Penrod

by Booth Tarkington

  CHAPTER XXV TAR

  When Marjorie and Mitchy-Mitch got their breath, they used it vocally;and seldom have more penetrating sounds issued from human throats.Coincidentally, Marjorie, quite baresark, laid hands upon the largeststick within reach and fell upon Penrod with blind fury. He had thepresence of mind to flee, and they went round and round the caldron,while Mitchy-Mitch feebly endeavoured to follow--his appearance, inthis pursuit, being pathetically like that of a bug fished out of anink-well, alive but discouraged.

  Attracted by the riot, Samuel Williams made his appearance, vaulting afence, and was immediately followed by Maurice Levy and Georgie Bassett.They stared incredulously at the extraordinary spectacle before them.

  "Little GEN-TIL-MUN!" shrieked Marjorie, with a wild stroke that landedfull upon Penrod's tarry cap.

  "OOOCH!" bleated Penrod.

  "It's Penrod!" shouted Sam Williams, recognizing him by the voice. Foran instant he had been in some doubt.

  "Penrod Schofield!" exclaimed Georgie Bassett. "WHAT does this mean?"That was Georgie's style, and had helped to win him his title.

  Marjorie leaned, panting, upon her stick. "I cu-called--uh--him--oh!" she sobbed--"I called him a lul-little--oh--gentleman!And oh--lul-look!--oh! lul-look at my du-dress! Lul-look atMumitchy--oh--Mitch--oh!"

  Unexpectedly, she smote again--with results--and then, seizing theindistinguishable hand of Mitchy-Mitch, she ran wailing homeward downthe street.

  "'Little gentleman'?" said Georgie Bassett, with some evidences ofdisturbed complacency. "Why, that's what they call ME!"

  "Yes, and you ARE one, too!" shouted the maddened Penrod. "But youbetter not let anybody call ME that! I've stood enough around here forone day, and you can't run over ME, Georgie Bassett. Just you put thatin your gizzard and smoke it!"

  "Anybody has a perfect right," said Georgie, with, dignity, "to call aperson a little gentleman. There's lots of names nobody ought to call,but this one's a NICE----"

  "You better look out!"

  Unavenged bruises were distributed all over Penrod, both upon his bodyand upon his spirit. Driven by subtle forces, he had dipped his hands incatastrophe and disaster: it was not for a Georgie Bassett to beard him.Penrod was about to run amuck.

  "I haven't called you a little gentleman, yet," said Georgie. "I onlysaid it. Anybody's got a right to SAY it."

  "Not around ME! You just try it again and----"

  "I shall say it," returned Georgie, "all I please. Anybody in this townhas a right to SAY 'little gentleman'----"

  Bellowing insanely, Penrod plunged his right hand into the caldron,rushed upon Georgie and made awful work of his hair and features.

  Alas, it was but the beginning! Sam Williams and Maurice Levy screamedwith delight, and, simultaneously infected, danced about the strugglingpair, shouting frantically:

  "Little gentleman! Little gentleman! Sick him, Georgie! Sick him, littlegentleman! Little gentleman! Little gentleman!"

  The infuriated outlaw turned upon them with blows and more tar, whichgave Georgie Bassett his opportunity and later seriously impaired thepurity of his fame. Feeling himself hopelessly tarred, he dipped bothhands repeatedly into the caldron and applied his gatherings to Penrod.It was bringing coals to Newcastle, but it helped to assuage the justwrath of Georgie.

  The four boys gave a fine imitation of the Laocoon group complicatedby an extra figure frantic splutterings and chokings, strange cries andstranger words issued from this tangle; hands dipped lavishly into theinexhaustible reservoir of tar, with more and more picturesque results.The caldron had been elevated upon bricks and was not perfectlybalanced; and under a heavy impact of the struggling group it lurchedand went partly over, pouring forth a Stygian tide which formed a deeppool in the gutter.

  It was the fate of Master Roderick Bitts, that exclusive and immaculateperson, to make his appearance upon the chaotic scene at this juncture.All in the cool of a white "sailor suit," he turned aside from the pathof duty--which led straight to the house of a maiden aunt--and pausedto hop with joy upon the sidewalk. A repeated epithet continuously halfpanted, half squawked, somewhere in the nest of gladiators, caught hisear, and he took it up excitedly, not knowing why.

  "Little gentleman!" shouted Roderick, jumping up and down in childishglee. "Little gentleman! Little gentleman! Lit----"

  A frightful figure tore itself free from the group, encircled thisinnocent bystander with a black arm, and hurled him headlong. Fulllength and flat on his face went Roderick into the Stygian pool. Thefrightful figure was Penrod.

  Instantly, the pack flung themselves upon him again, and, carryingthem with him, he went over upon Roderick, who from that instant was asactive a belligerent as any there.

  Thus began the Great Tar Fight, the origin of which proved, afterward,so difficult for parents to trace, owing to the opposing accounts ofthe combatants. Marjorie said Penrod began it; Penrod said Mitchy-Mitchbegan it; Sam Williams said Georgie Bassett began it; Georgie andMaurice Levy said Penrod began it; Roderick Bitts, who had notrecognized his first assailant, said Sam Williams began it.

  Nobody thought of accusing the barber. But the barber did not begin it;it was the fly on the barber's nose that began it--though, of course,something else began the fly. Somehow, we never manage to hang the realoffender.

  The end came only with the arrival of Penrod's mother, who had beenhaving a painful conversation by telephone with Mrs. Jones, the motherof Marjorie, and came forth to seek an errant son. It is a mystery howshe was able to pick out her own, for by the time she got there hisvoice was too hoarse to be recognizable. Mr. Schofield's version ofthings was that Penrod was insane. "He's a stark, raving lunatic!"declared the father, descending to the library from a before-dinnerinterview with the outlaw, that evening. "I'd send him to militaryschool, but I don't believe they'd take him. Do you know WHY he says allthat awfulness happened?"

  "When Margaret and I were trying to scrub him," responded Mrs. Schofieldwearily, "he said 'everybody' had been calling him names."

  "'Names!'" snorted her husband. "'Little gentleman!' THAT'S the vileepithet they called him! And because of it he wrecks the peace of sixhomes!"

  "SH! Yes; he told us about it," said Mrs. Schofield, moaning. "He toldus several hundred times, I should guess, though I didn't count. He'sgot it fixed in his head, and we couldn't get it out. All we could dowas to put him in the closet. He'd have gone out again after those boysif we hadn't. I don't know WHAT to make of him!"

  "He's a mystery to ME!" said her husband. "And he refuses to explainwhy he objects to being called 'little gentleman.' Says he'd do the samething--and worse--if anybody dared to call him that again. He said ifthe President of the United States called him that he'd try to whip him.How long did you have him locked up in the closet?"

  "SH!" said Mrs. Schofield warningly. "About two hours; but I don't thinkit softened his spirit at all, because when I took him to the barber'sto get his hair clipped again, on account of the tar in it, SammyWilliams and Maurice Levy were there for the same reason, and they justWHISPERED 'little gentleman,' so low you could hardly hear them--andPenrod began fighting with them right before me, and it was really allthe barber and I could do to drag him away from them. The barber wasvery kind about it, but Penrod----"

  "I tell you he's a lunatic!" Mr. Schofield would have said the samething of a Frenchman infuriated by the epithet "camel." The philosophyof insult needs expounding.

  "SH!" said Mrs. Schofield. "It does seem a kind of frenzy."

  "Why on earth should any sane person mind being called----"

  "SH!" said Mrs. Schofield. "It's beyond ME!"

  "What are you SH-ing me for?" demanded Mr. Schofield explosively.

  "SH!" said Mrs. Schofield. "It's Mr. Kinosling, the new rector of SaintJoseph's."

  "Where?"

  "SH! On the front porch with Margaret; he's going to stay for dinner. Ido hope----"

  "Bachelor, isn't he?"

  "Yes."

  "OUR old minister was
speaking of him the other day," said Mr.Schofield, "and he didn't seem so terribly impressed."

  "SH! Yes; about thirty, and of course so superior to most of Margaret'sfriends--boys home from college. She thinks she likes young RobertWilliams, I know--but he laughs so much! Of course there isn't anycomparison. Mr. Kinosling talks so intellectually; it's a good thing forMargaret to hear that kind of thing, for a change and, of course, he'svery spiritual. He seems very much interested in her." She paused tomuse. "I think Margaret likes him; he's so different, too. It's thethird time he's dropped in this week, and I----"

  "Well," said Mr. Schofield grimly, "if you and Margaret want him to comeagain, you'd better not let him see Penrod."

  "But he's asked to see him; he seems interested in meeting all thefamily. And Penrod nearly always behaves fairly well at table."She paused, and then put to her husband a question referring to hisinterview with Penrod upstairs. "Did you--did you--do it?"

  "No," he answered gloomily. "No, I didn't, but----" He was interruptedby a violent crash of china and metal in the kitchen, a shriek fromDella, and the outrageous voice of Penrod. The well-informed Della,ill-inspired to set up for a wit, had ventured to address the scion ofthe house roguishly as "little gentleman," and Penrod, by means of therapid elevation of his right foot, had removed from her supportinghands a laden tray. Both parents, started for the kitchen, Mr. Schofieldcompleting his interrupted sentence on the way.

  "But I will, now!"

  The rite thus promised was hastily but accurately performed in thatapartment most distant from the front porch; and, twenty minutes later,Penrod descended to dinner. The Rev. Mr. Kinosling had asked for thepleasure of meeting him, and it had been decided that the only coursepossible was to cover up the scandal for the present, and to offer anundisturbed and smiling family surface to the gaze of the visitor.

  Scorched but not bowed, the smouldering Penrod was led forward for thesocial formulae simultaneously with the somewhat bleak departure ofRobert Williams, who took his guitar with him, this time, and went inforlorn unconsciousness of the powerful forces already set in secretmotion to be his allies.

  The punishment just undergone had but made the haughty and unyieldingsoul of Penrod more stalwart in revolt; he was unconquered. Every timethe one intolerable insult had been offered him, his resentment hadbecome the hotter, his vengeance the more instant and furious. And,still burning with outrage, but upheld by the conviction of right, hewas determined to continue to the last drop of his blood the defenseof his honour, whenever it should be assailed, no matter how mighty oraugust the powers that attacked it. In all ways, he was a very sore boy.

  During the brief ceremony of presentation, his usually inscrutablecountenance wore an expression interpreted by his father as one ofinsane obstinacy, while Mrs. Schofield found it an incentive to inwardprayer. The fine graciousness of Mr. Kinosling, however, was unimpairedby the glare of virulent suspicion given him by this little brother: Mr.Kinosling mistook it for a natural curiosity concerning one who mightpossibly become, in time, a member of the family. He patted Penrod uponthe head, which was, for many reasons, in no condition to be patted withany pleasure to the patter. Penrod felt himself in the presence of a newenemy.

  "How do you do, my little lad," said Mr. Kinosling. "I trust we shallbecome fast friends."

  To the ear of his little lad, it seemed he said, "A trost we shallbick-home fawst frainds." Mr. Kinosling's pronunciation was, in fact,slightly precious; and, the little lad, simply mistaking it for somecryptic form of mockery of himself, assumed a manner and expressionwhich argued so ill for the proposed friendship that Mrs. Schofieldhastily interposed the suggestion of dinner, and the small processionwent in to the dining-room.

  "It has been a delicious day," said Mr. Kinosling, presently; "warm butbalmy." With a benevolent smile he addressed Penrod, who sat oppositehim. "I suppose, little gentleman, you have been indulging in the usualoutdoor sports of vacation?"

  Penrod laid down his fork and glared, open-mouthed at Mr. Kinosling.

  "You'll have another slice of breast of the chicken?" Mr. Schofieldinquired, loudly and quickly.

  "A lovely day!" exclaimed Margaret, with equal promptitude and emphasis."Lovely, oh, lovely! Lovely!"

  "Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!" said Mrs. Schofield, and after aglance at Penrod which confirmed her impression that he intended tosay something, she continued, "Yes, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,beautiful, beautiful beautiful!"

  Penrod closed his mouth and sank back in his chair--and his relativestook breath.

  Mr. Kinosling looked pleased. This responsive family, with its readyenthusiasm, made the kind of audience he liked. He passed a delicatewhite hand gracefully over his tall, pale forehead, and smiledindulgently.

  "Youth relaxes in summer," he said. "Boyhood is the age of relaxation;one is playful, light, free, unfettered. One runs and leaps and enjoysone's self with one's companions. It is good for the little lads to playwith their friends; they jostle, push, and wrestle, and simulate little,happy struggles with one another in harmless conflict. The young musclesare toughening. It is good. Boyish chivalry develops, enlarges, expands.The young learn quickly, intuitively, spontaneously. They perceive theobligations of noblesse oblige. They begin to comprehend the necessityof caste and its requirements. They learn what birth means--ah,--thatis, they learn what it means to be well born. They learn courtesy intheir games; they learn politeness, consideration for one another intheir pastimes, amusements, lighter occupations. I make it my pleasureto join them often, for I sympathize with them in all their wholesomejoys as well as in their little bothers and perplexities. I understandthem, you see; and let me tell you it is no easy matter to understandthe little lads and lassies." He sent to each listener his beamingglance, and, permitting it to come to rest upon Penrod, inquired:

  "And what do you say to that, little gentleman?"

  Mr. Schofield uttered a stentorian cough. "More? You'd better have somemore chicken! More! Do!"

  "More chicken!" urged Margaret simultaneously. "Do please! Please! More!Do! More!"

  "Beautiful, beautiful," began Mrs. Schofield. "Beautiful, beautiful,beautiful, beautiful----"

  It is not known in what light Mr. Kinosling viewed the expression ofPenrod's face. Perhaps he mistook it for awe; perhaps he receivedno impression at all of its extraordinary quality. He was a ratherself-engrossed young man, just then engaged in a double occupation, forhe not only talked, but supplied from his own consciousness a criticalthough favourable auditor as well, which of course kept him quite busy.Besides, it is oftener than is expected the case that extremely peculiarexpressions upon the countenances of boys are entirely overlooked,and suggest nothing to the minds of people staring straight at them.Certainly Penrod's expression--which, to the perception of his family,was perfectly horrible--caused not the faintest perturbation in thebreast of Mr. Kinosling.

  Mr. Kinosling waived the chicken, and continued to talk. "Yes, I thinkI may claim to understand boys," he said, smiling thoughtfully. "Onehas been a boy one's self. Ah, it is not all playtime! I hope our youngscholar here does not overwork himself at his Latin, at his classics,as I did, so that at the age of eight years I was compelled to wearglasses. He must be careful not to strain the little eyes at hisscholar's tasks, not to let the little shoulders grow round over hisscholar's desk. Youth is golden; we should keep it golden, bright,glistening. Youth should frolic, should be sprightly; it should play itscricket, its tennis, its hand-ball. It should run and leap; it shouldlaugh, should sing madrigals and glees, carol with the lark, ring out inchanties, folk-songs, ballads, roundelays----"

  He talked on. At any instant Mr. Schofield held himself ready to coughvehemently and shout, "More chicken," to drown out Penrod in case thefatal words again fell from those eloquent lips; and Mrs. Schofield andMargaret kept themselves prepared at all times to assist him. So passeda threatening meal, which Mrs. Schofield hurried, by every means withdecency, to its conclusion. She felt that somehow they would all
besafer out in the dark of the front porch, and led the way thither assoon as possible.

  "No cigar, I thank you." Mr. Kinosling, establishing himself in a wickerchair beside Margaret, waved away her father's proffer. "I do not smoke.I have never tasted tobacco in any form." Mrs. Schofield was confirmedin her opinion that this would be an ideal son-in-law. Mr. Schofield wasnot so sure.

  "No," said Mr. Kinosling. "No tobacco for me. No cigar, no pipe, nocigarette, no cheroot. For me, a book--a volume of poems, perhaps.Verses, rhymes, lines metrical and cadenced--those are my dissipation.Tennyson by preference: 'Maud,' or 'Idylls of the King'--poetry of thesound Victorian days; there is none later. Or Longfellow will rest mein a tired hour. Yes; for me, a book, a volume in the hand, held lightlybetween the fingers."

  Mr. Kinosling looked pleasantly at his fingers as he spoke, waving hishand in a curving gesture which brought it into the light of a windowfaintly illumined from the interior of the house. Then he passed thosegraceful fingers over his hair, and turned toward Penrod, who wasperched upon the railing in a dark corner.

  "The evening is touched with a slight coolness," said Mr. Kinosling."Perhaps I may request the little gentleman----"

  "B'gr-r-RUFF!" coughed Mr. Schofield. "You'd better change your mindabout a cigar."

  "No, I thank you. I was about to request the lit----"

  "DO try one," Margaret urged. "I'm sure papa's are nice ones. Dotry----"

  "No, I thank you. I remarked a slight coolness in the air, and my hat isin the hallway. I was about to request----"

  "I'll get it for you," said Penrod suddenly.

  "If you will be so good," said Mr. Kinosling. "It is a black bowler hat,little gentleman, and placed upon a table in the hall."

  "I know where it is." Penrod entered the door, and a feeling of relief,mutually experienced, carried from one to another of his three relativestheir interchanged congratulations that he had recovered his sanity.

  "'The day is done, and the darkness,'" began Mr. Kinosling--and recitedthat poem entire. He followed it with "The Children's Hour," and after apause, at the close, to allow his listeners time for a little reflectionupon his rendition, he passed his handagain over his head, and called,in the direction of the doorway:

  "I believe I will take my hat now, little gentleman."

  "Here it is," said Penrod, unexpectedly climbing over the porch railing,in the other direction. His mother and father and Margaret had supposedhim to be standing in the hallway out of deference, and because hethought it tactful not to interrupt the recitations. All of themremembered, later, that this supposed thoughtfulness on his part struckthem as unnatural.

  "Very good, little gentleman!" said Mr. Kinosling, and being somewhatchilled, placed the hat firmly upon his head, pulling it down as faras it would go. It had a pleasant warmth, which he noticed at once. Thenext instant, he noticed something else, a peculiar sensation of thescalp--a sensation which he was quite unable to define. He lifted hishand to take the hat off, and entered upon a strange experience: his hatseemed to have decided to remain where it was.

  "Do you like Tennyson as much as Longfellow, Mr. Kinosling?" inquiredMargaret.

  "I--ah--I cannot say," he returned absently. "I--ah--each has hisown--ugh! flavour and savour, each his--ah--ah----"

  Struck by a strangeness in his tone, she peered at him curiously throughthe dusk. His outlines were indistinct, but she made out that his armswere, uplifted in a singular gesture. He seemed to be wrenching at hishead.

  "Is--is anything the matter?" she asked anxiously. "Mr. Kinosling, areyou ill?"

  "Not at--ugh!--all," he replied, in the same odd tone. "I--ah--Ibelieve--UGH!"

  He dropped his hands from his hat, and rose. His manner wasslightly agitated. "I fear I may have taken a trifling--ah--cold.I should--ah--perhaps be--ah--better at home. I will--ah--saygood-night."

  At the steps, he instinctively lifted his hand to remove his hat,but did not do so, and, saying "Goodnight," again in a frigid voice,departed with visible stiffness from that house, to return no more.

  "Well, of all----!" cried Mrs. Schofield, astounded. "What was thematter? He just went--like that!" She made a flurried gesture. "Inheaven's name, Margaret, what DID you say to him?"

  "_I_!" exclaimed Margaret indignantly. "Nothing! He just WENT!"

  "Why, he didn't even take off his hat when he said good-night!" saidMrs. Schofield.

  Margaret, who had crossed to the doorway, caught the ghost of a whisperbehind her, where stood Penrod.

  "YOU BET HE DIDN'T!"

  He knew not that he was overheard.

  A frightful suspicion flashed through Margaret's mind--a suspicion thatMr. Kinosling's hat would have to be either boiled off or shaved off.With growing horror she recalled Penrod's long absence when he went tobring the hat.

  "Penrod," she cried, "let me see your hands!"

  She had toiled at those hands herself late that afternoon, nearlyscalding her own, but at last achieving a lily purity.

  "Let me see your hands!"

  She seized them.

  Again they were tarred!