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Penrod

Booth Tarkington




  Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger

  PENROD

  By Booth Tarkington

  To

  John, Donald And Booth Jameson

  From A Grateful Uncle

  CONTENTS

  I. A Boy and His Dog II. Romance III. The Costume IV. Desperation V. The Pageant of the Table Round VI. Evening VII. Evils of Drink VIII. School IX. Soaring X. Uncle John XI. Fidelity of a Little Dog XII. Miss Rennsdale Accepts XIII. The Smallpox Medicine XIV. Maurice Levy's Constitution XV. The Two Families XVI. The New Star XVII. Retiring from the Show-Business XVIII. Music XIX. The Inner Boy XX. Brothers of Angels XXI. Rupe Collins XXII. The Imitator XXIII. Coloured Troops in Action XXIV. "Little Gentleman" XXV. Tar XXVI. The Quiet Afternoon XXVII. Conclusion of the Quiet Afternoon XXVIII. Twelve XXIX. Fanchon XXX. The Birthday Party XXXI. Over the Fence

  CHAPTER I A BOY AND HIS DOG

  Penrod sat morosely upon the back fence and gazed with envy at Duke, hiswistful dog.

  A bitter soul dominated the various curved and angular surfaces knownby a careless world as the face of Penrod Schofield. Except in solitude,that face was almost always cryptic and emotionless; for Penrod hadcome into his twelfth year wearing an expression carefully trained to beinscrutable. Since the world was sure to misunderstand everything, meredefensive instinct prompted him to give it as little as possible to layhold upon. Nothing is more impenetrable than the face of a boy who haslearned this, and Penrod's was habitually as fathomless as the depthof his hatred this morning for the literary activities of Mrs. LoraRewbush--an almost universally respected fellow citizen, a lady ofcharitable and poetic inclinations, and one of his own mother's mostintimate friends.

  Mrs. Lora Rewbush had written something which she called "The Children'sPageant of the Table Round," and it was to be performed in public thatvery afternoon at the Women's Arts and Guild Hall for the benefit of theColoured Infants' Betterment Society. And if any flavour of sweetnessremained in the nature of Penrod Schofield after the dismal trials ofthe school-week just past, that problematic, infinitesimal remnant wasmade pungent acid by the imminence of his destiny to form a prominentfeature of the spectacle, and to declaim the loathsome sentiments of acharacter named upon the programme the Child Sir Lancelot.

  After each rehearsal he had plotted escape, and only ten days earlierthere had been a glimmer of light: Mrs. Lora Rewbush caught a verybad cold, and it was hoped it might develop into pneumonia; but sherecovered so quickly that not even a rehearsal of the Children's Pageantwas postponed. Darkness closed in. Penrod had rather vaguely debatedplans for a self-mutilation such as would make his appearance as theChild Sir Lancelot inexpedient on public grounds; it was a heroicand attractive thought, but the results of some extremely sketchypreliminary experiments caused him to abandon it.

  There was no escape; and at last his hour was hard upon him. Thereforehe brooded on the fence and gazed with envy at his wistful Duke.

  The dog's name was undescriptive of his person, which was obviouslythe result of a singular series of mesalliances. He wore a grizzledmoustache and indefinite whiskers; he was small and shabby, and lookedlike an old postman. Penrod envied Duke because he was sure Duke wouldnever be compelled to be a Child Sir Lancelot. He thought a dog free andunshackled to go or come as the wind listeth. Penrod forgot the life heled Duke.

  There was a long soliloquy upon the fence, a plaintive monologue withoutwords: the boy's thoughts were adjectives, but they were expressed bya running film of pictures in his mind's eye, morbidly prophetic of thehideosities before him. Finally he spoke aloud, with such spleen thatDuke rose from his haunches and lifted one ear in keen anxiety.

  "'I hight Sir Lancelot du Lake, the Child, Gentul-hearted, meek, and mild. What though I'm BUT a littul child, Gentul-hearted, meek, and----' OOF!"

  All of this except "oof" was a quotation from the Child Sir Lancelot, asconceived by Mrs. Lora Rewbush. Choking upon it, Penrod slid down fromthe fence, and with slow and thoughtful steps entered a one-storied wingof the stable, consisting of a single apartment, floored with cement andused as a storeroom for broken bric-a-brac, old paint-buckets, decayedgarden-hose, worn-out carpets, dead furniture, and other condemned oddsand ends not yet considered hopeless enough to be given away.

  In one corner stood a large box, a part of the building itself: it waseight feet high and open at the top, and it had been constructed as asawdust magazine from which was drawn material for the horse's bed ina stall on the other side of the partition. The big box, so high andtowerlike, so commodious, so suggestive, had ceased to fulfil itslegitimate function; though, providentially, it had been at least halffull of sawdust when the horse died. Two years had gone by since thatpassing; an interregnum in transportation during which Penrod's fatherwas "thinking" (he explained sometimes) of an automobile. Meanwhile, thegifted and generous sawdust-box had served brilliantly in war and peace:it was Penrod's stronghold.

  There was a partially defaced sign upon the front wall of the box; thedonjon-keep had known mercantile impulses:

  The O. K. RaBiT Co. PENROD ScHoFiELD AND CO. iNQuiRE FOR PRicEs

  This was a venture of the preceding vacation, and had netted, at onetime, an accrued and owed profit of $1.38. Prospects had been brighteston the very eve of cataclysm. The storeroom was locked and guarded, buttwenty-seven rabbits and Belgian hares, old and young, had perished hereon a single night--through no human agency, but in a foray of cats, thebesiegers treacherously tunnelling up through the sawdust from the smallaperture which opened into the stall beyond the partition. Commerce hasits martyrs.

  Penrod climbed upon a barrel, stood on tiptoe, grasped the rim of thebox; then, using a knot-hole as a stirrup, threw one leg over the top,drew himself up, and dropped within. Standing upon the packed sawdust,he was just tall enough to see over the top.

  Duke had not followed him into the storeroom, but remained near the opendoorway in a concave and pessimistic attitude. Penrod felt in a darkcorner of the box and laid hands upon a simple apparatus consisting ofan old bushel-basket with a few yards of clothes-line tied to each ofits handles. He passed the ends of the lines over a big spool, whichrevolved upon an axle of wire suspended from a beam overhead, and, withthe aid of this improvised pulley, lowered the empty basket until itcame to rest in an upright position upon the floor of the storeroom atthe foot of the sawdust-box.

  "Eleva-ter!" shouted Penrod. "Ting-ting!"

  Duke, old and intelligently apprehensive, approached slowly, in asemicircular manner, deprecatingly, but with courtesy. He pawed thebasket delicately; then, as if that were all his master had expected ofhim, uttered one bright bark, sat down, and looked up triumphantly. Hishypocrisy was shallow: many a horrible quarter of an hour had taught himhis duty in this matter.

  "El-e-VAY-ter!" shouted Penrod sternly. "You want me to come down thereto you?"

  Duke looked suddenly haggard. He pawed the basket feebly again and,upon another outburst from on high, prostrated himself flat. Againthreatened, he gave a superb impersonation of a worm.

  "You get in that el-e-VAY-ter!"

  Reckless with despair, Duke jumped into the basket, landing in adishevelled posture, which he did not alter until he had been drawnup and poured out upon the floor of sawdust with the box. There,shuddering, he lay in doughnut shape and presently slumbered.

  It was dark in the box, a condition that might have been remedied bysliding back a small wooden panel on runners, which would have let inample light from the alley; but Penrod Schofield had more interestingmeans of illumination. He knelt, and from a former soap-box, in
acorner, took a lantern, without a chimney, and a large oil-can, the leakin the latter being so nearly imperceptible that its banishmentfrom household use had seemed to Penrod as inexplicable as it wasprovidential.

  He shook the lantern near his ear: nothing splashed; there was no soundbut a dry clinking. But there was plenty of kerosene in the can; and hefilled the lantern, striking a match to illumine the operation. Then helit the lantern and hung it upon a nail against the wall. The sawdustfloor was slightly impregnated with oil, and the open flame quivered insuggestive proximity to the side of the box; however, some rather deepcharrings of the plank against which the lantern hung offered evidencethat the arrangement was by no means a new one, and indicated at least apossibility of no fatality occurring this time.

  Next, Penrod turned up the surface of the sawdust in another cornerof the floor, and drew forth a cigar-box in which were half adozen cigarettes, made of hayseed and thick brown wrapping paper, alead-pencil, an eraser, and a small note-book, the cover of which waslabelled in his own handwriting:

  "English Grammar. Penrod Schofield. Room 6, Ward School Nomber Seventh."

  The first page of this book was purely academic; but the study ofEnglish undefiled terminated with a slight jar at the top of the second:"Nor must an adverb be used to modif----"

  Immediately followed:

  "HARoLD RAMoREZ THE RoADAGENT OR WiLD LiFE AMoNG THE ROCKY MTS."

  And the subsequent entries in the book appeared to have little concernwith Room 6, Ward School Nomber Seventh.