 CHAPTER 22 THE IMMITATOR At the dinner table that evening, Penrod surprised his family by remarking in a voice they had never heard him attempt, a law-giving voice of intentional gruffness, any man that's making a hundred dollars a month is making 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 making a hundred dollars is making good money. What is he talking about? Margaret appealed to the invisible. Well, said Penrod frowning, that's what foreman at the ladderworks get. How in the world do you know? asked his mother. Well, I know it. A hundred dollars a month is good money, I tell you. Well, what of it? said the father impatiently. Nothing. I only said it was good money. Mr. Schofield shook his head, dismissing the subject. And here he made a mistake. He should have followed up his son's singular contribution to the conversation. That would have revealed the fact that there was a certain Roop Collins whose father was a foreman at the ladderworks. 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 spoken like that to his sister. Mrs. Schofield might have been more dismayed than she was if she had realized that it was the beginning of an epoch. After dinner, Penrod was slightly scalded in the back as a result of telling Della the cook that there was a wart on the middle finger of her right hand. Della thus proving poor material for his new manner to work upon, he approached Duke in the backyard and bending double seized the lowly animal by the forepaws. I let you know my name's Penrod Schofield, hissed the boy. He protruded his underlip ferociously, scalded, and thrust forward his head until his nose touched the dogs. And you better look out when Penrod Schofield's around, or you'll get in big trouble. You understand that, boy? 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 neighborhood, came to play with Penrod several times, but they failed to connect these circumstances with peculiar behavior of the son of the house, whose ideals, his father remarked, seemed to have suddenly become identical with those of Jip the blood. Meanwhile, for Penrod himself, life had taken on new meaning, new richness. He had become a fighting man, in conversation at least. Do you want to know how I do when they try to slip up on me from behind? He asked Della, and he enacted for her unappreciative eye a scene of fistic maneuvers 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 faint landed Dolores Stroke full upon a face of air. There! I guess you'll know better next time. That's the way we do up at the third. Sometimes in solitary pantomime, he encountered more than one opponent at a time. Her numbers were up to come upon him treacherously, especially at a little after his rising hour, when he might be caught at a disadvantage, perhaps standing on one leg to encase the other in his knickerbockers. Like lightning, he would hurl the trapping garment from him, and ducking and pivoting, deal great sweeping blows among the circle of sneaking devils. That was how he broke the clock in his bedroom. And while these battles were occupying his attention, it was a waste of voice to call him to breakfast, though if his mother, losing patience, came to his room, she would find him seated on the bed pulling at a stocking. Well, ain't I coming as fast as I can? At the table and about the house, generally, he was bumptuous, loud with fatuous misinformation, and assumed a domineering tone, which neither satire nor reproof seemed able to reduce. But it was among his own intimates that his new superiority was most outrageous. He twisted the fingers and squeezed the necks of all the boys in the neighborhood. Meeting their indignation with a horseman rasping laugh, he had acquired after short practice in the stable, where he jeered and taunted the lawnmower at the garden sides and the wheelbarrow quite out of countenance. Likewise, he bragged to the other boys by the hour, Rupert Collins being the chief subject of Encomium, next to Penrod himself. That's the way we do up at the third, became staple explanation of violence, for Penrod, like Tartaren, 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 Rupert Collins. Then, when Penrod had exhausted himself repeating to nausea accounts of the prowess of himself and his great friend, he would turn to two other subjects for Vainglory. These were his father and Duke. Mothers must accept the fact that between babyhood and manhood their sons do not boast of them. The boy, with boys, is a chakta, and either the influence or the protection of women is shameful. Your mother won't let you, is an insult, but my father won't let me, is a dignified explanation and cannot be hooded. 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 persecutions to all things ranked as female, such as cats and every species a fowl. But he must champion his father and his dog, and ever 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 presented virtually as a cross between Bob, son of battle, and a South American vampire, and this in spite of the fact that Duke himself often sat close by, a living lie, with the hope of peace in his heart. As for Penrod's father, that gladiator was painted as a 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 practiced the habit of fainting a blow, then as the victim dodged, he rasped the triumphant horse laugh, which he gradually mastered to horrible perfection. He did this to Marjorie Jones, aye, 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 Rupert Collins, Penrod had become unbearable. He even almost alienated Sam Williams, who for a time submitted to finger twisting and neck squeezing in the new style of conversation, but finally declared that Penrod made him sick. He made the statement with fervor one sultry afternoon in Mr. Scofield's stable in the presence of Herman and Vermin. You better look out, boy, said Penrod threateningly. I'll show you a little how we do up at the third. Up at the third, Sam repeated with scorn, you haven't ever been up there. I haven't, cried Penrod. I haven't. No, you haven't. Looky here. Penrod, darkly argumentative, prepared to perform the eye-to-eye business. When haven't I been up there? You haven't never been up there. In spite of Penrod's closely approaching nose, Sam maintained his ground in appealed confirmation. Has he, Herman? I don't reckon so, said Herman, laughing. What? Penrod transferred his nose to the immediate vicinity of Herman's nose. I don't reckon so, bow, don't you? You better look out how you reckon round here. You understand that, boy? Herman bore the eye-to-eye very well. Indeed, it seemed to please him, for he continued to laugh while Vermin chuckled delightedly. The brothers had been in the country picking berries for a week, and it happened that this was their first experience of the new manifestation of Penrod. Haven't I been up at the third? The sinister Penrod demanded. I don't reckon so. How come you asked me? Didn't you just hear me say I've been up there? Well, said Herman mischievously, here and ain't believin'. Penrod clutched him by the back of the neck, but Herman, laughing loudly, ducked and released himself at once, retreating to the wall. You take that back! Penrod shouted, striking out wildly. Don't get mad! Begged the small darky, while a number of blows falling upon his warding arms failed to abate his amusement, and a sound one upon the cheek only made him laugh the more unrestrainedly. He behaved exactly as if Penrod were tickling him, and his brother, Vermin, rolled with joy in a wheelbarrow. Penrod pummeled till he was tired, and produced no greater effect. There, he panted, desisting finally, now I reckon you know whether I've been up there or not. Herman rubbed his smitten cheek. Pow! he exclaimed. Pow! Wee! You certainly did lamb me a good one that time. Ooh wee! She hurt! You'll get hurt worse than that, Penrod assured him. If you stay around here much, Roop Collins is coming this afternoon. He said, we're going to make some policemen's billies out of the rake handle. You go spoil new rake your pawbot. What do we care? I and Roop got to have billies, haven't we? How you make them? Melt lead and pour in a hole we're going to make in the end of them. Then we're going to carry them 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. As Roop Collins coming, Sam Williams inquired rather uneasily. He had heard a great deal too much of this personage, but as yet the pleasure of actual acquaintance had been denied him. He's liable to be here any time, answered Penrod. You better look out, you'll be lucky if you get home alive if you stay till he comes. I ain't afraid of him, Sam returned conventionally. You are too! There was some truth in the retort. There ain't any boy in this part of town but me that wouldn't be afraid of him. You'd be afraid to talk to him. You wouldn't get a word out of your mouth before old Rupert have you where you wish you'd never come around him, letting on like you was so much. You wouldn't run home yellin' mama, or nothin', oh no. Who Roop Collins? Asked Herman. Who Roop Collins? Penrod marked 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 Vermin. You just hang around here a little while longer, Penrod added grimly, and you'll find out who Roop Collins is, and I pity you when you do. Why he gon' 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 greeting to Penrod and fraternized with Duke. The fat-faced boy appeared upon the threshold and gazed coldly about the little company in the carriage house, whereupon the colored brethren, ceasing from merriment, were instantly impassive, and Sam Williams moved a little nearer the door leading into the yard. Obviously, Sam regarded the newcomer as a redoubtable, if not ominous figure. He was a head taller than either Sam or Penrod, head and shoulders taller than Herman, who was short for his age, and Vermin could hardly be used for purposes of comparison at all, being a mere squat brown spot, not yet quite nine years on this planet. And to Sam's mind, the aspect of Mr. Collins realized Penrod's pretentious foreshadowings. Upon the fat-faced, there was an expression of truculent intolerance which had been cultivated by careful habit to such perfection that Sam's heart sank at sight of it. A somewhat enfeebled twin to this expression had of late often decorated the visage of Penrod, and appeared upon that ingenuous surface now, as he advanced to welcome the eminent visitor. The host swaggered toward the door with a great deal of shoulder movement, carelessly fainting a slap at Vermin in passing, and creating by various means the atmosphere of a man who was contemptuously amused himself with underlings while waiting in equal. Hello, boy, Penrod said in the deepest voice possible to him. Who are you calling boy? was the ungracious response, accompanied by immediate action of a similar nature. Rup held Penrod's head in the crook of an elbow and massaged his temple with a hard-pressing knuckle. I was only in fun, Rupy, pleaded the sufferer and then being set free. Come here, Sam, he said. What for? Penrod laughed pittingly. I ain't going to hurt you, come on. Sam, maintaining his position near the other door, Penrod went to him and caught him around the neck. Watch me, Rupy, Penrod called, and performed upon Sam the knuckle operation which he had himself just undergone, Sam submitting mechanically, his eyes fixed with increasing uneasiness upon Rup Collins. Sam had a premonition that something even more painful than Penrod's knuckle was going to be inflicted upon him. That don't hurt, said Penrod, pushing him away. Yes, it does, too. Sam rubbed his temple. It didn't hurt me, did it, Rupy? Come on, Rup, show this baby where he's got a ward on his finger. You showed me that trick, Sam objected. You already did that to me. You tried it twice this afternoon, and I don't know how many times before, only you weren't strong enough after the first time. Anyway, I know what it is, and I don't. Come on, Rup, said Penrod, make the baby lick dirt. At this bidding, Rup approached, while Sam, still protesting, moved to the threshold of the outer door. But Penrod seized him by the shoulders and swung him indoors with a shout. Little baby wants to run home to its mama. Here he is, Rupy. Thereupon was Penrod's treachery to an old comrade properly rewarded. For as the two struggled, Rup caught each by the back of the neck simultaneously, and with creditable impartiality, forced both boys to their knees. Lick dirt, he commanded, forcing them still forward until their faces were close to the stable floor. At this moment, he received a real surprise. With a loud whack, something struck the back of his head, and turning, he beheld vermin in the act of lifting a piece of lath to strike again. Ammois, ohm, said vermin, the giant killer. He tongue ties, Herman explained. He say, let him boys alone. Rup addressed his host briefly. Chase them nigs out of here. Don't call me nig, said Herman. I mind my own business. You let them boys alone. Rup 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 Rup wouldn't really hurt Herman. A sudden dislike of Rup, and Rup's ways rose within him, as he looked at the big boy overwhelming the little darkie with that ferocious scowl. Penrod, all at once, felt sorry about something indefinable, and with equal vagueness he felt foolish. Come on, Rup, 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 Rup hadn't climbed to favor the suggestion. Vermin had discarded his laugh for the rake, which he was at this moment lifting in the air. You old black nigger! The fat-faced boy said venomously to Herman, I'm a-going-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 Rup's unfamiliar eyes, and by the dreadfully suggestive proximity of Rup's unfamiliar nose, was altogether different. Herman's and Vermin's Bengala great-grandfathers never considered people of their own jungle neighborhood proper material for a meal, but they looked upon strangers, especially truculent strangers, as distinctly edible. Penrod and Sam heard Rup 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. End of Chapter 22. Chapter 23 of Penrod. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Jonathan Burchard, April 2009. Penrod, by Booth Tarkington, Chapter 23. Colored Troops in Action. How neat and pure is the task of the chronicler who has the tale to tell of a good, rousing fight between boys or men who fight 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 a good feeling in the end, though sometimes, to vary the model, the butcher defeats the hero, and the chronicler who stencils this final pattern on his page is certain of applause as a stirrer of red blood. There is no sure recipe. But when Herman and Verman set to, to the record must be no more than a few fragments left by the expurgator. It has been perhaps sufficiently suggested that the altercation in Mr. Schofield stable open with mayhem in respect to the aggressor's nose. Expressing vocally his indignation and the extremity of his pain surprise, Mr. Collins stepped backwards, holding his left hand over his nose and striking it 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, Rupert Collins was peculiarly unfortunate. He was plucky and he enjoyed conflict, but neither his ambitions nor his anticipations had ever included murder. He had not learned that an habitually aggressive person runs the danger of colliding with beings in one of those lower stages of evolution wherein theories about hitting below the belt have not yet made their appearance. The rake glanced from the back of Rupert's head to his shoulder, but it felled him. Both darkies jumped full upon him instantly and the three rolled and twisted upon the stable floor, unloosing upon the air, sincere maledictions closely connected with complaints of cruel and unusual treatment. While certain expressions of feeling presently emanating from Herman and Verman indicated that Rupert Collins in this extremity was proving himself not too slavishly addicted to fighting by rule, Dan and Duke, mistaking all for mirth, barked gaily. From the panting, pounding, yelling heap issued words and phrases hitherto quite unknown to Penrod and Sam. Also, a hoarse repetition in the voice of Rupert concerning his ear left it not to be doubted that additional mayhem was taking place. Appalled, the two spectators retreated to the doorway nearest the yard where they stood dumbly watching the cataclysm. The struggle increased in primitive simplicity. Time and again, the howling Rupert got to his knees only to go down again as the earnest brothers in their own way assisted him to a more reclining position. Primal forces operated here and the two blanched slightly higher products of evolution. Sam and Penrod, no more thought of interfering than they would have thought of interfering with an earthquake. At last, out of the ruck, Rose Verman, disfigured and maniacal. With a wild eye, he looked about him for his trusty rake. But Penrod in horror had long since thrown the rake out into the yard. Naturally, it had not seemed necessary to remove the lawnmower. The frantic eye of Verman fell upon the lawnmower and instantly he leaped to his handle. Shrilling a wordless war cry, he charged, propelling the whirling deafening knives straight across the prone legs of Root Collins. The lawnmower was sincerely intended to pass longitudinally over the body of Mr. Collins from heel to head and it was the time for a death song. Black Valkyrie hovered in the shrieking air. Cut your scissor out! Shriek Herman, urging on the whirling knives, they touched and lacerated the shin of Root as with the supreme agonies of effort, a creature in mortal peril puts forth before succumbing. He tore himself free of Herman and got upon his feet. Herman was up as quickly. He leaped to the wall and seized the garden scythe that hung there. I'm going to cut your scissor out! He announced definitely and eat it. Root 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 Vermin seemed as contented with their work. Vermin was swinging the grass cutter about for a new charge, apparently still wishing to mow him and Herman made a quite plausible statement about what he intended to do with the scythe. Root paused but for an extremely condensed survey of the horrible advance of the brothers and then uttering a blood-curdling 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 revealed Vermin and Herman in pursuit, the latter waving his scythe overhead. Mr. Collins slackened not his gate 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 neighborhood again but never by any chance to come within a mile of it. From the alley door, Penrod and Sam watched the flight and were without words. When the pursuit rounded the corner the two looked wanly at each other but neither spoke until the return of the brothers from the chase. Herman and Vermin came back laughing and chuckling. Hi-yay cackled Herman to Vermin as they came. See that old boy run? Huy! Vermin shouted in ecstasy. Neve did see boy run so fast. Herman continued tossing the scythe into the wheelbarrow. I bet he home in bed by this time. Vermin 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 sans coulotte. Herman was a similar ruin and gave his little heed to his condition. Penrod looked daisily from Herman to Vermin and back again. So did Sam Williams. Herman said Penrod in a weak voice. He wouldn't honest have cut his gizzard out would ya? Who? Me? I don't know. He might mean old boy. Herman shook his head gravely and then observing that Vermin was again convulsed with unctuous merriment joined laughter with his brothers. Show, I guess I was just talking when I said that. Wrecking he thought I meant it from the way he took and run. Hi, aye. Wrecking he thought, oh Herman bad man. No sir, I was just talking because I never would cut nobody. I ain't trying to get no jail, no sir. Penrod looked at the scythe. He looked at Herman. He looked at the lawnmower and he looked at Vermin. Then he looked out in the yard at the rake. So did Sam Williams. Come on, Herman, said Herman. We ain't got that stovewood for supper yet. Giggling reminiscently, the brothers disappeared leaving silence behind them in the carriage house. Penrod and Sam retired slowly into the shadowy interior, each glancing now and then with a preoccupied air at the open, empty doorway where the late afternoon sunshine was growing ruddy. At intervals, one or the other scraped the floor reflectively with the side of his shoe. Finally, still without either having made any effort at conversation, they went out into the yard and stood, continuing their silence. Well, said Sam at last, I guess it's time I better be getting home. So long, Penrod. So long, Sam, said Penrod Feebly. With a solemn gaze, he watched his friend out of sight. Then he went slowly into the house and after an interval, occupied in a unique manner, appeared in the library holding a pair of brilliantly gleaming shoes in his hand. Mr. Schofield, reading the evening paper, glanced frowningly over it at his offspring. Look, Papa, said Penrod, I found your shoes where you'd taken them off in your room to put on your slippers and they were all dusty. So I took them out on the back porch and gave them a good blacking. They shine up fine, don't they? Well, I'll be de-de-de-dumbed, said the startled Mr. Schofield. Penrod was zig-zagging back to normal. End of chapter 23, chapter 24 of Penrod. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Jonathan Burchard, April 2009, Penrod by Booth Tarkington, chapter 24, Little Gentleman. The midsummer sun was stinging hot outside the Little Barbershop next to the corner drugstore and Penrod, undergoing a toilette preliminary to his very slowly approaching 12th birthday, was at ease of enough to retain upon his face much hair as it fell from the shears. There is a mystery here. The tonsorial processes are not unagreeable to manhood. In truth, they are soothing. But the hair is detached from a boy's head, get into his eyes, his ears, his nose, his mouth and down his neck and he does everywhere itch excruciatingly. Wherefore, he blinks, winks, weeps, twitches, condenses his countenance and squirms and perchance the barber's scissors clip more than intended. Be like an outlying flange of ear. Um, ah, ow, said Penrod. This thing having happened. Did I touch you up a little? Inquired the barber, smiling falsely. Ooh, ah. The boy in the chair offered an articulate 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. Poof, said Penrod, meaning no disrespect but endeavoring to dislodge a temporary mustache from his lip. You ought to see how still that little Georgie Basset sits. The barber went on reprovingly. I hear everybody says he's the best boy in town. Poof, purr. There was a touch of intentional contempt in this. I haven't heard nobody around the neighborhood making no such remarks, added the barber, about nobody of the name of Penrod Schofield. Well, said Penrod, clearing his mouth after a struggle. Who wants him to? Ouch! I hear they called Georgie Basset the little gentleman ventured the barber, provocatively, meeting with instant success. They better not call me that, returned Penrod treculently. I'd like to hear anybody try just once, that's all. I bet they'd never try it, ouch! Why, what would you do to him? It's all right what I'd do. I bet they wouldn't wanna call me that again as long as they lived. What would you do if it was a little girl? You wouldn't hit her, would you? Well, ouch! You wouldn't hit a little girl, would you? The barber persisted, gathering into his powerful fingers a mop of hair from the top of Penrod's head and pulling that suffering head into an unnatural position. Doesn't the Bible say it ain't never right to hit the weak sex? Ow, say, look out! So you'd go and punch a poor weak little girl, would you? Said the barber, reprovingly. Well, who said I'd hit her? Demanded the chivalrous Penrod. I'd bet I'd fix her though, she'd see. You wouldn't call her names, would you? No, I wouldn't. What hurt is it to call anybody names? Is that so? exclaimed the barber. Then you was intended what I heard you holler and it fishes grocery delivery wagon driver for a favor. The other day when I was going by your house, was you? I reckon I better tell him because he says to me afterwards, if he ever lays eyes on you and you ain't in your own yard, he's going to do a whole lot of things you ain't going to like. Yes, sir, that's what he says to me. He better catch me first, I guess, before he talks so much. Well, resume the barber. That ain't saying what you'd do if a young lady ever walked up and called you a little gentleman. I want to hear what you do to her. I guess I know, though, come to think of it. What, demanded Penrod. You'd sick that poor old dog of yours on her cat if she had one, I expect. Guess the barber derisively. No, I would not. Well, what would you do? I'd do enough, don't worry about that. Well, suppose it was a boy then. What did you do if a boy come up to you and says, hello, little gentleman? He'd be lucky, said Penrod with a sinister frown if he got home alive. Suppose it was a boy twice your size. Just let him try, said Penrod ominously. You just let him try. He'd never say, Dylite, again, that's all. The barber dug 10 active fingers into the helpless scout before him and did his best to displace it. While the anguished Penrod, becoming instantly a seething crucible of emotion, misdirected his natural resentment into maddened brooding upon what he would do to a boy twice his size, who should dare to call him little gentleman. The barber shook him as his father had never shaken him. The barber buffeted him, rocked him frantically to and fro. The barber seemed to be trying to wring his neck and Penrod saw himself in staggering zigzag pictures, destroying large, screaming, fragmentary boys who had insulted him. The torture stopped suddenly and quenched weeping eyes began to see again. While the barber applied cooling lotions which made Penrod smell like a colored housemaid's ideal. Now what, asked the barber, combing the reeking locks gently, what would it make you so mad for to have somebody call you a little gentleman? It's a kind of compliment, is it, were you might say? What would you want to hit anybody for that fur? 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 him 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 him try it, just once, that's all I ask him to do. 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 bird-like 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. You get what other people got when they tried to do. You better not act 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. Poof, 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 workman had left a cauldron 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 knicker-bockers, 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 cauldron, though from a neighboring yard could be heard the voices of comrades, including that of Sam Williams. On the ground, about the cauldron, 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 ebb and surface. Other surprises were arranged for the absent workmen. The cauldron was almost full and the surface of the tar near the rim. Penrod endeavored to ascertain how many pebbles and brick bats dropped in would cause an overflow. Laboring heartily to this end, he had almost accomplishment 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 saved the questionable one of decoration. It was easily pried up with a stick, though getting it to the cauldron tested the full strength of the ardent laborer. Instructed to perform such a task, he would have sincerely maintained its impossibility. But now, as it was unbitten and promised rather destructive results, he said 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 cauldron. 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 dirt and 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 today 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 toilet and now stood laughing together in sweet merriment. Since the passing of Penrod's Rube Collins period, he had experienced some severe qualms with the recollections of his last meeting with Marjorie and his Apache behavior. In truth, his heart instantly became his 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. Uh-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 in dismay, felt himself stung beyond all endurance. Insult from her was bidderer 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. Try up, he howled. Try up, try up, try up, try up. Mitchy Mitch shouted with delight and applied a finger to the side of the cauldron. A finger immediately snatched away and wiped upon a handkerchief by his fastidious sister. Little gentleman, 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 dishonor 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 as much as he wants to. Say it again, Mitchy Mitch. Little gentleman, said Mitchy Mitch promptly. Ah, 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. Little gentleman! He squeaked malevolently. Little gentleman, little gentleman, little gentleman! The desperate Penrod bent over the whitewashed rock, lifted it, and then, outdoing poorthos, John Rid 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 cauldron, 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 cauldron and descended upon the three children who had no time to evade it. After it fell, Mitchy Mitch, who stood nearest the cauldron, was the thickest, though there was enough for all. Brare rabbit would have fled from any of them. End of Chapter 24. Chapter 25 of Penrod. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Jonathan Burchard, April 2009. Penrod, by Booth Tarkington, Chapter 25, 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 berserk, laid hands upon the largest stick within reach and fell upon Penrod with blind fury. He had the presence of mind aflee, and they went round and round the cauldron while Mitchy Mitch feebly endeavored to follow, his appearance, in this pursuit, being pathetically like that of a bug fished out of an inkwell, alive but discouraged. Attracted by the riot, Sam 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 gentlemen, shrieked Marjorie with a wild stroke that landed full upon Penrod's terry cap. Uch, pleaded Penrod. It's Penrod, shouted Sam Williams, recognizing him by the voice. For an instant, he had been in some doubt. Penrod Scofield exclaimed Georgie Bassett, what does this mean? That was Georgie's style, and it helped him to win his title. Marjorie leaned panting upon her stick. I called him, oh, she sobbed, I called him little old gentleman, and oh, look, look at my dress, look at my Mitchy, oh, Mitch, oh. Unexpectedly, she smote again with results, and then, seizing the indistinguishable hand of Mitchy Mitch, she ran wailing homework down the street. Little gentlemen, 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. Unevenged 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. And 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, 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 cauldron, 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 around 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 cauldron, 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 cauldron 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 gentlemen, shouted Roderick, jumping up and down in childish glee. Little gentlemen, little gentlemen, 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 afterwards so difficult for parents to trace, owing to the opposing accounts of the combatants. Marjorie said Penrod began it. Penrod said Michimich began it. Sam Williams said Georgie Bassett began it. Georgie and Maurice Levy said Penrod began it. Roderick Bitz, 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 managed 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 errand 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 gentlemen, 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. Grinfield 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 is 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 gentlemen. Says he'd do the same thing and worse if anybody dared 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 barbers 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 gentlemen, 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, mine being called? Sh, said Mrs. Schofield. It's beyond me. What are you shing me for? Demanded Mr. Schofield explosively. Sh, said Mrs. Schofield. It's Mr. Knosling, the new rector of St. Joseph's. Where? Sh, on the front porch with Margaret. He's going to stay for dinner. I do hope a 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 30, 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. Knosling 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 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 gentlemen. 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 completed his interrupted sentence on the way. But I will now. The right, thus promised, was hastily but accurately performed in that apartment most distant from the front porch. And 20 minutes later, Penrod descended to dinner. The Reverend Mr. Knosling had asked for the pleasure of meeting him and 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 smoldering 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 under God, had but made the haughty and unyielding Pasola 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 honor, whatever 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 founded an incentive to inward prayer. The fine graciousness of Mr. Kunosling, however, was unimpaired by the glare of virulent suspicion given him by this little brother. Mr. Kunosling 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. Kunosling? I trust we shall become fast friends. To the ear of this little lad, it seemed he said, a trust we shall bick home, fast friends. Mr. Kunosling's pronunciation was, in fact, slightly precious, and the little lad, simply mistaking it for some cryptic form of mockery 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 into the dining room. It has been a delicious day, said Mr. Kunosling 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 mouth at Mr. Kunosling. 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. Penrod closed his mouth and sank back in his chair, and his relatives took breath. Mr. Kunosling looked pleased. This responsive family, with its ready enthusiasm, made the kind of audience he liked. He passed a delicate hand, gracefully over his tall pale forehead, and smiled indulgently. You three laxes in summer, he said. Boyhood is the age of relaxation. One is playful, light-free, unfettered. One runs and leaps and enjoys oneself 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 and larges, expands. The young learn quickly, intuitively, spontaneously. They perceive the obligations of no-blessed 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 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. Do more, do! More chicken, urged Marmot Grits simultaneously. Do please, please, more, do more. Beautiful, beautiful, began Mrs. Schofield. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. It is not known in what light Mr. Knoesling viewed the expression of Penrod's face. Perhaps he mistook it for awe. Perhaps he received no impression of 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 favorable, 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 famous perturbation to the breast of Mr. Knoesling. Mr. Knoesling waved the chicken and continued to talk. Yes, I think I might claim to understand boys, he said, smiling thoughtfully. One has been a boy oneself, 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 handball, it should run and leap, it should laugh, should sing madrigals and glies, carol with the lark, ring out in shanties, folk song's ballads round delays, 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 Mr. Schofield hurried by every means with decency to its conclusion. She felt that somehow they would all be safe or out in the dark of the front porch and led the way thither as soon as possible. No cigar, I thank you. Mr. Knoesling, 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. Knoesling. No tobacco for me, no cigar, no pipe, no cigarette, no churrut. For me, a book, a volume of poems perhaps, verses, rhymes, lines, metrical, and cadence. Those are my dissipation. Tennyson by preference, mod, or idylls of the king, poetry of the sound Victorian days, there is none later. Or Longfellow will rest me in an entire hour. Yes, for me, a book, a volume in the hand, held lightly between the fingers. Mr. Knoesling looked pleasantly at his fingers as he spoke, waving his hand in a curving gesture which brought into it the light of a window faintly illumined from the interior of the house. Then he passed those grateful 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. Knoesling. Perhaps I may request the little gentleman. Cough, Mr. Scofield. You better change your mind about a cigar. No, I thank you. I was about to request the li- Do try one, Margaret urged. I'm sure poppies 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. Knoesling, 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. Knoesling, 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. Knoesling, 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 on where it was. Do you like Tennyson as much as Longfellow, Mr. Knoesling, inquired Margaret? I cannot say he returned absently. Each has his own flavor and savor. Each is 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 anything the matter? She asked anxiously. Mr. Knoesling, are you ill? Not at all, he replied, in the same odd tone. I believe he dropped his hands from his hat and rose. His manner was slightly agitated. I fear I may have taken a trifling cold. I should perhaps be better at home. I will 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. Will of all, cried Mrs. Schofield, astounded. What was the matter? He just went like that. She made a flurry 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. Knoesling'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, this evening, a lily purity. Let me see your hands. She sees them. Again, they were tarred. End of Chapter 25. Chapter 26 of Penrod. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Jonathan Burchard, April 2009, Penrod by Booth Tarkington, Chapter 26, 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. Konosling on 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 10 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 22 cents on the evening of the third day, but a venture in glassware following proved disappointing on account of the skepticism of all the druggists in that part of town. Even after seven laborious hours had been spent in cleansing a wheelbarrow load of owed 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 long looked curiously haggard for the rest of that summer. The fit passed, business languished and 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, lounge master's 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 in action 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 is really the land of nowadays that we never discover. When I am a man, said Sam Williams, I'm going to hire me a couple of colored waders to swing me in a hammock and keep pouring ice water on me all day out of those watering cans they sprinkle flowers from. Aha, are you for one of them, Herman? No, you ain't going to, said Herman promptly. You ain't no flower, but never mind that anyway. Ain't nobody gonna hire me when I was a man. Gotta be my own boss, I'm going to be a railroad man. You mean like a superintendent or something like that and sell tickets, asked Penrod? Something never mind that. Sell ticket, no sir. Gonna be a potter. My uncle a potter right now. Solid gold buttons, oh-oh. General's got a lot more buttons than porters, said Penrod. Generals, potters make the best living, Herman interrupted. My uncle spend more money in any white man this town. Well, I rather be a general, said Penrod, or a senator or something like that. Senators live in Washington. Maurice Levery contributed the information. I've been there. Washington ain't so much. Niagara Falls is a hundred times as good as Washington. South Atlantic City, I was there too. I've been everywhere there is. Well anyway, said Sam Williams, raising his voice in order to obtain the floor. Anyway, I'm going to lay in a hammock all day and have ice water sprinkled on top of me. And I'm going to lay there all night too, and the next day. I'm going to lay there a couple of years maybe. I bet you don't, exclaimed Maurice. What did you do in winter? What? What are you going to do when it's winter out in a hammock with water sprinkled on top of you all day? I bet 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. I wish it would, said Sam. I'd eat them up. And it had snow on you, yay! I'd swallow it as fast as it had come down. I wish I had a barrel of snow right now. I wish this whole barn was full of it. I wish there wasn't anything on the whole world except just good old 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 around inside my clothes 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 old tailors and have him make me a suit out of her. And can't you keep still about your old 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 old hydrant water's mighty near hot anyway. I'm going 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 going to be a deportment store. Ladies' clothes, gentlemen's clothes, neckties, china goods, leather goods, nice lines and woolings 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 10 of them, not for a million of them. I'm going to have it wait, clamored Maurice. You'd be foolish because they'd be a toy deportment in my store where they'd be a hundred marbles. So how much would you think your five for a cent marble counts for? And when I'm keeping my store, I'm going to get married. Yay, shrieked Sam derisively. Married, listen. Penrod and Herman joined in the howl of contempt. Certainly 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? Enquired Penrod in the 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, cheered 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 would 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, Maurice. You'll be mighty sorry. Everybody gets married, stated Maurice, holding his ground. They gotta. I bet I won'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 papa told me, cried Maurice, heated with argument. Didn't he tell me your papa had to marry your mama or else she never got to handle a cent of her money? Certainly people gotta marry everybody. You don't know anybody over 20 years old that isn't married, except maybe teachers. Look at policemen, shouted Sam triumphantly. You don't suppose 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 telling me I have to get married. What you going 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 preacher? He asked incredulously, you gon' preach. Yes, said Georgie, looking like Saint Cecilia at the organ. Herman was impressed. You know all that, preacher talk? I'm going to learn it, said Georgie simply. How loud can 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 colored experts seemed to admit one ray of hope. How good can you climb 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. Best one ever I hear, he'd climb up and down, same as a circus man. One them big vivals out and wins we livin' on a farm. Preacher climbed big pole right in the middle of the church, what was to hold roof up? He climbed way up and holler, going to heaven, going to heaven, going to heaven now. Hallelujah, praise my lord. And then he slide down a little and holler, devil's got a hold of my coattails. Devil trying to drag me down, sinners take warning. Devil got a hold of my coattails. I'm a going to hell, oh lord. Next he climb up a little more and yell and holler, done shuck old devil loose, going straight to heaven again. Going to heaven, going to heaven my lord. Next he slide down some more and holler, leg on my coattails old devil, going to hell again, sinners going straight to hell my lord. And he climb and he slide and he slide and he climb and all the time holler, now I'm a going to heaven, now I'm a going to, last he slide all the way down just a squallin' and a kickin' and a rare nip and a squallin' going to hell, going to hell. So going to hell. Herman possessed that extraordinary facility for vivid acting which is the same 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 gain 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 going 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 in Penrod, wouldn't I, Herman? I am too, Murray shouted. I got a stronger voice than anybody here and I'd like to know what the three clamored 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 hold her louder than this? Listen to me! Shut up, cried Penrod, irritated. Go to heaven, go to hell. Ooh, 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 anymore. 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, proceed it. This prefix was pronounced a perfect disinfectant, removing all odor 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 ardor. Again were heard the clamors 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 at first I'd like to know, he demanded. I was going to be a minister from long back of today, I guess, and I guess I said I was going to be a minister right today 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're right, said Herman. You're the first one to say it. Penrod, Sam, and Maurice immediately lost faith in Herman. Well, what if you did say it first, Penrod shouted? You couldn't be a minister if you were a hundred 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 bidingly 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 collar 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 treel, 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 talking business, shouted Penrod. Everybody keeps still a minute, everybody. He took command of the situation at once, displaying a fine capacity for organization and system. He 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 divine 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. End of Chapter 26. Chapter 27 of Penrod. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Jonathan Berchard, April 2009. Penrod by Booth Tarkington, Chapter 27, 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 collars who came by appointment to drink a glass of iced tea with her and to meet the Reverend Mr. Knosling. Mr. Knosling was proving almost formidable interesting to the women and girls of his own and other flocks. What favor 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. Knosling 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 cooled room is a relief, he said, waving a graceful hand in a neatly limited gesture which everyone'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 cadence, something by a sound Victorian. We have no later poets. Swinburne suggested Miss Beam and Igor Spinster. Swinburne, Mr. Knosling, ah, Swinburne. Not Swinburne, said Mr. Knosling chastly. No. That concluded all the remarks about Swinburne. Miss Beam retired in confusion behind another lady, and somehow there became diffuse an impression that Miss Beam was erotic. I do not observe your manly little son, Mr. Knosling addressed his hostess. He's out playing in the yard, Mrs. Bassett returned. I heard his voice just now, I think. Everywhere I hear a wonderful report of him, said Mr. Knosling. I may say that I understand boys, but 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, a fine spirit of high mind, said Mr. Knosling, and continued with true feeling. You have a neighbor, 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 boars, but it was only last Thursday night that Georgie looked up in my face so sweetly after he had said his prayers in his little cheeks flushed as he said, Mama, 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 around 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. Knowsling 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. Knowsling smiled. They have their games, their outdoor sports, their pastimes. Their young muscles are toughening. The son will not harm them. They grow, they expand, they learn. They learn fair play, honor, 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. Knowsling, another spinster, undeterred by what had happened to Miss Beam, leaned fair forward, her face shining and ardent. Mr. Knowsling, there's a question I do wish to ask you. My dear Miss Cosslett, Mr. Knowsling 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 Cosslett, blushing. She's one of my great enthousiasms, you know. And I have a question too, urged Mrs. Laura Rubush, after a moment's hasty concentration. I've never been able to settle it for myself, but now, yes, said Mr. Knowsling encouragingly, is, oh yes, is Sanskrit a more difficult language than Spanish, Mr. Knowsling? It depends upon the student, replied the oracle, smiling. One must not look for linguists everywhere. In my own special case, if one may cite oneself as an example, I found no insurmountable difficulty in mastering in conquering either. And may I ask one, ventured Mrs. Bassett, do you think it's right to wear egrets? There are marks of quality, of caste, of social distinction, Mr. Knowsling 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 consistent 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 endeavoring to ascend a maple tree about 12 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. Go into 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 exertion causing damage to his apparel. A button flew into the air and his knickerbockers and his waistbands severed relations. Devils got my coat tails, sinners. Old devils 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 his 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 unsprayed. Mr. Knosling, feeling that his presence as spiritual advisor 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. Knosling seized him by the shoulders and giving way to emotion shook him viciously. You horrible boy, exclaimed Mr. Knosling, 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! End of chapter 27. Chapter 28 of Penrod. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Jonathan Burchard, April 2009. Penrod by Booth-Darkington, chapter 28, 12. This busy globe which spawns us is as incapable of flattery and as intent upon its own unfair, 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 12th 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 honor 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 honorable 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 honor. Thirteen is embarrassed by the beginnings of a new cold-hood. 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. 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 today 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, and 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 hairbrushes 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 Crimm. Aunt Sarah Crimm, 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 labor. Jenny'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 whatnot took there from a boy's slingshot made of a fork-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 for 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 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 for 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 she'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. Crimm, 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 absently, answered as a matter of course and absently. Yes, him. Certainly, said Mrs. Crimm. 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 pretenses. 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'd 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 finally, Mrs. Crimm remarked. A year ago, you'd have taken the cookie without the same sense of thrift. Ma'am? Nothing. I see that you're 12 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 complementary, he inclined to think they were not. Mrs. Crimm settled the question for him. I suppose Penrod is regarded as the neighborhood curse. Oh no, cried Mrs. Schofield. I dare say the neighbors are right, continued the old lady placidly. He's had to repeat the history of the race and go through all the stages from 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. And 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 businessman and whenever you don't live up to that standard, you get out his nerves and he thinks you need a whopping. I'm sure a day very seldom passes without their both saying they don't know what earth to do with you. Does whipping do you any good, Penrod? Ma'am. Go on and finish the lemonade. There's about a glass full left. Oh, take it, take it and don't say why. Of course, your 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 12 years old and you ought to be happy. If you aren't anything else, it's taken over 1,900 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 must things up for the betterment of posterity soon enough, said Aunt Sarah Crimm. Drink your lemonade. End of chapter 28. Chapter 29 of Penrod. This LibriVarx recording is in the public domain. Recording by Jonathan Burchard, April 2009. Penrod, by Booth Tarkington, chapter 29, Fonshawn. Aunt Sarah's a funny old lady, Penrod observed on the way back to the town. What 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 50 years older, answered Mrs. Gofield, turning upon him a stare of perplexity. Now don't cut into the leather with your new knife, dear. The Libri man might ask us to pay him. 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 going straight home? No, we're going to stop at Mrs. Galbraiths and ask a strange little girl to come to your party this afternoon. Who? Her name is Fangshan. She's Mrs. Galbraith's little niece. What makes her so queer? I didn't say she's queer. You said, no, I meant that she's 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 her to keep from feeling lonely at your party. Yes, I'm... When they reached Mrs. Galbraiths, Penrod sat patiently humped upon a guilt chair during the lengthy exchange of greetings between his mother and Mrs. Galbraith. That is one of the things a boy must learn to bear. When his mother meets a compere, there's 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. Galbraith cried unexpectedly and a dark-haired, demure person entered the room wearing a look of gracious social expectancy. In years, she was 11, in manner, about 65, and evidently had lived much at court. She performed a curtsy in acknowledgment of Mrs. Schofield's greeting and bestowed her hand upon Penrod, who had entertained no hope of such an honor and showed his surprise that it should come to him and was plainly unable to decide what to do about it. Fanchandia, said Mrs. Galbraith, take Penrod out in the yard for a while and play. Let go the 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 Fanchand out into the sunshine yard where they came to a halt and surveyed each other. Penrod stared awkwardly at Fanchand, no other occupation suggesting itself to him, while Fanchand, with the utmost coolness, made a very thorough visual examination of Penrod, favoring 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 neck ties? Papa gets his at Schoon's. You ought to get yours there. I'm sure the one you're wearing isn't from Schoon's. Schoon's? Penrod repeated. Schoon's? On Fifth Avenue, said Fanchand. It's a very smart shop, the men say. Men echoed Penrod in a hazy whisper. Men? Where do you people go in summer? inquired the lady. We go to Longshore, but so many middle class people have begun coming there. Mama thinks of leaving. The middle classes are simply awful, don't you think? What? They're so bourgeois. 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 roue de la pa? Penrod wandered in a labyrinth. This girl seemed to be talking, but her words were dumbfounding. 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 bits? Auntie says they're charming. Will Roddy be at your party? I guess he will be, returned Penrod, finding this intelligible, the mutt. Really? Fanchon exclaimed eerily. 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 anyone? 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 favor. 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 he 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, Contumuli, Tar, and Maurice Levy, he still secretly thought of Marjorie with pathetic consistency as his beau, though that is not how he would have spelled it. Marjorie was beautiful. Her curls were long and the color 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, breath 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 assume. We'll dance together, said Fanchon, at your party. I guess so, I just assume. 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. Gailbraith, who stood in the doorway. Say it, whispered Fanchon. Well, I just assume. She seemed satisfied. End of chapter 29.