Collected Works of Booth Tarkington

by Booth Tarkington

  But here Robert proved incautious; for the moment, he had forgotten something important, of which he was now reminded, to his far from imperceptible confusion. “You said it was every bit all right,” the badgered Sam interrupted suddenly. “You gave us a dollar and seventy cents for doing it!”

  “What!” Three people, Mr and Mrs. Schofield and Mr. Jones, uttered the word almost simultaneously, and Margaret leaned forward to ask, “What? What did you say, Sam?”

  “He did!” Sam declared vehemently, roused to active defense by his resentment of Robert’s outrageous doubledealing. “He gave me two quarters, first, to tell him about it, and after that, he gave me half-a-dollar and half-a-dollar for Penrod and two dimes for—”

  “Never mind, Sam,” Robert interrupted hastily; but the suffusion of colour upon his cheeks made his face almost painfully conspicuous, as he spoke. With some difficulty he produced a poor imitation of the conventional murmur of laughter usually employed to indicate that the matter being mentioned is of negligible importance. “Perhaps I should explain that at the time Sam is speaking of what the boys were doing appeared to be merely a little game among themselves and — ah — perfectly harmless, of course.”

  “Indeed?” Miss Margaret Schofield inquired, with evident interest. “Perfectly harmless?”

  “Ah—” he began; but he neither met her inquiring gaze nor found anything more to say, and an embarrassing silence fell upon the room.

  Mr. Paoli Jones, however, being a humane person, relieved the tension by coughing, and then by a return to the previous subject. “Perhaps we might get on a little better if we followed another lead,” he suggested. “I mean if we could determine conclusively the identity of the little tongued-tied coloured boy—”

  But once more it was proven that coincidences abound at critical moments in the lives of all who conduct criminal investigations, and a peculiarly striking one took place at this instant and while Mr. Paoli Jones still had the phrase “little tongue-tied coloured boy” upon his lips. The windows were open, and upon the aromatic zephyrs of the July evening was borne an eerie and giggling cry in a unique African voice.

  Mrs. Schofield started. “Listen!” she whispered huskily.

  From a distance of about forty feet, the strange cry came distinctly. “Oh Mihhuh Habe im air? Wop he boo mow, Pemwob?”

  It was unfortunate for Penrod that Verman felt this renewal of interest in the whereabouts and conduct of the official ex-criminal of the dismembered agency. Penrod had emerged to the surface, necessarily, as soon as Della stopped looking over the top of the sawdust box; under cover of darkness he had abandoned that refuge, and, for the past hour, seated upon the ground beneath one of the living-room windows, he-had listened anxiously to the conversation within. Verman, with idle time upon his hands, for the first time in many evenings, had gone forth for a stroll, and, glancing over the fence, had happened to espy the dark figure under the window. Then, having nothing better to do, he climbed upon the fence and sat there. Amused, and not being aware that the agency was now wholly obsolete, he had been so ill-inspired as to put the inquiry that had startled the company indoors, his intended words being simply: “Old Mr. Dade in there? What he do now, Penrod?”

  Penrod made imperative gestures for him to withdraw, then sprang up and, alarmed by something he heard from within the living-room, would himself have withdrawn; but he was too late. Mr. Schofield, easily recognizing the significance of the vocative, “Pemwob”, had dashed out through the front door, turned the corner of the house, and the fugitive was almost instantly seized in a powerful and irritated grasp. One minute later, when, in custody, he was haled into the presence of the conclave, his mother uttered a shrill cry of lamentation. In spite of all his woody immersions, fragments of the attic cobwebs still remained upon him, and he shed a trail of sawdust across the living-room floor, as he was sternly urged forward. What he expected to happen to him, at this juncture, is unknown; his expression was impenetrable; but there is no doubt whatever that the substitution of him as the centre of interest brought grateful relief to both of the brothers Williams.

  “Never mind his looks!” Mr. Schofield said sharply to Mrs. Schofield. “That can be attended to later — and so can a few other things!” he added. “Later when I take him upstairs—”

  But Mr. Paoli Jones, as he had already proved, was a man of humane impulses, and he could not look at Penrod without having those impulses stirred. “No, no,” he said, protesting. “I really didn’t mean to get either Sam Williams or Penrod into any trouble; I only wanted to satisfy my own mind a little about what’s been happening, and I think that has become rather clear. In fact, it seems to me that what Robert said about it’s all having been merely a harmless game was especially significant.” Here Mr. Jones laughed and looked genially, not at Robert, but at Margaret Schofield, upon which she straightened and seemed a little indignant. “It appears to be fairly evident,” Mr. Jones went on, “that Penrod and Sam and the two coloured boys were merely playing at ‘shadowing’, and that they felt they had to pick out someone to be ‘shadowed’, and of course this person had to be supposed to be in the habit of committing crimes. I think I see now that this explanation covers everything Penrod told Marjorie, and that he was only carrying on the game and never dreamed she would repeat what he said as serious information. In fact, I don’t believe there’s anything serious at all in the whole matter; quite probably Mr. Dade might have gone back to Gosport anyhow; in his letter he speaks of the ‘social advantages’ Gosport possesses, compared to this city, and in that respect he may have suffered some little disappointment or other here. That’s quite possible — quite possible, in spite of the fact of his good looks and excellent conduct. But there is one thing that puzzles me and that I’d like to have solved. In fact, there’s a question I’d very much like to have Penrod answer.”

  “He’ll answer it,” Mr. Schofield promised grimly. “I’ll see to that!”

  “Well, then,” Mr. Jones said, addressing Penrod, “I’d like to know why it was that when you picked out a person to be ‘after’, as you told Marjorie, Penrod — that is, when you selected a criminal to ‘shadow’, how in the world did it happen that you selected a young man of such unexceptional and exemplary character as Mr. Dade?”

  “Sir?”

  “Why on earth did you select such a good young man as Mr. Dade to be your criminal?”

  Penrod swallowed, and moved uneasily, causing a little shower of sawdust to fall upon the floor about him. “Well—” he mumbled, and stopped.

  “You speak up!” his father said, in a tone recognizably ominous. “You answer Mr. Jones’s question! What made you pick out Mr. Dade?”

  “Yes, Penrod,” Mr. Jones urged, rising to go. “Why did you?”

  Penrod breathed deeply; he had not an idea in his head.

  “Well—” he said at last, desperately. “Well — he acted so in love of my sister Margaret, I thought there must be sumpthing wrong with him.”

  Mr. Jones stared at him strangely, seeming unwilling to trust himself to speak; there was a sound like the sputter of laughter, half-choked and a little hysterical, from the corner to which Robert Williams had modestly retired; then Margaret, after the briefest and coldest glance in that direction, rose and went haughtily out to the verandah.

  “I think we must say good-night,” Mr. Jones said in a tremulous voice, during this progress. “Come, Marjorie.” His face had grown red, and, in passing Mr. Schofield, who likewise had become flushed, he paused to say in a low tone, with a glance toward Penrod, “I hope you won’t—”

  But it was Mrs. Schofield who replied to this merciful plea. She, too, displayed a heightened colour, and she spoke indistinctly through a handkerchief held to her mouth. “No,” she said, shaking her head, “he won’t.”

  Then, as the departing guests moved on toward the outer door, Mr and Mrs. Schofield hospitably accompanying them, the little group was passed by Robert Williams on his way to the verandah, and Pen
rod and Sam were left alone together in the living-room. Somehow, they realized an impending darkness had lightened; a vague doom inexplicably incurred had as inexplicably been avoided. Neither understood what sin he had committed or not committed; neither understood why punishment was commuted. Definitely they had only the sense of a vast escape.

  Sam, again making patterns upon the floor, seemed to be preoccupied with the moving toe of his shoe, while Penrod shook down a little more sawdust and stood gazing at it gloomily. They said nothing whatever.

  CHAPTER XX

  NEW STARS ARISE

  THE MIDSUMMER MORNING was languid with its own warmth; the Schofields’ back yard lay aglow in mellow sunshine, and Penrod and Sam stood enthralled, staring at a magnificent creature they had discovered upon the stalk of a lush bush in the fence corner. It might have been a pixie’s concertina, painted dusty green and ornamented with brilliant pool balls from a pixie pool-table; but to Penrod and Sam it was known as a “tobacco-worm” — the largest and fattest they had ever seen. The two boys stared in silence for a long time; finally, Penrod spoke in a hushed voice.

  “I wonder what he’s thinkin’ about.” And in fact, it was reasonable to suppose the motionless creature lost in reverie.

  “Thinkin’ about how fat he is, maybe,” Sam suggested.

  “I bet you don’t know which end his head is,” said Penrod, his tone somewhat implying that this wagered bit of ignorance was one of Sam’s many inferiorities.

  “I bet you don’t, either.”

  “Well, whoever said I did?” Penrod retorted crossly. “Well, did I say I did?”

  “Well, whoever said you did say you did?”

  Sam looked annoyed and also somewhat confused. “Well, you said,” he began, “you said I didn’t know which end his head is, and!”

  “Well, you don’t know which end his head is.”

  “Well, you don’t, either.”

  “Well, whoever said I did?”

  “Well, I didn’t say!”

  “Well, whoever said you did say you did?”

  “Look here—” Sam began; but paused, bewildered by that feeling of having done the same thing before, which inclines people, sometimes, to believe in the theory of reincarnation.

  A movement on the part of the green creature distracted the attention of both boys, momentarily, from their incipient feud.

  “Look!” Penrod cried. “He’s movin’!”

  “Climbin’ up the bush,” Sam observed. “That shows which end his head is on: it’s on top.”

  “It doesn’t have to be on top just because he’s climbin’ up the bush,” Penrod returned scornfully. “I guess he could back up, just as well as climb up, couldn’t he?”

  “Well, he wouldn’t,” Sam argued. “What would he want to back up for, when he could just as easy climb up? His head’s on top of him, and that proves it.”

  “It doesn’t either prove it. Where’s his face? The only way you can prove where his head is, is where his face is, isn’t it?”

  “No, it isn’t!” Sam cried hotly. “He hasn’t got any face; and, besides, his top end looks just as much like his face as his bottom end. You can’t tell the difference. Anyway, anybody with good sense would know his head’s on top of him. He wouldn’t want to have it any place else, would he?”

  “How do you know what he’d want?” Penrod demanded. “He might want it some place else just as well as not.”

  “Well, what for?” Sam asked irritably. “What on earth would he want it some place else for?”

  “What for?” Penrod was sure of a coming triumph in the debate. “You don’t know what for?”

  “No, I don’t, and you don’t either!”

  “Oh, I don’t, don’t I?”

  “No, you don’t!” Sam shouted.

  Penrod laughed pityingly. “Bet you I can prove it.”

  “Well, prove it then.”

  “Well, look here. Suppose sumpthing was after him: he’d want to have his face on his bottom end so’s he could keep watchin’ out to see if it was comin’ after him up the stalk, wouldn’t he? That proves it, I guess!”

  It did — so far as Sam Williams was concerned. Sam was overwhelmed; he had nothing to say, and Penrod was not disposed to make his triumph an easy one for the vanquished. “Well,” he jeered. “I guess that shows how much you know about worms!”

  Sam had the grace to admit a fair defeat. “Maybe I don’t,” he said, with manly humbleness; “ — about tobacco-worms. I don’t suppose I ever saw more’n five or six in my life.” He dug the ground with the toe of his shoe, despondently, then brightened, all at once, with the advent of a recollection. “I bet I know sumpthing about grasshoppers that you don’t.”

  “I bet you don’t.”

  “Well, I can prove it.”

  “Go ahead and prove it!”

  “I bet you don’t know grasshoppers chew tobacco.”

  At this, Penrod yelled in derision.

  “They do, too!” Sam asserted indignantly.

  Penrod laughed, gesticulated, danced and bellowed. He was outrageous.

  “You wait!” Sam began to browse in the grass, searching, while his friend, in order to express a poignant incredulity, threw himself full-length beneath the bush; rolled on his stomach, squealed insults, beat the ground with his hands and wriggled his feet in the air.

  “Grasshoppers chew tobacco!” howled Penrod. “Grasshoppers chew tobacco! Grasshop — oh, ho, ho, ho!”

  “Here,” said Sam, bringing a grasshopper for his inspection. “You watch him, now.” He gave the grasshopper a command, squeezed him slightly about the middle, and proved the case absolutely. “Look there!” he cried, flourishing the exhibit upon his thumbnail. “Now, say grasshoppers don’t chew tobacco!”

  Penrod was beside himself but not (as would have been proper) with confusion: ecstasy was his emotion — and there followed a bad quarter-of-an-hour for the grasshoppers in that portion of the yard.

  “Pshaw!” said Sam. “I’ve known grasshoppers chewed tobacco ever since I was five years old.”

  “You never said anything about it!” Penrod exclaimed, marvelling at such reticence. It seemed to him, just now, that he would never know another instant of ennui so long as he lived — at least, not in grasshopper-time.

  “I thought pretty near everybody knew grasshoppers chewed tobacco,” Sam said modestly. “You told me I didn’t know much about worms, and I said I bet I knew sumpthing about grasshoppers you didn’t know — but I kind of thought you did, though.”

  “What else can they do?” Penrod’s tone indicated that a sincere deference was no more than Sam’s due in all matters concerning grasshoppers.

  “Nothin’. That’s all they’re good for.”

  “Where d’you s’pose they get their tobacco in the first place? Hop around stores, you guess?”

  “Yes; lots of other places.”

  The experiment had been repeated ad nauseam until all the available grasshoppers were in no condition immediately to pursue their bad habits — or their good ones, for that matter — and Penrod paused to seek further knowledge at its recent fountain-head. “Sam, do you know anything else?” he inquired hopefully.

  “Yes, I do!” replied Master Williams with justified resentment.

  “I mean,” Penrod explained, “I mean: Do you know anything else I don’t know?”

  “Oh!” Sam was mollified at once. “Well, I guess proba’ly I do,” he said thoughtfully. “Lemme see. Oh, yes! I bet you don’t know if you put a black hair from a horse’s tail in a bottle and put water in it, and leave it there for three weeks, it’ll turn into a snake.”

  “I do, too!” said Penrod. “I knew that, ever since I was little.”

  “I bet you haven’t known it any longer’n I have. I knew it when I was little, too.”

  “Everybody knows a black hair from a horse’s tail will turn into a snake,” Penrod declared. “Who doesn’t know that?”

  “Well, I never said they didn�
�t, did I?”

  “Well, who said you did say—” Penrod paused, a sud den light in his eyes. “Sam, did you ever try it?”

  “No,” said Sam thoughtfully. “I guess when I heard it we didn’t have any horse, and I was too little to get one from any other people’s horse — or sumpthing.”

  Penrod jumped up eagerly. “Well, we aren’t too little now!” he shouted.

  “Yay!” This jubilant outcry from Sam demonstrated what reciprocal fires of enthusiasm were kindled in his bosom on the instant. “Where’s a horse?”

  Simultaneously their eyes fell upon what they sought. In the side street stood a grocer’s wagon, and the grocer had just gone into the kitchen. Attached to the wagon was an elderly bay horse. Attached to the elderly bay horse was a black tail. The prospective snake manufacturers drew near the raw material.

  The elderly bay horse switched his black tail at a fly, a gesture unfortunate for Penrod, upon whose eager countenance it culminated. “Oof!” He jumped back, sputtering; and the horse looked round inquiringly; then, seeing boys, assumed an expression of implacable fury.

  “Go on,” Sam urged. “Pull ’em out. Two’s enough.” Penrod rubbed his face and looked thoughtful. “I wonder if they wouldn’t do just as well from his mane,” he said.

  “No, sir! They got to be from his tail. I know that much!”

  Penrod glanced uneasily at the horse’s horizontal ears. “You pull ’em, Sam,” he suggested, edging away. “I’ll go and be gettin’ the bottles ready to put ’em in. I”

  “No, sir!” Sam insisted. “You started to pull ’em and you ought to do it. I didn’t start to pull ’em, did I?”

  “Now, see here!” Penrod became argumentative. “You don’t know where to find any bottles, and—”

  “You better quit talkin’ so much,” Sam interrupted doggedly. “Go ahead and pull those two hairs out of his ole tail or pretty soon the man’ll come out and drive him away — and then where’ll we be? You started to do it, and so it’s your biznuss to. Go ahead and do it, and don’t talk so much about it. That’s the way to do a thing.”