Penrod by Booth Tarkington (page 4)

gently, “what would it make you so mad fer, to have somebody call you a little gentleman? It’s a kind of compliment, as it were, you might say. What would you want to hit anybody fer THAT fer?”

To the mind of Penrod, this question was without meaning or reasonableness. It was within neither his power nor his desire to analyze the process by which the phrase had become offensive to him, and was now rapidly assuming the proportions of an outrage. He knew only that his gorge rose at the thought of it.

“You just let ’em try it!” he said threateningly, as he slid down from the chair. And as he went out of the door, after further conversation on the same subject, he called back those warning words once more: “Just let ’em try it! Just once– that’s all _I_ ask ’em to. They’ll find out what they GET!”

The barber chuckled. Then a fly lit on the barber’s nose and he slapped at it, and the slap missed the fly but did not miss the nose. The barber was irritated. At this moment his birdlike eye gleamed a gleam as it fell upon customers approaching: the prettiest little girl in the world, leading by the hand her baby brother, Mitchy-Mitch, coming to have Mitchy-Mitch’s hair clipped, against the heat.

It was a hot day and idle, with little to feed the mind–and the barber was a mischievous man with an irritated nose. He did his worst.

Meanwhile, the brooding Penrod pursued his homeward way; no great distance, but long enough for several one-sided conflicts with malign insulters made of thin air. “You better NOT call me that!” he muttered. “You just try it, and you’ll get what other people got when THEY tried it. You better not ack fresh with ME! Oh, you WILL, will you?” He delivered a vicious kick full upon the shins of an iron fence-post, which suffered little, though Penrod instantly regretted his indiscretion. “Oof!” he grunted, hopping; and went on after bestowing a look of awful hostility upon the fence-post. “I guess you’ll know better next time,” he said, in parting, to this antagonist. “You just let me catch you around here again and I’ll—-” His voice sank to inarticulate but ominous murmurings. He was in a dangerous mood.

Nearing home, however, his belligerent spirit was diverted to happier interests by the discovery that some workmen had left a caldron of tar in the cross-street, close by his father’s stable. He tested it, but found it inedible. Also, as a substitute for professional chewing-gum it was unsatisfactory, being insufficiently boiled down and too thin, though of a pleasant, lukewarm temperature. But it had an excess of one quality–it was sticky. It was the stickiest tar Penrod had ever used for any purposes whatsoever, and nothing upon which he wiped his hands served to rid them of it; neither his polka-dotted shirt waist nor his knickerbockers; neither the fence, nor even Duke, who came unthinkingly wagging out to greet him, and retired wiser.

Nevertheless, tar is tar. Much can be done with it, no matter what its condition; so Penrod lingered by the caldron, though from a neighbouring yard could be heard the voices of comrades, including that of Sam Williams. On the ground about the caldron were scattered chips and sticks and bits of wood to the number of a great multitude. Penrod mixed quantities of this refuse into the tar, and interested himself in seeing how much of it he could keep moving in slow swirls upon the ebon surface.

Other surprises were arranged for the absent workmen. The caldron was almost full, and the surface of the tar near the rim.

Penrod endeavoured to ascertain how many pebbles and brickbats, dropped in, would cause an overflow. Labouring heartily to this end, he had almost accomplished it, when he received the suggestion for an experiment on a much larger scale. Embedded at the corner of a grassplot across the street was a whitewashed stone, the size of a small watermelon and serving no purpose whatever save the questionable one of decoration. It was easily pried up with a stick; though getting it to the caldron tested the full strength of the ardent labourer. Instructed to perform such a task, he would have sincerely maintained its impossibility but now, as it was unbidden, and promised rather destructive results, he set about it with unconquerable energy, feeling certain that he would be rewarded with a mighty splash. Perspiring, grunting vehemently, his back aching and all muscles strained, he progressed in short stages until the big stone lay at the base of the caldron. He rested a moment, panting, then lifted the stone, and was bending his shoulders for the heave that would lift it over the rim, when a sweet, taunting voice, close behind him, startled him cruelly.

“How do you do, LITTLE GENTLEMAN!”

Penrod squawked, dropped the stone, and shouted, “Shut up, you dern fool!” purely from instinct, even before his about- face made him aware who had so spitefully addressed him.

It was Marjorie Jones. Always dainty, and prettily dressed, she was in speckless and starchy white to-day, and a refreshing picture she made, with the new-shorn and powerfully scented Mitchy-Mitch clinging to her hand. They had stolen up behind the toiler, and now stood laughing together in sweet merriment. Since the passing of Penrod’s Rupe Collins period he had experienced some severe qualms at the recollection of his last meeting with Marjorie and his Apache behaviour; in truth, his heart instantly became as wax at sight of her, and he would have offered her fair speech; but, alas! in Marjorie’s wonderful eyes there shone a consciousness of new powers for his undoing, and she denied him opportunity.

“Oh, OH!” she cried, mocking his pained outcry. “What a way for a LITTLE GENTLEMAN to talk! Little gentleman don’t say wicked—-“

“Marjorie!” Penrod, enraged and dismayed, felt himself stung beyond all endurance. Insult from her was bitterer to endure than from any other. “Don’t you call me that again!”

“Why not, LITTLE GENTLEMAN?”

He stamped his foot. “You better stop!”

Marjorie sent into his furious face her lovely, spiteful laughter.

“Little gentleman, little gentleman, little gentleman!” she said deliberately. “How’s the little gentleman, this afternoon? Hello, little gentleman!”

Penrod, quite beside himself, danced eccentrically. “Dry up!” he howled. “Dry up, dry up, dry up, dry UP!”

Mitchy-Mitch shouted with delight and applied a finger to the side of the caldron–a finger immediately snatched away and wiped upon a handkerchief by his fastidious sister.

“‘Ittle gellamun!” said Mitchy-Mitch.

“You better look out!” Penrod whirled upon this small offender with grim satisfaction. Here was at least something male that could without dishonour be held responsible. “You say that again, and I’ll give you the worst—-“

“You will NOT!” snapped Marjorie, instantly vitriolic. “He’ll say just whatever he wants to, and he’ll say it just as MUCH as he wants to. Say it again, Mitchy-Mitch!”

“‘Ittle gellamun!” said Mitchy-Mitch promptly.

“Ow-YAH!” Penrod’s tone-production was becoming affected by his mental condition. “You say that again, and I’ll—-“

“Go on, Mitchy-Mitch,” cried Marjorie. “He can’t do a thing. He don’t DARE! Say it some more, Mitchy-Mitch–say it a whole lot!”

Mitchy-Mitch, his small, fat face shining with confidence in his immunity, complied.

“‘Ittle gellamun!” he squeaked malevolently. “‘Ittle gellamun! ‘Ittle gellamun! ‘Ittle gellamun!”

The desperate Penrod bent over the whitewashed rock, lifted it, and then–outdoing Porthos, John Ridd, and Ursus in one miraculous burst of strength–heaved it into the air.

Marjorie screamed.

But it was too late. The big stone descended into the precise midst of the caldron and Penrod got his mighty splash. It was far, far beyond his expectations.

Spontaneously there were grand and awful effects–volcanic spectacles of nightmare and eruption. A black sheet of eccentric shape rose out of the caldron and descended upon the three children, who had no time to evade it.

After it fell, Mitchy-Mitch, who stood nearest the caldron, was the thickest, though there was enough for all. Br’er Rabbit would have fled from any of them.

CHAPTER XXV
TAR

When Marjorie and Mitchy-Mitch got their breath, they used it vocally; and seldom have more penetrating sounds issued from human throats. Coincidentally, Marjorie, quite baresark, laid hands upon the largest stick within reach and fell upon Penrod with blind fury. He had the presence of mind to flee, and they went round and round the caldron, while Mitchy-Mitch feebly endeavoured to follow–his appearance, in this pursuit, being pathetically like that of a bug fished out of an ink-well, alive but discouraged.

Attracted by the riot, Samuel Williams made his appearance, vaulting a fence, and was immediately followed by Maurice Levy and Georgie Bassett. They stared incredulously at the extraordinary spectacle before them.

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

“OOOCH!” bleated Penrod.

“It’s Penrod!” shouted Sam Williams, recognizing him by the voice. For an instant he had been in some doubt.

“Penrod Schofield!” exclaimed Georgie Bassett. “WHAT does this mean?” That was Georgie’s style, and had helped to win him his title.

Marjorie leaned, panting, upon her stick. “I cu-called–uh– him–oh!” she sobbed–“I called him a lul-little–oh–gentleman! And oh–lul-look!–oh! lul-look at my du-dress! Lul-look at Mu- mitchy–oh–Mitch–oh!”

Unexpectedly, she smote again–with results–and then, seizing the indistinguishable hand of Mitchy-Mitch, she ran wailing homeward down the street.

“`Little gentleman’?” said Georgie Bassett, with some evidences of disturbed complacency. “Why, that’s what they call ME!”

“Yes, and you ARE one, too!” shouted the maddened Penrod. “But you better not let anybody call ME that! I’ve stood enough around here for one day, and you can’t run over ME, Georgie Bassett. Just you put that in your gizzard and smoke it!”

“Anybody has a perfect right,” said Georgie, with, dignity, “to call a person a little gentleman. There’s lots of names nobody ought to call, but this one’s a NICE—-“

“You better look out!”

Unavenged bruises were distributed all over Penrod, both upon his body and upon his spirit. Driven by subtle forces, he had dipped his hands in catastrophe and disaster: it was not for a Georgie Bassett to beard him. Penrod was about to run amuck.

“I haven’t called you a little gentleman, yet,” said Georgie. “I only said it. Anybody’s got a right to SAY it.”

“Not around ME! You just try it again and—-“

“I shall say it,” returned Georgie, “all I please. Anybody in this town has a right to SAY `little gentleman’—-“

Bellowing insanely, Penrod plunged his right hand into the caldron, rushed upon Georgie and made awful work of his hair and features.

Alas, it was but the beginning! Sam Williams and Maurice Levy screamed with delight, and, simultaneously infected, danced about the struggling pair, shouting frantically:

“Little gentleman! Little gentleman! Sick him, Georgie! Sick him, little gentleman! Little gentleman! Little gentleman!”

The infuriated outlaw turned upon them with blows and more tar, which gave Georgie Bassett his opportunity and later seriously impaired the purity of his fame. Feeling himself hopelessly tarred, he dipped both hands repeatedly into the caldron and applied his gatherings to Penrod. It was bringing coals to Newcastle, but it helped to assuage the just wrath of Georgie.

The four boys gave a fine imitation of the Laocoon group complicated by an extra figure frantic splutterings and chokings, strange cries and stranger words issued from this tangle; hands dipped lavishly into the inexhaustible reservoir of tar, with more and more picturesque results. The caldron had been elevated upon bricks and was not perfectly balanced; and under a heavy impact of the struggling group it lurched and went partly over, pouring forth a Stygian tide which formed a deep pool in the gutter.

It was the fate of Master Roderick Bitts, that exclusive and immaculate person, to make his appearance upon the chaotic scene at this juncture. All in the cool of a white “sailor suit,” he turned aside from the path of duty–which led straight to the house of a maiden aunt–and paused to hop with joy upon the sidewalk. A repeated epithet continuously half panted, half squawked, somewhere in the nest of gladiators, caught his ear, and he took it up excitedly, not knowing why.

“Little gentleman!” shouted Roderick, jumping up and down in childish glee. “Little gentleman! Little gentleman! Lit—-“

A frightful figure tore itself free from the group, encircled this innocent bystander with a black arm, and hurled him headlong. Full length and flat on his face went Roderick into the Stygian pool. The frightful figure was Penrod.

Instantly, the pack flung themselves upon him again, and, carrying them with him, he went over upon Roderick, who from that instant was as active a belligerent as any there.

Thus began the Great Tar Fight, the origin of which proved, afterward, so difficult for parents to trace, owing to the opposing accounts of the combatants. Marjorie said Penrod began it; Penrod said Mitchy-Mitch began it; Sam Williams said Georgie Bassett began it; Georgie and Maurice Levy said Penrod began it; Roderick Bitts, who had not recognized his first assailant, said Sam Williams began it.

Nobody thought of accusing the barber. But the barber did not begin it; it was the fly on the barber’s nose that began it– though, of course, something else began the fly. Somehow, we never manage to hang the real offender.

The end came only with the arrival of Penrod’s mother, who had been having a painful conversation by telephone with Mrs. Jones, the mother of Marjorie, and came forth to seek an errant son. It is a mystery how she was able to pick out her own, for by the time she got there his voice was too hoarse to be recognizable. Mr. Schofield’s version of things was that Penrod was insane. “He’s a stark, raving lunatic!” declared the father, descending to the library from a before-dinner interview with the outlaw, that evening. “I’d send him to military school, but I don’t believe they’d take him. Do you know WHY he says all that awfulness happened?”

“When Margaret and I were trying to scrub him,” responded Mrs. Schofield wearily, “he said `everybody’ had been calling him names.”

“`Names!'” snorted her husband. “`Little gentleman!’ THAT’S the vile epithet they called him! And because of it he wrecks the peace of six homes!”

“SH! Yes; he told us about it,” said Mrs. Schofield, moaning. “He told us several hundred times, I should guess, though I didn’t count. He’s got it fixed in his head, and we couldn’t get it out. All we could do was to put him in the closet. He’d have gone out again after those boys if we hadn’t. I don’t know WHAT to make of him!”

“He’s a mystery to ME!” said her husband. “And he refuses to explain why he objects to being called `little gentleman.’ Says he’d do the same thing–and worse–if anybody dared to call him that again. He said if the President of the United States called him that he’d try to whip him. How long did you have him locked up in the closet?”

“SH!” said Mrs. Schofield warningly. “About two hours; but I don’t think it softened his spirit at all, because when I took him to the barber’s to get his hair clipped again, on account of the tar in it, Sammy Williams and Maurice Levy were there for the same reason, and they just WHISPERED `little gentleman,’ so low you could hardly hear them–and Penrod began fighting with them right before me, and it was really all the barber and I could do to drag him away from them. The barber was very kind about it, but Penrod—-“

“I tell you he’s a lunatic!” Mr. Schofield would have said the same thing of a Frenchman infuriated by the epithet “camel.” The philosophy of insult needs expounding.

“SH!” said Mrs. Schofield. “It does seem a kind of frenzy.”

“Why on earth should any sane person mind being called—-“

“SH!” said Mrs. Schofield. “It’s beyond ME!”

“What are you SH-ing me for?” demanded Mr. Schofield explosively.

“SH!” said Mrs. Schofield. “It’s Mr. Kinosling, the new rector of Saint Joseph’s.”

“Where?”

“SH! On the front porch with Margaret; he’s going to stay for dinner. I do hope—-“

“Bachelor, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“OUR old minister was speaking of him the other day,” said Mr. Schofield, “and he didn’t seem so terribly impressed.”

“SH! Yes; about thirty, and of course so superior to most of Margaret’s friends–boys home from college. She thinks she likes young Robert Williams, I know–but he laughs so much! Of course there isn’t any comparison. Mr. Kinosling talks so intellectually; it’s a good thing for Margaret to hear that kind of thing, for a change and, of course, he’s very spiritual. He seems very much interested in her.” She paused to muse. “I think Margaret likes him; he’s so different, too. It’s the third time he’s dropped in this week, and I—-“

“Well,” said Mr. Schofield grimly, “if you and Margaret want him to come again, you’d better not let him see Penrod.”

“But he’s asked to see him; he seems interested in meeting all the family. And Penrod nearly always behaves fairly well at table.” She paused, and then put to her husband a question referring to his interview with Penrod upstairs. “Did you–did you–do it?”

“No,” he answered gloomily. “No, I didn’t, but—-” He was interrupted by a violent crash of china and metal in the kitchen, a shriek from Della, and the outrageous voice of Penrod. The well-informed Della, ill-inspired to set up for a wit, had ventured to address the scion of the house roguishly as “little gentleman,” and Penrod, by means of the rapid elevation of his right foot, had removed from her supporting hands a laden tray. Both parents, started for the kitchen, Mr. Schofield completing his interrupted sentence on the way.

“But I will, now!”

The rite thus promised was hastily but accurately performed in that apartment most distant from the front porch; and, twenty minutes later, Penrod descended to dinner. The Rev. Mr. Kinosling had asked for the pleasure of meeting him, and it had been decided that the only course possible was to cover up the scandal for the present, and to offer an undisturbed and smiling family surface to the gaze of the visitor.

Scorched but not bowed, the smouldering Penrod was led forward for the social formulae simultaneously with the somewhat bleak departure of Robert Williams, who took his guitar with him, this time, and went in forlorn unconsciousness of the powerful forces already set in secret motion to be his allies.

The punishment just undergone had but made the haughty and unyielding soul of Penrod more stalwart in revolt; he was unconquered. Every time the one intolerable insult had been offered him, his resentment had become the hotter, his vengeance the more instant and furious. And, still burning with outrage, but upheld by the conviction of right, he was determined to continue to the last drop of his blood the defense of his honour, whenever it should be assailed, no matter how mighty or august the powers that attacked it. In all ways, he was a very sore boy.

During the brief ceremony of presentation, his usually inscrutable countenance wore an expression interpreted by his father as one of insane obstinacy, while Mrs. Schofield found it an incentive to inward prayer. The fine graciousness of Mr. Kinosling, however, was unimpaired by the glare of virulent suspicion given him by this little brother: Mr. Kinosling mistook it for a natural curiosity concerning one who might possibly become, in time, a member of the family. He patted Penrod upon the head, which was, for many reasons, in no condition to be patted with any pleasure to the patter. Penrod felt himself in the presence of a new enemy.

“How do you do, my little lad,” said Mr. Kinosling. “I trust we shall become fast friends.”

To the ear of his little lad, it seemed he said, “A trost we shall bick-home fawst frainds.” Mr. Kinosling’s pronunciation was, in fact, slightly precious; and, the little lad, simply mistaking it for some cryptic form of mockery of himself, assumed a manner and expression which argued so ill for the proposed friendship that Mrs. Schofield hastily interposed the suggestion of dinner, and the small procession went in to the dining-room.

“It has been a delicious day,” said Mr. Kinosling, presently; “warm but balmy.” With a benevolent smile he addressed Penrod, who sat opposite him. “I suppose, little gentleman, you have been indulging in the usual outdoor sports of vacation?”

Penrod laid down his fork and glared, open-mouthed at Mr. Kinosling.

“You’ll have another slice of breast of the chicken?” Mr. Schofield inquired, loudly and quickly.

“A lovely day!” exclaimed Margaret, with equal promptitude and emphasis. “Lovely, oh, lovely! Lovely!”

“Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!” said Mrs. Schofield, and after a glance at Penrod which confirmed her impression that he intended to say something, she continued, “Yes, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful beautiful!”

Penrod closed his mouth and sank back in his chair–and his relatives took breath.

Mr. Kinosling looked pleased. This responsive family, with its ready enthusiasm, made the kind of audience he liked. He passed a delicate white hand gracefully over his tall, pale forehead, and smiled indulgently.

“Youth relaxes in summer,” he said. “Boyhood is the age of relaxation; one is playful, light, free, unfettered. One runs and leaps and enjoys one’s self with one’s companions. It is good for the little lads to play with their friends; they jostle, push, and wrestle, and simulate little, happy struggles with one another in harmless conflict. The young muscles are toughening. It is good. Boyish chivalry develops, enlarges, expands. The young learn quickly, intuitively, spontaneously. They perceive the obligations of noblesse oblige. They begin to comprehend the necessity of caste and its requirements. They learn what birth means–ah,–that is, they learn what it means to be well born. They learn courtesy in their games; they learn politeness, consideration for one another in their pastimes, amusements, lighter occupations. I make it my pleasure to join them often, for I sympathize with them in all their wholesome joys as well as in their little bothers and perplexities. I understand them, you see; and let me tell you it is no easy matter to understand the little lads and lassies.” He sent to each listener his beaming glance, and, permitting it to come to rest upon Penrod, inquired:

“And what do you say to that, little gentleman?”

Mr. Schofield uttered a stentorian cough. “More? You’d better have some more chicken! More! Do!”

“More chicken!” urged Margaret simultaneously. “Do please! Please! More! Do! More!”

“Beautiful, beautiful,” began Mrs. Schofield. “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful—-“

It is not known in what light Mr. Kinosling viewed the expression of Penrod’s face. Perhaps he mistook it for awe; perhaps he received no impression at all of its extraordinary quality. He was a rather self-engrossed young man, just then engaged in a double occupation, for he not only talked, but supplied from his own consciousness a critical though favourable auditor as well, which of course kept him quite busy. Besides, it is oftener than is expected the case that extremely peculiar expressions upon the countenances of boys are entirely overlooked, and suggest nothing to the minds of people staring straight at them. Certainly Penrod’s expression–which, to the perception of his family, was perfectly horrible–caused not the faintest perturbation in the breast of Mr. Kinosling.

Mr. Kinosling waived the chicken, and continued to talk. “Yes, I think I may claim to understand boys,” he said, smiling thoughtfully. “One has been a boy one’s self. Ah, it is not all playtime! I hope our young scholar here does not overwork himself at his Latin, at his classics, as I did, so that at the age of eight years I was compelled to wear glasses. He must be careful not to strain the little eyes at his scholar’s tasks, not to let the little shoulders grow round over his scholar’s desk. Youth is golden; we should keep it golden, bright, glistening. Youth should frolic, should be sprightly; it should play its cricket, its tennis, its hand-ball. It should run and leap; it should laugh, should sing madrigals and glees, carol with the lark, ring out in chanties, folk-songs, ballads, roundelays—-“

He talked on. At any instant Mr. Schofield held himself ready to cough vehemently and shout, “More chicken,” to drown out Penrod in case the fatal words again fell from those eloquent lips; and Mrs. Schofield and Margaret kept themselves prepared at all times to assist him. So passed a threatening meal, which Mrs. Schofield hurried, by every means with decency, to its conclusion. She felt that somehow they would all be safer out in the dark of the front porch, and led the way thither as soon as possible.

“No cigar, I thank you.” Mr. Kinosling, establishing himself in a wicker chair beside Margaret, waved away her father’s proffer. “I do not smoke. I have never tasted tobacco in any form.” Mrs. Schofield was confirmed in her opinion that this would be an ideal son-in-law. Mr. Schofield was not so sure.

“No,” said Mr. Kinosling. “No tobacco for me. No cigar, no pipe, no cigarette, no cheroot. For me, a book–a volume of poems, perhaps. Verses, rhymes, lines metrical and cadenced– those are my dissipation. Tennyson by preference: `Maud,’ or `Idylls of the King’–poetry of the sound Victorian days; there is none later. Or Longfellow will rest me in a tired hour. Yes; for me, a book, a volume in the hand, held lightly between the fingers.”

Mr. Kinosling looked pleasantly at his fingers as he spoke, waving his hand in a curving gesture which brought it into the light of a window faintly illumined from the interior of the house. Then he passed those graceful fingers over his hair, and turned toward Penrod, who was perched upon the railing in a dark corner.

“The evening is touched with a slight coolness,” said Mr. Kinosling. “Perhaps I may request the little gentleman—-“

“B’gr-r-RUFF!” coughed Mr. Schofield. “You’d better change your mind about a cigar.”

“No, I thank you. I was about to request the lit—-“

“DO try one,” Margaret urged. “I’m sure papa’s are nice ones. Do try—-“

“No, I thank you. I remarked a slight coolness in the air, and my hat is in the hallway. I was about to request—-“

“I’ll get it for you,” said Penrod suddenly.

“If you will be so good,” said Mr. Kinosling. “It is a black bowler hat, little gentleman, and placed upon a table in the hall.”

“I know where it is.” Penrod entered the door, and a feeling of relief, mutually experienced, carried from one to another of his three relatives their interchanged congratulations that he had recovered his sanity.

“`The day is done, and the darkness,'” began Mr. Kinosling– and recited that poem entire. He followed it with “The Children’s Hour,” and after a pause, at the close, to allow his listeners time for a little reflection upon his rendition, he passed his handagain over his head, and called, in the direction of the doorway:

“I believe I will take my hat now, little gentleman.”

“Here it is,” said Penrod, unexpectedly climbing over the porch railing, in the other direction. His mother and father and Margaret had supposed him to be standing in the hallway out of deference, and because he thought it tactful not to interrupt the recitations. All of them remembered, later, that this supposed thoughtfulness on his part struck them as unnatural.

“Very good, little gentleman!” said Mr. Kinosling, and being somewhat chilled, placed the hat firmly upon his head, pulling it down as far as it would go. It had a pleasant warmth, which he noticed at once. The next instant, he noticed something else, a peculiar sensation of the scalp–a sensation which he was quite unable to define. He lifted his hand to take the hat off, and entered upon a strange experience: his hat seemed to have decided to remain where it was.

“Do you like Tennyson as much as Longfellow, Mr. Kinosling?” inquired Margaret.

“I–ah–I cannot say,” he returned absently. “I–ah–each has his own–ugh! flavour and savour, each his–ah–ah—-“

Struck by a strangeness in his tone, she peered at him curiously through the dusk. His outlines were indistinct, but she made out that his arms were, uplifted in a singular gesture. He seemed to be wrenching at his head.

“Is–is anything the matter?” she asked anxiously. “Mr. Kinosling, are you ill?”

“Not at–ugh!–all,” he replied, in the same odd tone. “I– ah–I believe–UGH!”

He dropped his hands from his hat, and rose. His manner was slightly agitated. “I fear I may have taken a trifling–ah– cold. I should–ah–perhaps be–ah–better at home. I will– ah–say good-night.”

At the steps, he instinctively lifted his hand to remove his hat, but did not do so, and, saying “Goodnight,” again in a frigid voice, departed with visible stiffness from that house, to return no more.

“Well, of all—-!” cried Mrs. Schofield, astounded. “What was the matter? He just went–like that!” She made a flurried gesture. “In heaven’s name, Margaret, what DID you say to him?”

“_I_!” exclaimed Margaret indignantly. “Nothing! He just WENT!”

“Why, he didn’t even take off his hat when he said good- night!” said Mrs. Schofield.

Margaret, who had crossed to the doorway, caught the ghost of a whisper behind her, where stood Penrod.

“YOU BET HE DIDN’T!”

He knew not that he was overheard.

A frightful suspicion flashed through Margaret’s mind–a suspicion that Mr. Kinosling’s hat would have to be either boiled off or shaved off. With growing horror she recalled Penrod’s long absence when he went to bring the hat.

“Penrod,” she cried, “let me see your hands!”

She had toiled at those hands herself late that afternoon, nearly scalding her own, but at last achieving a lily purity.

“Let me see your hands!”

She seized them.

Again they were tarred!

CHAPTER XXVI
THE QUIET AFTERNOON

Perhaps middle-aged people might discern Nature’s real intentions in the matter of pain if they would examine a boy’s punishments and sorrows, for he prolongs neither beyond their actual duration. With a boy, trouble must be of Homeric dimensions to last overnight. To him, every next day is really a new day. Thus, Penrod woke, next morning, with neither the unspared rod, nor Mr. Kinosling in his mind. Tar, itself, so far as his consideration of it went, might have been an undiscovered substance. His mood was cheerful and mercantile; some process having worked mysteriously within him, during the night, to the result that his first waking thought was of profits connected with the sale of old iron–or perhaps a ragman had passed the house, just before he woke.

By ten o’clock he had formed a partnership with the indeed amiable Sam, and the firm of Schofield and Williams plunged headlong into commerce. Heavy dealings in rags, paper, old iron and lead gave the firm a balance of twenty-two cents on the evening of the third day; but a venture in glassware, following, proved disappointing on account of the scepticism of all the druggists in that part of town, even after seven laborious hours had been spent in cleansing a wheelbarrow-load of old medicine bottles with hydrant water and ashes. Likewise, the partners were disheartened by their failure to dispose of a crop of “greens,” although they had uprooted specimens of that decorative and unappreciated flower, the dandelion, with such persistence and energy that the Schofields’ and Williams’ lawns looked curiously haggard for the rest of that summer.

The fit passed: business languished; became extinct. The dog-days had set in.

One August afternoon was so hot that even boys sought indoor shade. In the dimness of the vacant carriage-house of the stable, lounged Masters Penrod Schofield, Samuel Williams, Maurice Levy, Georgie Bassett, and Herman. They sat still and talked. It is a hot day, in rare truth, when boys devote themselves principally to conversation, and this day was that hot.

Their elders should beware such days. Peril hovers near when the fierceness of weather forces inaction and boys in groups are quiet. The more closely volcanoes, Western rivers, nitroglycerin, and boys are pent, the deadlier is their action at the point of outbreak. Thus, parents and guardians should look for outrages of the most singular violence and of the most peculiar nature during the confining weather of February and August.

The thing which befell upon this broiling afternoon began to brew and stew peacefully enough. All was innocence and languor; no one could have foretold the eruption.

They were upon their great theme: “When I get to be a man!” Being human, though boys, they considered their present estate too commonplace to be dwelt upon. So, when the old men gather, they say: “When I was a boy!” It really is the land of nowadays that we never discover.

“When I’m a man,” said Sam Williams, “I’m goin’ to hire me a couple of coloured waiters to swing me in a hammock and keep pourin’ ice-water on me all day out o’ those waterin’-cans they sprinkle flowers from. I’ll hire you for one of ’em, Herman.”

“No; you ain’ goin’ to,” said Herman promptly. “You ain’ no flowuh. But nev’ min’ nat, anyway. Ain’ nobody goin’ haih me whens _I_’m a man. Goin’ be my own boss. _I_’m go’ be a rai’road man!”

“You mean like a superintendent, or sumpthing like that, and sell tickets?” asked Penrod.

“Sup’in–nev’ min’ nat! Sell ticket? NO suh! Go’ be a PO’tuh! My uncle a po’tuh right now. Solid gole buttons– oh, oh!”

“Generals get a lot more buttons than porters,” said Penrod. “Generals—-“

“Po’tuhs make the bes’ l’vin’,” Herman interrupted. “My uncle spen’ mo’ money ‘n any white man n’is town.”

“Well, I rather be a general,” said Penrod, “or a senator, or sumpthing like that.”

“Senators live in Warshington,” Maurice Levy contributed the information. “I been there. Warshington ain’t so much; Niag’ra Falls is a hundred times as good as Warshington. So’s ‘Tlantic City, I was there, too. I been everywhere there is. I—-“

“Well, anyway,” said Sam Williams, raising his voice in order to obtain the floor, “anyway, I’m goin’ to lay in a hammock all day, and have ice-water sprinkled on top o’ me, and I’m goin’ to lay there all night, too, and the next day. I’m goin’ to lay there a couple o’ years, maybe.”

“I bet you don’t!” exclaimed Maurice. “What’d you do in winter?”

“What?”

“What you goin’ to do when it’s winter, out in a hammock with water sprinkled on top o’ you all day? I bet you—-“

“I’d stay right there,” Sam declared, with strong conviction, blinking as he looked out through the open doors at the dazzling lawn and trees, trembling in the heat. “They couldn’t sprinkle too much for ME!”

“It’d make icicles all over you, and—-“

“I wish it would,” said Sam. “I’d eat ’em up.”

“And it’d snow on you—-“

“Yay! I’d swaller it as fast as it’d come down. I wish I had a BARREL o’ snow right now. I wish this whole barn was full of it. I wish they wasn’t anything in the whole world except just good ole snow.”

Penrod and Herman rose and went out to the hydrant, where they drank long and ardently. Sam was still talking about snow when they returned.

“No, I wouldn’t just roll in it. I’d stick it all round inside my clo’es, and fill my hat. No, I’d freeze a big pile of it all hard, and I’d roll her out flat and then I’d carry her down to some ole tailor’s and have him make me a SUIT out of her, and—-“

“Can’t you keep still about your ole snow?” demanded Penrod petulantly. “Makes me so thirsty I can’t keep still, and I’ve drunk so much now I bet I bust. That ole hydrant water’s mighty near hot anyway.”

“I’m goin’ to have a big store, when I grow up,” volunteered Maurice.

“Candy store?” asked Penrod.

“NO, sir! I’ll have candy in it, but not to eat, so much. It’s goin’ to be a deportment store: ladies’ clothes, gentlemen’s clothes, neckties, china goods, leather goods, nice lines in woollings and lace goods—-“

“Yay! I wouldn’t give a five-for-a-cent marble for your whole store,” said Sam. “Would you, Penrod?”

“Not for ten of ’em; not for a million of ’em! _I_’m goin’ to have—-“

“Wait!” clamoured Maurice. “You’d be foolish, because they’d be a toy deportment in my store where they’d be a hunderd marbles! So, how much would you think your five-for-a-cent marble counts for? And when I’m keepin’ my store I’m goin’ to get married.”

“Yay!” shrieked Sam derisively. “MARRIED! Listen!” Penrod and Herman joined in the howl of contempt.

“Certumly I’ll get married,” asserted Maurice stoutly. “I’ll get married to Marjorie Jones. She likes me awful good, and I’m her beau.”

“What makes you think so?” inquired Penrod in a cryptic voice.

“Because she’s my beau, too,” came the prompt answer. “I’m her beau because she’s my beau; I guess that’s plenty reason! I’ll get married to her as soon as I get my store running nice.”

Penrod looked upon him darkly, but, for the moment, held his peace.

“Married!” jeered Sam Williams. “Married to Marjorie Jones! You’re the only boy I ever heard say he was going to get married. I wouldn’t get married for–why, I wouldn’t for–for—-” Unable to think of any inducement the mere mention of which would not be ridiculously incommensurate, he proceeded: “I wouldn’t do it! What you want to get married for? What do married people do, except just come home tired, and worry around and kind of scold? You better not do it, M’rice; you’ll be mighty sorry.”

“Everybody gets married,” stated Maurice, holding his ground.

“They gotta.”

“I’ll bet _I_ don’t!” Sam returned hotly. “They better catch me before they tell ME I have to. Anyway, I bet nobody has to get married unless they want to.”

“They do, too,” insisted Maurice. “They GOTTA!”

“Who told you?”

“Look at what my own papa told me!” cried Maurice, heated with argument. “Didn’t he tell me your papa had to marry your mamma, or else he never’d got to handle a cent of her money? Certumly, people gotta marry. Everybody. You don’t know anybody over twenty years old that isn’t married–except maybe teachers.”

“Look at policemen!” shouted Sam triumphantly. `You don’t s’pose anybody can make policemen get married, I reckon, do you?”

“Well, policemen, maybe,” Maurice was forced to admit. “Policemen and teachers don’t, but everybody else gotta.”

“Well, I’ll be a policeman,” said Sam. “THEN I guess they won’t come around tellin’ me I have to get married. What you goin’ to be, Penrod?”

“Chief police,” said the laconic Penrod.

“What you?” Sam inquired of quiet Georgie Bassett.

“I am going to be,” said Georgie, consciously, “a minister.”

This announcement created a sensation so profound that it was followed by silence. Herman was the first to speak.

“You mean preachuh?” he asked incredulously. “You go’ PREACH?”

“Yes,” answered Georgie, looking like Saint Cecilia at the organ.

Herman was impressed. “You know all ‘at preachuh talk?”

“I’m going to learn it,” said Georgie simply.

“How loud kin you holler?” asked Herman doubtfully.

“He can’t holler at all,” Penrod interposed with scorn. “He hollers like a girl. He’s the poorest hollerer in town!”

Herman shook his head. Evidently he thought Georgie’s chance of being ordained very slender. Nevertheless, a final question put to the candidate by the coloured expert seemed to admit one ray of hope.

“How good kin you clim a pole?”

“He can’t climb one at all,” Penrod answered for Georgie. “Over at Sam’s turning-pole you ought to see him try to—-“

“Preachers don’t have to climb poles,” Georgie said with dignity.

“GOOD ones do,” declared Herman. “Bes’ one ev’ _I_ hear, he clim up an’ down same as a circus man. One n’em big ‘vivals outen whens we livin’ on a fahm, preachuh clim big pole right in a middle o’ the church, what was to hol’ roof up. He clim way high up, an’ holler: `Goin’ to heavum, goin’ to heavum, goin’ to heavum NOW. Hallelujah, praise my Lawd!’ An’ he slide down little, an’ holler: `Devil’s got a hol’ o’ my coat- tails; devil tryin’ to drag me down! Sinnuhs, take wawnun! Devil got a hol’ o’ my coat-tails; I’m a-goin’ to hell, oh Lawd!’ Nex’, he clim up little mo’, an’ yell an’ holler: `Done shuck ole devil loose; goin’ straight to heavum agin! Goin’ to heavum, goin’ to heavum, my Lawd!’ Nex’, he slide down some mo’ an’ holler, `Leggo my coat-tails, ole devil! Goin’ to hell agin, sinnuhs! Goin’ straight to hell, my Lawd!’ An’ he clim an’ he slide, an’ he slide, an’ he clim, an’ all time holler: `Now ‘m a-goin’ to heavum; now ‘m a-goin’ to hell! Goin’to heavum, heavum, heavum, my Lawd!’ Las’ he slide all a-way down, jes’ a-squallin’ an’ a-kickin’ an’ a-rarin’ up an’ squealin’, `Goin’ to hell. Goin’ to hell! Ole Satum got my soul! Goin’ to hell! Goin’ to hell! Goin’ to hell, hell, hell!”

Herman possessed that extraordinary facility for vivid acting which is the great native gift of his race, and he enchained his listeners. They sat fascinated and spellbound.

“Herman, tell that again!” said Penrod, breathlessly.

Herman, nothing loath, accepted the encore and repeated the Miltonic episode, expanding it somewhat, and dwelling with a fine art upon those portions of the narrative which he perceived to be most exciting to his audience. Plainly, they thrilled less to Paradise gained than to its losing, and the dreadful climax of the descent into the Pit was the greatest treat of all.

The effect was immense and instant. Penrod sprang to his feet.

“Georgie Bassett couldn’t do that to save his life,” he declared. “_I_’m goin’ to be a preacher! I’D be all right for one, wouldn’t I, Herman?”

“So am I!” Sam Williams echoed loudly. “I guess I can do it if YOU can. I’d be better’n Penrod, wouldn’t I, Herman?”

“I am, too!” Maurice shouted. “I got a stronger voice than anybody here, and I’d like to know what—-“

The three clamoured together indistinguishably, each asserting his qualifications for the ministry according to Herman’s theory, which had been accepted by these sudden converts without question.

“Listen to ME!” Maurice bellowed, proving his claim to at least the voice by drowning the others. “Maybe I can’t climb a pole so good, but who can holler louder’n this? Listen to ME-E-E!”

“Shut up!” cried Penrod, irritated. “Go to heaven; go to hell!”

“Oo-o-oh!” exclaimed Georgie Bassett, profoundly shocked.

Sam and Maurice, awed by Penrod’s daring, ceased from turmoil, staring wide-eyed.

“You cursed and swore!” said Georgie.

“I did not!” cried Penrod, hotly. “That isn’t swearing.”

“You said, `Go to a big H’!” said Georgie.

“I did not! I said, `Go to heaven,’ before I said a big H. That isn’t swearing, is it, Herman? It’s almost what the preacher said, ain’t it, Herman? It ain’t swearing now, any more–not if you put `go to heaven’ with it, is it, Herman? You can say it all you want to, long as you say `go to heaven’ first, CAN’T you, Herman? Anybody can say it if the preacher says it, can’t they, Herman? I guess I know when I ain’t swearing, don’t I, Herman?”

Judge Herman ruled for the defendant, and Penrod was considered to have carried his point. With fine consistency, the conclave established that it was proper for the general public to “say it,” provided “go to heaven” should in all cases precede it. This prefix was pronounced a perfect disinfectant, removing all odour of impiety or insult; and, with the exception of Georgie Bassett (who maintained that the minister’s words were “going” and “gone,” not “go”), all the boys proceeded to exercise their new privilege so lavishly that they tired of it.

But there was no diminution of evangelical ardour; again were heard the clamours of dispute as to which was the best qualified for the ministry, each of the claimants appealing passionately to Herman, who, pleased but confused, appeared to be incapable of arriving at a decision.

During a pause, Georgie Bassett asserted his prior rights. “Who said it first, I’d like to know?” he demanded. “I was going to be a minister from long back of to-day, I guess. And I guess I said I was going to be a minister right to-day before any of you said anything at all. DIDN’T I, Herman? YOU heard me, didn’t you, Herman? That’s the very thing started you talking about it, wasn’t it, Herman?”

“You’ right,” said Herman. “You the firs’ one to say it.”

Penrod, Sam, and Maurice immediately lost faith in Herman.

“What if you did say it first?” Penrod shouted. “You couldn’t BE a minister if you were a hunderd years old!”

“I bet his mother wouldn’t let him be one,” said Sam. “She never lets him do anything.”

“She would, too,” retorted Georgie. “Ever since I was little, she—-“

“He’s too sissy to be a preacher!” cried Maurice. “Listen at his squeaky voice!”

“I’m going to be a better minister,” shouted Georgie, “than all three of you put together. I could do it with my left hand!”

The three laughed bitingly in chorus. They jeered, derided, scoffed, and raised an uproar which would have had its effect upon much stronger nerves than Georgie’s. For a time he contained his rising choler and chanted monotonously, over and over: “I COULD! I COULD, TOO! I COULD! I COULD, TOO!” But their tumult wore upon him, and he decided to avail himself of the recent decision whereby a big H was rendered innocuous and unprofane. Having used the expression once, he found it comforting, and substituted it for: “I could! I could, too!”

But it relieved him only temporarily. His tormentors were unaffected by it and increased their howlings, until at last Georgie lost his head altogether. Badgered beyond bearing, his eyes shining with a wild light, he broke through the besieging trio, hurling little Maurice from his path with a frantic hand.

“I’ll show you!” he cried, in this sudden frenzy. “You give me a chance, and I’ll prove it right NOW!”

“That’s talkin’ business!” shouted Penrod. “Everybody keep still a minute. Everybody!”

He took command of the situation at once, displaying a fine capacity for organization and system. It needed only a few minutes to set order in the place of confusion and to determine, with the full concurrence of all parties, the conditions under which Georgie Bassett was to defend his claim by undergoing what may be perhaps intelligibly defined as the Herman test. Georgie declared he could do it easily. He was in a state of great excitement and in no condition to think calmly or, probably, he would not have made the attempt at all. Certainly he was overconfident.

CHAPTER XXVII
CONCLUSION OF THE QUIET AFTERNOON

It was during the discussion of the details of this enterprise that Georgie’s mother, a short distance down the street, received a few female callers, who came by appointment to drink a glass of iced tea with her, and to meet the Rev. Mr. Kinosling. Mr. Kinosling was proving almost formidably interesting to the women and girls of his own and other flocks. What favour of his fellow clergymen a slight precociousness of manner and pronunciation cost him was more than balanced by the visible ecstasies of ladies. They blossomed at his touch.

He had just entered Mrs. Bassett’s front door, when the son of the house, followed by an intent and earnest company of four, opened the alley gate and came into the yard. The unconscious Mrs. Bassett was about to have her first experience of a fatal coincidence. It was her first, because she was the mother of a boy so well behaved that he had become a proverb of transcendency. Fatal coincidences were plentiful in the Schofield and Williams families, and would have been familiar to Mrs. Bassett had Georgie been permitted greater intimacy with Penrod and Sam.

Mr. Kinosling sipped his iced tea and looked about, him approvingly. Seven ladies leaned forward, for it was to be seen that he meant to speak.

“This cool room is a relief,” he said, waving a graceful hand in a neatly limited gesture, which everybody’s eyes followed, his own included. “It is a relief and a retreat. The windows open, the blinds closed–that is as it should be. It is a retreat, a fastness, a bastion against the heat’s assault. For me, a quiet room–a quiet room and a book, a volume in the hand, held lightly between the fingers. A volume of poems, lines metrical and cadenced; something by a sound Victorian. We have no later poets.”

“Swinburne?” suggested Miss Beam, an eager spinster. “Swinburne, Mr. Kinosling? Ah, SWINBURNE!”

“Not Swinburne,” said Mr. Kinosling chastely. “No.”

That concluded all the remarks about Swinburne.

Miss Beam retired in confusion behind another lady; and somehow there became diffused an impression that Miss Beam was erotic.

“I do not observe your manly little son, “Mr. Kinosling addressed his hostess.

“He’s out playing in the yard,” Mrs. Bassett returned. “I heard his voice just now, I think.”

“Everywhere I hear wonderful report of him,” said Mr. Kinosling. “I may say that I understand boys, and I feel that he is a rare, a fine, a pure, a lofty spirit. I say spirit, for spirit is the word I hear spoken of him.”

A chorus of enthusiastic approbation affirmed the accuracy of this proclamation, and Mrs. Bassett flushed with pleasure. Georgie’s spiritual perfection was demonstrated by instances of it, related by the visitors; his piety was cited, and wonderful things he had said were quoted.

“Not all boys are pure, of fine spirit, of high mind,” said Mr. Kinosling, and continued with true feeling: “You have a neighbour, dear Mrs. Bassett, whose household I indeed really feel it quite impossible to visit until such time when better, firmer, stronger handed, more determined discipline shall prevail. I find Mr. and Mrs. Schofield and their daughter charming—-“

Three or four ladies said “Oh!” and spoke a name simultaneously. It was as if they had said, “Oh, the bubonic plague!”

“Oh! Penrod Schofield!”

“Georgie does not play with him,” said Mrs. Bassett quickly– “that is, he avoids him as much as he can without hurting Penrod’s feelings. Georgie is very sensitive to giving pain. I suppose a mother should not tell these things, and I know people who talk about their own children are dreadful bores, but it was only last Thursday night that Georgie looked up in my face so sweetly, after he had said his prayers and his little cheeks flushed, as he said: “Mamma, I think it would be right for me to go more with Penrod. I think it would make him a better boy.”

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

“And that very afternoon,” continued Mrs. Bassett, “he had come home in a dreadful state. Penrod had thrown tar all over him.”

“Your son has a forgiving spirit!” said Mr. Kinosling with vehemence. “A too forgiving spirit, perhaps.” He set down his glass. “No more, I thank you. No more cake, I thank you. Was it not Cardinal Newman who said—-“

He was interrupted by the sounds of an altercation just outside the closed blinds of the window nearest him.

“Let him pick his tree!” It was the voice of Samuel Williams. “Didn’t we come over here to give him one of his own trees? Give him a fair show, can’t you?”

“The little lads!” Mr. Kinosling smiled. “They have their games, their outdoor sports, their pastimes. The young muscles are toughening. The sun will not harm them. They grow; they expand; they learn. They learn fair play, honour, courtesy, from one another, as pebbles grow round in the brook. They learn more from themselves than from us. They take shape, form, outline. Let them.”

“Mr. Kinosling!” Another spinster–undeterred by what had happened to Miss Beam–leaned fair forward, her face shining and ardent. “Mr. Kinosling, there’s a question I DO wish to ask you.”

“My dear Miss Cosslit,” Mr. Kinosling responded, again waving his hand and watching it, “I am entirely at your disposal.”

“WAS Joan of Arc,” she asked fervently, “inspired by spirits?”

He smiled indulgently. “Yes–and no,” he said. “One must give both answers. One must give the answer, yes; one must give the answer, no.”

“Oh, THANK you!” said Miss Cosslit, blushing.

“She’s one of my great enthusiasms, you know.”

“And I have a question, too,” urged Mrs. Lora Rewbush, after a moment’s hasty concentration. “‘I’ve never been able to settle it for myself, but NOW—-“

“Yes?” said Mr. Kinosling encouragingly.

“Is–ah–is–oh, yes: Is Sanskrit a more difficult language than Spanish, Mr. Kinosling?”

“It depends upon the student,” replied the oracle smiling. “One must not look for linguists everywhere. In my own especial case–if one may cite one’s self as an example–I found no great, no insurmountable difficulty in mastering, in conquering either.”

“And may _I_ ask one?” ventured Mrs. Bassett. “Do you think it is right to wear egrets?”

“There are marks of quality, of caste, of social distinction,” Mr. Kinosling began, “which must be permitted, allowed, though perhaps regulated. Social distinction, one observes, almost invariably implies spiritual distinction as well. Distinction of circumstances is accompanied by mental distinction. Distinction is hereditary; it descends from father to son, and if there is one thing more true than `Like father, like son,’ it is–” he bowed gallantly to Mrs. Bassett–“it is, `Like mother, like son.’ What these good ladies have said this afternoon of YOUR—-“

This was the fatal instant. There smote upon all ears the voice of Georgie, painfully shrill and penetrating–fraught with protest and protracted, strain. His plain words consisted of the newly sanctioned and disinfected curse with a big H.

With an ejaculation of horror, Mrs. Bassett sprang to the window and threw open the blinds.

Georgie’s back was disclosed to the view of the tea-party. He was endeavouring to ascend a maple tree about twelve feet from the window. Embracing the trunk with arms and legs, he had managed to squirm to a point above the heads of Penrod and Herman, who stood close by, watching him earnestly–Penrod being obviously in charge of the performance. Across the yard were Sam Williams and Maurice Levy, acting as a jury on the question of voice-power, and it was to a complaint of theirs that Georgie had just replied.

“That’s right, Georgie,” said Penrod encouragingly. “They can, too, hear you. Let her go!”

“Going to heaven!” shrieked Georgie, squirming up another inch. “Going to heaven, heaven, heaven!”

His mother’s frenzied attempts to attract his attention failed utterly. Georgie was using the full power of his lungs, deafening his own ears to all other sounds. Mrs. Bassett called in vain; while the tea-party stood petrified in a cluster about the window.

“Going to heaven!” Georgie bellowed. “Going to heaven! Going to heaven, my Lord! Going to heaven, heaven, heaven!”

He tried to climb higher, but began to slip downward, his exertions causing damage to his apparel. A button flew into the air, and his knickerbockers and his waistband severed relations.

“Devil’s got my coat-tails, sinners! Old devil’s got my coat-tails!” he announced appropriately. Then he began to slide.

He relaxed his clasp of the tree and slid to the ground.

“Going to hell!” shrieked Georgie, reaching a high pitch of enthusiasm in this great climax. “Going to hell! Going to hell! I’m gone to hell, hell, hell!”

With a loud scream, Mrs. Bassett threw herself out of the window, alighting by some miracle upon her feet with ankles unsprained.

Mr. Kinosling, feeling that his presence as spiritual adviser was demanded in the yard, followed with greater dignity through the front door. At the corner of the house a small departing figure collided with him violently. It was Penrod, tactfully withdrawing from what promised to be a family scene of unusual painfulness.

Mr. Kinosling seized him by the shoulders and, giving way to emotion, shook him viciously.

“You horrible boy!” exclaimed Mr. Kinosling. “You ruffianly creature! Do you know what’s going to happen to you when you grow up? Do you realize what you’re going to BE!”

With flashing eyes, the indignant boy made know his unshaken purpose. He shouted the reply:

“A minister!”

CHAPTER XXVIII
TWELVE

This busy globe which spawns us is as incapable of flattery and as intent upon its own affair, whatever that is, as a gyroscope; it keeps steadily whirling along its lawful track, and, thus far seeming to hold a right of way, spins doggedly on, with no perceptible diminution of speed to mark the most gigantic human events–it did not pause to pant and recuperate even when what seemed to Penrod its principal purpose was accomplished, and an enormous shadow, vanishing westward over its surface, marked the dawn of his twelfth birthday.

To be twelve is an attainment worth the struggle. A boy, just twelve, is like a Frenchman just elected to the Academy.

Distinction and honour wait upon him. Younger boys show deference to a person of twelve: his experience is guaranteed, his judgment, therefore, mellow; consequently, his influence is profound. Eleven is not quite satisfactory: it is only an approach. Eleven has the disadvantage of six, of nineteen, of forty-four, and of sixty-nine. But, like twelve, seven is an honourable age, and the ambition to attain it is laudable. People look forward to being seven. Similarly, twenty is worthy, and so, arbitrarily, is twenty-one; forty-five has great solidity; seventy is most commendable and each year thereafter an increasing honour. Thirteen is embarrassed by the beginnings of a new colthood; the child becomes a youth. But twelve is the very top of boyhood.

Dressing, that morning, Penrod felt that the world was changed from the world of yesterday. For one thing, he seemed to own more of it; this day was HIS day. And it was a day worth owning; the midsummer sunshine, pouring gold through his window, came from a cool sky, and a breeze moved pleasantly in his hair as he leaned from the sill to watch the tribe of clattering blackbirds take wing, following their leader from the trees in the yard to the day’s work in the open country. The blackbirds were his, as the sunshine and the breeze were his, for they all belonged to the day which was his birthday and therefore most surely his. Pride suffused him: he was twelve!

His father and his mother and Margaret seemed to understand the difference between to-day and yesterday. They were at the table when he descended, and they gave him a greeting which of itself marked the milestone. Habitually, his entrance into a room where his elders sat brought a cloud of apprehension: they were prone to look up in pathetic expectancy, as if their thought was, “What new awfulness is he going to start NOW?” But this morning they laughed; his mother rose and kissed him twelve times, so did Margaret; and his father shouted, “Well, well! How’s the MAN?”

Then his mother gave him a Bible and “The Vicar of Wakefield”; Margaret gave him a pair of silver-mounted hair brushes; and his father gave him a “Pocket Atlas” and a small compass.

“And now, Penrod,” said his mother, after breakfast, “I’m going to take you out in the country to pay your birthday respects to Aunt Sarah Crim.”

Aunt Sarah Crim, Penrod’s great-aunt, was his oldest living relative. She was ninety, and when Mrs. Schofield and Penrod alighted from a carriage at her gate they found her digging with a spade in the garden.

“I’m glad you brought him,” she said, desisting from labour. “Jinny’s baking a cake I’m going to send for his birthday party. Bring him in the house. I’ve got something for him.”

She led the way to her “sitting-room,” which had a pleasant smell, unlike any other smell, and, opening the drawer of a shining old what-not, took therefrom a boy’s “sling-shot,” made of a forked stick, two strips of rubber and a bit of leather.

“This isn’t for you,” she said, placing it in Penrod’s eager hand. “No. It would break all to pieces the first time you tried to shoot it, because it is thirty-five years old. I want to send it back to your father. I think it’s time. You give it to him from me, and tell him I say I believe I can trust him with it now. I took it away from him thirty-five years ago, one day after he’d killed my best hen with it, accidentally, and broken a glass pitcher on the back porch with it–accidentally. He doesn’t look like a person who’s ever done things of that sort, and I suppose he’s forgotten it so well that he believes he never DID, but if you give it to him from me I think he’ll remember. You look like him, Penrod. He was anything but a handsome boy.”

After this final bit of reminiscence–probably designed to be repeated to Mr. Schofield–she disappeared in the direction of the kitchen, and returned with a pitcher of lemonade and a blue china dish sweetly freighted with flat ginger cookies of a composition that was her own secret. Then, having set this collation before her guests, she presented Penrod with a superb, intricate, and very modern machine of destructive capacities almost limitless. She called it a pocket-knife.

“I suppose you’ll do something horrible with it,” she said, composedly. “I hear you do that with everything, anyhow, so you might as well do it with this, and have more fun out of it. They tell me you’re the Worst Boy in Town.”

“Oh, Aunt Sarah!” Mrs. Schofield lifted a protesting hand.

“Nonsense!” said Mrs. Crim.

“But on his birthday!”

“That’s the time to say it. Penrod, aren’t you the Worst Boy in Town?”

Penrod, gazing fondly upon his knife and eating cookies rapidly, answered as a matter of course, and absently, “Yes’m.”

“Certainly!” said Mrs. Crim. “Once you accept a thing about yourself as established and settled, it’s all right. Nobody minds. Boys are just people, really.”

“No, no!” Mrs. Schofield cried, involuntarily.

“Yes, they are,” returned Aunt Sarah. “Only they’re not quite so awful, because they haven’t learned to cover themselves all over with little pretences. When Penrod grows up he’ll be just the same as he is now, except that whenever he does what he wants to do he’ll tell himself and other people a little story about it to make his reason for doing it seem nice and pretty and noble.”

“No, I won’t!” said Penrod suddenly.

“There’s one cookie left,” observed Aunt Sarah. “Are you going to eat it?”

“Well,” said her great-nephew, thoughtfully, “I guess I better.”

“Why?” asked the old lady. “Why do you guess you’d `better’?”

“Well,” said Penrod, with a full mouth, “it might get all dried up if nobody took it, and get thrown out and wasted.”

“You’re beginning finely,” Mrs. Crim remarked. “A year ago you’d have taken the cookie without the same sense of thrift.”

“Ma’am?”

“Nothing. I see that you’re twelve years old, that’s all. There are more cookies, Penrod.” She went away, returning with a fresh supply and the observation, “Of course, you’ll be sick before the day’s over; you might as well get a good start.”

Mrs. Schofield looked thoughtful. “Aunt Sarah,” she ventured, “don’t you really think we improve as we get older?”

“Meaning,” said the old lady, “that Penrod hasn’t much chance to escape the penitentiary if he doesn’t? Well, we do learn to restrain ourselves in some things; and there are people who really want someone else to take the last cookie, though they aren’t very common. But it’s all right, the world seems to be getting on.” She gazed whimsically upon her great-nephew and added, “Of course, when you watch a boy and think about him, it doesn’t seem to be getting on very fast.”

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

“I suppose Penrod is regarded as the neighbourhood curse?”

“Oh, no,” cried Mrs. Schofield. “He—-“

“I dare say the neighbours are right,” continued the old lady placidly. “He’s had to repeat the history of the race and go through all the stages from the primordial to barbarism. You don’t expect boys to be civilized, do you?”

“Well, I—-“

“You might as well expect eggs to crow. No; you’ve got to take boys as they are, and learn to know them as they are.”

“Naturally, Aunt Sarah,” said Mrs. Schofield, “I KNOW Penrod.”

Aunt Sarah laughed heartily. “Do you think his father knows him, too?”

“Of course, men are different,” Mrs. Schofield returned, apologetically. “But a mother knows—-“

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

“Ma’am?”

“About as much as he’d understand Sitting Bull!” she laughed.

“And I’ll tell you what your mother thinks you are, Penrod. Her real belief is that you’re a novice in a convent.”

“Ma’am?”

“Aunt Sarah!”

“I know she thinks that, because whenever you don’t behave like a novice she’s disappointed in you. And your father really believes that you’re a decorous, well-trained young business man, and whenever you don’t live up to that standard you get on his nerves and he thinks you need a walloping. I’m sure a day very seldom passes without their both saying they don’t know what on earth to do with you. Does whipping do you any good, Penrod?”

“Ma’am?”

“Go on and finish the lemonade; there’s about glassful left. Oh, take it, take it; and don’t say why! Of COURSE you’re a little pig.”

Penrod laughed gratefully, his eyes fixed upon her over the rim of his uptilted glass.

“Fill yourself up uncomfortably,” said the old lady. “You’re twelve years old, and you ought to be happy–if you aren’t anything else. It’s taken over nineteen hundred years of Christianity and some hundreds of thousands of years of other things to produce you, and there you sit!”

“Ma’am?”

“It’ll be your turn to struggle and muss things up, for the betterment of posterity, soon enough,” said Aunt Sarah Crim. “Drink your lemonade!”

CHAPTER XXIX
FANCHON

“Aunt Sarah’s a funny old lady,” Penrod observed, on the way back to the town. “What’s she want me to give papa this old sling for? Last thing she said was to be sure not to forget to give it to him. HE don’t want it; and she said, herself, it ain’t any good. She’s older than you or papa, isn’t she?”

“About fifty years older,” answered Mrs. Schofield, turning upon him a stare of perplexity. “Don’t cut into the leather with your new knife, dear; the livery man might ask us to pay if—- No. I wouldn’t scrape the paint off, either–nor whittle your shoe with it. COULDN’T you put it up until we get home?”

“We goin’ straight home?”

“No. We’re going to stop at Mrs. Gelbraith’s and ask a strange little girl to come to your party, this afternoon.”

“Who?”

“Her name is Fanchon. She’s Mrs. Gelbraith’s little niece.”

“What makes her so queer?”

“I didn’t say she’s queer.”

“You said—-“

“No; I mean that she is a stranger. She lives in New York and has come to visit here.”

“What’s she live in New York for?”

“Because her parents live there. You must be very nice to her, Penrod; she has been very carefully brought up. Besides, she doesn’t know the children here, and you must help to keep her from feeling lonely at your party.”

“Yes’m.”

When they reached Mrs. Gelbraith’s, Penrod sat patiently humped upon a gilt chair during the lengthy exchange of greetings between his mother. and Mrs. Gelbraith. That is one of the things a boy must learn to bear: when his mother meets a compeer there is always a long and dreary wait for him, while the two appear to be using strange symbols of speech, talking for the greater part, it seems to him, simultaneously, and employing a wholly incomprehensible system of emphasis at other times not in vogue. Penrod twisted his legs, his cap and his nose.

“Here she is!” Mrs. Gelbraith cried, unexpectedly, and a dark-haired, demure person entered the room wearing a look of gracious social expectancy. In years she was eleven, in manner about sixty-five, and evidently had lived much at court. She performed a curtsey in acknowledgment of Mrs. Schofield’s greeting, and bestowed her hand upon Penrod, who had entertained no hope of such an honour, showed his surprise that it should come to him, and was plainly unable to decide what to do about it.

“Fanchon, dear,” said Mrs. Gelbraith, “take Penrod out in the yard for a while, and play.”

“Let go the little girl’s hand, Penrod,” Mrs. Schofield laughed, as the children turned toward the door.

Penrod hastily dropped the small hand, and exclaiming, with simple honesty, “Why, _I_ don’t want it!” followed Fanchon out into the sunshiny yard, where they came to a halt and surveyed each other.

Penrod stared awkwardly at Fanchon, no other occupation suggesting itself to him, while Fanchon, with the utmost coolness, made a very thorough visual examination of Penrod, favouring him with an estimating scrutiny which lasted until he literally wiggled. Finally, she spoke.

“Where do you buy your ties?” she asked.

“What?”

“Where do you buy your neckties? Papa gets his at Skoone’s. You ought to get yours there. I’m sure the one you’re wearing isn’t from Skoone’s.”

“Skoone’s?” Penrod repeated. “Skoone’s?”

“On Fifth Avenue,” said Fanchon. “It’s a very smart shop, the men say.”

“Men?” echoed Penrod, in a hazy whisper. “Men?”

“Where do your people go in summer?” inquired the lady. “WE go to Long Shore, but so many middle-class people have begun coming there, mamma thinks of leaving. The middle classes are simply awful, don’t you think?”

“What?”

“They’re so boorjaw. You speak French, of course?”

“Me?”

“We ran over to Paris last year. It’s lovely, don’t you think? Don’t you LOVE the Rue de la Paix?”

Penrod wandered in a labyrinth. This girl seemed to be talking, but her words were dumfounding, and of course there was no way for him to know that he was really listening to her mother. It was his first meeting with one of those grown-up little girls, wonderful product of the winter apartment and summer hotel; and Fanchon, an only child, was a star of the brand. He began to feel resentful.

“I suppose,” she went on, “I’ll find everything here fearfully Western. Some nice people called yesterday, though. Do you know the Magsworth Bittses? Auntie says they’re charming. Will Roddy be at your party?”

“I guess he will,” returned Penrod, finding this intelligible. “The mutt!”

“Really!” Fanchon exclaimed airily. “Aren’t you great pals with him?”

“What’s `pals’?”

“Good heavens! Don’t you know what it means to say you’re `great pals’ with any one? You ARE an odd child!”

It was too much.

“Oh, Bugs!” said Penrod.

This bit of ruffianism had a curious effect. Fanchon looked upon him with sudden favour.

“I like you, Penrod!” she said, in an odd way, and, whatever else there may have been in her manner, there certainly was no shyness.

“Oh, Bugs!” This repetition may have lacked gallantry, but it was uttered in no very decided tone. Penrod was shaken.

“Yes, I do!” She stepped closer to him, smiling. “Your hair is ever so pretty.”

Sailors’ parrots swear like mariners, they say; and gay mothers ought to realize that all children are imitative, for, as the precocious Fanchon leaned toward Penrod, the manner in which she looked into his eyes might have made a thoughtful observer wonder where she had learned her pretty ways.

Penrod was even more confused than he had been by her previous mysteries: but his confusion was of a distinctly pleasant and alluring nature: he wanted more of it. Looking intentionally into another person’s eyes is an act unknown to childhood; and Penrod’s discovery that it could be done was sensational. He had never thought of looking into the eyes of Marjorie Jones.

Despite all anguish, contumely, tar, and Maurice Levy, he still secretly thought of Marjorie, with pathetic constancy, as his “beau”–though that is not how he would have spelled it. Marjorie was beautiful; her curls were long and the colour of amber; her nose was straight and her freckles were honest; she was much prettier than this accomplished visitor. But beauty is not all.

“I do!” breathed Fanchon, softly.

She seemed to him a fairy creature from some rosier world than this. So humble is the human heart, it glorifies and makes glamorous almost any poor thing that says to it: “I like you!”

Penrod was enslaved. He swallowed, coughed, scratched the back of his neck, and said, disjointedly:

“Well–I don’t care if you want to. I just as soon.”

“We’ll dance together,” said Fanchon, “at your party.”

“I guess so. I just as soon.”

“Don’t you want to, Penrod?”

“Well, I’m willing to.”

“No. Say you WANT to!”

“Well—-“

He used his toe as a gimlet, boring into the ground, his wide open eyes staring with intense vacancy at a button on his sleeve.

His mother appeared upon the porch in departure, calling farewells over her shoulder to Mrs. Gelbraith, who stood in the doorway.

“Say it!” whispered Fanchon.

“Well, I just as SOON.”

She seemed satisfied.

CHAPTER XXX
THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

A dancing floor had been laid upon a platform in the yard, when Mrs. Schofield and her son arrived at their own abode; and a white and scarlet striped canopy was in process of erection overhead, to shelter the dancers from the sun. Workmen were busy everywhere under the direction of Margaret, and the smitten heart of Penrod began to beat rapidly. All this was for him; he was Twelve!

After lunch, he underwent an elaborate toilette and murmured not. For the first time in his life he knew the wish to be sand- papered, waxed, and polished to the highest possible degree. And when the operation was over, he stood before the mirror in new bloom, feeling encouraged to hope that his resemblance to his father was not so strong as Aunt Sarah seemed to think.

The white gloves upon his hands had a pleasant smell, he found; and, as he came down the stairs, he had great content in the twinkling of his new dancing slippers. He stepped twice on each step, the better to enjoy their effect and at the same time he deeply inhaled the odour of the gloves. In spite of everything, Penrod had his social capacities. Already it is to be perceived that there were in him the makings of a cotillon leader.

Then came from the yard a sound of tuning instruments, squeak of fiddle, croon of ‘cello, a falling triangle ringing and tinkling to the floor; and he turned pale.

Chosen guests began to arrive, while Penrod, suffering from stage-fright and perspiration, stood beside his mother, in the “drawing-room,” to receive them. He greeted unfamiliar acquaintances and intimate fellow-criminals with the same frigidity, murmuring: “‘M glad to see y’,” to all alike, largely increasing the embarrassment which always prevails at the beginning of children’s festivities. His unnatural pomp and circumstance had so thoroughly upset him, in truth, that Marjorie Jones received a distinct shock, now to be related. Doctor Thrope, the kind old clergyman who had baptized Penrod, came in for a moment to congratulate the boy, and had just moved away when it was Marjorie’s turn, in the line of children, to speak to Penrod. She gave him what she considered a forgiving look, and, because of the occasion, addressed him in a perfectly courteous manner.

“I wish you many happy returns of the day, Penrod.”

“Thank you, sir!” he returned, following Dr. Thrope with a glassy stare in which there was absolutely no recognition of Marjorie. Then he greeted Maurice Levy, who was next to Marjorie: “‘M glad to see y’!”

Dumfounded, Marjorie turned aside, and stood near, observing Penrod with gravity. It was the first great surprise of her life. Customarily, she had seemed to place his character somewhere between that of the professional rioter and that of the orang-outang; nevertheless, her manner at times just hinted a consciousness that this Caliban was her property. Wherefore, she stared at him incredulously as his head bobbed up and down, in the dancing-school bow, greeting his guests. Then she heard an adult voice, near her, exclaim:

“What an exquisite child!”

Mariorie galanced up–a little consciously, though she was used to it–naturally curious to ascertain who was speaking of her. It was Sam Williams’ mother addressing Mrs. Bassett, both being present to help Mrs. Schofield make the festivities festive.

“Exquisite!”

Here was a second heavy surprise for Marjorie: they were not looking at her. They were looking with beaming approval at a girl she had never seen; a dark and modish stranger of singularly composed and yet modest aspect. Her downcast eyes, becoming in one thus entering a crowded room, were all that produced the effect of modesty, counteracting something about her which might have seemed too assured. She was very slender, very dainty, and her apparel was disheartening to the other girls; it was of a knowing picturesqueness wholly unfamiliar to them. There was a delicate trace of powder upon the lobe of Fanchon’s left ear, and the outlines of her eyelids, if very closely scrutinized, would have revealed successful experimentation with a burnt match.

Marjorie’s lovely eyes dilated: she learned the meaning of hatred at first sight. Observing the stranger with instinctive suspicion, all at once she seemed, to herself, awkward. Poor Marjorie underwent that experience which hearty, healthy, little girls and big girls undergo at one time or another–from heels to head she felt herself, somehow, too THICK.

Fanchon leaned close to Penrod and whispered in his ear:

“Don’t you forget!”

Penrod blushed.

Marjorie saw the blush. Her lovely eyes opened even wider, and in them there began to grow a light. It was the light of indignation;–at least, people whose eyes glow with that light always call it indignation.

Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, approached Fanchon, when she had made her courtesy to Mrs. Schofield. Fanchon whispered in Roderick’s ear also.

“Your hair is pretty, Roddy! Don’t forget what you said yesterday!”

Roderick likewise blushed.

Maurice Levy, captivated by the newcomer’s appearance, pressed close to Roderick.

“Give us an intaduction, Roddy?”

Roddy being either reluctant or unable to perform the rite, Fanchon took matters into her own hands, and was presently favourably impressed with Maurice, receiving the information that his tie had been brought to him by his papa from Skoone’s, whereupon she privately informed him that she liked wavy hair, and arranged to dance with him. Fanchon also thought sandy hair attractive, Sam Williams discovered, a few minutes later, and so catholic was her taste that a ring of boys quite encircled her before the musicians in the yard struck up their thrilling march, and Mrs. Schofield brought Penrod to escort the lady from out-of-town to the dancing pavilion.

Headed by this pair, the children sought partners and paraded solemnly out of the front door and round a corner of the house. There they found the gay marquee; the small orchestra seated on the lawn at one side of it, and a punch bowl of lemonade inviting attention, under a tree. Decorously the small couples stepped upon the platform, one after another, and began to dance.

“It’s not much like a children’s party in our day,” Mrs. Williams said to Penrod’s mother. “We’d have been playing `Quaker-meeting,’ `Clap-in, Clap-out,’ or `Going to Jerusalem,’ I suppose.”

“Yes, or `Post-office’ and `Drop-the-handkerchief,'” said Mrs. Schofield. “Things change so quickly. Imagine asking little Fanchon Gelbraith to play `London Bridge’! Penrod seems to be having a difficult time with her, poor boy; he wasn’t a shining light in the dancing class.”

However, Penrod’s difficulty was not precisely of the kind his mother supposed. Fanchon was showing him a new step, which she taught her next partner in turn, continuing instructions during the dancing. The children crowded the floor, and in the kaleidoscopic jumble of bobbing heads and intermingling figures her extremely different style of motion was unobserved by the older people, who looked on, nodding time benevolently.

Fanchon fascinated girls as well as boys. Many of the former eagerly sought her acquaintance and thronged about her between the dances, when, accepting the deference due a cosmopolitan and an oracle of the mode, she gave demonstrations of the new step to succeeding groups, professing astonishment to find it unknown: it had been “all the go,” she explained, at the Long Shore Casino for fully two seasons. She pronounced “slow” a “Fancy Dance” executed during an intermission by Baby Rennsdale and Georgie Bassett, giving it as her opinion that Miss Rennsdale and Mr. Bassett were “dead ones”; and she expressed surprise that the punch bowl contained lemonade and not champagne.

The dancing continued, the new step gaining instantly in popularity, fresh couples adventuring with every number. The word “step” is somewhat misleading, nothing done with the feet being vital to the evolutions introduced by Fanchon. Fanchon’s dance came from the Orient by a roundabout way; pausing in Spain, taking on a Gallic frankness in gallantry at the Bal Bullier in Paris, combining with a relative from the South Seas encountered in San Francisco, flavouring itself with a carefree negroid abandon in New Orleans, and, accumulating, too, something inexpressible from Mexico and South America, it kept, throughout its travels, to the underworld, or to circles where nature is extremely frank and rank, until at last it reached the dives of New York, when it immediately broke out in what is called civilized society. Thereafter it spread, in variously modified forms–some of them disinfected–to watering-places, and thence, carried by hundreds of older male and female Fanchons, over the country, being eagerly adopted everywhere and made wholly pure and respectable by the supreme moral axiom that anything is all right if enough people do it. Everybody was doing it.

Not quite everybody. It was perhaps some test of this dance that earth could furnish no more grotesque sight than that of children doing it.

Earth, assisted by Fanchon, was furnishing this sight at Penrod’s party. By the time ice-cream and cake arrived, about half the guests had either been initiated into the mysteries by Fanchon or were learning by imitation, and the education of the other half was resumed with the dancing, when the attendant ladies, unconscious of what was happening, withdrew into the house for tea.

“That orchestra’s a dead one,” Fanchon remarked to Penrod.