Penrod Read online

  CHAPTER XXVIII TWELVE

  This busy globe which spawns us is as incapable of flattery and asintent upon its own affair, whatever that is, as a gyroscope; it keepssteadily whirling along its lawful track, and, thus far seeming to holda right of way, spins doggedly on, with no perceptible diminution ofspeed to mark the most gigantic human events--it did not pause to pantand recuperate even when what seemed to Penrod its principal purposewas accomplished, and an enormous shadow, vanishing westward over itssurface, marked the dawn of his twelfth birthday.

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

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

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

  His father and his mother and Margaret seemed to understand thedifference between to-day and yesterday. They were at the table whenhe descended, and they gave him a greeting which of itself marked themilestone. Habitually, his entrance into a room where his elders satbrought a cloud of apprehension: they were prone to look up in patheticexpectancy, as if their thought was, "What new awfulness is he going tostart NOW?" But this morning they laughed; his mother rose and kissedhim 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"; Margaretgave him a pair of silver-mounted hair brushes; and his father gave hima "Pocket Atlas" and a small compass.

  "And now, Penrod," said his mother, after breakfast, "I'm going totake you out in the country to pay your birthday respects to Aunt SarahCrim."

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

  "I'm glad you brought him," she said, desisting from labour. "Jinny'sbaking a cake I'm going to send for his birthday party. Bring him in thehouse. 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 oldwhat-not, took therefrom a boy's "sling-shot," made of a forked stick,two strips of rubber and a bit of leather.

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

  After this final bit of reminiscence--probably designed to be repeatedto Mr. Schofield--she disappeared in the direction of the kitchen,and returned with a pitcher of lemonade and a blue china dish sweetlyfreighted with flat ginger cookies of a composition that was her ownsecret. Then, having set this collation before her guests, she presentedPenrod with a superb, intricate, and very modern machine of destructivecapacities almost limitless. She called it a pocket-knife.

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

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

  "Nonsense!" said Mrs. Crim.

  "But on his birthday!"

  "That's the time to say it. Penrod, aren't you the Worst Boy in Town?"

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

  "Certainly!" said Mrs. Crim. "Once you accept a thing about yourselfas established and settled, it's all right. Nobody minds. Boys are justpeople, 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 littlepretences. 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 andother people a little story about it to make his reason for doing itseem nice and pretty and noble."

  "No, I won't!" said Penrod suddenly.

  "There's one cookie left," observed Aunt Sarah. "Are you going to eatit?"

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

  "Why?" asked the old lady. "Why do you guess you'd 'better'?"

  "Well," said Penrod, with a full mouth, "it might get all dried up ifnobody took it, and get thrown out and wasted."

  "You're beginning finely," Mrs. Crim remarked. "A year ago you'd havetaken the cookie without the same sense of thrift."

  "Ma'am?"

  "Nothing. I see that you're twelve years old, that's all. There are morecookies, Penrod." She went away, returning with a fresh supply and theobservation, "Of course, you'll be sick before the day's over; you mightas well get a good start."

  Mrs. Schofield looked thoughtful. "Aunt Sarah," she ventured, "don't youreally think we improve as we get older?"

  "Meaning," said the old lady, "that Penrod hasn't much chance to escapethe penitentiary if he doesn't? Well, we do learn to restrain ourselvesin some things; and there are people who really want someone else totake the last cookie, though they aren't very common. But it's allright, the world seems to be getting on." She gazed whimsically upon hergreat-nephew and added, "Of course, when you watch a boy and think abouthim, it doesn't seem to be getting on very fast."

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

  "I suppose Penrod is regarded as the neighbourhood curse?"

  "Oh, no," cried Mrs. Schofield. "He----"

  "I dare say the neighbours are right," continued the old lady placidly."He's had to repeat the history of the race and go through all thestages from the primordial to barbarism. You don't expect boys to becivilized, do you?"

  "Well, I----"

  "You might as well expect eggs to crow. No; you've got to take boys asthey are, and learn to know them as they are."

  "Naturally, Aunt Sarah," said Mrs. Schofield, "I KNOW Penrod."

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

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

  "Penrod," said Aunt Sarah, solemnly, "does your father u
nderstand 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 realbelief 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 noviceshe's disappointed in you. And your father really believes that you'rea decorous, well-trained young business man, and whenever you don'tlive up to that standard you get on his nerves and he thinks you need awalloping. I'm sure a day very seldom passes without their both sayingthey don't know what on earth to do with you. Does whipping do you anygood, Penrod?"

  "Ma'am?"

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

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

  "Fill yourself up uncomfortably," said the old lady. "You're twelveyears old, and you ought to be happy--if you aren't anything else. It'staken over nineteen hundred years of Christianity and some hundreds ofthousands of years of other things to produce you, and there you sit!"

  "Ma'am?"

  "It'll be your turn to struggle and muss things up, for the bettermentof posterity, soon enough," said Aunt Sarah Crim. "Drink your lemonade!"

  CHAPTER XXIX FANCHON

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

  "About fifty years older," answered Mrs. Schofield, turning upon him astare of perplexity. "Don't cut into the leather with your new knife,dear; the livery man might ask us to pay if----No. I wouldn't scrapethe paint off, either--nor whittle your shoe with it. COULDN'T you putit up until we get home?"

  "We goin' straight home?"

  "No. We're going to stop at Mrs. Gelbraith's and ask a strange littlegirl to come to your party, this afternoon."

  "Who?"

  "Her name is Fanchon. She's Mrs. Gelbraith's little niece."

  "What makes her so queer?"

  "I didn't say she's queer."

  "You said----"

  "No; I mean that she is a stranger. She lives in New York and has cometo 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 thechildren here, and you must help to keep her from feeling lonely at yourparty."

  "Yes'm."

  When they reached Mrs. Gelbraith's, Penrod sat patiently humped upon agilt chair during the lengthy exchange of greetings between his mother.and Mrs. Gelbraith. That is one of the things a boy must learn to bear:when his mother meets a compeer there is always a long and dreary waitfor him, while the two appear to be using strange symbols of speech,talking for the greater part, it seems to him, simultaneously, andemploying a wholly incomprehensible system of emphasis at other timesnot in vogue. Penrod twisted his legs, his cap and his nose.

  "Here she is!" Mrs. Gelbraith cried, unexpectedly, and a dark-haired,demure person entered the room wearing a look of gracious socialexpectancy. In years she was eleven, in manner about sixty-five,and evidently had lived much at court. She performed a curtsey inacknowledgment of Mrs. Schofield's greeting, and bestowed her handupon Penrod, who had entertained no hope of such an honour, showed hissurprise that it should come to him, and was plainly unable to decidewhat to do about it.

  "Fanchon, dear," said Mrs. Gelbraith, "take Penrod out in the yard for awhile, and play."

  "Let go the little girl's hand, Penrod," Mrs. Schofield laughed, as thechildren turned toward the door.

  Penrod hastily dropped the small hand, and exclaiming, with simplehonesty, "Why, _I_ don't want it!" followed Fanchon out into thesunshiny yard, where they came to a halt and surveyed each other.

  Penrod stared awkwardly at Fanchon, no other occupation suggestingitself to him, while Fanchon, with the utmost coolness, made a verythorough visual examination of Penrod, favouring him with an estimatingscrutiny which lasted until he literally wiggled. Finally, she spoke.

  "Where do you buy your ties?" she asked.

  "What?"

  "Where do you buy your neckties? Papa gets his at Skoone's. You ought toget yours there. I'm sure the one you're wearing isn't from Skoone's."

  "Skoone's?" Penrod repeated. "Skoone's?"

  "On Fifth Avenue," said Fanchon. "It's a very smart shop, the men say."

  "Men?" echoed Penrod, in a hazy whisper. "Men?"

  "Where do your people go in summer?" inquired the lady. "WE go to LongShore, but so many middle-class people have begun coming there, mammathinks of leaving. The middle classes are simply awful, don't youthink?"

  "What?"

  "They're so boorjaw. You speak French, of course?"

  "Me?"

  "We ran over to Paris last year. It's lovely, don't you think? Don't youLOVE the Rue de la Paix?"

  Penrod wandered in a labyrinth. This girl seemed to be talking, but herwords were dumfounding, and of course there was no way for him to knowthat he was really listening to her mother. It was his first meetingwith one of those grown-up little girls, wonderful product of the winterapartment and summer hotel; and Fanchon, an only child, was a star ofthe 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 MagsworthBittses? Auntie says they're charming. Will Roddy be at your party?"

  "I guess he will," returned Penrod, finding this intelligible. "Themutt!"

  "Really!" Fanchon exclaimed airily. "Aren't you great pals with him?"

  "What's 'pals'?"

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

  It was too much.

  "Oh, Bugs!" said Penrod.

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

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

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

  "Yes, I do!" She stepped closer to him, smiling. "Your hair is ever sopretty."

  Sailors' parrots swear like mariners, they say; and gay mothers ought torealize that all children are imitative, for, as the precocious Fanchonleaned toward Penrod, the manner in which she looked into his eyes mighthave made a thoughtful observer wonder where she had learned her prettyways.

  Penrod was even more confused than he had been by her previousmysteries: but his confusion was of a distinctly pleasant and alluringnature: he wanted more of it. Looking intentionally into anotherperson's eyes is an act unknown to childhood; and Penrod's discoverythat it could be done was sensational. He had never thought of lookinginto the eyes of Marjorie Jones.

  Despite all anguish, contumely, tar, and Maurice Levy, he still secretlythought of Marjorie, with pathetic constancy, as his "beau"--though thatis not how he would have spelled it. Marjorie was beautiful; hercurls were long and the colour of amber; her nose was straight andher freckles were honest; she was much prettier than this accomplishedvisitor. But beauty is not all.

  "I do!" breathed Fanchon, softly.

  She seemed to him a fairy creature from some rosier world than this. Sohumble is the human heart, it glorifies and makes glamorous almost anypoor thing that says to it: "I like you!"

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

  "Well--I don't care if you want to. I just as soon."

  "We'll dance together," said Fanchon, "at your party."

  "I guess s
o. I just as soon."

  "Don't you want to, Penrod?"

  "Well, I'm willing to."

  "No. Say you WANT to!"

  "Well----"

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

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

  "Say it!" whispered Fanchon.

  "Well, I just as SOON."

  She seemed satisfied.