Magsworth was the important part of the name. Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts was a Magsworth born, herself, and the Magsworth crest decorated not only Mrs. Magsworth Bitts" note-paper but was on the china, on the table linen, on the chimney-pieces, on the opaque gla.s.s of the front door, on the victoria, and on the harness, though omitted from the garden-hose and the lawn-mower.
Naturally, no sensible person dreamed of connecting that ill.u.s.trious crest with the unfortunate and notorious Rena Magsworth whose name had grown week by week into larger and larger type upon the front pages of newspapers, owing to the gradually increasing public and official belief that she had poisoned a family of eight. However, the statement that no sensible person could have connected the Magsworth Bitts family with the a.r.s.enical Rena takes no account of Penrod Schofield.
Penrod never missed a murder, a hanging or an electrocution in the newspapers; he knew almost as much about Rena Magsworth as her jurymen did, though they sat in a court-room two hundred miles away, and he had it in mind--so frank he was--to ask Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, if the murderess happened to be a relative.
The present encounter, being merely one of apathetic greeting, did not afford the opportunity. Penrod took off his cap, and Roderick, seated between his mother and one of his grown-up sisters, nodded sluggishly, but neither Mrs. Magsworth Bitts nor her daughter acknowledged the salutation of the boy in the yard. They disapproved of him as a person of little consequence, and that little, bad. Snubbed, Penrod thoughtfully restored his cap to his head. A boy can be cut as effectually as a man, and this one was chilled to a low temperature. He wondered if they despised him because they had seen a last fragment of doughnut in his hand; then he thought that perhaps it was Duke who had disgraced him. Duke was certainly no fashionable looking dog.
The resilient spirits of youth, however, presently revived, and discovering a spider upon one knee and a beetle simultaneously upon the other, Penrod forgot Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts in the course of some experiments infringing upon the domain of Doctor Carrel. Penrod"s efforts--with the aid of a pin--to effect a transference of living organism were unsuccessful; but he convinced himself forever that a spider cannot walk with a beetle"s legs. Della then enhanced zoological interest by depositing upon the back porch a large rat-trap from the cellar, the prison of four live rats awaiting execution.
Penrod at once took possession, retiring to the empty stable, where he installed the rats in a small wooden box with a sheet of broken window-gla.s.s--held down by a brickbat--over the top. Thus the symptoms of their agitation, when the box was shaken or hammered upon, could be studied at leisure. Altogether this Sat.u.r.day was starting splendidly.
After a time, the student"s attention was withdrawn from his specimens by a peculiar smell, which, being followed up by a system of selective sniffing, proved to be an emanation leaking into the stable from the alley. He opened the back door.
Across the alley was a cottage which a thrifty neighbour had built on the rear line of his lot and rented to negroes; and the fact that a negro family was now in process of "moving in" was manifested by the presence of a thin mule and a ramshackle wagon, the latter laden with the semblance of a stove and a few other unpretentious household articles.
A very small darky boy stood near the mule. In his hand was a rusty chain, and at the end of the chain the delighted Penrod perceived the source of the special smell he was tracing--a large racc.o.o.n. Duke, who had shown not the slightest interest in the rats, set up a frantic barking and simulated a ravening a.s.sault upon the strange animal. It was only a bit of acting, however, for Duke was an old dog, had suffered much, and desired no unnecessary sorrow, wherefore he confined his demonstrations to alarums and excursions, and presently sat down at a distance and expressed himself by intermittent threatenings in a quavering falsetto.
"What"s that "c.o.o.n"s name?" asked Penrod, intending no discourtesy.
"Aim gommo mame," said the small darky.
"What?"
"Aim gommo mame."
"WHAT?"
The small darky looked annoyed.
"Aim GOMMO mame, I h.e.l.l you," he said impatiently.
Penrod conceived that insult was intended.
"What"s the matter of you?" he demanded advancing. "You get fresh with ME, and I"ll----"
"Hyuh, white boy!" A coloured youth of Penrod"s own age appeared in the doorway of the cottage. "You let "at brothuh mine alone. He ain" do nothin" to you."
"Well, why can"t he answer?"
"He can"t. He can"t talk no better"n what he WAS talkin". He tongue-tie"."
"Oh," said Penrod, mollified. Then, obeying an impulse so universally aroused in the human breast under like circ.u.mstances that it has become a quip, he turned to the afflicted one.
"Talk some more," he begged eagerly.
"I hoe you ackoom aim gommo mame," was the prompt response, in which a slight ostentation was manifest. Unmistakable tokens of vanity had appeared upon the small, swart countenance.
"What"s he mean?" asked Penrod, enchanted.
"He say he tole you "at "c.o.o.n ain" got no name."
"What"s YOUR name?"
"I"m name Herman."
"What"s his name?" Penrod pointed to the tongue-tied boy.
"Verman."
"What!"
"Verman. Was three us boys in ow fam"ly. Ol"est one name Sherman. "N"en come me; I"m Herman. "N"en come him; he Verman. Sherman dead. Verman, he de littles" one."
"You goin" to live here?"
"Umhuh. Done move in f"m way outen on a fahm."
He pointed to the north with his right hand, and Penrod"s eyes opened wide as they followed the gesture. Herman had no forefinger on that hand.
"Look there!" exclaimed Penrod. "You haven"t got any finger!"
"_I_ mum map," said Verman, with egregious pride.
"HE done "at," interpreted Herman, chuckling. "Yessuh; done chop "er spang off, long "go. He"s a playin" wif a ax an" I lay my finguh on de do"-sill an" I say, "Verman, chop "er off!" So Verman he chop "er right spang off up to de roots! Yessuh."
"What FOR?"
"Jes" fo" nothin"."
"He hoe me hoo," remarked Verman.
"Yessuh, I tole him to," said Herman, "an" he chop "er off, an" ey ain"t airy oth" one evuh grown on wheres de ole one use to grow. Nosuh!"
"But what"d you tell him to do it for?"
"Nothin". I "es" said it "at way--an" he jes" chop er off!"
Both brothers looked pleased and proud. Penrod"s profound interest was flatteringly visible, a tribute to their unusualness.
"Hem bow goy," suggested Verman eagerly.
"Aw ri"," said Herman. "Ow sistuh Queenie, she a growed-up woman; she got a goituh."
"Got a what?"
"Goituh. Swellin" on her neck--grea" big swellin". She heppin" mammy move in now. You look in de front-room winduh wheres she sweepin"; you kin see it on her."
Penrod looked in the window and was rewarded by a fine view of Queenie"s goitre. He had never before seen one, and only the lure of further conversation on the part of Verman brought him from the window.