“But, Papa—”
“Go out and play, I tell you.”
“But, Papa, how can we play when you won’t give us anything we want to play with?”
“I don’t care what you play with,” Mr. Passloe said crossly. “I want to finish this letter. Go and play.”
Ronald’s tone became weary, but retained its affectation of patient reasonableness. “Papa, I’ve explained to you time and again — how can we play when we haven’t got anything we like? And if you’d only just give me a quarter this once, I promise I’ll never ask you for—”
“I won’t do it. Didn’t you hear me say I wouldn’t?”
“Yes. But, Papa—”
“That’s all there is to it! When I say a thing I mean it, and you might just as well not waste any more of my time. I’ve said I wouldn’t, and I won’t.”
Ronald became more plaintive. “Papa, you don’t understand! It’s just a little squirt-gun that Penrod and!”
“I don’t allow you to play with any kind of a gun, and you know it.”
“It isn’t a gun, Papa. It makes just a little water come out of the end of it. It wouldn’t hurt a flea. It’s kind of useful, more than just to play with, Papa. Honest it is! If you were out walking or anything and had to have a drink of water, why, if you had this little gun with you, why, you could get a good drink out of it and be all right again.’N’ then, s’pose you were goin’ along somewheres, and kind of looked around somewheres, and s’pose there was a house on fire somewheres, where some poor people lived, and they were all burning up or sumpthing, why, if I had my good little water-gun with me, I’d turn it on that ole fire—”
“Stop it!” Mr. Passloe commanded bitterly. “If you say one more word about that gun, I’ll—”
“Please, Papa!”
“Not one single word!”
Ronald’s manner and voice suddenly became passionate, “Papa, I got to get that little gun!” he cried.
“Well, you won’t!”
“Papa! Pop-puh!”
“Be quiet!” Mr. Passloe shouted. “Be quiet!”
“Pop -puh!”
“You don’t get it! No!”
“Please!”
Mr. Passloe uttered dismal sounds, and, having dropped his pen, massaged his hair with both hands. “If you’re not out of this room before I count ten, I’ll take you upstairs, myself, and put you to bed for the rest of the day! One — two—”
“Pop-puh!”
“Three — four — five —
“Please! Oh, please let me get that little — oh! — gun.” Ronald’s voice was now syncopated with sobs. He seemed to suffer horribly. “Oh, Papa, you know how I want that little — oh! — gun! You know you do, Poppuh! You — oh! — know you do! Please, please, please, please—”
“Eight — nine — ten!” Mr. Passloe finished his counting with a great air of grimness, and Penrod gave Ronald up for lost. (He had long ago abandoned all hope of the squirt-gun.)
“There!” said Passloe. “I’ve counted the ten, and you know the consequences, Ronald. I told you what I’d do, and you deliberately—”
“I haf to have that little — oh! — gun!” sobbed Ronald. “It wouldn’t hurt you to give it to me, either! I’d like to know what — oh! — harm it’d ever do you just to let me get that little gun — oh! If I was your father and I had a boy that wanted a little — oh! — gun — I bet you’d think I was perty mean if I said — oh! — I wouldn’t! The only reason you say you won’t do it’s because you don’t want me to have a good time! You don’t want me to! Pleose, please, please, please! PLEASE—”
“O Lord!” Then the dumfounded Penrod observed the hand of Mr. Passloe seeking a pocket. “Here! Hush! Be quiet! For heaven’s sake go and get your little gun!”
Ronald, with no more words upon the matter, instantly grasped the resplendent coin emerging from that pocket-and the two boys departed, leaving the sacked parent raurmurous behind closed doors. Briskly they went into the bright air, and lightly sped gateward.
“That was easy,” said Ronald, in a businesslike tone.
Penrod looked with interest upon this type, hitherto unfamiliar to him. He said nothing, but stared at R.onald almost continuously as they walked along; and there was approbation in this gaze.
Ronald made several other allusions to his victory, downright contempt for his late adversary mingling with a little justifiable swagger. “Why, that was nothin’ at all!” he said scornfully. “When I want anything, I get it!”
Meanwhile, the approbation in the eyes of Penrod increased in lustre. However, it was somewhat dimmed by various occurrences after their return in possession of the squirt-gun. This implement proved even more fascinating in actual operation than in anticipation, especially as each of the boys wished to operate it while the other remained a spectator, and neither was willing to remain a spectator for an instant. But, for once, Penrod found himself hopelessly out-talked. Ronald claimed possession on the reasonable ground of ownership; he reminded Penrod severely of certain dogmas of etiquette concerning the treatment of visitors, citing many instances to establish his rights as a guest, and finally became so vociferous, as well as verbose, in a reminiscence covering the whole history of their relations to the squirt-gun that Penrod despairingly proposed a compromise somewhat to his own disadvantage.
“Well, what if it was your own father’s money?” he said. “What if you did see our good ole gun first in the window? I was the one said I wished it was ours first, wasn’t I? And you got to use water in a bucket out of my own father’s hydrant, don’t you? Whose bucket is it, I’d like to know? I guess that bucket belongs to my own father, doesn’t it? I guess this is my own father’s yard, isn’t it? Well, I got jus’ much right to use that gun any way I want to as you have — and better, too! I guess you got sense enough to see that, haven’t you? Well, I tell you the way we’ll fix it. Each of us’ll take turns ten minutes long, and you can have the first turn. The one that’s not got the gun can stand in the kitchen doorway where they can see the clock, and then, when the ten minutes is up, I can come and get the gun, and my turn’ll begin.”
Having thus spoken, he abandoned the hand-grip that until then he had maintained upon the squirt-gun as a sort of legal protest, and, turning his back upon Ronald, sought the doorway, where he came to a stand with his eyes conscientiously upon the face of the clock.
Ronald capered over the yard, squirting fluently. “Look, Penrod!” he shouted. “Watch me, Penrod! I got her work-in’ great now. Watch, Penrod! I’m ole hose-reel Number Nine. Clang! Clang! Clang! Fire! Fire! Fire! Git that horness on them horses there, you men, you! Hurry up, now! Think I want to be all day gettin’ to that fire? Click, click — horness, horness, horness!” He fastened imaginary buckles, and mounted to an imaginary seat. “All ready, boys! Gallump, gallump, gallumpety — glump!” Here, he not only gave this vocal imitation of a gallop but galloped simultaneously with his legs, contriving with his arms and shoulders the impersonation of a most passionate fireman in the act of driving, the squirt-gun now enacting the rôle of a whip. “Gong! Gong! Gong! Hi, there, you white horse, can’t you keep up with that black horse o’ mine! Go, you devils, go! Gallump! Gallump! Gallumpety-glump! Whoa there, you ole black horse, you! Here’s the fire! Gimme that hose; I’ll show you how I put fires out! Fz-z-z-z-z! That’s the ole fire blazin’ away. Look, Penrod! Watch me! Listen, Penrod! Fz-z-z-z! That’s the fire, Penrod! Why don’t you look? Look at the way I put houses out when they’re on fire? Fz-z-z-z! Squirt! Squirt! Squirt! Pen-rod! What’s the matter o’ you? Whyn’t you look see the way I’m puttin’ this fire out? Looky here! Fz-z-z-z-z—”
At last Penrod looked. He had kept his eyes steadfastly, even sternly, upon the clock throughout the interminable period. “My turn!” And with an altered face, joy upon it, he ran and captured the squirt-gun from Ronald’s clinging hands. “My turn now, Ronald! You go stand where you can see the clock!”
“I won’t!” Ronald declared ve
hemently. “You gimme that little gun!”
“But it’s my turn. We said we’d each keep it ten minutes for you and then ten minutes for me.”
“I did not! You said so. I never said anything about it at all. You gimme my little gun! I”
“I won’t do it,” said Penrod stoutly. “Not till you go look at the clock ten minutes. I looked at it ten minutes, didn’t I?”
“You gimme my little gun!” Ronald insisted, growing visibly and audibly more intense. “It’s my little gun, I guess! And whose quarter paid for it? You just answer me that, I’d like to ask!”
“I don’t care who!” Penrod returned lightly. “Look, Ronald: I’m chief o’ the Fire Department. This is the way I do!” And he began to romp over the grass with the replenished squirt-gun. “Watch, Ronald! Here’s me!”
But Ronald showed even less interest in Penrod’s performance than Penrod had shown in Ronald’s, and, while Penrod — ever inspired to excel — now brought forth from his creative soul and painted upon the empty air not one mere hose-reel alone but the complex machineries of a completely equipped metropolitan Fire Department, including motor-driven ladder-trucks, chemical engines and something he called a “fire-tower”, Ronald brooded near by with obvious malevolence.
He was not wholly unwatchful, however, as he proceeded to prove, about four minutes after the beginning of Penrod’s “turn”. The new fireman happened to be holding the squirt-gun somewhat loosely in his left hand, gesticulating for the moment with his right, and his back was toward Ronald. Ronald darted upon him, captured the squirt-gun with one swift and stealthy jerk, then sped away, laughing tauntingly.
“You give that back here!” Penrod cried, pursuing. “It ain’t half a minute since my turn began! You never went near the clock! If I catch you, I’ll—”
But Ronald was fleet. He disappeared round a corner of the house, and Penrod beheld the squirt-gun no more that day. Ronald scrambled through an open window before his pursuer turned the corner, and, half an hour later, leaving the squirt-gun securely hidden within the house, the visitor again sought the backyard, discovering his host gloomily beginning the mastication of an apple.
“Biters!” Ronald immediately vociferated. “Biters! I got you, Penrod! Biters!”
“Yes, you will!” Penrod returned sardonically. “You got no more chance to get biters on this apple than—”
But here he was forced to interrupt himself by a cry of sincere emotion. Ronald swooped upon him, this time in a frontal attack, and, with a motion as rapid as a prestidigitator’s, snatched the apple from Penrod’s hand. Again Ronald disappeared, cackling, round the corner of the house, safely in advance.
“All right for you!” Penrod called bitterly after him, abandoning the chase. “Go on; keep it! What I care! I know where’s sumpthing better’n any ole apple, and just because you haf to go and act a pig, you don’t get any what I’m goin’ to get!”
Never was he less a true prophet. As he emerged from the kitchen, a few minutes later, triumphant in the contemplation of half a dozen cookies, cajoled from Della and intended to be eaten tantalizingly in the presence of Ronald, this latter lay in wait behind the outward-swinging screen door, and again a surprise attack was successful. Ronald was one of those bright-eyed little boys who are as quick and as sly as cats.
Penrod was so deftly robbed of the six cookies that he remained staring incredulously at the crumby and still feebly gesticulating fingers of his left hand until a hastily massed portion of the ravished delicacies had already passed Ronald’s esophagus and epiglottis and established itself as a through tourist for the whole route of his alimentary canal. The dazed eyes of Penrod lifted from his vacant hand and perceived the undulations of Ronald’s slender throat as this journey was thus begun. Then Penrod made outcry and tried to retrieve what might be retrievable.
But Ronald had discovered that he was easily the fleeter. Disdaining to seek cover, this time, he dodged, ducked and zigzagged, eating spasmodically the while, and not failing to describe in rich words the ecstasies produced in his insides by the food, which he maddeningly affected to believe Penrod had presented to him. He ate the cakes to the last infuriating crumb, dancing just beyond arm’s length, while Penrod formed a plan of retaliation, deciding that he would obtain a fresh supply from Della, and, behind a closed window, eat cookies at Ronald. He went to the length of rehearsing mentally the scornful gestures to accompany this performance, which might have proven an effective one if Della had been a woman with a real heart in her bosom. Unfortunately, she was of those whom no pathos moves except their own, and for to-day she had founded herself stonily upon the senseless and arbitrary dogma, “Six is enough”, her only variation being quite as discouraging— “Well, annyway, you’ll git no more!”
Following this chilling siege, Penrod spent half an hour satisfying himself that when Della really intended to hide a pan of cookies she was able to do it. After this, he returned to the yard gloomily, but with his hurt somewhat healed by time.
New injuries awaited him at the hands of Ronald. The latter found it amusing to snatch things from his cousin, and Penrod could not pick up a stick or twig or even a pebble to throw, but Ronald made his attempt upon it, and always (unless Penrod was alertly upon his guard) successfully. By sunset, Penrod had begun to wear a badgered look.
He was silent, not to say heavy, at the evening meal; there was upon his youthful front something not unsuggestive of the careworn expression of Mr. Passloe, Ronald’s father. And when Mrs. Schofield, with a mother’s absent smile, asked her son if he and Ronald had enjoyed a “happy afternoon, playing together”, Penrod’s answer was naught. One would have said he did not hear.
Ronald, on the other hand, was talkative. He dominated the table — though Mr. Passloe frequently offered nervous protest — while the Schofield family (except Penrod) listened to the boyish chatter with the indulgent responsiveness that all polite people show to other people’s children.
As Ronald talked on, disjointedly interrupting, squeaking, yipping, sometimes almost shouting, Penrod’s parents and sister Margaret exhibited every token of friendly and approving interest. They wore the air of people greatly pleased by the conversation of a witty and distinguished person, and yet, all the while, little seemed plainer to Penrod than the fact that Ronald was, definitely, nothing but the freshest little smart Aleck on earth. Penrod became, first, embittered; next, envious and jealous; then he began to ponder, though dimly. Ronald’s ways appeared to be successful. It might pay to be like that!
This impression was confirmed during the service of dessert. Ronald announced that he wished to attend a “pitcher-show” that evening, and his father promptly and sharply denied the consequent application for funds. He denied permission as well, concluding decidedly, “You’ll be in bed before half-past eight, or I’ll know the reason why!”
“But, Papa—”
“Not another word, Ronald. You can’t go, and we don’t wish to hear anything more about it.”
“But, Papa,” Ronald persevered, “it’s only ten cents, and Penrod’s papa will give him ten cents, and—”
“No, he won’t,” said Mr. Passloe.
“Well, then,” Ronald responded briskly, “I don’t care if I haf to go alone.”
“No; you can’t go—”
“Well, then, you can give us twenty cents and I’ll buy a ticket for Penrod, too.”
“Didn’t you hear me say you couldn’t go?”
“Pop-puh!”
“Not another word now!”
“Please, Papa!”
“I said—”
“Pop-pah!”
“I told you—”
At this point Ronald became emotional; his young voice quavered piteously. “Papa, it’s only twenty cents! I should think you could spare that much when — you know what a nice time I and Penrod would have! Papa, I got to go to that pitcher-show! I got to!”
“Shame on you,” said his father sternly, “making such a fuss at the
table when you’re on a visit! Look at Penrod, how nicely he sits and how quiet he keeps.”
“Well, that’s not so usual,” Mr. Schofield felt called upon to say, coming to the rescue of Ronald. “Ronald seems to me a very nice little boy.”
“I’m ashamed of him,” said Mr. Passloe. “The idea of his making such a distur—”
“Pop-puh!” Ronald interrupted vehemently. “Pop-puh! You got to gimme that twenty cents! You got to do it!” Here Mrs. Schofield attempted to mediate. She smilingly offered a compromise. “But dear,” she said sweetly to Ronald, “if your papa doesn’t want you to go this evening because it’s dark and late — and I’d just a little rather Penrod didn’t go, either — think what a nice time you can have to-morrow! When to-morrow comes, and all nice, bright sunshine—”
She continued to expand this theme, offering rewards and enticements — for the morrow. Even in the silent Penrod these evoked no responsive anticipations. A boy can look forward ecstatically to his birthday, to the Fourth of July, to Thanksgiving dinner and to Christmas. Those are the only morrows that weigh greatly with him, and grown people are seldom less intelligent than when they follow that eternal custom of theirs — offering boys beauteous morrows, invented on the spur of the moment, and easily recognizable as mere dismal words to offset immediate pleasures already within grasp. Ronald was moved by Mrs. Schofield’s soft eloquence — moved to break out in a yell.
“Rats!” he vociferated, and set an exclamation point upon the shocking word — a heartrending sob. “Oh! I don’t — oh! — want to go to any crazy ole matinée to — oh! — tomorrow!” he wailed. “I want to go to that pitcher-show to-night!”
“Ronald,” his father warned him sharply, “you’re disgustingly rude!”
“Oh, no,” said Mrs. Schofield lightly, “Ronald didn’t mean to be impolite at all. He’s a very good boy — aren’t you, Ronald?”
Ronald paid no attention to her, renewing the attack upon his father with vehemence. But the murky glance of Penrod swept Mrs. Schofield; he gave her a long look wherein strong injury mingled with perplexity.
Collected Works of Booth Tarkington Page 438