"I believe I will take my hat now, little gentleman."
"Here it is," said Penrod, unexpectedly climbing over the porch railing, in the other direction. His mother and father and Margaret had supposed him to be standing in the hallway out of deference, and because he thought it tactful not to interrupt the recitations. All of them remembered, later, that this supposed thoughtfulness on his part struck them as unnatural.
"Very good, little gentleman!" said Mr. Kinosling, and being somewhat chilled, placed the hat firmly upon his head, pulling it down as far as it would go. It had a pleasant warmth, which he noticed at once. The next instant, he noticed something else, a peculiar sensation of the scalp--a sensation which he was quite unable to define. He lifted his hand to take the hat off, and entered upon a strange experience: his hat seemed to have decided to remain where it was.
"Do you like Tennyson as much as Longfellow, Mr. Kinosling?" inquired Margaret.
"I--ah--I cannot say," he returned absently. "I--ah--each has his own--ugh! flavour and savour, each his--ah--ah----"
Struck by a strangeness in his tone, she peered at him curiously through the dusk. His outlines were indistinct, but she made out that his arms were, uplifted in a singular gesture. He seemed to be wrenching at his head.
"Is--is anything the matter?" she asked anxiously. "Mr. Kinosling, are you ill?"
"Not at--ugh!--all," he replied, in the same odd tone. "I--ah--I believe--UGH!"
He dropped his hands from his hat, and rose. His manner was slightly agitated. "I fear I may have taken a trifling--ah--cold.
I should--ah--perhaps be--ah--better at home. I will--ah--say good-night."
At the steps, he instinctively lifted his hand to remove his hat, but did not do so, and, saying "Goodnight," again in a frigid voice, departed with visible stiffness from that house, to return no more.
"Well, of all----!" cried Mrs. Schofield, astounded. "What was the matter? He just went--like that!" She made a flurried gesture. "In heaven"s name, Margaret, what DID you say to him?"
"_I_!" exclaimed Margaret indignantly. "Nothing! He just WENT!"
"Why, he didn"t even take off his hat when he said good-night!" said Mrs. Schofield.
Margaret, who had crossed to the doorway, caught the ghost of a whisper behind her, where stood Penrod.
"YOU BET HE DIDN"T!"
He knew not that he was overheard.
A frightful suspicion flashed through Margaret"s mind--a suspicion that Mr. Kinosling"s hat would have to be either boiled off or shaved off.
With growing horror she recalled Penrod"s long absence when he went to bring the hat.
"Penrod," she cried, "let me see your hands!"
She had toiled at those hands herself late that afternoon, nearly scalding her own, but at last achieving a lily purity.
"Let me see your hands!"
She seized them.
Again they were tarred!
CHAPTER XXVI THE QUIET AFTERNOON
Perhaps middle-aged people might discern Nature"s real intentions in the matter of pain if they would examine a boy"s punishments and sorrows, for he prolongs neither beyond their actual duration. With a boy, trouble must be of Homeric dimensions to last overnight. To him, every next day is really a new day. Thus, Penrod woke, next morning, with neither the unspared rod, nor Mr. Kinosling in his mind. Tar, itself, so far as his consideration of it went, might have been an undiscovered substance. His mood was cheerful and mercantile; some process having worked mysteriously within him, during the night, to the result that his first waking thought was of profits connected with the sale of old iron--or perhaps a ragman had pa.s.sed the house, just before he woke.
By ten o"clock he had formed a partnership with the indeed amiable Sam, and the firm of Schofield and Williams plunged headlong into commerce.
Heavy dealings in rags, paper, old iron and lead gave the firm a balance of twenty-two cents on the evening of the third day; but a venture in gla.s.sware, following, proved disappointing on account of the scepticism of all the druggists in that part of town, even after seven laborious hours had been spent in cleansing a wheelbarrow-load of old medicine bottles with hydrant water and ashes. Likewise, the partners were disheartened by their failure to dispose of a crop of "greens," although they had uprooted specimens of that decorative and unappreciated flower, the dandelion, with such persistence and energy that the Schofields" and Williams" lawns looked curiously haggard for the rest of that summer.
The fit pa.s.sed: business languished; became extinct. The dog-days had set in.
One August afternoon was so hot that even boys sought indoor shade. In the dimness of the vacant carriage-house of the stable, lounged Masters Penrod Schofield, Samuel Williams, Maurice Levy, Georgie Ba.s.sett, and Herman. They sat still and talked. It is a hot day, in rare truth, when boys devote themselves princ.i.p.ally to conversation, and this day was that hot.
Their elders should beware such days. Peril hovers near when the fierceness of weather forces inaction and boys in groups are quiet.
The more closely volcanoes, Western rivers, nitroglycerin, and boys are pent, the deadlier is their action at the point of outbreak. Thus, parents and guardians should look for outrages of the most singular violence and of the most peculiar nature during the confining weather of February and August.
The thing which befell upon this broiling afternoon began to brew and stew peacefully enough. All was innocence and languor; no one could have foretold the eruption.
They were upon their great theme: "When I get to be a man!" Being human, though boys, they considered their present estate too commonplace to be dwelt upon. So, when the old men gather, they say: "When I was a boy!"
It really is the land of nowadays that we never discover.
"When I"m a man," said Sam Williams, "I"m goin" to hire me a couple of coloured waiters to swing me in a hammock and keep pourin" ice-water on me all day out o" those waterin"-cans they sprinkle flowers from. I"ll hire you for one of "em, Herman."
"No; you ain" goin" to," said Herman promptly. "You ain" no flowuh.
But nev" min" nat, anyway. Ain" n.o.body goin" haih me whens _I_"m a man.
Goin" be my own boss. _I_"m go" be a rai"road man!"
"You mean like a superintendent, or sumpthing like that, and sell tickets?" asked Penrod.
"Sup"in--nev" min" nat! Sell ticket? NO suh! Go" be a PO"tuh! My uncle a po"tuh right now. Solid gole b.u.t.tons--oh, oh!"
"Generals get a lot more b.u.t.tons than porters," said Penrod.
"Generals----"
"Po"tuhs make the bes" l"vin"," Herman interrupted. "My uncle spen" mo"
money "n any white man n"is town."
"Well, I rather be a general," said Penrod, "or a senator, or sumpthing like that."
"Senators live in Warshington," Maurice Levy contributed the information. "I been there. Warshington ain"t so much; Niag"ra Falls is a hundred times as good as Warshington. So"s "Tlantic City, I was there, too. I been everywhere there is. I----"
"Well, anyway," said Sam Williams, raising his voice in order to obtain the floor, "anyway, I"m goin" to lay in a hammock all day, and have ice-water sprinkled on top o" me, and I"m goin" to lay there all night, too, and the next day. I"m goin" to lay there a couple o" years, maybe."
"I bet you don"t!" exclaimed Maurice. "What"d you do in winter?"
"What?"
"What you goin" to do when it"s winter, out in a hammock with water sprinkled on top o" you all day? I bet you----"
"I"d stay right there," Sam declared, with strong conviction, blinking as he looked out through the open doors at the dazzling lawn and trees, trembling in the heat. "They couldn"t sprinkle too much for ME!"
"It"d make icicles all over you, and----"