Penrod and Sam

by Booth Tarkington

  CHAPTER IV. BINGISM

  Both boys lived breathlessly through a magnificent moment.

  "Leave me have it!" gasped Penrod. "Leave me have hold of it!"

  "You wait a minute!" Sam protested, in a whisper. "I want to show youhow I do."

  "No; you let me show you how _I_ do!" Penrod insisted; and they scuffledfor possession.

  "Look out!" Sam whispered warningly. "It might go off."

  "Then you better leave me have it!" And Penrod, victorious and flushed,stepped back, the weapon in his grasp. "Here," he said, "this is the wayI do: You be a crook; and suppose you got a dagger, and I--"

  "I don't want any dagger," Sam protested, advancing. "I want thatrevolaver. It's my father's revolaver, ain't it?"

  "Well, WAIT a minute, can't you? I got a right to show you the way I DO,first, haven't I?" Penrod began an improvisation on the spot. "Say I'mcomin' along after dark like this--look, Sam! And say you try to make ajump at me--"

  "I won't!" Sam declined this role impatiently. "I guess it ain't YOURfather's revolaver, is it?"

  "Well, it may be your father's but it ain't yours," Penrod argued,becoming logical. "It ain't either'r of us revolaver, so I got as muchright--"

  "You haven't either. It's my fath--"

  "WATCH, can't you--just a minute!" Penrod urged vehemently. "I'm notgoin' to keep it, am I? You can have it when I get through, can't you?Here's how _I_ do: I'm comin' along after dark, just walkin' along thisway--like this--look, Sam!"

  Penrod, suiting the action to the word, walked to the other end of theroom, swinging the revolver at his side with affected carelessness.

  "I'm just walkin' along like this, and first I don't see you," continuedthe actor. "Then I kind of get a notion sumpthing wrong's liable tohappen, so I--No!" He interrupted himself abruptly. "No; that isn'tit. You wouldn't notice that I had my good ole revolaver with me. Youwouldn't think I had one, because it'd be under my coat like this, andyou wouldn't see it." Penrod stuck the muzzle of the pistol into thewaistband of his knickerbockers at the left side and, buttoning hisjacket, sustained the weapon in concealment by pressure of his elbow."So you think I haven't got any; you think I'm just a man comin' along,and so you--"

  Sam advanced. "Well, you've had your turn," he said. "Now, it's mine.I'm goin' to show you how I--"

  "WATCH me, can't you?" Penrod wailed. "I haven't showed you how _I_ do,have I? My goodness! Can't you watch me a minute?"

  "I HAVE been! You said yourself it'd be my turn soon as you--"

  "My goodness! Let me have a CHANCE, can't you?" Penrod retreated to thewall, turning his right side toward Sam and keeping the revolver stillprotected under his coat. "I got to have my turn first, haven't I?"

  "Well, yours is over long ago."

  "It isn't either! I--"

  "Anyway," said Sam decidedly, clutching him by the right shoulder andendeavouring to reach his left side--"anyway, I'm goin' to have it now."

  "You said I could have my turn out!" Penrod, carried away byindignation, raised his voice.

  "I did not!" Sam, likewise lost to caution, asserted his denial loudly.

  "You did, too."

  "You said--"

  "I never said anything!"

  "You said--Quit that!"

  "Boys!" Mrs. Williams, Sam's mother, opened the door of the roomand stood upon the threshold. The scuffling of Sam and Penrod ceasedinstantly, and they stood hushed and stricken, while fear fell uponthem. "Boys, you weren't quarrelling, were you?"

  "Ma'am?" said Sam.

  "Were you quarrelling with Penrod?"

  "No, ma'am," answered Sam in a small voice.

  "It sounded like it. What was the matter?"

  Both boys returned her curious glance with meekness. They were summoningtheir faculties--which were needed. Indeed, these are the crises whichprepare a boy for the business difficulties of his later life. Penrod,with the huge weapon beneath his jacket, insecurely supported byan elbow and by a waistband which he instantly began to distrust,experienced distressful sensations similar to those of the owner of tooheavily insured property carrying a gasoline can under his overcoat anddetained for conversation by a policeman. And if, in the coming yearsit was to be Penrod's lot to find himself in that precise situation, nodoubt he would be the better prepared for it on account of this presentafternoon's experience under the scalding eye of Mrs. Williams. Itshould be added that Mrs. Williams's eye was awful to the imaginationonly. It was a gentle eye and but mildly curious, having no remotesuspicion of the dreadful truth, for Sam had backed upon the chest ofdrawers and closed the damnatory open one with the calves of his legs.

  Sam, not bearing the fatal evidence upon his person, was in a betterstate than Penrod, though when boys fall into the stillness now assumedby these two, it should be understood that they are suffering. Penrod,in fact, was the prey to apprehension so keen that the actual pit of hisstomach was cold.

  Being the actual custodian of the crime, he understood that his casewas several degrees more serious than that of Sam, who, in the event ofdetection, would be convicted as only an accessory. It was a lesson, andPenrod already repented his selfishness in not allowing Sam to show howhe did, first.

  "You're sure you weren't quarrelling, Sam?" said Mrs. Williams.

  "No, ma'am; we were just talking."

  Still she seemed dimly uneasy, and her eye swung to Penrod.

  "What were you and Sam talking about, Penrod!"

  "Ma'am?"

  "What were you talking about?"

  Penrod gulped invisibly.

  "Well," he murmured, "it wasn't much. Different things."

  "What things?"

  "Oh, just sumpthing. Different things."

  "I'm glad you weren't quarrelling," said Mrs. Williams, reassured bythis reply, which, though somewhat baffling, was thoroughly familiar toher ear. "Now, if you'll come downstairs, I'll give you each one cookieand no more, so your appetites won't be spoiled for your dinners."

  She stood, evidently expecting them to precede her. To linger mightrenew vague suspicion, causing it to become more definite; and boyspreserve themselves from moment to moment, not often attemptingto secure the future. Consequently, the apprehensive Sam and theunfortunate Penrod (with the monstrous implement bulking against hisribs) walked out of the room and down the stairs, their countenancesindicating an interior condition of solemnity. And a curious shade ofbehaviour might have here interested a criminologist. Penrod endeavouredto keep as close to Sam as possible, like a lonely person seekingcompany, while, on the other hand, Sam kept moving away from Penrod,seeming to desire an appearance of aloofness.

  "Go into the library, boys," said Mrs. Williams, as the three reachedthe foot of the stairs. "I'll bring you your cookies. Papa's in there."

  Under her eye the two entered the library, to find Mr. Williams readinghis evening paper. He looked up pleasantly, but it seemed to Penrod thathe had an ominous and penetrating expression.

  "What have you been up to, you boys?" inquired this enemy.

  "Nothing," said Sam. "Different things."

  "What like?"

  "Oh--just different things."

  Mr. Williams nodded; then his glance rested casually upon Penrod.

  "What's the matter with your arm, Penrod?"

  Penrod became paler, and Sam withdrew from him almost conspicuously.

  "Sir?"

  "I said, What's the matter with your arm?"

  "Which one?" Penrod quavered.

  "Your left. You seem to be holding it at an unnatural position. Have youhurt it?"

  Penrod swallowed. "Yes, sir. A boy bit me--I mean a dog--a dog bit me."

  Mr. Williams murmured sympathetically: "That's too bad! Where did hebite you?"

  "On the--right on the elbow."

  "Good gracious! Perhaps you ought to have it cauterized."

  "Sir?"

  "Did you have a doctor look at it?"

  "No, sir. My mother put some stuff from the drug store on it."

  "O
h, I see. Probably it's all right, then."

  "Yes, sir." Penrod drew breath more freely, and accepted the warm cookieMrs. Williams brought him. He ate it without relish.

  "You can have only one apiece," she said. "It's too near dinner-time.You needn't beg for any more, because you can't have 'em."

  They were good about that; they were in no frame of digestion forcookies.

  "Was it your own dog that bit you?" Mr. Williams inquired.

  "Sir? No, sir. It wasn't Duke."

  "Penrod!" Mrs. Williams exclaimed. "When did it happen?"

  "I don't remember just when," he answered feebly. "I guess it was daybefore yesterday."

  "Gracious! How did it--"

  "He--he just came up and bit me."

  "Why, that's terrible! It might be dangerous for other children," saidMrs. Williams, with a solicitous glance at Sam. "Don't you know whom hebelongs to?"

  "No'm. It was just a dog."

  "You poor boy! Your mother must have been dreadfully frightened when youcame home and she saw--"

  She was interrupted by the entrance of a middle-aged coloured woman."Miz Williams," she began, and then, as she caught sight of Penrod, sheaddressed him directly, "You' ma telefoam if you here, send you homeright away, 'cause they waitin' dinner on you."

  "Run along, then," said Mrs. Williams, patting the visitor lightly uponhis shoulder; and she accompanied him to the front door. "Tell yourmother I'm so sorry about your getting bitten, and you must take goodcare of it, Penrod."

  "Yes'm."

  Penrod lingered helplessly outside the doorway, looking at Sam, whostood partially obscured in the hall, behind Mrs. Williams. Penrod'seyes, with veiled anguish, conveyed a pleading for help as well as ahorror of the position in which he found himself. Sam, however, pale anddetermined, seemed to have assumed a stony attitude of detachment, as ifit were well understood between them that his own comparative innocencewas established, and that whatever catastrophe ensued, Penrod hadbrought it on and must bear the brunt of it alone.

  "Well, you'd better run along, since they're waiting for you at home,"said Mrs. Williams, closing the door. "Good-night, Penrod."

  ... Ten minutes later Penrod took his place at his own dinner-table,somewhat breathless but with an expression of perfect composure.

  "Can't you EVER come home without being telephoned for?" demanded hisfather.

  "Yes, sir." And Penrod added reproachfully, placing the blame uponmembers of Mr. Schofield's own class, "Sam's mother and father kept me,or I'd been home long ago. They would keep on talkin', and I guess I hadto be POLITE, didn't I?"

  His left arm was as free as his right; there was no dreadful bulkbeneath his jacket, and at Penrod's age the future is too far away tobe worried about the difference between temporary security and permanentsecurity is left for grown people. To Penrod, security was security, andbefore his dinner was half eaten his spirit had become fairly serene.

  Nevertheless, when he entered the empty carriage-house of the stable,on his return from school the next afternoon, his expression was notaltogether without apprehension, and he stood in the doorway lookingwell about him before he lifted a loosened plank in the flooring andtook from beneath it the grand old weapon of the Williams family. Notdid his eye lighten with any pleasurable excitement as he sat himselfdown in a shadowy corner and began some sketchy experiments withthe mechanism. The allure of first sight was gone. In Mr. Williams'bedchamber, with Sam clamouring for possession, it had seemed to Penrodthat nothing in the world was so desirable as to have that revolverin his own hands--it was his dream come true. But, for reasons notdefinitely known to him, the charm had departed; he turned the cylindergingerly, almost with distaste; and slowly there stole over him afeeling that there was something repellent and threatening in the heavyblue steel.

  Thus does the long-dreamed Real misbehave--not only for Penrod!

  More out of a sense of duty to bingism in general than for any otherreason, he pointed the revolver at the lawn-mower, and gloomilymurmured, "Bing!"

  Simultaneously, a low and cautious voice sounded from the yard outside,"Yay, Penrod!" and Sam Williams darkened the doorway, his eye fallinginstantly upon the weapon in his friend's hand. Sam seemed relieved tosee it.

  "You didn't get caught with it, did you?" he said hastily.

  Penrod shook his head, rising.

  "I guess not! I guess I got SOME brains around me," he added, inspiredby Sam's presence to assume a slight swagger. "They'd have to get uppretty early to find any good ole revolaver, once I got MY hands on it!"

  "I guess we can keep it, all right," Sam said confidentially. "Becausethis morning papa was putting on his winter underclothes and he found itwasn't there, and they looked all over and everywhere, and he was prettymad, and said he knew it was those cheap plumbers stole it that mammagot instead of the regular plumbers he always used to have, and he saidthere wasn't any chance ever gettin' it back, because you couldn't tellwhich one took it, and they'd all swear it wasn't them. So it looks likewe could keep it for our revolaver, Penrod, don't it? I'll give you halfof it."

  Penrod affected some enthusiasm. "Sam, we'll keep it out here in thestable."

  "Yes, and we'll go huntin' with it. We'll do lots of things with it!"But Sam made no effort to take it, and neither boy seemed to feelyesterday's necessity to show the other how he did. "Wait till nextFourth o' July!" Sam continued. "Oh, oh! Look out!"

  This incited a genuine spark from Penrod.

  "Fourth o' July! I guess she'll be a little better than anyfirecrackers! Just a little 'Bing!' Bing! Bing!' she'll be goin'. 'Bing!Bing! Bing!'"

  The suggestion of noise stirred his comrade. "I'll bet she'll go offlouder'n that time the gas-works blew up! I wouldn't be afraid to shoother off ANY time."

  "I bet you would," said Penrod. "You aren't used to revolavers the wayI--"

  "You aren't, either!" Sam exclaimed promptly, "I wouldn't be any moreafraid to shoot her off than you would."

  "You would, too!"

  "I would not!"

  "Well, let's see you then; you talk so much!" And Penrod handed theweapon scornfully to Sam, who at once became less self-assertive.

  "I'd shoot her off in a minute," Sam said, "only it might breaksumpthing if it hit it."

  "Hold her up in the air, then. It can't hurt the roof, can it?"

  Sam, with a desperate expression, lifted the revolver at arm's length.Both boys turned away their heads, and Penrod put his fingers in hisears--but nothing happened. "What's the matter?" he demanded. "Why don'tyou go on if you're goin' to?"

  Sam lowered his arm. "I guess I didn't have her cocked," he saidapologetically, whereupon Penrod loudly jeered.

  "Tryin' to shoot a revolaver and didn't know enough to cock her! If Ididn't know any more about revolavers than that, I'd--"

  "There!" Sam exclaimed, managing to draw back the hammer until twochilling clicks warranted his opinion that the pistol was now ready toperform its office. "I guess she'll do all right to suit you THIS time!"

  "Well, whyn't you go ahead, then; you know so much!" And as Sam raisedhis arm, Penrod again turned away his head and placed his forefingers inhis ears.

  A pause followed.

  "Why'n't you go ahead?"

  Penrod, after waiting in keen suspense, turned to behold his friendstanding with his right arm above his head, his left hand over his leftear, and both eyes closed.

  "I can't pull the trigger," said Sam indistinctly, his face convulsed asin sympathy with the great muscular efforts of other parts of his body."She won't pull!"

  "She won't?" Penrod remarked with scorn. "I'll bet _I_ could pull her."

  Sam promptly opened his eyes and handed the weapon to Penrod.

  "All right," he said, with surprising and unusual mildness. "You tryher, then."

  Inwardly discomfited to a disagreeable extent, Penrod attempted to talkhis own misgivings out of countenance.

  "Poor 'ittle baby!" he said, swinging the pistol at his side with a fairpretense o
f careless ease. "Ain't even strong enough to pull a trigger!Poor 'ittle baby! Well, if you can't even do that much, you better watchme while _I_--"

  "Well," said Sam reasonably, "why don't you go on and do it then?"

  "Well, I AM goin' to, ain't I?"

  "Well, then, why don't you?"

  "Oh, I'll do it fast enough to suit YOU, I guess," Penrod retorted,swinging the big revolver up a little higher than his shoulder andpointing it in the direction of the double doors, which opened upon thealley. "You better run, Sam," he jeered. "You'll be pretty scared when Ishoot her off, I guess."

  "Well, why don't you SEE if I will? I bet you're afraid yourself."

  "Oh, I am, am I?" said Penrod, in a reckless voice--and his fingertouched the trigger. It seemed to him that his finger no more thantouched it; perhaps he had been reassured by Sam's assertion that thetrigger was difficult. His intentions must remain in doubt, and probablyPenrod himself was not certain of them; but one thing comes to thesurface as entirely definite--that trigger was not so hard to pull asSam said it was.

  BANG! WH-A-A-ACK! A shattering report split the air of the stable, andthere was an orifice of remarkable diameter in the alley door. Withthese phenomena, three yells, expressing excitement of different kinds,were almost simultaneous--two from within the stable and the third froma point in the alley about eleven inches lower than the orifice justconstructed in the planking of the door. This third point, roughlyspeaking, was the open mouth of a gayly dressed young coloured man whoseattention, as he strolled, had been thus violently distracted from somemental computations he was making in numbers, including, particularly,those symbols at ecstasy or woe, as the case might be, seven and eleven.His eye at once perceived the orifice on a line enervatingly littleabove the top of his head; and, although he had not supposed himselfso well known in this neighbourhood, he was aware that he did, here andthere, possess acquaintances of whom some such uncomplimentary actionmight be expected as natural and characteristic. His immediate procedurewas to prostrate himself flat upon the ground, against the stable doors.

  In so doing, his shoulders came brusquely in contact with one of them,which happened to be unfastened, and it swung open, revealing to hisgaze two stark-white white boys, one of them holding an enormous pistoland both staring at him in stupor of ultimate horror. For, to the glassyeyes of Penrod and Sam, the stratagem of the young coloured man, thusdropping to earth, disclosed, with awful certainty, a slaughtered body.

  This dreadful thing raised itself upon its elbows and looked at them,and there followed a motionless moment--a tableau of brief duration, forboth boys turned and would have fled, shrieking, but the body spoke:

  "'At's a nice business!" it said reproachfully. "Nice business! Tryin'blow a man's head off!"

  Penrod was unable to speak, but Sam managed to summon the tremuloussemblance of a voice. "Where--where did it hit you?" he gasped.

  "Nemmine anything 'bout where it HIT me," the young coloured manreturned, dusting his breast and knees as he rose. "I want to know whatkine o' white boys you think you is--man can't walk 'long street'thout you blowin' his head off!" He entered the stable and, with anindignation surely justified, took the pistol from the limp, cold handof Penrod. "Whose gun you playin' with? Where you git 'at gun?"

  "It's ours," quavered Sam. "It belongs to us."

  "Then you' pa ought to be 'rested," said the young coloured man."Lettin' boys play with gun!" He examined the revolver with an interestin which there began to appear symptoms of a pleasurable appreciation."My goo'ness! Gun like'iss blow a team o' steers thew a brick house!LOOK at 'at gun!" With his right hand he twirled it in a manner mostdexterous and surprising; then suddenly he became severe. "You whiteboy, listen me!" he said. "Ef I went an did what I OUGHT to did, I'dmarch straight out 'iss stable, git a policeman, an' tell him 'rest youan' take you off to jail. 'At's what you need--blowin' man's head off!Listen me: I'm goin' take 'iss gun an' th'ow her away where you can't dono mo' harm with her. I'm goin' take her way off in the woods an' th'owher away where can't nobody fine her an' go blowin' man's head off withher. 'At's what I'm goin' do!" And placing the revolver inside his coatas inconspicuously as possible, he proceeded to the open door and intothe alley, where he turned for a final word. "I let you off 'iss onetime," he said, "but listen me--you listen, white boy: you bet' not tellyou' pa. _I_ ain' goin' tell him, an' YOU ain' goin' tell him. He wantknow where gun gone, you tell him you los' her."

  He disappeared rapidly.

  Sam Williams, swallowing continuously, presently walked to the alleydoor, and remarked in a weak voice, "I'm sick at my stummick." Hepaused, then added more decidedly: "I'm goin' home. I guess I've stoodabout enough around here for one day!" And bestowing a last glance uponhis friend, who was now sitting dumbly upon the floor in the exact spotwhere he had stood to fire the dreadful shot, Sam moved slowly away.

  The early shades of autumn evening were falling when Penrod emerged fromthe stable; and a better light might have disclosed to a shrewd eye someindications that here was a boy who had been extremely, if temporarily,ill. He went to the cistern, and, after a cautious glance round thereassuring horizon, lifted the iron cover. Then he took from the innerpocket of his jacket an object which he dropped listlessly into thewater: it was a bit of wood, whittled to the likeness of a pistol. Andthough his lips moved not, nor any sound issued from his vocal organs,yet were words formed. They were so deep in the person of Penrod theycame almost from the slowly convalescing profundities of his stomach.These words concerned firearms, and they were:

  "Wish I'd never seen one! Never want to see one again!"

  Of course Penrod had no way of knowing that, as regards bingism ingeneral, several of the most distinguished old gentlemen in Europe wereat that very moment in exactly the same state of mind.