Collected Works of Booth Tarkington

by Booth Tarkington

  “Penrod, what is the matter of you?” she cried.

  “Well—” he said, neither removing the pucker in his forehead nor turning his watchful gaze to her. “Nothin’. Anyway, nothin’ you could understand about.”

  “There is, too!” Marjorie insisted. “I believe you been havin’ a fight with some boy and keep watchin’ out maybe he’ll come round the corner.”

  “Not,” Penrod returned, relaxing no more than that.

  “Well, what is the matter? You acted this way last time, too.”

  “Well, what of it?”

  “I know you got sumpthing the matter of you, Penrod,” she persisted. “I bet your mother’s found out sumpthing you did!”

  “She has not!”

  “Well, then, you think she’s goin’ to.”

  “I do not!”

  “I bet you do, too! I bet that’s just it.” And she began to sing an improvisation in a sweet, taunting voice:

  “Penrod knows they’ll ketch him yet.

  Penrod’s ‘fraid what he will get.”

  Thus mocked, he was sufficiently stung to abandon George B. Jashber for the moment and turn upon her in the true likeness of Penrod Schofield aggrieved. “You stop that, Marjorie!”

  Marjorie felt encouraged to proceed with her successful treatment, seeing that it had dispersed his rather lofty preoccupation, so she chanted again:

  “Penrod knows they’ll ketch him yet,

  So he’s ‘fraid what he will get.

  Oh, Penrod Schofield!”

  “You better stop that, Marjorie!”

  She leaned across the fence, laughing, and pointed at him with a clean little forefinger. “Why had I? Who’ll make me, Mister Penrod Schofield? I’ll sing it all I want to! I’m goin’ to sing it all day! I’m goin’ to sing it all night! I’m goin’ to sing it from now till the Fourth o’ July! Listen!

  “Penrod knows they’ll get him yet,

  So he’s ‘fraid what—”

  “All right!” said Penrod, and, turning a pathetic back upon her, began to walk away. But Marjorie checked her mockeries at that and called to him.

  “Wait, Penrod! Please wait a minute!”

  “Well, you goin’ to quit?” he demanded, halting tentatively.

  “Well, I have quit,” she said. “Penrod, what is the matter of you?”

  And as she leaned once more across the fence, her head close to his, he cast one quick, severe glance to the south down the street, and a second to the north up the street. Then, frowning, he said, “Will you cross your heart never to tell anybody long as you live?”

  Marjorie was suddenly impressed; her lovely eyes widened. “Yes, I will!” she whispered, crossed herself, and stood waiting, breathless.

  “Well — look here!”

  Penrod flicked back the left lapel of his jacket, and Marjorie caught a glitter from near his armpit. He allowed time for no more than this glitter to reach her eye, but instantly flicked his jacket back into position, buttoned it, turned and immediately walked away. He walked rapidly and paid no attention to several appeals from Marjorie, who had but the vaguest idea of what she had seen and no conception whatever of its significance. A moment later, he had passed round the corner, never looking back and leaving her completely mystified.

  She was not the only person whom his behaviour amazed. Miss Spence was pretty well hardened to Penrod; but his present developments gave her quite a turn. She would have been unobservant indeed had she seen nothing new in his eye; frequently she caught that eye bent upon her, or upon one and another of his fellow pupils, in the long, enigmatic looks full of undecipherable calculations. She noticed, too, that whenever he left the schoolroom he first became obviously furtive, heaved his shoulders as if about to do something desperate, and then departed with an odd intensity. He entered the room with the same intensity and, she got the impression, whenever he came in, that he had previously heaved his shoulders in the cloak-room. There was nothing technically contrary to her rules of discipline in these symptoms of his, and she found herself at a loss. He made her uncomfortable; but she did not know what to do about it, or even in just what terms she could speak to him about it.

  Toward the closing days of the school-term (vacation now being at hand) Miss Spence found something to puzzle over that apparently had little connection with the part of her life concerned in her profession of teacher. She finally thought the matter serious enough to be mentioned, and one evening she spoke of it to a fellow boarder, a teacher in the same school.

  “I’m sure I haven’t imagined it, Miss Carter,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not that sort of a person. I didn’t decide that there could be no other explanation until it had happened several times; but every evening I went out last week I had that curious and uncomfortable sensation of being followed.”

  “How awful!” said Miss Carter.

  “At first, I didn’t see anything or even hear anything,” Miss Spence went on. “It was on my way to the eight-o’clock lecture, Monday evening of last week, and all at once I just got that feeling of someone following me. ‘I’m being followed,’ I said to myself — just like that. Then I decided it must be nonsense, and laughed at myself and went on. Well, you know I went to those lectures every night except Saturday of last week, and Tuesday, Thursday and Friday the same thing happened — and twice I distinctly heard steps behind me, and once I turned quickly and saw somebody jump behind a tree.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I turned right round and walked back — and there was nobody there. He’d got away somehow.”

  “What did he look like?” Miss Carter asked eagerly.

  “It was too dark to see much; I couldn’t tell. Well, I went on to the lecture, and pretty soon I was sure he was behind me again, following me all the way.”

  “And when you came home from the lecture, did—”

  “No,” Miss Spence said. “That’s the odd part of it. I never got the feeling at all, or heard or saw anything, on the way home from the lecture any of those nights, though, of course, coming home it was later, and you’d think if he was a criminal of any kind, then’s when he would be around.”

  “But do you know of any enemy that would want to follow you?”

  “I can’t think of any enemy exactly.”

  “And what would they want to follow you for to a lecture?” Miss Carter cried. “It’s the strangest thing I ever heard of!”

  “I’ve thought back over all my family history and everything I’ve ever done,” Miss Spence said, “and I can think of only one person who could have any possible object in doing such a thing.”

  “Who is that?”

  “It’s a cousin of mine; his name is William Bote. He drank so much that nobody would speak to him, and finally he got to be sort of a tramp and disappeared. Well, my aunt Milly lives in this town, and she has a little property, and she is William’s aunt, too. He might have heard somewhere that she’s talked about leaving it to me, and he might have come here to try to do something about it; maybe—”

  Miss Carter was an intuitive woman, instant in her decisions. “That’s it!” she exclaimed. “If you can’t think of anybody else it could be, why, of course it’s this William What’s-his-name—”

  “William Bote.”

  “I’m sure it’s this William Bote,” Miss Carter declared. “A woman outside of an experience like this has more perspective than the woman who is actually having the experience; and I felt all the time you were talking that it was this Bote.” She glanced at the clock. “It’s a quarter to eight, and you say this was about the time he followed you all last week. Do you suppose he’s somewhere out there now?”

  “He might be.”

  “Let’s find out,” Miss Carter suggested.

  “What!”

  “Come on! Put on your hat, and go out alone. I’ll wait two minutes and come after you, and, if he’s following you, he’ll be in between us. How large is he?”

  “William? Oh, he was a litt
le thin man, and very shaky.”

  “I’ll grab him,” said Miss Carter impulsively. “I’m not afraid. Let’s hurry. Walk straight down the street and go slowly, and we’ll show this William Bote that the age of terrorizing women has passed.”

  The two determined teachers proceeded at once to set the trap for Mr. Bote. Miss Spence left the house at a leisurely gait, and exactly two minutes later her friend set forth somewhat more rapidly. Before the latter had gone half of a block, she drew a sudden breath, partly nervous, partly triumphant, for in the near distance she perceived and identified Miss Spence, who was passing beneath a street-lamp, while between Miss Spence and herself a figure indistinctly yet undeniably flitted from one to another of the shade trees that lined the sidewalk. There was no question about it: Miss Spence was being followed!

  Instantly Miss Carter determined upon her action. “Miss Spence! Cornelia Spence!” she shouted loudly. “We’ve got him!”

  And she rushed forward while Miss Spence turned and ran back at full speed, and the mysterious stranger, thus waylaid and cut off between them, might have found himself a sudden prisoner if the mouth of an alley had not been opposite the tree where he lurked, and only about ten feet away. Both ladies screamed loudly as they saw a shadow streaking into this refuge; but both resolutely followed it at top speed and went shouting down the alley.

  “Look!” cried Miss Carter. “I think he’s climbing the fence!” And then, at a clatter of shoes scampering over wood, “He’s got on top of this woodshed! I know he’s up there!”

  “He is!” Miss Spence rejoined. “I heard him! I can hear him now!”

  The woodshed was a humble part of a property well known to both of them as the home of Samuel Williams, who was a pupil of Miss Carter’s, and the two indomitable teachers, halting beside the shed, hammered upon its resonant outer wall — Miss Spence with an umbrella, which she had carried in lieu of weapons, and Miss Carter with a piece of brick she had discovered underfoot. Both also freely used their strong young voices.

  “William!” Miss Spence shouted into the upper darkness. “William, you better come down from up there! You know we’ve got you!”

  And Miss Carter went so far as to hurl her brick bat upon the roof of the shed. “You William Bote!” she cried fiercely. “We know you’re up there! You might as well come down! We’re going to have you arrested!”

  Then both of them shrieked, for a flashlight first silhouetted the sky-line of the woodshed with light, and, rising, as its holder mounted the adjacent fence, illuminated the ominous roof, but disclosed only a vacant expanse of shingles.

  “There’s no one up there now,” said a voice. Then an alley gate opened, and Mr. Williams and Mrs. Williams and Sam and two suddenly vociferous coloured women appeared. Several people from neighbouring houses, some pedestrians from the street, a small touring car and a patrolman likewise arrived, and shouts indicated that more were coming.

  Penrod decided that he had made a mistake. As he crawled through an aperture in the farther line of Mr. Williams’s fence, and made his way toward home as rapidly as possible, but painfully withal (on account of a gratuitous nail on the roof of Mr. Williams’s woodshed) sounds of agitation and excitement came increasingly to his ears, indicating the beginnings of a neighbourhood perturbation he had little anticipated; and, in spite of an almost unbearable anxiety to know who William Bote was, he felt that he would not do well to linger.

  It became plain to him that he would have to give up shadowing Miss Spence. She was too excitable to serve as a Harold Ramorez; and George B. Jashber would have to find some other scondrel to shadow.

  CHAPTER V

  JASHBER IS INTERRUPTED

  THE DAYS WERE longer now, and there was more time for detective work after school. Until Friday of the week after the fiasco, Penrod employed the daylight hours following the afternoon dismissal of school in shadowing schoolmates and acquaintances, and also practised this art during the earlier part of the evenings; but with results on the whole unsatisfactory and far from exciting. On Thursday evening, in the twilight after dinner, he did a little better; unperceived, he followed Sam Williams and Walter-John to a corner drug store, and, peering through the window, made note of the fact that Sam purchased a bag of salted peanuts. When Sam came out, Penrod concealed himself from view, and again took up the trail, pursuing in si-knee, until Sam and Walter-John came almost to their own purlieus. Then Penrod made his presence known, stepping suddenly to his friend’s side.

  “You give me some o’ those salted peanuts, Sam Williams!” he said commandingly. At the moment Sam was not eating; the bag was in his pocket; therefore he was astonished.

  “Where’d you come from? How’d you know I got peanuts?”

  “Never mind,” Penrod returned darkly. “I got ways o’ knowin’. I know everything you do.”

  “You do not!”

  “I’ll prove it. You and Walter-John went over to Smith and Muhlbach’s and bought a dime’s worth o’ salted peanuts. When they handed ’em to you you could hardly reach ’em because Walter-John was pullin’ you the other way on account he wanted to smell at Smith and Muhlbach’s cat, and she had her back all humped up and was fixin’ to take a crack at him. You hand out that bag o’ peanuts!”

  Sam proffered the bag; Penrod helped himself, and there followed some moments of silence broken only by sounds if eating. “Well,” Sam said, at length, “you might know that, but you don’t know everything I do, because you couldn’t.”

  “I do, too. I told you I got ways o’ knowin’ all about what anybody does I want to.”

  “All right then,” Sam said challengingly. “You know so much, tell me what I ate for dinner and what my mother said to my father when he asked her when was my brother Robert goin’ to get home from college this year. You just answer me that, you know so much!”

  “I could if I wanted to; but that’s sumpthing I wouldn’t want to. I said I know everything about anybody I want to, because I got ways to find out — ways nobody else knows about.”

  “I bet you haven’t! What are they?”

  “You wait and see. Maybe I’ll show you some day, Sam.”

  “When?”

  “Well, maybe pretty soon.” Penrod had become thoughtful. “Maybe to-morrow after school, and Saturday. I got to think it over, though; but I guess I will, Sam.”

  Sam seemed to be satisfied with this tentative promise, though not greatly excited by the prospect offered, and Penrod departed, ruminating. He had about made up his mind that George B. Jashber needed something of an organization behind him — subordinates, in fact, minor officials to be commanded, sent here and there, and set to trail criminals when George B. Jashber, himself, might be engaged with other matters, or perhaps preoccupied with duties at home. For such services, Sam Williams was easily available, and so were Herman and Verman. The idea appeared to be excellent, and, before falling to sleep that night, Penrod decided to begin the organization of his subordinate force on the following day after school. Unfortunately, however, the carrying out of this plan had to be postponed; an interruption occurred that even banished George B. Jashber, himself, for the time being, and, when Sam Williams made his appearance in the Schofields’ backyard, the next afternoon, he had to be informed of unavoidable events indefinitely postponing the fulfillment of Penrod’s promises.

  Penrod sat gloomily upon the back steps with his elbows upon his knees and his cheeks supported by his hands, while not far away a bright-eyed little boy, nine years old, seemed to find pleasure in pulling Duke about by the collar, and otherwise annoying the patient little old dog.

  “Watch me, Penrod!” the strange little boy shouted continually. “Look at me, Penrod! Look how I do with this crazy ole dog! Look how I do, Penrod!”

  “It’s my little cousin,” Penrod explained sadly. “His name’s Ronald Passloe, and he’s here on a visit with his father, and he’s an orphan or sumpthing, because he hasn’t got any mother, and I haf to put in all my time with him. T
hey didn’t tell me anything about it until I got home from school. I don’t know how long he’s goin’ to stay — maybe a week or sumpthing — and I got to be polite to him and everything all the time he’s here. I already did take a walk with him, but that’s all, and I s’pose I got to keep on hangin’ around him. You want to go and get Walter-John and let him play with him a while, Sam?”

  Sam glanced again at Master Ronald Passloe, and evidently received an unfavourable impression. “Well, I guess not, Penrod. I guess what you were tellin’ me about last night — how to find out everything you want to about anybody — I guess you couldn’t—”

  “No,” Penrod said morosely. “I got to keep hangin’ around him because he’s my little cousin and visitin’ us.” Sam looked once more at little Ronald; then he said, “Well g’bye, Penrod,” and went away.

  “Hey, Penrod!” little Ronald cried, and, abandoning Duke, came running to his cousin. “Le’ss go in the lib’ary where Papa is and make him give us the money to buy that little gun we saw in the drug store window. C’mon!”

  He dashed into the house, and Penrod followed more slowly, so that by the time he reached the door of the library little Ronald had already begun his pleadings.

  “Papa, please,” said little Ronald. “Please, please, please! Won’tcha, Papa, please? Please! Oh, please, Papa!”

  “No; I will not,” said Mr. Passloe, who was writing a letter at a desk by a window.

  Penrod remained in the doorway and watched the beginning of a process never in his own case followed by pleasant results. But little Ronald kept at it.

  “Papa,” he resumed quietly, “it’s only twenty-five cents. That’s all we need.”

  “I don’t care if it is,” his father coldly returned. “Go out and play some more with Penrod. I’m busy writing. Don’t bother me.”