Penrod Page 29

  CHAPTER XXX THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

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

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

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

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

  Chosen guests began to arrive, while Penrod, suffering from stage-frightand perspiration, stood beside his mother, in the "drawing-room,"to receive them. He greeted unfamiliar acquaintances and intimatefellow-criminals with the same frigidity, murmuring: "'M glad to seey'," to all alike, largely increasing the embarrassment which alwaysprevails at the beginning of children's festivities. His unnatural pompand circumstance had so thoroughly upset him, in truth, that MarjorieJones received a distinct shock, now to be related. Doctor Thrope, thekind old clergyman who had baptized Penrod, came in for a moment tocongratulate the boy, and had just moved away when it was Marjorie'sturn, in the line of children, to speak to Penrod. She gave him what sheconsidered a forgiving look, and, because of the occasion, addressed himin a perfectly courteous manner.

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

  "Thank you, sir!" he returned, following Dr. Thrope with a glassystare in which there was absolutely no recognition of Marjorie. Then hegreeted Maurice Levy, who was next to Marjorie: "'M glad to see y'!"

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

  "What an exquisite child!"

  Mariorie galanced up--a little consciously, though she was used toit--naturally curious to ascertain who was speaking of her. It was SamWilliams' mother addressing Mrs. Bassett, both being present to helpMrs. Schofield make the festivities festive.

  "Exquisite!"

  Here was a second heavy surprise for Marjorie: they were not lookingat her. They were looking with beaming approval at a girl she had neverseen; a dark and modish stranger of singularly composed and yet modestaspect. Her downcast eyes, becoming in one thus entering a crowded room,were all that produced the effect of modesty, counteracting somethingabout her which might have seemed too assured. She was very slender,very dainty, and her apparel was disheartening to the other girls; itwas of a knowing picturesqueness wholly unfamiliar to them. There wasa delicate trace of powder upon the lobe of Fanchon's left ear, andthe outlines of her eyelids, if very closely scrutinized, would haverevealed successful experimentation with a burnt match.

  Marjorie's lovely eyes dilated: she learned the meaning of hatred atfirst sight. Observing the stranger with instinctive suspicion, allat once she seemed, to herself, awkward. Poor Marjorie underwent thatexperience which hearty, healthy, little girls and big girls undergo atone time or another--from heels to head she felt herself, somehow, tooTHICK.

  Fanchon leaned close to Penrod and whispered in his ear:

  "Don't you forget!"

  Penrod blushed.

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

  Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, approached Fanchon, when she had madeher courtesy to Mrs. Schofield. Fanchon whispered in Roderick's earalso.

  "Your hair is pretty, Roddy! Don't forget what you said yesterday!"

  Roderick likewise blushed.

  Maurice Levy, captivated by the newcomer's appearance, pressed close toRoderick.

  "Give us an intaduction, Roddy?"

  Roddy being either reluctant or unable to perform the rite, Fanchon tookmatters into her own hands, and was presently favourably impressed withMaurice, receiving the information that his tie had been brought to himby his papa from Skoone's, whereupon she privately informed him that sheliked wavy hair, and arranged to dance with him. Fanchon also thoughtsandy hair attractive, Sam Williams discovered, a few minutes later, andso catholic was her taste that a ring of boys quite encircled her beforethe musicians in the yard struck up their thrilling march, and Mrs.Schofield brought Penrod to escort the lady from out-of-town to thedancing pavilion.

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

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

  "Yes, or 'Post-office' and 'Drop-the-handkerchief,'" said Mrs.Schofield. "Things change so quickly. Imagine asking little FanchonGelbraith to play 'London Bridge'! Penrod seems to be having a difficulttime with her, poor boy; he wasn't a shining light in the dancingclass."

  However, Penrod's difficulty was not precisely of the kind his mothersupposed. Fanchon was showing him a new step, which she taught hernext partner in turn, continuing instructions during the dancing. Thechildren crowded the floor, and in the kaleidoscopic jumble of bobbingheads and intermingling figures her extremely different style ofmotion was unobserved by the older people, who looked on, nodding timebenevolently.

  Fanchon fascinated girls as well as boys. Many of the former eagerlysought her acquaintance and thronged about her between the dances, when,accepting the deference due a cosmopolitan and an oracle of the mode,she gave demonstrations of the new step to succeeding groups, professingastonishment to find it unknown: it had been "all the go," sheexplained, at the Long Shore Casino for fully two seasons. Shepronounced "slow" a "Fancy Dance" executed during an intermission byBaby Rennsdale and Georgie Bassett, giving it as her opinion that MissRennsdale and Mr. Bassett were "dead ones"; and she expressed surprisethat the punch bowl contained lemonade and not champagne.

  The dancing continued, the new step gaining instantly in popularity,fresh couples adventuring with every number. The word "step" is somewhatmisleading, nothing done with the feet being vital to the evolutionsintroduced by Fanchon. Fanchon's dance came from the Orient by aroundabout way; pausing in Spain, taking on a Gallic frankness ingallantry at the Bal Bullier in Paris, combining with a relative fromthe South Seas encountered in San Francisco, flavouring itself witha carefree negroid abandon in New Orleans, and, accumulating, too,something inexpressible from Mexico and South America, it kept,throughout its travels, to the underworld, or to circles where natureis extremely frank and rank, until at last it reached the dives of NewYork, when it immediately broke out in what is called civ
ilizedsociety. Thereafter it spread, in variously modified forms--some ofthem disinfected--to watering-places, and thence, carried by hundreds ofolder male and female Fanchons, over the country, being eagerly adoptedeverywhere and made wholly pure and respectable by the supreme moralaxiom that anything is all right if enough people do it. Everybody wasdoing it.

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

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

  "That orchestra's a dead one," Fanchon remarked to Penrod. "We ought toliven them up a little!"

  She approached the musicians.

  "Don't you know," she asked the leader, "the Slingo Sligo Slide?"

  The leader giggled, nodded, rapped with his bow upon his violin; andPenrod, following Fanchon back upon the dancing floor, blindly brushedwith his elbow a solitary little figure standing aloof on the lawn atthe edge of the platform.

  It was Marjorie.

  In no mood to approve of anything introduced by Fanchon, she hadscornfully refused, from the first, to dance the new "step," and,because of its bonfire popularity, found herself neglected in a societywhere she had reigned as beauty and belle. Faithless Penrod, dazed bythe sweeping Fanchon, had utterly forgotten the amber curls; he had notonce asked Marjorie to dance. All afternoon the light of indignation hadbeen growing brighter in her eyes, though Maurice Levy's defectionto the lady from New York had not fanned this flame. From the momentFanchon had whispered familiarly in Penrod's ear, and Penrod hadblushed, Marjorie had been occupied exclusively with resentment againstthat guilty pair. It seemed to her that Penrod had no right to allow astrange girl to whisper in his ear; that his blushing, when the strangegirl did it, was atrocious; and that the strange girl, herself, ought tobe arrested.

  Forgotten by the merrymakers, Marjorie stood alone upon the lawn,clenching her small fists, watching the new dance at its high tide,and hating it with a hatred that made every inch of her tremble. And,perhaps because jealousy is a great awakener of the virtues, she hada perception of something in it worse than lack of dignity--somethingvaguely but outrageously reprehensible. Finally, when Penrod brushed byher, touched her with his elbow, and, did not even see her, Marjorie'sstate of mind (not unmingled with emotion!) became dangerous. In fact, atrained nurse, chancing to observe her at this juncture, would probablyhave advised that she be taken home and put to bed. Marjorie was on theverge of hysterics.

  She saw Fanchon and Penrod assume the double embrace required by thedance; the "Slingo Sligo Slide" burst from the orchestra like thelunatic shriek of a gin-maddened nigger; and all the little couplesbegan to bob and dip and sway.

  Marjorie made a scene. She sprang upon the platform and stamped herfoot.

  "Penrod Schofield!" she shouted. "You BEHAVE yourself!"

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

  "You march straight out of here!" she commanded.

  Penrod marched.

  He was stunned; obeyed automatically, without question, and had verylittle realization of what was happening to him. Altogether, and withoutreason, he was in precisely the condition of an elderly spouse detectedin flagrant misbehaviour. Marjorie, similarly, was in precisely thecondition of the party who detects such misbehaviour. It may be addedthat she had acted with a promptness, a decision and a disregard ofsocial consequences all to be commended to the attention of ladies inlike predicament.

  "You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" she raged, when they reached thelawn. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

  "What for?" he inquired, helplessly.

  "You be quiet!"

  "But what'd _I_ do, Marjorie? _I_ haven't done anything to you," hepleaded. "I haven't even seen you, all aftern----"

  "You be quiet!" she cried, tears filling her eyes. "Keep still! You uglyboy! Shut up!"

  She slapped him.

  He should have understood from this how much she cared for him. But herubbed his cheek and declared ruefully:

  "I'll never speak to you again!"

  "You will, too!" she sobbed, passionately.

  "I will not!"

  He turned to leave her, but paused.

  His mother, his sister Margaret, and their grownup friends had finishedtheir tea and were approaching from the house. Other parents andguardians were with them, coming for their children; and there werecarriages and automobiles waiting in the street. But the "Slingo Slide"went on, regardless.

  The group of grown-up people hesitated and came to a halt, gazing at thepavilion.

  "What are they doing?" gasped Mrs. Williams, blushing deeply. "What isit? What IS it?"

  "WHAT IS IT?" Mrs. Gelbraith echoed in a frightened whisper. "WHAT----"

  "They're Tangoing!" cried Margaret Schofield. "Or Bunny Hugging orGrizzly Bearing, or----"

  "They're only Turkey Trotting," said Robert Williams.

  With fearful outcries the mothers, aunts, and sisters rushed upon thepavilion.

  "Of course it was dreadful," said Mrs. Schofield, an hour later,rendering her lord an account of the day, "but it was every bit thefault of that one extraordinary child. And of all the quiet, demurlittle things--that is, I mean, when she first came. We all spoke of howexquisite she seemed--so well trained, so finished! Eleven years old! Inever saw anything like her in my life!"

  "I suppose it's the New Child," her husband grunted.

  "And to think of her saying there ought to have been champagne in thelemonade!"

  "Probably she'd forgotten to bring her pocket flask," he suggestedmusingly.

  "But aren't you proud of Penrod?" cried Penrod's mother. "It was just asI told you: he was standing clear outside the pavilion----"

  "I never thought to see the day! And Penrod was the only boy not doingit, the only one to refuse? ALL the others were----"

  "Every one!" she returned triumphantly. "Even Georgie Bassett!"

  "Well," said Mr. Schofield, patting her on the shoulder. "I guess we canhold up our heads at last."

  CHAPTER XXXI OVER THE FENCE

  Penrod was out in the yard, staring at the empty marquee. The sun was onthe horizon line, so far behind the back fence, and a western window ofthe house blazed in gold unbearable to the eye: his day was nearlyover. He sighed, and took from the inside pocket of his new jacket the"sling-shot" aunt Sarah Crim had given him that morning.

  He snapped the rubbers absently. They held fast; and his next impulsewas entirely irresistible. He found a shapely stone, fitted it to theleather, and drew back the ancient catapult for a shot. A sparrow hoppedupon a branch between him and the house, and he aimed at the sparrow,but the reflection from the dazzling window struck in his eyes as heloosed the leather.

  He missed the sparrow, but not the window. There was a loud crash,and to his horror he caught a glimpse of his father, stricken inmid-shaving, ducking a shower of broken glass, glittering razorflourishing wildly. Words crashed with the glass, stentorian words,fragmentary but collossal.

  Penrod stood petrified, a broken sling in his hand. He could hear hisparent's booming descent of the back stairs, instant and furious; andthen, red-hot above white lather, Mr. Schofield burst out of the kitchendoor and hurtled forth upon his son.

  "What do you mean?" he demanded, shaking Penrod by the shoulder. "Tenminutes ago, for the very first time in our lives, your mother and Iwere saying we were proud of you, and here you go and throw a rock at methrough the window when I'm shaving for dinner!"

  "I didn't!" Penrod quavered. "I was shooting at a sparrow, and the sungot in his eyes, and the sling broke----"

  "What sling?"

  "This
'n."

  "Where'd you get that devilish thing? Don't you know I've forbidden youa thousand times----"

  "It ain't mine," said Penrod. "It's yours."

  "What?"

  "Yes, sir," said the boy meekly. "Aunt Sarah Crim gave it to me thismorning and told me to give it back to you. She said she took it awayfrom you thirty-five years ago. You killed her hen, she said. She toldme some more to tell you, but I've forgotten."

  "Oh!" said Mr. Schofield.

  He took the broken sling in his hand, looked at it long andthoughtfully--and he looked longer, and quite as thoughtfully, atPenrod. Then he turned away, and walked toward the house.

  "I'm sorry, papa," said Penrod.

  Mr. Schofield coughed, and, as he reached the door, called back, butwithout turning his head.

  "Never mind, little boy. A broken window isn't much harm."

  When he had gone in, Penrod wandered down the yard to the back fence,climbed upon it, and sat in reverie there.

  A slight figure appeared, likewise upon a fence, beyond two neighbouringyards.

  "Yay, Penrod!" called comrade Sam Williams.

  "Yay!" returned Penrod, mechanically.

  "I caught Billy Blue Hill!" shouted Sam, describing retribution in amanner perfectly clear to his friend. "You were mighty lucky to get outof it."

  "I know that!"

  "You wouldn't of, if it hadn't been for Marjorie."

  "Well, don't I know that?" Penrod shouted, with heat.

  "Well, so long!" called Sam, dropping from his fence; and the friendlyvoice came then, more faintly, "Many happy returns of the day, Penrod!"

  And now, a plaintive little whine sounded from below Penrod's feet, and,looking down, he saw that Duke, his wistful, old, scraggly dog sat inthe grass, gazing seekingly up at him.

  The last shaft of sunshine of that day fell graciously and like ablessing upon the boy sitting on the fence. Years afterward, a quietsunset would recall to him sometimes the gentle evening of his twelfthbirthday, and bring him the picture of his boy self, sitting in rosylight upon the fence, gazing pensively down upon his wistful, scraggly,little old dog, Duke. But something else, surpassing, he would rememberof that hour, for, in the side street, close by, a pink skirt flickeredfrom behind a shade tree to the shelter of the fence, there was a gleamof amber curls, and Penrod started, as something like a tiny white wingfluttered by his head, and there came to his ears the sound of a lightlaugh and of light footsteps departing, the laughter tremulous, thefootsteps fleet.

  In the grass, between Duke's forepaws, there lay a white note, folded inthe shape of a cocked hat, and the sun sent forth a final amazing gloryas Penrod opened it and read:

  "Your my bow."