Penrod entered the schoolroom, Monday picturesquely leaning upon a man's cane shortened to support a cripple approaching the age of twelve. He arrived about twenty minutes late, limping deeply, his brave young mouth drawn with pain, and the sensation he created must have been a solace to him; the only possible criticism of this entrance being that it was just a shade too heroic. Perhaps for that reason it failed to stagger Miss Spence, a woman so saturated with suspicion that she penalized Penrod for tardiness as promptly and as coldly as if he had been a mere, ordinary, unmutilated boy. Nor would she entertain any discussion of the justice of her ruling. It seemed, almost, that she feared to argue with him.
However, the distinction of cane and limp remained to him, consolations which he protracted far into the week—until Thursday evening, in fact, when Mr. Schofield, observing from a window his son's pursuit of Duke round and round the backyard, confiscated the cane, with the promise that it should not remain idle if he saw Penrod limping again. Thus, succeeding a depressing Friday, another Saturday brought the necessity for new inventions.
It was a scented morning in apple-blossom time. At about ten of the clock Penrod emerged hastily from the kitchen door. His pockets bulged abnormally; so did his checks, and he swallowed with difficulty. A threatening mop, wielded by a cooklike arm in a checkered sleeve, followed him through the doorway, and he was preceded by a small, hurried, wistful dog with a warm doughnut in his mouth. The kitchen door slammed petulantly, enclosing the sore voice of Della, whereupon Penrod and Duke seated themselves upon the pleasant sward and immediately consumed the spoils of their raid.
From the cross-street which formed the side boundary of the Schofields' ample yard came a jingle of harness and the cadenced clatter of a pair of trotting horses, and Penrod, looking up, beheld the passing of a fat acquaintance, torpid amid the conservative splendours of a rather old-fashioned victoria. This was Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, a fellow sufferer at the Friday Afternoon Dancing Class, but otherwise not often a companion: a home-sheltered lad, tutored privately and preserved against the coarsening influences of rude comradeship and miscellaneous information. Heavily overgrown in all physical dimensions, virtuous, and placid, this cloistered mutton was wholly uninteresting to Penrod Schofield. Nevertheless, Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, was a personage on account of the importance of the Magsworth Bitts family; and it was Penrod's destiny to increase Roderick's celebrity far, far beyond its present aristocratic limitations.
The Magsworth Bittses were important because they were impressive; there was no other reason. And they were impressive because they believed themselves important. The adults of the family were impregnably formal; they dressed with reticent elegance, and wore the same nose and the same expression—an expression which indicated that they knew something exquisite and sacred which other people could never know. Other people, in their presence, were apt to feel mysteriously ignoble and to become secretly uneasy about ancestors, gloves, and pronunciation. The Magsworth Bitts manner was withholding and reserved, though sometimes gracious, granting small smiles as great favours and giving off a chilling kind of preciousness. Naturally, when any citizen of the community did anything unconventional or improper, or made a mistake, or had a relative who went wrong, that citizen's first and worst fear was that the Magsworth Bittses would hear of it. In fact, this painful family had for years terrorized the community, though the community had never realized that it was terrorized, and invariably spoke of the family as the “most charming circle in town.” By common consent, Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts officiated as the supreme model as well as critic-in-chief of morals and deportment for all the unlucky people prosperous enough to be elevated to her acquaintance.
Magsworth was the important part of the name. Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts was a Magsworth born, herself, and the Magsworth crest decorated not only Mrs. Magsworth Bitts' note-paper but was on the china, on the table linen, on the chimney-pieces, on the opaque glass of the front door, on the victoria, and on the harness, though omitted from the garden-hose and the lawn-mower.
Naturally, no sensible person dreamed of connecting that illustrious crest with the unfortunate and notorious Rena Magsworth whose name had grown week by week into larger and larger type upon the front pages of newspapers, owing to the gradually increasing public and official belief that she had poisoned a family of eight. However, the statement that no sensible person could have connected the Magsworth Bitts family with the arsenical Rena takes no account of Penrod Schofield.
Penrod never missed a murder, a hanging or an electrocution in the newspapers; he knew almost as much about Rena Magsworth as her jurymen did, though they sat in a court-room two hundred miles away, and he had it in mind—so frank he was—to ask Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, if the murderess happened to be a relative.
The present encounter, being merely one of apathetic greeting, did not afford the opportunity. Penrod took off his cap, and Roderick, seated between his mother and one of his grown-up sisters, nodded sluggishly, but neither Mrs. Magsworth Bitts nor her daughter acknowledged the salutation of the boy in the yard. They disapproved of him as a person of little consequence, and that little, bad. Snubbed, Penrod thoughtfully restored his cap to his head. A boy can be cut as effectually as a man, and this one was chilled to a low temperature. He wondered if they despised him because they had seen a last fragment of doughnut in his hand; then he thought that perhaps it was Duke who had disgraced him. Duke was certainly no fashionable looking dog.
The resilient spirits of youth, however, presently revived, and discovering a spider upon one knee and a beetle simultaneously upon the other, Penrod forgot Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts in the course of some experiments infringing upon the domain of Doctor Carrel. Penrod's efforts—with the aid of a pin—to effect a transference of living organism were unsuccessful; but he convinced himself forever that a spider cannot walk with a beetle's legs. Della then enhanced zoological interest by depositing upon the back porch a large rat-trap from the cellar, the prison of four live rats awaiting execution.
Penrod at once took possession, retiring to the empty stable, where he installed the rats in a small wooden box with a sheet of broken window-glass—held down by a brickbat—over the top. Thus the symptoms of their agitation, when the box was shaken or hammered upon, could be studied at leisure. Altogether this Saturday was starting splendidly.
After a time, the student's attention was withdrawn from his specimens by a peculiar smell, which, being followed up by a system of selective sniffing, proved to be an emanation leaking into the stable from the alley. He opened the back door.
Across the alley was a cottage which a thrifty neighbour had built on the rear line of his lot and rented to negroes; and the fact that a negro family was now in process of “moving in” was manifested by the presence of a thin mule and a ramshackle wagon, the latter laden with the semblance of a stove and a few other unpretentious household articles.
A very small darky boy stood near the mule. In his hand was a rusty chain, and at the end of the chain the delighted Penrod perceived the source of the special smell he was tracing—a large raccoon. Duke, who had shown not the slightest interest in the rats, set up a frantic barking and simulated a ravening assault upon the strange animal. It was only a bit of acting, however, for Duke was an old dog, had suffered much, and desired no unnecessary sorrow, wherefore he confined his demonstrations to alarums and excursions, and presently sat down at a distance and expressed himself by intermittent threatenings in a quavering falsetto.
“What's that 'coon's name?” asked Penrod, intending no discourtesy.
“Aim gommo mame,” said the small darky.
“What?”
“Aim gommo mame.”
“WHAT?”
The small darky looked annoyed.
“Aim GOMMO mame, I hell you,” he said impatiently.
Penrod conceived that insult was intended.
“What's the matter of you?” he demanded advancing. “You get fresh with ME, and I'll——”
“Hyuh, white boy!” A coloured youth of Penrod's own age appeared in the doorway of the cottage. “You let 'at brothuh mine alone. He ain' do nothin' to you.”
“Well, why can't he answer?”
“He can't. He can't talk no better'n what he WAS talkin'. He tongue-tie'.”
“Oh,” said Penrod, mollified. Then, obeying an impulse so universally aroused in the human breast under like circumstances that it has become a quip, he turned to the afflicted one.
“Talk some more,” he begged eagerly.
“I hoe you ackoom aim gommo mame,” was the prompt response, in which a slight ostentation was manifest. Unmistakable tokens of vanity had appeared upon the small, swart countenance.
“What's he mean?” asked Penrod, enchanted.
“He say he tole you 'at 'coon ain' got no name.”
“What's YOUR name?”
“I'm name Herman.”
“What's his name?” Penrod pointed to the tongue-tied boy.
“Verman.”
“What!”
“Verman. Was three us boys in ow fam'ly. Ol'est one name Sherman. 'N'en come me; I'm Herman. 'N'en come him; he Verman. Sherman dead. Verman, he de littles' one.”
“You goin' to live here?”
“Umhuh. Done move in f'm way outen on a fahm.”
He pointed to the north with his right hand, and Penrod's eyes opened wide as they followed the gesture. Herman had no forefinger on that hand.
“Look there!” exclaimed Penrod. “You haven't got any finger!”
“Imum map,” said Verman, with egregious pride.
“HE done 'at,” interpreted Herman, chuckling. “Yessuh; done chop 'er spang off, long 'go. He's a playin' wif a ax an' I lay my finguh on de do'-sill an' I say, 'Verman, chop 'er off!' So Verman he chop 'er right spang off up to de roots! Yessuh.”
“What FOR?”
“Jes' fo' nothin'.”
“He hoe me hoo,” remarked Verman.
“Yessuh, I tole him to,” said Herman, “an' he chop 'er off, an' ey ain't airy oth' one evuh grown on wheres de ole one use to grow. Nosuh!”
“But what'd you tell him to do it for?”
“Nothin'. I 'es' said it 'at way—an' he jes' chop er off!”
Both brothers looked pleased and proud. Penrod's profound interest was flatteringly visible, a tribute to their unusualness.
“Hem bow goy,” suggested Verman eagerly.
“Aw ri',” said Herman. “Ow sistuh Queenie, she a growed-up woman; she got a goituh.”
“Got a what?”
“Goituh. Swellin' on her neck—grea' big swellin'. She heppin' mammy move in now. You look in de front-room winduh wheres she sweepin'; you kin see it on her.”
Penrod looked in the window and was rewarded by a fine view of Queenie's goitre. He had never before seen one, and only the lure of further conversation on the part of Verman brought him from the window.
“Verman say tell you 'bout pappy,” explained Herman. “Mammy an' Queenie move in town an' go git de house all fix up befo' pappy git out.”
“Out of where?”
“Jail. Pappy cut a man, an' de police done kep' him in jail evuh sense Chris'mus-time; but dey goin' tuhn him loose ag'in nex' week.”
“What'd he cut the other man with?”
“Wif a pitchfawk.”
Penrod began to feel that a lifetime spent with this fascinating family were all too short. The brothers, glowing with amiability, were as enraptured as he. For the first time in their lives they moved in the rich glamour of sensationalism. Herman was prodigal of gesture with his right hand; and Verman, chuckling with delight, talked fluently, though somewhat consciously. They cheerfully agreed to keep the raccoon—already beginning to be mentioned as “our 'coon” by Penrod—in Mr. Schofield's empty stable, and, when the animal had been chained to the wall near the box of rats and supplied with a pan of fair water, they assented to their new friend's suggestion (inspired by a fine sense of the artistic harmonies) that the heretofore nameless pet be christened Sherman, in honour of their deceased relative.
At this juncture was heard from the front yard the sound of that yodelling which is the peculiar accomplishment of those whose voices have not “changed.” Penrod yodelled a response; and Mr. Samuel Williams appeared, a large bundle under his arm.
“Yay, Penrod!” was his greeting, casual enough from without; but, having entered, he stopped short and emitted a prodigious whistle. “YA-A-AY!” he then shouted. “Look at the 'coon!”
“I guess you better say, 'Look at the 'coon!'” Penrod returned proudly. “They's a good deal more'n him to look at, too. Talk some, Verman.” Verman complied.
Sam was warmly interested. “What'd you say his name was?” he asked.
“Verman.”
“How d'you spell it?”
“V-e-r-m-a-n,” replied Penrod, having previously received this information from Herman.
“Oh!” said Sam.
“Point to sumpthing, Herman,” Penrod commanded, and Sam's excitement, when Herman pointed was sufficient to the occasion.
Penrod, the discoverer, continued his exploitation of the manifold wonders of the Sherman, Herman, and Verman collection. With the air of a proprietor he escorted Sam into the alley for a good look at Queenie (who seemed not to care for her increasing celebrity) and proceeded to a dramatic climax—the recital of the episode of the pitchfork and its consequences.
The cumulative effect was enormous, and could have but one possible result. The normal boy is always at least one half Barnum.
“Let's get up a SHOW!”
Penrod and Sam both claimed to have said it first, a question left unsettled in the ecstasies of hurried preparation. The bundle under Sam's arm, brought with no definite purpose, proved to have been an inspiration. It consisted of broad sheets of light yellow wrapping-paper, discarded by Sam's mother in her spring house-cleaning. There were half-filled cans and buckets of paint in the storeroom adjoining the carriage-house, and presently the side wall of the stable flamed information upon the passer-by from a great and spreading poster.
“Publicity,” primal requisite of all theatrical and amphitheatrical enterprise thus provided, subsequent arrangements proceeded with a fury of energy which transformed the empty hayloft. True, it is impossible to say just what the hay-loft was transformed into, but history warrantably clings to the statement that it was transformed. Duke and Sherman were secured to the rear wall at a considerable distance from each other, after an exhibition of reluctance on the part of Duke, during which he displayed a nervous energy and agility almost miraculous in so small and middle-aged a dog. Benches were improvised for spectators; the rats were brought up; finally the rafters, corn-crib, and hay-chute were ornamented with flags and strips of bunting from Sam Williams' attic, Sam returning from the excursion wearing an old silk hat, and accompanied (on account of a rope) by a fine dachshund encountered on the highway. In the matter of personal decoration paint was generously used: an interpretation of the spiral, inclining to whites and greens, becoming brilliantly effective upon the dark facial backgrounds of Herman and Verman; while the countenances of Sam and Penrod were each supplied with the black moustache and imperial, lacking which, no professional showman can be esteemed conscientious.
It was regretfully decided, in council, that no attempt be made to add Queenie to the list of exhibits, her brothers warmly declining to act as ambassadors in that cause. They were certain Queenie would not like the idea, they said, and Herman picturesquely described her activity on occasions when she had been annoyed by too much attention to her appearance. However, Penrod's disappointment was alleviated by an inspiration which came to him in a moment of pondering upon the dachshund, and the entire party went forth to add an enriching line to the poster.
They found a group of seven, including two adults, already gathered in the street to read and admire this work.
A heated argument took place between Sam and Penrod, the point at issue being settled, finally, by the drawing of straws; whereupon Penrod, with pardonable self-importance—in the presence of an audience now increased to nine—slowly painted the words inspired by the dachshund:
Sam, Penrod, Herman, and Verman withdrew in considerable state from non-paying view, and, repairing to the hay-loft, declared the exhibition open to the public. Oral proclamation was made by Sam, and then the loitering multitude was enticed by the seductive strains of a band; the two partners performing upon combs and paper, Herman and Verman upon tin pans with sticks.
The effect was immediate. Visitors appeared upon the stairway and sought admission. Herman and Verman took position among the exhibits, near the wall; Sam stood at the entrance, officiating as barker and ticket-seller; while Penrod, with debonair suavity, acted as curator, master of ceremonies, and lecturer. He greeted the first to enter with a courtly bow. They consisted of Miss Rennsdale and her nursery governess, and they paid spot cash for their admission.
“Walk in, lay-deeze, walk right in—pray do not obstruck the passageway,” said Penrod, in a remarkable voice. “Pray be seated; there is room for each and all.”
Miss Rennsdale and governess were followed by Mr. Georgie Bassett and baby sister (which proves the perfection of Georgie's character) and six or seven other neighbourhood children—a most satisfactory audience, although, subsequent to Miss Rennsdale and governess, admission was wholly by pin.
“GEN-til-mun and LAY-deeze,” shouted Penrod, “I will first call your at-tain-shon to our genuine South American dog, part alligator!” He pointed to the dachshund, and added, in his ordinary tone, “That's him.” Straightway reassuming the character of showman, he bellowed: “NEXT, you see Duke, the genuine, full-blooded Indian dog from the far Western Plains and Rocky Mountains. NEXT, the trained Michigan rats, captured way up there, and trained to jump and run all around the box at the—at the—at the slightest PRE-text!” He paused, partly to take breath and partly to enjoy his own surprised discovery that this phrase was in his vocabulary.
“At the slightest PRE-text!” he repeated, and continued, suiting the action to the word: “I will now hammer upon the box and each and all may see these genuine full-blooded Michigan rats perform at the slightest PRE-text! There! (That's all they do now, but I and Sam are goin' to train 'em lots more before this afternoon.) GEN-til-mun and LAY-deeze I will kindly now call your at-tain-shon to Sherman, the wild animal from Africa, costing the lives of the wild trapper and many of his companions. NEXT, let me kindly interodoos Herman and Verman. Their father got mad and stuck his pitchfork right inside of another man, exactly as promised upon the advertisements outside the big tent, and got put in jail. Look at them well, gen-til-mun and lay-deeze, there is no extra charge, and RE-MEM-BUR you are each and all now looking at two wild, tattooed men which the father of is in jail. Point, Herman. Each and all will have a chance to see. Point to sumpthing else, Herman. This is the only genuine one-fingered tattooed wild man. Last on the programme, gen-til-mun and lay-deeze, we have Verman, the savage tattooed wild boy, that can't speak only his native foreign languages. Talk some, Verman.”
Verman obliged and made an instantaneous hit. He was encored rapturously, again and again; and, thrilling with the unique pleasure of being appreciated and misunderstood at the same time, would have talked all day but too gladly. Sam Williams, however, with a true showman's foresight, whispered to Penrod, who rang down on the monologue.
“GEN-til-mun and LAY-deeze, this closes our pufformance. Pray pass out quietly and with as little jostling as possible. As soon as you are all out there's goin' to be a new pufformance, and each and all are welcome at the same and simple price of admission. Pray pass out quietly and with as little jostling as possible. RE-MEM-BUR the price is only one cent, the tenth part of a dime, or twenty pins, no bent ones taken. Pray pass out quietly and with as little jostling as possible. The Schofield and Williams Military Band will play before each pufformance, and each and all are welcome for the same and simple price of admission. Pray pass out quietly and with as little jostling as possible.”
Forthwith, the Schofield and Williams Military Band began a second overture, in which something vaguely like a tune was at times distinguishable; and all of the first audience returned, most of them having occupied the interval in hasty excursions for more pins; Miss Rennsdale and governess, however, again paying coin of the Republic and receiving deference and the best seats accordingly. And when a third performance found all of the same inveterate patrons once more crowding the auditorium, and seven recruits added, the pleasurable excitement of the partners in their venture will be understood by any one who has seen a metropolitan manager strolling about the foyer of his theatre some evening during the earlier stages of an assured “phenomenal run.”
From the first, there was no question which feature of the entertainment was the attraction extraordinary: Verman—Verman, the savage tattooed wild boy, speaking only his native foreign languages—Verman was a triumph! Beaming, wreathed in smiles, melodious, incredibly fluent, he had but to open his lips and a dead hush fell upon the audience. Breathless, they leaned forward, hanging upon his every semi-syllable, and, when Penrod checked the flow, burst into thunders of applause, which Verman received with happy laughter.
Alas! he delayed not o'er long to display all the egregiousness of a new star; but for a time there was no caprice of his too eccentric to be forgiven. During Penrod's lecture upon the other curios, the tattooed wild boy continually stamped his foot, grinned, and gesticulated, tapping his tiny chest, and pointing to himself as it were to say: “Wait for Me! I am the Big Show.” So soon they learn; so soon they learn! And (again alas!) this spoiled darling of public favour, like many another, was fated to know, in good time, the fickleness of that favour.
But during all the morning performances he was the idol of his audience and looked it! The climax of his popularity came during the fifth overture of the Schofield and Williams Military Band, when the music was quite drowned in the agitated clamours of Miss Rennsdale, who was endeavouring to ascend the stairs in spite of the physical dissuasion of her governess.
“I WON'T go home to lunch!” screamed Miss Rennsdale, her voice accompanied by a sound of ripping. “I WILL hear the tattooed wild boy talk some more! It's lovely—I WILL hear him talk! I WILL! I WILL! I want to listen to Verman—I WANT to—I WANT to——”
Wailing, she was borne away—of her sex not the first to be fascinated by obscurity, nor the last to champion its eloquence.
Verman was almost unendurable after this, but, like many, many other managers, Schofield and Williams restrained their choler, and even laughed fulsomely when their principal attraction essayed the role of a comedian in private, and capered and squawked in sheer, fatuous vanity.
The first performance of the afternoon rivalled the successes of the morning, and although Miss Rennsdale was detained at home, thus drying up the single source of cash income developed before lunch, Maurice Levy appeared, escorting Marjorie Jones, and paid coin for two admissions, dropping the money into Sam's hand with a careless—nay, a contemptuous—gesture. At sight of Marjorie, Penrod Schofield flushed under his new moustache (repainted since noon) and lectured as he had never lectured before. A new grace invested his every gesture; a new sonorousness rang in his voice; a simple and manly pomposity marked his very walk as he passed from curio to curio. And when he fearlessly handled the box of rats and hammered upon it with cool insouciance, he beheld—for the first time in his life—a purl of admiration eddying in Marjorie's lovely eye, a certain softening of that eye. And then Verman spake and Penrod was forgotten. Marjorie's eye rested upon him no more.
A heavily equipped chauffeur ascended the stairway, bearing the message that Mrs. Levy awaited her son and his lady. Thereupon, having devoured the last sound permitted (by the managers) to issue from Verman, Mr. Levy and Miss Jones departed to a real matinee at a real theatre, the limpid eyes of Marjorie looking back softly over her shoulder—but only at the tattooed wild boy. Nearly always it is woman who puts the irony into life.
After this, perhaps because of sated curiosity, perhaps on account of a pin famine, the attendance began to languish. Only four responded to the next call of the band; the four dwindled to three; finally the entertainment was given for one blase auditor, and Schofield and Williams looked depressed. Then followed an interval when the band played in vain.
About three o'clock Schofield and Williams were gloomily discussing various unpromising devices for startling the public into a renewal of interest, when another patron unexpectedly appeared and paid a cent for his admission. News of the Big Show and Museum of Curiosities had at last penetrated the far, cold spaces of interstellar niceness, for this new patron consisted of no less than Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, escaped in a white “sailor suit” from the Manor during a period of severe maternal and tutorial preoccupation.
He seated himself without parley, and the pufformance was offered for his entertainment with admirable conscientiousness. True to the Lady Clara caste and training, Roderick's pale, fat face expressed nothing except an impervious superiority and, as he sat, cold and unimpressed upon the front bench, like a large, white lump, it must be said that he made a discouraging audience “to play to.” He was not, however, unresponsive—far from it. He offered comment very chilling to the warm grandiloquence of the orator.
“That's my uncle Ethelbert's dachshund,” he remarked, at the beginning of the lecture. “You better take him back if you don't want to get arrested.” And when Penrod, rather uneasily ignoring the interruption, proceeded to the exploitation of the genuine, full-blooded Indian dog, Duke, “Why don't you try to give that old dog away?” asked Roderick. “You couldn't sell him.”
“My papa would buy me a lots better 'coon than that,” was the information volunteered a little later, “only I wouldn't want the nasty old thing.”
Herman of the missing finger obtained no greater indulgence. “Pooh!” said Roderick. “We have two fox-terriers in our stables that took prizes at the kennel show, and their tails were BIT off. There's a man that always bites fox-terriers' tails off.”
“Oh, my gosh, what a lie!” exclaimed Sam Williams ignorantly.
“Go on with the show whether he likes it or not, Penrod. He's paid his money.”
Verman, confident in his own singular powers, chuckled openly at the failure of the other attractions to charm the frosty visitor, and, when his turn came, poured forth a torrent of conversation which was straightway damned.
“Rotten,” said Mr. Bitts languidly. “Anybody could talk like that.Icould do it if I wanted to.”
Verman paused suddenly.
“YES, you could!” exclaimed Penrod, stung. “Let's hear you do it, then.”
“Yessir!” the other partner shouted. “Let's just hear you DO it!”
“I said I could if I wanted to,” responded Roderick. “I didn't say I WOULD.”
“Yay! Knows he can't!” sneered Sam.
“I can, too, if I try.”
“Well, let's hear you try!”
So challenged, the visitor did try, but, in the absence of an impartial jury, his effort was considered so pronounced a failure that he was howled down, derided, and mocked with great clamours.
“Anyway,” said Roderick, when things had quieted down, “if I couldn't get up a better show than this I'd sell out and leave town.”
Not having enough presence of mind to inquire what he would sell out, his adversaries replied with mere formless yells of scorn.
“I could get up a better show than this with my left hand,” Roderick asserted.
“Well, what would you have in your ole show?” asked Penrod, condescending to language.
“That's all right, what I'd HAVE. I'd have enough!”
“You couldn't get Herman and Verman in your ole show.”
“No, and I wouldn't want 'em, either!”
“Well, what WOULD you have?” insisted Penrod derisively. “You'd have to have SUMPTHING—you couldn't be a show yourself!”
“How do YOU know?” This was but meandering while waiting for ideas, and evoked another yell.
“You think you could be a show all by yourself?” demanded Penrod.
“How do YOU know I couldn't?”
Two white boys and two black boys shrieked their scorn of the boaster.
“I could, too!” Roderick raised his voice to a sudden howl, obtaining a hearing.
“Well, why don't you tell us how?”
“Well,Iknow HOW, all right,” said Roderick. “If anybody asks you, you can just tell him I know HOW, all right.”
“Why, you can't DO anything,” Sam began argumentatively. “You talk about being a show all by yourself; what could you try to do? Show us sumpthing you can do.”
“I didn't say I was going to DO anything,” returned the badgered one, still evading.
“Well, then, how'd you BE a show?” Penrod demanded. “WE got a show here, even if Herman didn't point or Verman didn't talk. Their father stabbed a man with a pitchfork, I guess, didn't he?”
“How doIknow?”
“Well, I guess he's in jail, ain't he?”
“Well, what if their father is in jail? I didn't say he wasn't, did I?”
“Well, YOUR father ain't in jail, is he?”
“Well, I never said he was, did I?”
“Well, then,” continued Penrod, “how could you be a——” He stopped abruptly, staring at Roderick, the birth of an idea plainly visible in his altered expression. He had suddenly remembered his intention to ask Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, about Rena Magsworth, and this recollection collided in his mind with the irritation produced by Roderick's claiming some mysterious attainment which would warrant his setting up as a show in his single person. Penrod's whole manner changed instantly.
“Roddy,” he asked, almost overwhelmed by a prescience of something vast and magnificent, “Roddy, are you any relation of Rena Magsworth?”
Roderick had never heard of Rena Magsworth, although a concentration of the sentence yesterday pronounced upon her had burned, black and horrific, upon the face of every newspaper in the country. He was not allowed to read the journals of the day and his family's indignation over the sacrilegious coincidence of the name had not been expressed in his presence. But he saw that it was an awesome name to Penrod Schofield and Samuel Williams. Even Herman and Verman, though lacking many educational advantages on account of a long residence in the country, were informed on the subject of Rena Magsworth through hearsay, and they joined in the portentous silence.
“Roddy,” repeated Penrod, “honest, is Rena Magsworth some relation of yours?”
There is no obsession more dangerous to its victims than a conviction especially an inherited one—of superiority: this world is so full of Missourians. And from his earliest years Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, had been trained to believe in the importance of the Magsworth family. At every meal he absorbed a sense of Magsworth greatness, and yet, in his infrequent meetings with persons of his own age and sex, he was treated as negligible. Now, dimly, he perceived that there was a Magsworth claim of some sort which was impressive, even to boys. Magsworth blood was the essential of all true distinction in the world, he knew. Consequently, having been driven into a cul-de-sac, as a result of flagrant and unfounded boasting, he was ready to take advantage of what appeared to be a triumphal way out.
“Roddy,” said Penrod again, with solemnity, “is Rena Magsworth some relation of yours?”
“IS she, Roddy?” asked Sam, almost hoarsely.
“She's my aunt!” shouted Roddy.
Silence followed. Sam and Penrod, spellbound, gazed upon Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior. So did Herman and Verman. Roddy's staggering lie had changed the face of things utterly. No one questioned it; no one realized that it was much too good to be true.
“Roddy,” said Penrod, in a voice tremulous with hope, “Roddy, will you join our show?”
Roddy joined.
Even he could see that the offer implied his being starred as the paramount attraction of a new order of things. It was obvious that he had swelled out suddenly, in the estimation of the other boys, to that importance which he had been taught to believe his native gift and natural right. The sensation was pleasant. He had often been treated with effusion by grown-up callers and by acquaintances of his mothers and sisters; he had heard ladies speak of him as “charming” and “that delightful child,” and little girls had sometimes shown him deference, but until this moment no boy had ever allowed him, for one moment, to presume even to equality. Now, in a trice, he was not only admitted to comradeship, but patently valued as something rare and sacred to be acclaimed and pedestalled. In fact, the very first thing that Schofield and Williams did was to find a box for him to stand upon.
The misgivings roused in Roderick's bosom by the subsequent activities of the firm were not bothersome enough to make him forego his prominence as Exhibit A. He was not a “quick-minded” boy, and it was long (and much happened) before he thoroughly comprehended the causes of his new celebrity. He had a shadowy feeling that if the affair came to be heard of at home it might not be liked, but, intoxicated by the glamour and bustle which surround a public character, he made no protest. On the contrary, he entered whole-heartedly into the preparations for the new show. Assuming, with Sam's assistance, a blue moustache and “side-burns,” he helped in the painting of a new poster, which, supplanting the old one on the wall of the stable facing the cross-street, screamed bloody murder at the passers in that rather populous thoroughfare.
Megaphones were constructed out of heavy wrapping-paper, and Penrod, Sam, and Herman set out in different directions, delivering vocally the inflammatory proclamation of the poster to a large section of the residential quarter, and leaving Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, with Verman in the loft, shielded from all deadhead eyes. Upon the return of the heralds, the Schofield and Williams Military Band played deafeningly, and an awakened public once more thronged to fill the coffers of the firm.
Prosperity smiled again. The very first audience after the acquisition of Roderick was larger than the largest of the morning. Master Bitts—the only exhibit placed upon a box—was a supercurio. All eyes fastened upon him and remained, hungrily feasting, throughout Penrod's luminous oration.
But the glory of one light must ever be the dimming of another. We dwell in a vale of seesaws—and cobwebs spin fastest upon laurel. Verman, the tattooed wild boy, speaking only in his native foreign languages, Verman the gay, Verman the caperer, capered no more; he chuckled no more, he beckoned no more, nor tapped his chest, nor wreathed his idolatrous face in smiles. Gone, all gone, were his little artifices for attracting the general attention to himself; gone was every engaging mannerism which had endeared him to the mercurial public. He squatted against the wall and glowered at the new sensation. It was the old story—the old, old story of too much temperament: Verman was suffering from artistic jealousy.
The second audience contained a cash-paying adult, a spectacled young man whose poignant attention was very flattering. He remained after the lecture, and put a few questions to Roddy, which were answered rather confusedly upon promptings from Penrod. The young man went away without having stated the object of his interrogations, but it became quite plain, later in the day. This same object caused the spectacled young man to make several brief but stimulating calls directly after leaving the Schofield and Williams Big Show, and the consequences thereof loitered not by the wayside.
The Big Show was at high tide. Not only was the auditorium filled and throbbing; there was an indubitable line—by no means wholly juvenile—waiting for admission to the next pufformance. A group stood in the street examining the poster earnestly as it glowed in the long, slanting rays of the westward sun, and people in automobiles and other vehicles had halted wheel in the street to read the message so piquantly given to the world. These were the conditions when a crested victoria arrived at a gallop, and a large, chastely magnificent and highly flushed woman descended, and progressed across the yard with an air of violence.
At sight of her, the adults of the waiting line hastily disappeared, and most of the pausing vehicles moved instantly on their way. She was followed by a stricken man in livery.
The stairs to the auditorium were narrow and steep; Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts was of a stout favour; and the voice of Penrod was audible during the ascent.
“RE-MEM-BUR, gentilmun and lay-deeze, each and all are now gazing upon Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior, the only living nephew of the great Rena Magsworth. She stuck ars'nic in the milk of eight separate and distinck people to put in their coffee and each and all of 'em died. The great ars'nic murderess, Rena Magsworth, gentilmun and lay-deeze, and Roddy's her only living nephew. She's a relation of all the Bitts family, but he's her one and only living nephew. RE-MEM-BUR! Next July she's goin' to be hung, and, each and all, you now see before you——”
Penrod paused abruptly, seeing something before himself—the august and awful presence which filled the entryway. And his words (it should be related) froze upon his lips.
Before HERSELF, Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts saw her son—her scion—wearing a moustache and sideburns of blue, and perched upon a box flanked by Sherman and Verman, the Michigan rats, the Indian dog Duke, Herman, and the dog part alligator.
Roddy, also, saw something before himself. It needed no prophet to read the countenance of the dread apparition in the entryway. His mouth opened—remained open—then filled to capacity with a calamitous sound of grief not unmingled with apprehension.
Penrod's reason staggered under the crisis. For a horrible moment he saw Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts approaching like some fatal mountain in avalanche. She seemed to grow larger and redder; lightnings played about her head; he had a vague consciousness of the audience spraying out in flight, of the squealings, tramplings and dispersals of a stricken field. The mountain was close upon him——
He stood by the open mouth of the hay-chute which went through the floor to the manger below. Penrod also went through the floor. He propelled himself into the chute and shot down, but not quite to the manger, for Mr. Samuel Williams had thoughtfully stepped into the chute a moment in advance of his partner. Penrod lit upon Sam.
Catastrophic noises resounded in the loft; volcanoes seemed to romp upon the stairway.
There ensued a period when only a shrill keening marked the passing of Roderick as he was borne to the tumbril. Then all was silence.
. . . Sunset, striking through a western window, rouged the walls of the Schofields' library, where gathered a joint family council and court martial of four—Mrs. Schofield, Mr. Schofield, and Mr. and Mrs. Williams, parents of Samuel of that ilk. Mr. Williams read aloud a conspicuous passage from the last edition of the evening paper:
“Prominent people here believed close relations of woman sentenced to hang. Angry denial by Mrs. R. Magsworth Bitts. Relationship admitted by younger member of family. His statement confirmed by boy-friends——”
“Don't!” said Mrs. Williams, addressing her husband vehemently. “We've all read it a dozen times. We've got plenty of trouble on our hands without hearing THAT again!”
Singularly enough, Mrs. Williams did not look troubled; she looked as if she were trying to look troubled. Mrs. Schofield wore a similar expression. So did Mr. Schofield. So did Mr. Williams.
“What did she say when she called YOU up?” Mrs. Schofield inquired breathlessly of Mrs. Williams.
“She could hardly speak at first, and then when she did talk, she talked so fast I couldn't understand most of it, and——”
“It was just the same when she tried to talk to me,” said Mrs. Schofield, nodding.
“I never did hear any one in such a state before,” continued Mrs. Williams. “So furious——”
“Quite justly, of course,” said Mrs. Schofield.
“Of course. And she said Penrod and Sam had enticed Roderick away from home—usually he's not allowed to go outside the yard except with his tutor or a servant—and had told him to say that horrible creature was his aunt——”
“How in the world do you suppose Sam and Penrod ever thought of such a thing as THAT!” exclaimed Mrs. Schofield. “It must have been made up just for their 'show.' Della says there were just STREAMS going in and out all day. Of course it wouldn't have happened, but this was the day Margaret and I spend every month in the country with Aunt Sarah, and I didn't DREAM——”
“She said one thing I thought rather tactless,” interrupted Mrs. Williams. “Of course we must allow for her being dreadfully excited and wrought up, but I do think it wasn't quite delicate in her, and she's usually the very soul of delicacy. She said that Roderick had NEVER been allowed to associate with—common boys——”
“Meaning Sam and Penrod,” said Mrs. Schofield. “Yes, she said that to me, too.”
“She said that the most awful thing about it,” Mrs. Williams went on, “was that, though she's going to prosecute the newspapers, many people would always believe the story, and——”
“Yes, I imagine they will,” said Mrs. Schofield musingly. “Of course you and I and everybody who really knows the Bitts and Magsworth families understand the perfect absurdity of it; but I suppose there are ever so many who'll believe it, no matter what the Bittses and Magsworths say.”
“Hundreds and hundreds!” said Mrs. Williams. “I'm afraid it will be a great come-down for them.”
“I'm afraid so,” said Mrs. Schofield gently. “A very great one—yes, a very, very great one.”
“Well,” observed Mrs. Williams, after a thoughtful pause, “there's only one thing to be done, and I suppose it had better be done right away.”
She glanced toward the two gentlemen.
“Certainly,” Mr. Schofield agreed. “But where ARE they?”
“Have you looked in the stable?” asked his wife.
“I searched it. They've probably started for the far West.”
“Did you look in the sawdust-box?”
“No, I didn't.”
“Then that's where they are.”
Thus, in the early twilight, the now historic stable was approached by two fathers charged to do the only thing to be done. They entered the storeroom.
“Penrod!” said Mr. Schofield.
“Sam!” said Mr. Williams.
Nothing disturbed the twilight hush.
But by means of a ladder, brought from the carriage-house, Mr. Schofield mounted to the top of the sawdust-box. He looked within, and discerned the dim outlines of three quiet figures, the third being that of a small dog.
The two boys rose, upon command, descended the ladder after Mr. Schofield, bringing Duke with them, and stood before the authors of their being, who bent upon them sinister and threatening brows. With hanging heads and despondent countenances, each still ornamented with a moustache and an imperial, Penrod and Sam awaited sentence.
This is a boy's lot: anything he does, anything whatever, may afterward turn out to have been a crime—he never knows.
And punishment and clemency are alike inexplicable.
Mr. Williams took his son by the ear.
“You march home!” he commanded.
Sam marched, not looking back, and his father followed the small figure implacably.
“You goin' to whip me?” quavered Penrod, alone with Justice.
“Wash your face at that hydrant,” said his father sternly.
About fifteen minutes later, Penrod, hurriedly entering the corner drug store, two blocks distant, was astonished to perceive a familiar form at the soda counter.
“Yay, Penrod,” said Sam Williams. “Want some sody? Come on. He didn't lick me. He didn't do anything to me at all. He gave me a quarter.”
“So'd mine,” said Penrod.