Booth Tarkington

“ They entered the house, silently, encountering no one, and Sam led the way upstairs, tiptoeing, implying unusual and increasing peril. Turning, in the upper hall, they went into Sam's father's bedroom, and Sam closed the door with a caution so genuine that already Penrod's eyes began to fulfil his host's prediction. Adventures in another boy's house are trying to the nerves; and another boy's father's bedroom, when invaded, has a violated sanctity that is almost appalling. Penrod felt that something was about to happen—something much more important than he had anticipated. ”

“ It's good for you. Good-night.”
“G'-night!”
The door closed softly behind her, and the body of Penrod, from the hips upward, rose invisibly in the complete darkness of the bedchamber. A moment later the hot-water bag reached the floor in as noiseless a manner as that previously adopted by the remains of the little pill, and Penrod once more bespread his soul with poppies. This time he slept until the breakfast-bell rang.
He was late to school, and at once found himself in difficulties. Government demanded an explanation of the tardiness; but Penrod made no reply of any kind. ”

“ It is, indeed, no easy matter to chat easily with a person, however lovely and beloved, who keeps her face turned the other way, maintains one foot in rapid and continuous motion through an arc seemingly perilous to her equilibrium, and confines her responses, both affirmative and negative, to “Uh-huh.”
Altogether, Sam was sufficiently nervous without any help from Penrod, and it was with pure horror that he heard his own name and Mabel's shrieked upon the ambient air with viperish insinuation. ”

“ His comrade impulsively joined him upon the ground, and the battle continued.
Through the gathering dusk it went on. It waged but the hotter as darkness made aim more difficult—and still Penrod would not be driven from the field. Panting, grunting, hoarse from returning insults, fighting on and on, an indistinguishable figure in the gloom, he held the back alley against all comers.
For such a combat darkness has one great advantage; but it has an equally important disadvantage—the combatant cannot see to aim; on the other hand, he cannot see to dodge. ”

“ How cold, how niggardly, to state merely that Penrod and the painted Verman succeeded in giving the long, black snake a motive power, or tractor, apparently its own but consisting of Mrs. Williams's cat!
She was drowsy when they lifted her from the box; she was still drowsy when they introduced part of her into the orifice of the stocking; but she woke to full, vigorous young life when she perceived that their purpose was for her to descend into the black depths of that stocking head first. ”

“ Nor was music the root of it, for the identical desire is often uproarious among them that hate music. What stirred in Penrod was new neither in him nor in the world, but old—old as old Adam, old as the childishness of man. All children have it, of course: they are all anxious to Make a Noise in the World.
While the band approached, Penrod marked the time with his feet; then he fell into step and accompanied the musicians down the street, keeping as near as possible to the little man with the big horn. ”

“ Penrod went home.
“Well,” Mrs. Schofield said, having almost exhausted a mother's powers of suggestion, “well, why don't you give Duke a bath?” She was that far depleted when Penrod came to her the third time.
Mothers' suggestions are wonderful for little children but sometimes lack lustre when a boy approaches twelve an age to which the ideas of a Swede farm-hand would usually prove more congenial. However, the dim and melancholy eye of Penrod showed a pale gleam, and he departed. He gave Duke a bath. ”

“ The aged horse nervously withdrew his head, turned tail, and made a rickety flight up the alley, while Sam and Penrod, perfectly obedient to inherited impulse, ran out into the drizzle and uproariously pursued. ”

“ The effect of music, too, upon children is incalculable, especially when they do not hear it often—and both a snare-drum and a bass drum were in the expensive orchestra at the Rennsdale party.
Nevertheless, the outlawry at any party may remain incipient unless a chieftain appears; but in Penrod's corner were now gathering into one anarchical mood all the necessary qualifications for leadership. Out of that bitter corner there stepped, not a Penrod Schofield subdued and hoping to win the lost favour of the Authorities, but a hot-hearted rebel determined on an uprising. ”

“ Gipsy possessed a vocabulary for cat-swearing certainly second to none out of Italy, and probably equal to the best there, while Duke remembered and uttered things he had not thought of for years.
The hum of the carpenter shop ceased, and Sam Williams appeared in the stable doorway. He stared insanely.
“My gorry!” he shouted. “Duke's havin' a fight with the biggest cat you ever saw in your life! C'mon!”
His feet were already in motion toward the battlefield, with Penrod and Herman hurrying in his wake. ”

“ Then, as he proceeded up the alley, a hated cry smote his ears: “Hi, Penrod! How's your tree-mores?” And two jovial schoolboy faces appeared above a high board fence. “How's your beautiful hair, Penrod?” they vociferated. “When you goin' to git your parents' consent? What makes you think you're only pretty, ole blue stars?”
Penrod looked about feverishly for a missile, and could find none to his hand, but the surface of the alley sufficed; he made mud balls and fiercely bombarded the vociferous fence. ”

“ Sam muttered something; he was becoming more insurgent every moment, but he obeyed. Likewise, Verman rose to his feet, ducked his head between his shoulders, and trotted out to the sidewalk at Sam's heels, both following Penrod and assuming a stooping position in imitation of him. Verman was delighted with this phase of the game, and, also, he was profoundly amused by Penrod's pomposity. Something dim and deep within him perceived it to be cause for such merriment that he had ado to master himself, and was forced to bottle and cork his laughter with both hands. They proved insufficient ”

“ A boy tastes things much more than grown people taste them: what is merely unpleasant to a man is sheer broth of hell to a boy. Therefore, not knowing what might be encountered, Penrod continued to be reluctant.
“Penrod,” his mother exclaimed, losing patience, “I'll call your papa to make you take it, if you don't swallow it right down! Open your mouth, Penrod! It isn't going to taste bad at all. Open your mouth—THERE!”
The reluctant jaw relaxed at last, and Mrs. Schofield dexterously elevated the handle of the spoon so that the brown liquor was deposited within her son. ”

“ After one glance at great-uncle Slocum, Penrod did not linger to attempt any explanation—there are times when even a boy can see that apologies would seem out of place. Penrod ran round the house to the backyard.
Here he was enthusiastically greeted by Duke. “You get away from me!” Penrod said hoarsely, and with terrible gestures he repulsed the faithful animal, who retired philosophically to the stable, while his master let himself out of the back gate. Penrod had decided to absent himself from home for the time being. ”

“ He sees the future too sweepingly and too much as he would have it seldom providing against inconsistencies of evidence that may damage him. For instance, there is a well-known case of two brothers who exhibited to their parents, with pathetic confidence, several imported dried herring on a string, as a proof that the afternoon had been spent, not at a forbidden circus, but with hook and line upon the banks of a neighbouring brook.
So with Penrod. He had vital need of a letter, and there before his eyes, upon Margaret's desk, was apparently the precise thing he needed! ”

“ Penrod said, “Papa said he wouldn't taken five hunderd dollars for him. That's how much HORSES are worth!”
“My gracious!” Sam exclaimed. Then he had a practical afterthought. “But maybe he was a better horse than this'n. What colour was he?”
“He was bay. Looky here, Sam”—and now Penrod's manner changed from the superior to the eager—“you look what kind of horses they have in a circus, and you bet a circus has the BEST horses, don't it? Well, what kind of horses do they have in a circus? They have some black and white ones; but the best they have are white all over. ”

“ Each made the plain statement that if he were more deficient than his opponent in that regard, self-destruction would be his only refuge. Each declared that he would “rather die than be talked to death”; and then, as the two approached a point bluntly recriminative, Whitey coughed again, whereupon they were miraculously silent, and went into the passageway in a perfectly amiable manner.
“I got to have a good look at him, for once,” Penrod said, as he stared frowningly at Whitey. “We got to fix up about that reward.”
“I want to take a good ole look at him myself,” Sam said. ”

“ Miss Rennsdale said, “never saw a more fascinating little boy than that Carlie Chitten. There'll be some heartaches when he grows up; I can't keep my eyes off him.”
“Yes; he's a charming boy,” Miss Lowe said. “His manners are remarkable.”
“He's a little man of the world,” the enthusiastic Miss Rennsdale went on, “very different from such boys as Penrod Schofield!”
“Oh, PENROD!” Miss Lowe exclaimed. “Good gracious!” ”

“ He blew and blew and blew; he set his lips tight together, as he had observed the little musician with the big horn set his, and blew and sputtered, and sputtered and blew, but nothing of the slightest importance happened in the orifice of the funnel. Still he blew. He began to be dizzy; his eyes watered; his expression became as horrible as a strangled person's. He but blew the more. He stamped his feet and blew. He staggered to the wheelbarrow, sat, and blew—and yet the funnel uttered nothing; it seemed merely to breathe hard. ”

“ Early childhood is not fastidious about the accessories of its drama—a cane is vividly a gun which may instantly, as vividly, become a horse; but at Penrod's time of life the lath sword is no longer satisfactory. ”

“ He was a handsome, dark little boy, with quick eyes and a precociously reserved expression; his air was “well-bred”; he was exquisitely neat, and he had a look of manly competence that grown people found attractive and reassuring. In short, he was a boy of whom a timid adult stranger would have inquired the way with confidence. And yet Sam and Penrod had mysterious thoughts about him—obviously there was something subterranean here. ”

“ They closed the door, however, and, as other boys rushed, shouting and splashing, into the flooded dressing-room, Carlie began to hammer upon the panels. Then the owners of shoes, striving to rescue them from the increasing waters, made discoveries.
The most dangerous time to give a large children's party is when there has not been one for a long period. The Rennsdale party had that misfortune, and its climax was the complete and convulsive madness of the gentlemen's dressing-room during those final moments supposed to be given to quiet preparations, on the part of guests, for departure. ”

“ Three or four years earlier, when Penrod was seven or eight, he would have shouted “Bing!” at the top of his voice; he would have galloped openly; all the world might have seen that he bestrode a charger. But a change had come upon him with advancing years. Although the grown people in sight were indeed to him as walking trees, his dramas were accomplished principally by suggestion and symbol. His “Whoas” and “Bings” were delivered in a husky whisper, and his equestrianism was established by action mostly of the mind, the accompanying artistry of the feet being unintelligible to the passerby. ”

“ Penrod called, raising his voice to the utmost. “Back for your lives. The PA-A-ANTHER! Now I'm takin' his pitcher. Click, click! Shoot, men; shoot!”
“Bing! Bing!” shouted Sam, levelling his gun at the cage, while Herman and Verman hammered upon it, and Gipsy cursed boys, the world and the day he was born. “Bing! Bing! Bing!”
“You missed him!” screamed Penrod. “Give me that gun!” And snatching it from Sam's unwilling hand, he levelled it at the cage. ”

“ Sam rose and joined his friend in the doorway opening upon the two stalls. Whitey had preempted the nearer, and was hungrily nuzzling the old frayed hollows in the manger.
“Maybe a hunderd dollars—or sumpthing?” Sam asked in a low voice.
Penrod maintained his composure and repeated the newfound expression that had sounded well to him a moment before. He recognized it as a symbol of the non—committal attitude that makes people looked up to. “Well”—he made it slow, and frowned—“we might get more and we might get less.”
“More'n a hunderd DOLLARS?” Sam gasped. ”

“ Sam objected.
Penrod laughed a superior laugh.
“Oh, that's nothin',” he said, with the slight swagger of young and conscious genius. “Of course, I had to slip in and shake her up sometimes, so's they wouldn't notice.”
“But what did you put in it to make it look like that?”
Penrod, upon the point of replying, happened to glance toward the house. His gaze, lifting, rested for a moment upon a window. The head of Mrs. Schofield was framed in that window. She nodded gayly to her son. She could see him plainly, and she thought that he seemed perfectly healthy, and as happy as a boy could be. ”

“ No wonder he felt discouraged: there are times when eighty-five dollars can be a blow to anybody! Penrod was so stunned that he actually forgot what was in his pocket. He passed two drug stores, and they had absolutely no meaning to him. He walked all the way without spending a cent.
At home he spent a moment in the kitchen pantry while the cook was in the cellar; then he went out to the stable and began some really pathetic experiments. His materials were the small tin funnel which he had obtained in the pantry, and a short section of old garden hose. ”