It is not known in what light Mr. Kinosling viewed the expression of Penrod’s face. Perhaps he mistook it for awe; perhaps he received no impression at all of its extraordinary quality. He was a rather self-engrossed young man, just then engaged in a double occupation, for he not only talked, but supplied from his own consciousness a critical though favourable auditor as well, which of course kept him quite busy. Besides, it is oftener than is expected the case that extremely peculiar expressions upon the countenances of boys are entirely overlooked, and suggest nothing to the minds of people staring straight at them. Certainly Penrod’s expression — which, to the perception of his family, was perfectly horrible — caused not the faintest perturbation in the breast of Mr. Kinosling.
Mr. Kinosling waived the chicken, and continued to talk. “Yes, I think I may claim to understand boys,” he said, smiling thoughtfully. “One has been a boy one’s self. Ah, it is not all playtime! I hope our young scholar here does not overwork himself at his Latin, at his classics, as I did, so that at the age of eight years I was compelled to wear glasses. He must be careful not to strain the little eyes at his scholar’s tasks, not to let the little shoulders grow round over his scholar’s desk. Youth is golden; we should keep it golden, bright, glistening. Youth should frolic, should be sprightly; it should play its cricket, its tennis, its hand-ball. It should run and leap; it should laugh, should sing madrigals and glees, carol with the lark, ring out in chanties, folk-songs, ballads, roundelays — —”
He talked on. At any instant Mr. Schofield held himself ready to cough vehemently and shout, “More chicken,” to drown out Penrod in case the fatal words again fell from those eloquent lips; and Mrs. Schofield and Margaret kept themselves prepared at all times to assist him. So passed a threatening meal, which Mrs. Schofield hurried, by every means with decency, to its conclusion. She felt that somehow they would all be safer out in the dark of the front porch, and led the way thither as soon as possible.
“No cigar, I thank you.” Mr. Kinosling, establishing himself in a wicker chair beside Margaret, waved away her father’s proffer. “I do not smoke. I have never tasted tobacco in any form.” Mrs. Schofield was confirmed in her opinion that this would be an ideal son-in-law. Mr. Schofield was not so sure.
“No,” said Mr. Kinosling. “No tobacco for me. No cigar, no pipe, no cigarette, no cheroot. For me, a book — a volume of poems, perhaps. Verses, rhymes, lines metrical and cadenced — those are my dissipation. Tennyson by preference: ‘Maud,’ or ‘Idylls of the King’ — poetry of the sound Victorian days; there is none later. Or Longfellow will rest me in a tired hour. Yes; for me, a book, a volume in the hand, held lightly between the fingers.”
Mr. Kinosling looked pleasantly at his fingers as he spoke, waving his hand in a curving gesture which brought it into the light of a window faintly illumined from the interior of the house. Then he passed those graceful fingers over his hair, and turned toward Penrod, who was perched upon the railing in a dark corner.
“The evening is touched with a slight coolness,” said Mr. Kinosling. “Perhaps I may request the little gentleman — —”
“B’gr-r-RUFF!” coughed Mr. Schofield. “You’d better change your mind about a cigar.”
“No, I thank you. I was about to request the lit — —”
“DO try one,” Margaret urged. “I’m sure papa’s are nice ones. Do try — —”
“No, I thank you. I remarked a slight coolness in the air, and my hat is in the hallway. I was about to request — —”
“I’ll get it for you,” said Penrod suddenly.
“If you will be so good,” said Mr. Kinosling. “It is a black bowler hat, little gentleman, and placed upon a table in the hall.”
“I know where it is.” Penrod entered the door, and a feeling of relief, mutually experienced, carried from one to another of his three relatives their interchanged congratulations that he had recovered his sanity.
“‘The day is done, and the darkness,’” began Mr. Kinosling — and recited that poem entire. He followed it with “The Children’s Hour,” and after a pause, at the close, to allow his listeners time for a little reflection upon his rendition, he passed his handagain over his head, and called, in the direction of the doorway:
“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 perha
ps a ragman had passed 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 glassware, 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 passed: 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 Bassett, and Herman. They sat still and talked. It is a hot day, in rare truth, when boys devote themselves principally 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’ nobody 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 buttons — oh, oh!”
“Generals get a lot more buttons 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 — —”
“I wish it would,” said Sam. “I’d eat ’em up.”
“And it’d snow on you — —”
“Yay! I’d swaller it as fast as it’d come down. I wish I had a BARREL o’ snow right now. I wish this whole barn was full of it. I wish they wasn’t anything in the whole world except just good ole snow.”
Penrod and Herman rose and went out to the hydrant, where they drank long and ardently. Sam was still talking about snow when they returned.
“No, I wouldn’t just roll in it. I’d stick it all round inside my clo’es, and fill my hat. No, I’d freeze a big pile of it all hard, and I’d roll her out flat and then I’d carry her down to some ole tailor’s and have him make me a SUIT out of her, and — —”
“Can’t you keep still about your ole snow?” demanded Penrod petulantly. “Makes me so thirsty I can’t keep still, and I’ve drunk so much now I bet I bust. That ole hydrant water’s mighty near hot anyway.”
“I’m goin’ to have a big store, when I grow up,” volunteered Maurice.
“Candy store?” asked Penrod.
“NO, sir! I’ll have candy in it, but not to eat, so much. It’s goin’ to be a deportment store: ladies’ clothes, gentlemen’s clothes, neckties, china goods, leather goods, nice lines in woollings and lace goods — —”
“Yay! I wouldn’t give a five-for-a-cent marble for your whole store,” said Sam. “Would you, Penrod?”
“Not for ten of ’em; not for a million of ’em! I’m goin’ to have — —”
“Wait!” clamoured Maurice. “You’d be foolish, because they’d be a toy deportment in my store where they’d be a hunderd marbles! So, how much would you think your five-for-a-cent marble counts for? And when I’m keepin’ my store I’m goin’ to get married.”
“Yay!” shrieked Sam derisively. “MARRIED! Listen!” Penrod and Herman joined in the howl of contempt.
“Certumly I’ll get married,” asserted Maurice stoutly. “I’ll get married to Marjorie Jones. She likes me awful good, and I’m her beau.”
“What makes you think so?” inquired Penrod in a cryptic voice.
“Because she’s my beau, too,” came the prompt answer. “I’m her beau because she’s my beau; I guess that’s plenty reason! I’ll get married to her as soon as I get my store running nice.”
Penrod looked upon him darkly, but, for the moment, held his peace.
“Married!” jeered Sam Williams. “Married to Marjorie Jones! You’re the only boy I ever heard say he was going to get married. I wouldn’t get married for — why, I wouldn’t for — for — —” Unable to think of any inducement the mere mention of which would not be ridiculously incommensurate, he proceeded: “I wouldn’t do it! What you want to get married for? What do married people do, except just come home tired, and worry around and kind of scold? You better not do it, M’rice; you’ll be mighty sorry.”
“Everybody gets married,” stated Maurice, holding his ground.
“They gotta.”
“I’ll bet I don’t!” Sam returned hotly. “They better catch me before they tell ME I have to. Anyway, I bet nobody has to get married unless they want to.”
“They do, too,” insisted Maurice. “They GOTTA!”
“Who told you?”
“Look at what my own papa told me!” cried Maurice, heated with argument. “Didn’t he tell me your papa had to marry your mamma, or else he never’d got to handle a cent of her money? Certumly, people gotta marry. Everybody. You don’t know anybody over twenty years old that isn’t married — except maybe teachers.”
“Look at policemen!” shouted Sam triumphantly. “You don’t s’pose anybody can make policemen get married, I reckon, do you?”
“Well, policemen, maybe,” Maurice was forced to admit. “Policemen and teachers do
n’t, but everybody else gotta.”
“Well, I’ll be a policeman,” said Sam. “THEN I guess they won’t come around tellin’ me I have to get married. What you goin’ to be, Penrod?”
“Chief police,” said the laconic Penrod.
“What you?” Sam inquired of quiet Georgie Bassett.
“I am going to be,” said Georgie, consciously, “a minister.”
This announcement created a sensation so profound that it was followed by silence. Herman was the first to speak.
“You mean preachuh?” he asked incredulously. “You go’ PREACH?”
“Yes,” answered Georgie, looking like Saint Cecilia at the organ.
Herman was impressed. “You know all ‘at preachuh talk?”
“I’m going to learn it,” said Georgie simply.
“How loud kin you holler?” asked Herman doubtfully.
“He can’t holler at all,” Penrod interposed with scorn. “He hollers like a girl. He’s the poorest hollerer in town!”
Herman shook his head. Evidently he thought Georgie’s chance of being ordained very slender. Nevertheless, a final question put to the candidate by the coloured expert seemed to admit one ray of hope.
“How good kin you clim a pole?”
“He can’t climb one at all,” Penrod answered for Georgie. “Over at Sam’s turning-pole you ought to see him try to — —”
“Preachers don’t have to climb poles,” Georgie said with dignity.
“GOOD ones do,” declared Herman. “Bes’ one ev’ I hear, he clim up an’ down same as a circus man. One n’em big ‘vivals outen whens we livin’ on a fahm, preachuh clim big pole right in a middle o’ the church, what was to hol’ roof up. He clim way high up, an’ holler: ‘Goin’ to heavum, goin’ to heavum, goin’ to heavum NOW. Hallelujah, praise my Lawd!’ An’ he slide down little, an’ holler: ‘Devil’s got a hol’ o’ my coat-tails; devil tryin’ to drag me down! Sinnuhs, take wawnun! Devil got a hol’ o’ my coat-tails; I’m a-goin’ to hell, oh Lawd!’ Nex’, he clim up little mo’, an’ yell an’ holler: ‘Done shuck ole devil loose; goin’ straight to heavum agin! Goin’ to heavum, goin’ to heavum, my Lawd!’ Nex’, he slide down some mo’ an’ holler, ‘Leggo my coat-tails, ole devil! Goin’ to hell agin, sinnuhs! Goin’ straight to hell, my Lawd!’ An’ he clim an’ he slide, an’ he slide, an’ he clim, an’ all time holler: ‘Now ‘m a-goin’ to heavum; now ‘m a-goin’ to hell! Goin’to heavum, heavum, heavum, my Lawd!’ Las’ he slide all a-way down, jes’ a-squallin’ an’ a-kickin’ an’ a-rarin’ up an’ squealin’, ‘Goin’ to hell. Goin’ to hell! Ole Satum got my soul! Goin’ to hell! Goin’ to hell! Goin’ to hell, hell, hell!”
Collected Works of Booth Tarkington Page 155