Penrod Read online

  CHAPTER IV DESPERATION

  The Child Sir Lancelot found himself in a large anteroom behind thestage--a room crowded with excited children, all about equally medievaland artistic. Penrod was less conspicuous than he thought himself, buthe was so preoccupied with his own shame, steeling his nerves to meetthe first inevitable taunting reference to his sister's stockings,that he failed to perceive there were others present in much of his ownunmanned condition. Retiring to a corner, immediately upon his entrance,he managed to unfasten the mantle at the shoulders, and, drawing itround him, pinned it again at his throat so that it concealed the restof his costume. This permitted a temporary relief, but increased hishorror of the moment when, in pursuance of the action of the "pageant,"the sheltering garment must be cast aside.

  Some of the other child knights were also keeping their mantles closeabout them. A few of the envied opulent swung brilliant fabricsfrom their shoulders, airily, showing off hired splendours from aprofessional costumer's stock, while one or two were insulting examplesof parental indulgence, particularly little Maurice Levy, the Child SirGalahad. This shrinking person went clamorously about, making it knowneverywhere that the best tailor in town had been dazzled by a greatsum into constructing his costume. It consisted of blue velvetknickerbockers, a white satin waistcoat, and a beautifully cut littleswallow-tailed coat with pearl buttons. The medieval and artistictriumph was completed by a mantle of yellow velvet, and little whiteboots, sporting gold tassels.

  All this radiance paused in a brilliant career and addressed the ChildSir Lancelot, gathering an immediately formed semicircular audience oflittle girls. Woman was ever the trailer of magnificence.

  "What YOU got on?" inquired Mr. Levy, after dispensing information."What you got on under that ole golf cape?"

  Penrod looked upon him coldly. At other times his questioner would haveapproached him with deference, even with apprehension. But to-day theChild Sir Galahad was somewhat intoxicated with the power of his ownbeauty.

  "What YOU got on?" he repeated.

  "Oh, nothin'," said Penrod, with an indifference assumed at great costto his nervous system.

  The elate Maurice was inspired to set up as a wit. "Then you're nakid!"he shouted exultantly. "Penrod Schofield says he hasn't got nothin' onunder that ole golf cape! He's nakid! He's nakid."

  The indelicate little girls giggled delightedly, and a javelin piercedthe inwards of Penrod when he saw that the Child Elaine, amber-curledand beautiful Marjorie Jones, lifted golden laughter to the horrid jest.

  Other boys and girls came flocking to the uproar. "He's nakid, he'snakid!" shrieked the Child Sir Galahad. "Penrod Schofield's nakid! He'sNA-A-A-KID!"

  "Hush, hush!" said Mrs. Lora Rewbush, pushing her way into the group."Remember, we are all little knights and ladies to-day. Little knightsand ladies of the Table Round would not make so much noise. Nowchildren, we must begin to take our places on the stage. Is everybodyhere?"

  Penrod made his escape under cover of this diversion: he slid behindMrs. Lora Rewbush, and being near a door, opened it unnoticed and wentout quickly, closing it behind him. He found himself in a narrow andvacant hallway which led to a door marked "Janitor's Room."

  Burning with outrage, heart-sick at the sweet, cold-blooded laughterof Marjorie Jones, Penrod rested his elbows upon a window-sill andspeculated upon the effects of a leap from the second story. One of thereasons he gave it up was his desire to live on Maurice Levy's account:already he was forming educational plans for the Child Sir Galahad.

  A stout man in blue overalls passed through the hallway muttering tohimself petulantly. "I reckon they'll find that hall hot enough NOW!" hesaid, conveying to Penrod an impression that some too feminine women hadsent him upon an unreasonable errand to the furnace. He went into theJanitor's Room and, emerging a moment later, minus the overalls, passedPenrod again with a bass rumble--"Dern 'em!" it seemed he said--andmade a gloomy exit by the door at the upper end of the hallway.

  The conglomerate and delicate rustle of a large, mannerly audience washeard as the janitor opened and closed the door; and stage-frightseized the boy. The orchestra began an overture, and, at that, Penrod,trembling violently, tiptoed down the hall into the Janitor's Room. Itwas a cul-de-sac: There was no outlet save by the way he had come.

  Despairingly he doffed his mantle and looked down upon himself fora last sickening assurance that the stockings were as obviously anddisgracefully Margaret's as they had seemed in the mirror at home. For amoment he was encouraged: perhaps he was no worse than some of theother boys. Then he noticed that a safety-pin had opened; one of thoseconnecting the stockings with his trunks. He sat down to fasten itand his eye fell for the first time with particular attention upon thetrunks. Until this instant he had been preoccupied with the stockings.

  Slowly recognition dawned in his eyes.

  The Schofields' house stood on a corner at the intersection of twomain-travelled streets; the fence was low, and the publicity obtained bythe washable portion of the family apparel, on Mondays, had often beenpainful to Penrod; for boys have a peculiar sensitiveness in thesematters. A plain, matter-of-fact washerwoman' employed by Mrs.Schofield, never left anything to the imagination of the passer-by; andof all her calm display the scarlet flaunting of his father's winterwear had most abashed Penrod. One day Marjorie Jones, all gold andstarch, had passed when the dreadful things were on the line: Penrod hadhidden himself, shuddering. The whole town, he was convinced, knew thesegarments intimately and derisively.

  And now, as he sat in the janitor's chair, the horrible and paralyzingrecognition came. He had not an instant's doubt that every fellow actor,as well as every soul in the audience, would recognize what his motherand sister had put upon him. For as the awful truth became plain tohimself it seemed blazoned to the world; and far, far louder than thestockings, the trunks did fairly bellow the grisly secret: WHOSE theywere and WHAT they were!

  Most people have suffered in a dream the experience of findingthemselves very inadequately clad in the midst of a crowd ofwell-dressed people, and such dreamers' sensations are comparable toPenrod's, though faintly, because Penrod was awake and in much too fullpossession of the most active capacities for anguish.

  A human male whose dress has been damaged, or reveals some vital lack,suffers from a hideous and shameful loneliness which makes everysecond absolutely unbearable until he is again as others of his sex andspecies; and there is no act or sin whatever too desperate for him inhis struggle to attain that condition. Also, there is absolutely noembarrassment possible to a woman which is comparable to that of a manunder corresponding circumstances and in this a boy is a man. Gazingupon the ghastly trunks, the stricken Penrod felt that he was a degreeworse then nude; and a great horror of himself filled his soul.

  "Penrod Schofield!"

  The door into the hallway opened, and a voice demanded him. He could notbe seen from the hallway, but the hue and the cry was up; and he knewhe must be taken. It was only a question of seconds. He huddled in hischair.

  "Penrod Schofield!" cried Mrs. Lora Rewbush angrily.

  The distracted boy rose and, as he did so, a long pin sank deep into hisback. He extracted it frenziedly, which brought to his ears a protractedand sonorous ripping, too easily located by a final gesture of horror.

  "Penrod Schofield!" Mrs. Lora Rewbush had come out into the hallway.

  And now, in this extremity, when all seemed lost indeed, particularlyincluding honour, the dilating eye of the outlaw fell upon the blueoveralls which the janitor had left hanging upon a peg.

  Inspiration and action were almost simultaneous.