Penrod Page 7

  CHAPTER VII EVILS OF DRINK

  Next day, Penrod acquired a dime by a simple and antique process whichwas without doubt sometimes practised by the boys of Babylon. When theteacher of his class in Sunday-school requested the weekly contribution,Penrod, fumbling honestly (at first) in the wrong pockets, managed tolook so embarrassed that the gentle lady told him not to mind, and saidshe was often forgetful herself. She was so sweet about it that, lookinginto the future, Penrod began to feel confident of a small but regularincome.

  At the close of the afternoon services he did not go home, but proceededto squander the funds just withheld from China upon an orgy of the mostpungently forbidden description. In a Drug Emporium, near the church, hepurchased a five-cent sack of candy consisting for the most part of theheavily flavoured hoofs of horned cattle, but undeniably substantial,and so generously capable of resisting solution that the purchaser mustneeds be avaricious beyond reason who did not realize his money's worth.

  Equipped with this collation, Penrod contributed his remaining nickel toa picture show, countenanced upon the seventh day by the legal but notthe moral authorities. Here, in cozy darkness, he placidly insulted hisliver with jaw-breaker upon jaw-breaker from the paper sack, and in asurfeit of content watched the silent actors on the screen.

  One film made a lasting impression upon him. It depicted with relentlesspathos the drunkard's progress; beginning with his conversion to beerin the company of loose travelling men; pursuing him through aninexplicable lapse into evening clothes and the society of someremarkably painful ladies, next, exhibiting the effects of alcohol onthe victim's domestic disposition, the unfortunate man was seen in theact of striking his wife and, subsequently, his pleading baby daughterwith an abnormally heavy walking-stick. Their flight--through thesnow--to seek the protection of a relative was shown, and finally, thedrunkard's picturesque behaviour at the portals of a madhouse.

  So fascinated was Penrod that he postponed his departure until this filmcame round again, by which time he had finished his unnatural repastand almost, but not quite, decided against following the profession of adrunkard when he grew up.

  Emerging, satiated, from the theatre, a public timepiece before ajeweller's shop confronted him with an unexpected dial and imminentperplexities. How was he to explain at home these hours of dalliance?There was a steadfast rule that he return direct from Sunday-school; andSunday rules were important, because on that day there was his father,always at home and at hand, perilously ready for action. One of thehardest conditions of boyhood is the almost continuous strain put uponthe powers of invention by the constant and harassing necessity forexplanations of every natural act.

  Proceeding homeward through the deepening twilight as rapidly aspossible, at a gait half skip and half canter, Penrod made up his mindin what manner he would account for his long delay, and, as he drewnearer, rehearsed in words the opening passage of his defence.

  "Now see here," he determined to begin; "I do not wished to be blamedfor things I couldn't help, nor any other boy. I was going along thestreet by a cottage and a lady put her head out of the window and saidher husband was drunk and whipping her and her little girl, and sheasked me wouldn't I come in and help hold him. So I went in and tried toget hold of this drunken lady's husband where he was whipping their babydaughter, but he wouldn't pay any attention, and I TOLD her I ought tobe getting home, but she kep' on askin' me to stay----"

  At this point he reached the corner of his own yard, where a coincidencenot only checked the rehearsal of his eloquence but happily obviated alloccasion for it. A cab from the station drew up in front of the gate,and there descended a troubled lady in black and a fragile little girlabout three. Mrs. Schofield rushed from the house and enfolded both inhospitable arms.

  They were Penrod's Aunt Clara and cousin, also Clara, from Dayton,Illinois, and in the flurry of their arrival everybody forgot to putPenrod to the question. It is doubtful, however, if he felt any relief;there may have been even a slight, unconscious disappointment notaltogether dissimilar to that of an actor deprived of a good part.

  In the course of some really necessary preparations for dinner hestepped from the bathroom into the pink-and-white bedchamber of hissister, and addressed her rather thickly through a towel.

  "When'd mamma find out Aunt Clara and Cousin Clara were coming?"

  "Not till she saw them from the window. She just happened to look outas they drove up. Aunt Clara telegraphed this morning, but it wasn'tdelivered."

  "How long they goin' to stay?"

  "I don't know."

  Penrod ceased to rub his shining face, and thoughtfully tossed the towelthrough the bathroom door. "Uncle John won't try to make 'em comeback home, I guess, will he?" (Uncle John was Aunt Clara's husband, asuccessful manufacturer of stoves, and his lifelong regret was that hehad not entered the Baptist ministry.) "He'll let 'em stay here quietly,won't he?"

  "What ARE you talking about?" demanded Margaret, turning from hermirror. "Uncle John sent them here. Why shouldn't he let them stay?"

  Penrod looked crestfallen. "Then he hasn't taken to drink?"

  "Certainly not!" She emphasized the denial with a pretty peal of sopranolaughter.

  "Then why," asked her brother gloomily, "why did Aunt Clara look soworried when she got here?"

  "Good gracious! Don't people worry about anything except somebody'sdrinking? Where did you get such an idea?"

  "Well," he persisted, "you don't KNOW it ain't that."

  She laughed again, wholeheartedly. "Poor Uncle John! He won't even allowgrape juice or ginger ale in his house. They came because they wereafraid little Clara might catch the measles. She's very delicate, andthere's such an epidemic of measles among the children over in Daytonthe schools had to be closed. Uncle John got so worried that last nighthe dreamed about it; and this morning he couldn't stand it any longerand packed them off over here, though he thinks its wicked to travelon Sunday. And Aunt Clara was worried when she got here because they'dforgotten to check her trunk and it will have to be sent by express. Nowwhat in the name of the common sense put it into your head that UncleJohn had taken to----"

  "Oh, nothing." He turned lifelessly away and went downstairs, a new-bornhope dying in his bosom. Life seems so needlessly dull sometimes.