 Pen-
rod 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. Ap
palled, the two spectators retreated to the doorway
nearest the yard, where they stood dumbly watch
ing 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

244 PENROD

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. Nat-j
urally, it had not seemed necessary to remove tj^f
lawn-mower.

The frantic eye of Verman fell upon the lawn-
mower, and instantly he leaped to its handle. Shrill
ing a wordless war-cry, he charged, propelling the
whirling, deafening knives straight upon the prone
legs of Rupe Collins. The lawn-mower was sin
cerely 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.

COLOURED TROOPS IN ACTION 245

"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 state
ment about what he intended to do with the scythe.

Rupe paused but for an extremely condensed sur
vey 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.

246 PENROD

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'atoleboyrun!"

" 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 honett of cut his gizzard out, would you?"

"Who? Me? I don* know. He mighty mean
ole boy!" Herman shook his head gravely, and then,

COLOURED TROOPS IN ACTION 247

observing that Verman was again convulsed with
unctuous merriment, joined laughter with his
brother. "Sho! I guess I uz dess talkin9 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 Her
man. 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'
got '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 pre
occupied air, at the open, empty doorway where the
late afternoon sunshine was growing ruddy. At
intervals one or tlie 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 theit
silence.

248 PENROD

"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, ap
peared 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 andPenrod, 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 un
agreeable 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 excrutiatingly.

249

250 PENROD

Wherefore he blinks, winks, weeps, twitches, con
denses 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 hav
ing happened.

"D' I touch y' up a little?" inquired the barber,
smiling falsely.

"Ooh — uh!" The boy in the chair offered inar
ticulate 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
endeavouring 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 inten
tional contempt in this.

"I haven't heard nobody around the neighbour
hood makin' no such remarks," added the barber,
"about nobody of the name of Penrod Schofield."

"LITTLE GENTLEMAN" 251

"Well," said Penrod, clearing his mouth after a
struggle, * * who wants 'em to ? Ouch ! ' '

"I hear they call Georgie Bassett the 'little gen
tleman, ' " ventured the barber, provocatively, meet
ing with instant success.

"They better not call me that," returned Penrod
truculent!/. "I'd like to hear anybody try. Just

once, that's all! 1 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 posi
tion. "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

PENROD

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 any
body 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
sdierwerds 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 tome!"

"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 deri
sively.

"LITTLE GENTLEMAN" 253

"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 gen
tleman'?"

"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 resent
ment 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 him
self in staggering zigzag pictures, destroying large,
screaming, fragmentary boys who had insulted him.

The torture stopped suddenly; and clenched, weep-

254 PENROD

ing 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 gentle
man? It's a kind of compliment, as it were, you
might say. What would you want to hit anybody

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 bar
ber'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

"LITTLE GENTLEMAN" 255

a gleam a^ 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 bis 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

256 PENROD

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 pro
fessional 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 in
terested 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

"LITTLE GENTLEMAN" 257

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 grass-plot 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 per
form such a task, he would have sincerely main
tained 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. Perspir
ing, 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.

258 PENROD

"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 conscious
ness 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
gentlemen don't say wicked "

"Marjorie!" Penrod, enraged and dismayed, felt
himself stung beyond all endurance. Insult from

"LITTLE GENTLEMAN" 259

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 gentle
man!" she said deliberately. "How's the little
gentleman, this afternoon? Hello, little gentle
man!'

Penrod, quite beside himself, danced eccentrically.
"Dry up!" he howled. "Dry up, dry up, dry up,
dry up!'9

Mitchy-Mitch shouted with delight and applied
a finger to the side of the caldron — a finger imme
diately snatched away and wiped upon a handker
chief 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 dis
honour 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,

260 PENROD

and he'll say it just as much as he wants to. Say
it again, Mitchy-Mitch ! "

" 'Ittle gellamun!" said Mitchy-Mitch promptly.

"Qw-yah!" Penrod's tone-production was be
coming 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 gella
mun!"

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 expecta
tions.

Spontaneously there were grand and awful effects

— volcanic spectacles of nightmare and eruption.

"LITTLE GENTLEMAN" 261

A black sheet of eccentric shape rose out of the cal
dron 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. Bre'r Rabbit would have fled from any
of them.

CHAPTER XXV

TAR

WHENMarjorieandMitchy-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.

262

TAR 263

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 spec
tacle before them.

"Little GEN-TIL-MUN!" shrieked Marjorie, with
a wild stroke that landed full upon Penrod's tarry
cap.

" OoochI " 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 ! A^id c^
— 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

264 PENROD

some evidences of disturbed complacency. "Why,
that's what they call me! "

"Yes, and you are one, too!" shouted the mad
dened 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 Pen-
rod, both upon his body and upon his spirit. Driven
by subtle forces, he had dipped his hands in catas
trophe 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
tosa?/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 gen
tleman' "

Bellowing insanely, Penrod plunged his right hand

TAR 265

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, si
multaneously infected, danced about the struggling
pair, shouting frantically:

"Little gentleman ! Little gentleman ! Sick him,
Georgie ! Sick him, little gentleman ! Little gentle
man ! 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 splut-
terings 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

266 PENROD

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 ap
pearance 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, carry ing 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

Thus began the Great Tar Fight

267

268 PENROD

trace, owing to the opposing accounts of the com
batants. Mar jorie 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 recog
nized 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 Mar-
jorie, 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!" de
clared the father, descending to the library from a
before-dinner interview with the outlaw, that even
ing. "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?"

TAR 269

"When Margaret and I were trying to scrub him,"
responded Mrs. Schofield wearily, "he said 'every
body ' 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. Scho
field, 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,

270 PENROD

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." Tne philosophy of insult
needs expounding.

"Shi" 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. Eanosling,
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."

TAR 271

" 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 intel
lectually; 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 re^-ring 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

PENROD

china and metal in the kitchen, a shriek from Delia,
and the outrageous voice of Penrod. The well-
informed Delia, 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 de
scended 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 Wil
liams, 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.

TAR 273

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. Ki
nosling 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 pattee. Penrod
felt himself in the presence of a new enemy.

274 PENROD

"How do you do, my little lad," said Mr. Kinos-
ling. "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. Ki-
nosling's pronunciation was, in fact, slightly precious;
and the little lad, simply mistaking it for some cryp
tic 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 indulg
ing 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. Scho
field, and after a glance at Penrod which confirmed

TAR 275

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 devel
ops, enlarges, expands. The young learn quickly,
intuitively, spontaneously. They perceive the ob
ligations of noblesse oblige. They begin to compre
hend 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, con-

276 PENROD

sideration for one another in their pastimes, amuse
ments, 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 mis
took 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 sup
plied from his own consciousness a critical though
favourable auditor as well, which of course kept him
quite busy. Besides, it is oftener than is suspected

TAR 277

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 shoul
ders 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

278 PENROD

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
within decency, to its conclusion. She felt that some
how 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, estab
lishing 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 Vic
torian 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

TAR 279

he spoke, waving his hand in a curving gesture which
brought it into the light of a window faintly il
lumined 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-rMJf/" 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 inter-

280 PENROD

changed 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
hand again 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 pe
culiar sensation of the scalp — a sensation which he
was quite unable to define. He lifted his hand to

TAR 281

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 anx
iously. "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 " Good
night," again in a frigid voice, departed with visible
stiffness from that house, to return no more.

282 PENROD

" 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? "

"//" exclaimed Margaret indignantly. "Noth
ing ! He j ust 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 punish
ments 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

283

284 PENROD

and mercantile; some process having worked mys
teriously 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 part
ners were disheartened by their failure to dispose of a
crop of "greens," although they had uprooted speci
mens 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 ex
tinct. The dog-days had set in.

One August afternoon was so hot that even boys

THE QUIET AFTERNOON 285

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.

286 PENROD

"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' hiah me whens I'm a man. Goin'
be my own boss. 7'm go' be a rai'road man ! "

"You mean like a superintendent, or sump thing
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' livin'," Herman inter
rupted. "My uncle spen' mo' money 'n any white
man n'is town."

"Well, I rather be a general," said Penrod, "or
a senator, or sump thing like that."

"Senators live in Warshington," Maurice Levy
contributed the information. "I been there. War
shington ain't so much; Niag'ra Falls is a hunderd
times as good as Warshington. So's 'Tlantic City.

THE QUIET AFTERNOON 287

I was there, too. I been everywhere there is.

"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

288 PENROD

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?" de
manded 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-f or-a-cent marble for
your whole store," said Sam. " Would you, Penrod? "

THE QUIET AFTERNOON 289

"Not for ten of 'em; not for a million of 'em! 7'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 fi ve-f or-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 "

290 PENROD

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, hold
ing his ground. "They gotta."

" I'll bet / don't ! " Sam returned hotly. "They bet
ter 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

THE QUIET AFTERNOON 291

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 pro
found 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
holler er in town!"

PENROD

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, prechuh clim big pole right in a middle o'
the church, what was to hoi' roof up. He clim way
high up, an' holler: 'Goin' to heavum, goin' to hea-
vum, goin' to heavum now. Hallelujah, praise my
Lawd!' An* he slide down little, an' holler: 'Dev
il's got a hoi' o' my coat-tails; devil tryin' to drag
me down! Sinnuhs, take wawnun! Devil got a
hoi' 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

THE QUIET AFTERNOON 293

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 Saturn 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, breath
lessly.

Herman, nothing loath, accepted the encore and re
peated 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

294 PENROD

life," he declared, "/'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 ac
cepted 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."

THE QUIET AFTERNOON 295

"You said, ' Go to a big H' ! " said Georgia.

"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 cgo 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, re
moving 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 ar
dour; 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,

296 PENROD

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, Her
man?"

" You' right," said Herman. " You the firs' one to
say it."

Penrod, Sam, and Maurice immediately lost faith
in Herman. They turned from him and fell hotly
upon Georgie.

"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!"

THE QUIET AFTERNOON 297

"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 overf
"/ 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 tor
mentors were unaffected by it and increased their
bowlings, until at last Georgie lost his head alto
gether. 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!"

298 PENROD

He took command of the situation at once, dis
playing 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 con
currence of all parties, the conditions under which
Georgie Bassett was to defend his claim by under
going 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 dis
tance 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 for
midably interesting to the women and girls of his own
and other flocks. What favour of his fellow clergymen
a slight preciousness of manner and pronunciation
cost him was more than balanced by the visible
ecstasies of ladies. They blossomed at his touch.

299

300 PENROD

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 coin
cidences were plentiful in the Schofield and Williams
families, and would have been familiar to Mrs.
Bassett had Georgie been permitted greater inti
macy 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 every
body'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."

ITS CONCLUSION 301

"Swinburne?" suggested Miss Beam, an eager
spinster. "Swinburne, Mr. Kinosling? Ah, Swin
burne!"

"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 im
pression 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 re
turned. " 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.

302 PENROD

"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, but "

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 Pen-
rod. I think it would make him a better boy."

A sibilance went about the room. " Sweet ! How
sweet ! The sweet little soul ! Ah, sweet! "

ITS CONCLUSION 303

"And that very afternoon," continued Mrs. Bas-
sett, " he had come home in a dreadful state. Penrod
had thrown tar all over him."

"Your son has a forgiving spirit!" said Mr. Kin-
osling 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 alterca
tion 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 pas
times. 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 far

304 PENROD

forward, her face shining and ardent. "Mr. Ki-
nosling, 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 en
tirely 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 every
where. In my own especial case — if one may cite
one's self as an example — I found no great, no in
surmountable difficulty in mastering, in conquering
either."

ITS CONCLUSION 305

"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. So
cial distinction, one observes, almost invariably
implies spiritual distinction as well. Distinction
of circumstances is accompanied by mental distinc
tion. 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 gal
lantly to Mrs. Bassett — "it is, 'Like mother, like
son.' What these good ladies have said this after
noon 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. Embrac
ing the trunk with arms and legs, he had managed

306 PENROD

to squirm to a point just 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 Wil
liams 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 encourag
ingly. "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 at
tention 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 down
ward, 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

ITS CONCLUSION 307

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 with
drawing 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 known
his unshaken purpose. He shouted the reply :

"A minister!"

CHAPTER XXVIII

TWELVE

THIS busy globe which spawns us is as inca
pable 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.

308

TWELVE 309

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 ex
perience is guaranteed, his judgment, therefore,
mellow; consequently, his influence is profound.
Eleven is not quite satisfactory: it is only an ap
proach. 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 am
bition 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 mid
summer 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

310 PENROD

tribe of chattering 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 de
scended, 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 morn
ing 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

TWELVE 311

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

312 PENROD

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 dis
appeared in the direction of the kitchen, and re
turned 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, hav
ing 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' 11 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 pro
testing hand.

"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Grim.

"But, on his birthday!"

TWELVE 313

"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 like
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 pre
tences. 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 ' ? "

314 PENROD

"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. Grim 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
some one 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."

TWELVE 315

Penrod moved uneasily in his chair; he was con
scious that he was her topic but unable to make
out whether or not her observations were complimen
tary; he inclined to think they were not. Mrs. Crim
settled the question for him.

"I suppose Penrod is regarded as the neighbour
hood 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 ex
pect 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 re
turned, apologetically. "But a mother knows "

"Penrod," said Aunt Sarah, solemnly, "does
your father understand you? "

316 PENROD

"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 a
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 up tilted 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

TWELVE 317

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

ANT 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. Scho-
field, turning upon him a stare of perplexity. "Don't
cut into the leather with your new knife, dear; the liv
ery man might ask us to pay if No, I wouldn't

318

FANCHON S19

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

320 PENROD

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, simul
taneously, 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 per
formed a curtsey in acknowledgment of Mrs. Scho-
field'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 Scho-
field laughed, as the children turned toward the door.

Penrod hastily dropped the small hand, and ex
claiming, with simply honesty, "Why, I don't want
it!" followed Fanchon out into the sunshiny yard,
where they came to a halt and surveyed each other.

FANCHON 321

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 boor jaw. You speak French, of
course?"

"Me?"

322 PENROD

" 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, won
derful 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 Mags worth
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.

FANCHON 323

This bit of ruffianism had a curious effect. Fan-
chon 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 sensa
tional. He had never thought of looking into the
eyes of Marjorie Jones.

Despite all anguish, contumely, tar, and Maurice

324 PENROD

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

FANCHON 325

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 door
way.

"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 plat
form 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

326

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY 327

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 every
thing, 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 in
struments, 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 re
ceive them. He greeted unfamiliar acquaintances
and intimate fellow-criminals with the same frigidity,
murmuring: " 'M glad to see y'," to all alike,

328 PENROD

largely increasing the embarrassment which always
prevails at the beginning of children's festivities.
His unnatural pomp and circumstance had so thor
oughly upset him, in truth, that Marjorie Jones re
ceived 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 Mar-
jorie'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 ab
solutely 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

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY 329

hinted a consciousness that this Caliban was her
property. Wherefore, she stared at him incredu
lously as his head bobbed up and down, in the danc
ing-school bow, greeting his guests. Then she heard
an adult voice, near her, exclaim :

" What an exquisite child ! "

Marjorie glanced 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, be
coming in one thus entering a crowded room, were
all that produced the effect of modesty, counter
acting 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,

330 PENROD

and the outlines of her eyelids, if very closely scru
tinized, would have revealed successful experimen
tation 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 under
went 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 in
dignation.

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 ! "

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY 331

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 Mau
rice, receiving the information that his tie had been
brought to him by his papa from Skoone's, where
upon she privately informed him that she liked wavy
hair, and arranged to dance with him. Fanchon
also thought sandy hair attractive, Sam Williams dis
covered, 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 in
viting attention, under a tree. Decorously the
small couples stepped upon the platform, one after
another, and began to dance.

332 PENROD

"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-handker-
chief,'" said Mrs. Schofield. 'Things change so
quickly. Imagine asking little Fanchon Gelbraith
to play 'London Bridge'! Penrod seems to be hav
ing 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 show
ing him a new step, which she taught her next partner
in turn, continuing instructions during the danc
ing. The children crowded the floor, and in the
kaleidoscopic jumble of bobbing heads and inter
mingling 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, ac
cepting the deference due a cosmopolitan and an
oracle of the mode, she gave demonstrations of the
new step to succeeding groups, professing astonish-

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY 333

ment 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 in
stantly 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. Fan-
chon'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 ne
groid 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

334 PENROD

variously modified forms — some of them disinfected
— to watering-places, and thence, carried by hun
dreds 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 gro
tesque 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 atten
dant 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
SlingoSligo Slide?"

The leader giggled, nodded, rapped with his bow
upon his violin; and Penrod, following Fanchon back

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY 335

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 Pen-
rod, dazed by the sweeping Fanchon, had utterly
forgotten the amber curls; he had not once asked
Marjorie to dance. All afternoon the light of in
dignation 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 Pen-
rod'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, watch-

336 PENROD

ing 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 Pen-
rod 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 BE
HAVE yourself!"

The remarkable girl took Penrod by the ear. By
his ear she swung him away from Fanchon and
faced him toward the lawn.

By his ear she swung him away from Fanchon and faced
him toward the lawn

337

338 PENROD

"You march straight out of here!" she com
manded.

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, simi
larly, 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

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

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 grown
up friends had finished their tea and were ap
proaching 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.

340 PENROD

"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 ex
traordinary child. And of all the quiet, demure
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 Pen-
rod'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 re
fuse? A II the others were ' '

"Every one ! " she returned triumphantly. "Even
GeorgieBassett!"

"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 hori
zon line, so far behind the back fence, and a
western window of the house blazed in gold unbear
able 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,

341

342 PENROD

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 reflec
tion 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, duck
ing a shower of broken glass, glittering razor flourish
ing wildly. Words crashed with the glass, sten
torian 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 my eyes, and the
sling broke "

OVER THE FENCE 343

"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 forgot
ten."

"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.

344 PENROD

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, describ
ing 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 gra
ciously 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.

OVER THE FENCE 345

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 de
parting, the laughter tremulous, the footsteps fleet.

In the grass, between Duke's f orepaws, 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:9

THE END

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS
GARDEN CITY, N. Y.