Penrod Read online

  CHAPTER X UNCLE JOHN

  Miss Spence gasped. So did the pupils.

  The whole room filled with a swelling conglomerate "O-O-O-O-H!"

  As for Penrod himself, the walls reeled with the shock. He sat with hismouth open, a mere lump of stupefaction. For the appalling words thathe had hurled at the teacher were as inexplicable to him as to any otherwho heard them.

  Nothing is more treacherous than the human mind; nothing else so lovesto play the Iscariot. Even when patiently bullied into a semblance oforder and training, it may prove but a base and shifty servant. AndPenrod's mind was not his servant; it was a master, with the Aprilwind's whims; and it had just played him a diabolical trick. The veryjolt with which he came back to the schoolroom in the midst of hisfancied flight jarred his day-dream utterly out of him; and he sat,open-mouthed in horror at what he had said.

  The unanimous gasp of awe was protracted. Miss Spence, however, finallyrecovered her breath, and, returning deliberately to the platform, facedthe school. "And then for a little while," as pathetic stories sometimesrecount, "everything was very still." It was so still, in fact, thatPenrod's newborn notoriety could almost be heard growing. This grislysilence was at last broken by the teacher.

  "Penrod Schofield, stand up!"

  The miserable child obeyed.

  "What did you mean by speaking to me in that way?"

  He hung his head, raked the floor with the side of his shoe, swayed,swallowed, looked suddenly at his hands with the air of never havingseen them before, then clasped them behind him. The school shivered inecstatic horror, every fascinated eye upon him; yet there was not asoul in the room but was profoundly grateful to him for thesensation--including the offended teacher herself. Unhappily, all thisgratitude was unconscious and altogether different from the kind which,results in testimonials and loving-cups. On the contrary!

  "Penrod Schofield!"

  He gulped.

  "Answer me at once! Why did you speak to me like that?"

  "I was----" He choked, unable to continue.

  "Speak out!"

  "I was just--thinking," he managed to stammer.

  "That will not do," she returned sharply. "I wish to know immediatelywhy you spoke as you did."

  The stricken Penrod answered helplessly:

  "Because I was just thinking."

  Upon the very rack he could have offered no ampler truthful explanation.It was all he knew about it.

  "Thinking what?"

  "Just thinking."

  Miss Spence's expression gave evidence that her power of self-restraintwas undergoing a remarkable test. However, after taking counsel withherself, she commanded:

  "Come here!"

  He shuffled forward, and she placed a chair upon the platform near herown.

  "Sit there!"

  Then (but not at all as if nothing had happened), she continued thelesson in arithmetic. Spiritually the children may have learned a lessonin very small fractions indeed as they gazed at the fragment ofsin before them on the stool of penitence. They all stared at himattentively with hard and passionately interested eyes, in which therewas never one trace of pity. It cannot be said with precision that hewrithed; his movement was more a slow, continuous squirm, effected witha ghastly assumption of languid indifference; while his gaze, in theeffort to escape the marble-hearted glare of his schoolmates, affixeditself with apparent permanence to the waistcoat button of James RussellLowell just above the "U" in "Russell."

  Classes came and classes went, grilling him with eyes. Newcomersreceived the story of the crime in darkling whispers; and the outcastsat and sat and sat, and squirmed and squirmed and squirmed. (He did oneor two things with his spine which a professional contortionist wouldhave observed with real interest.) And all this while of freezingsuspense was but the criminal's detention awaiting trial. A knownpunishment may be anticipated with some measure of equanimity; at least,the prisoner may prepare himself to undergo it; but the unknown loomsmore monstrous for every attempt to guess it. Penrod's crime was unique;there were no rules to aid him in estimating the vengeance to fall uponhim for it. What seemed most probable was that he would be expelled fromthe schools in the presence of his family, the mayor, and council, andafterward whipped by his father upon the State House steps, with theentire city as audience by invitation of the authorities.

  Noon came. The rows of children filed out, every head turning for a lastunpleasingly speculative look at the outlaw. Then Miss Spence closed thedoor into the cloakroom and that into the big hall, and came and sat ather desk, near Penrod. The tramping of feet outside, the shrill callsand shouting and the changing voices of the older boys ceased to beheard--and there was silence. Penrod, still affecting to be occupiedwith Lowell, was conscious that Miss Spence looked at him intently.

  "Penrod," she said gravely, "what excuse have you to offer before Ireport your case to the principal?"

  The word "principal" struck him to the vitals. Grand Inquisitor, GrandKhan, Sultan, Emperor, Tsar, Caesar Augustus--these are comparable. Hestopped squirming instantly, and sat rigid.

  "I want an answer. Why did you shout those words at me?"

  "Well," he murmured, "I was just--thinking."

  "Thinking what?" she asked sharply.

  "I don't know."

  "That won't do!"

  He took his left ankle in his right hand and regarded it helplessly.

  "That won't do, Penrod Schofield," she repeated severely. "If that isall the excuse you have to offer I shall report your case this instant!"

  And she rose with fatal intent.

  But Penrod was one of those whom the precipice inspires. "Well, I HAVEgot an excuse."

  "Well"--she paused impatiently--"what is it?"

  He had not an idea, but he felt one coming, and replied automatically,in a plaintive tone:

  "I guess anybody that had been through what I had to go through, lastnight, would think they had an excuse."

  Miss Spence resumed her seat, though with the air of being ready to leapfrom it instantly.

  "What has last night to do with your insolence to me this morning?"

  "Well, I guess you'd see," he returned, emphasizing the plaintive note,"if you knew what I know."

  "Now, Penrod," she said, in a kinder voice, "I have a high regard foryour mother and father, and it would hurt me to distress them, but youmust either tell me what was the matter with you or I'll have to takeyou to Mrs. Houston."

  "Well, ain't I going to?" he cried, spurred by the dread name. "It'sbecause I didn't sleep last night."

  "Were you ill?" The question was put with some dryness.

  He felt the dryness. "No'm; _I_ wasn't."

  "Then if someone in your family was so ill that even you were kept upall night, how does it happen they let you come to school this morning?"

  "It wasn't illness," he returned, shaking his head mournfully. "It waslots worse'n anybody's being sick. It was--it was--well, it was jestawful."

  "WHAT was?" He remarked with anxiety the incredulity in her tone.

  "It was about Aunt Clara," he said.

  "Your Aunt Clara!" she repeated. "Do you mean your mother's sister whomarried Mr. Farry of Dayton, Illinois?"

  "Yes--Uncle John," returned Penrod sorrowfully. "The trouble was abouthim."

  Miss Spence frowned a frown which he rightly interpreted as one ofcontinued suspicion. "She and I were in school together," she said. "Iused to know her very well, and I've always heard her married life wasentirely happy. I don't----"

  "Yes, it was," he interrupted, "until last year when Uncle John took torunning with travelling men----"

  "What?"

  "Yes'm." He nodded solemnly. "That was what started it. At first he wasa good, kind husband, but these travelling men would coax him into asaloon on his way home from work, and they got him to drinking beer andthen ales, wines, liquors, and cigars----"

  "Penrod!"

  "Ma'am?"

  "I'm not inquiring into your Aunt Clara's private affai
rs; I'm askingyou if you have anything to say which would palliate----"

  "That's what I'm tryin' to TELL you about, Miss Spence," hepleaded,--"if you'd jest only let me. When Aunt Clara and her littlebaby daughter got to our house last night----"

  "You say Mrs. Farry is visiting your mother?"

  "Yes'm--not just visiting--you see, she HAD to come. Well of course,little baby Clara, she was so bruised up and mauled, where he'd beenhittin' her with his cane----"

  "You mean that your uncle had done such a thing as THAT!" exclaimed MissSpence, suddenly disarmed by this scandal.

  "Yes'm, and mamma and Margaret had to sit up all night nursin' littleClara--and AUNT Clara was in such a state SOMEBODY had to keep talkin'to HER, and there wasn't anybody but me to do it, so I----"

  "But where was your father?" she cried.

  "Ma'am?"

  "Where was your father while----"

  "Oh--papa?" Penrod paused, reflected; then brightened. "Why, he was downat the train, waitin' to see if Uncle John would try to follow 'em andmake 'em come home so's he could persecute 'em some more. I wanted to dothat, but they said if he did come I mightn't be strong enough tohold him and----" The brave lad paused again, modestly. Miss Spence'sexpression was encouraging. Her eyes were wide with astonishment, andthere may have been in them, also, the mingled beginnings of admirationand self-reproach. Penrod, warming to his work, felt safer every moment.

  "And so," he continued, "I had to sit up with Aunt Clara. She had somepretty big bruises, too, and I had to----"

  "But why didn't they send for a doctor?" However, this question was onlya flicker of dying incredulity.

  "Oh, they didn't want any DOCTOR," exclaimed the inspired realistpromptly. "They don't want anybody to HEAR about it because Uncle Johnmight reform--and then where'd he be if everybody knew he'd been adrunkard and whipped his wife and baby daughter?"

  "Oh!" said Miss Spence.

  "You see, he used to be upright as anybody," he went on explanatively."It all begun----"

  "Began, Penrod."

  "Yes'm. It all commenced from the first day he let those travelling mencoax him into the saloon." Penrod narrated the downfall of his UncleJohn at length. In detail he was nothing short of plethoric; andincident followed incident, sketched with such vividness, such abundanceof colour, and such verisimilitude to a drunkard's life as a drunkard'slife should be, that had Miss Spence possessed the rather chillingattributes of William J. Burns himself, the last trace of skepticismmust have vanished from her mind. Besides, there are two things thatwill be believed of any man whatsoever, and one of them is that he hastaken to drink. And in every sense it was a moving picture which, withsimple but eloquent words, the virtuous Penrod set before his teacher.

  His eloquence increased with what it fed on; and as with the eloquenceso with self-reproach in the gentle bosom of the teacher. She clearedher throat with difficulty once or twice, during his description of hisministering night with Aunt Clara. "And I said to her, 'Why, Aunt Clara,what's the use of takin' on so about it?' And I said, 'Now, Aunt Clara,all the crying in the world can't make things any better.' And thenshe'd just keep catchin' hold of me, and sob and kind of holler, and I'dsay, 'DON'T cry, Aunt Clara--PLEASE don't cry."'

  Then, under the influence of some fragmentary survivals of therespectable portion of his Sunday adventures, his theme became moreexalted; and, only partially misquoting a phrase from a psalm, herelated how he had made it of comfort to Aunt Clara, and how he hadbesought her to seek Higher guidance in her trouble.

  The surprising thing about a structure such as Penrod was erecting isthat the taller it becomes the more ornamentation it will stand. Giftedboys have this faculty of building magnificence upon cobwebs--and Penrodwas gifted. Under the spell of his really great performance, Miss Spencegazed more and more sweetly upon the prodigy of spiritual beauty andgoodness before her, until at last, when Penrod came to the explanationof his "just thinking," she was forced to turn her head away.

  "You mean, dear," she said gently, "that you were all worn out andhardly knew what you were saying?"

  "Yes'm."

  "And you were thinking about all those dreadful things so hard that youforgot where you were?"

  "I was thinking," he said simply, "how to save Uncle John."

  And the end of it for this mighty boy was that the teacher kissed him!