CHAPTER XI. THE TONIC
These broodings helped a little; but it was a severe morning, and onhis way home at noon he did not recover heart enough to practice thebullfrog's croak, the craft that Sam Williams had lately mastered toinspiring perfection. This sonorous accomplishment Penrod had determinedto make his own. At once guttural and resonant, impudent yet plaintive,with a barbaric twang like the plucked string of a Congo war-fiddle, thesound had fascinated him. It is made in the throat by processes utterlyimpossible to describe in human words, and no alphabet as yet producedby civilized man affords the symbols to vocalize it to the ear ofimagination. "Gunk" is the poor makeshift that must be employed toindicate it.
Penrod uttered one half-hearted "Gunk" as he turned in at his own gate.However, this stimulated him, and he paused to practice. "Gunk!" hecroaked. "Gunk-gunk-gunk-gunk!"
Mrs. Schofield leaned out of an open window upstairs.
"Don't do that, Penrod," she said anxiously. "Please don't do that."
"Why not?" Penrod asked, and, feeling encouraged by his progress in thenew art, he continued: "Gunk--gunk-gunk! Gunk-gunk--"
"Please try not to do it," she urged pleadingly. "You CAN stop it if youtry. Won't you, dear?"
But Penrod felt that he was almost upon the point of attaining a masteryequal to Sam Williams's. He had just managed to do something in histhroat that he had never done before, and he felt that unless he kepton doing it at this time, his new-born facility might evade him later."Gunk!" he croaked. "Gunk--gunk-gunk!" And he continued to croak,persevering monotonously, his expression indicating the depth of hispreoccupation.
His mother looked down solicitously, murmured in a melancholy undertone,shook her head; then disappeared from the window, and, after a moment ortwo, opened the front door.
"Come in, dear," she said; "I've got something for you."
Penrod's look of preoccupation vanished; he brightened and ceased tocroak. His mother had already given him a small leather pocketbook witha nickel in it, as a souvenir of her journey. Evidently she had broughtanother gift as well, delaying its presentation until now. "I've gotsomething for you!" These were auspicious words.
"What is it, Mamma?" he asked, and, as she smiled tenderly upon him,his gayety increased. "Yay!" he shouted. "Mamma, is it that reg'larcarpenter's tool chest I told you about?"
"No," she said. "But I'll show you, Penrod. Come on, dear."
He followed her with alacrity to the dining-room, and the brightanticipation in his eyes grew more brilliant--until she opened thedoor of the china-closet, simultaneously with that action announcingcheerily:
"It's something that's going to do you lots of good, Penrod."
He was instantly chilled, for experience had taught him that whenpredictions of this character were made, nothing pleasant need beexpected. Two seconds later his last hope departed as she turned fromthe closet and he beheld in her hands a quart bottle containing whatappeared to be a section of grassy swamp immersed in a cloudy brownliquor. He stepped back, grave suspicion in his glance.
"What IS that?" he asked, in a hard voice.
Mrs. Schofield smiled upon him. "It's nothing," she said. "That is, it'snothing you'll mind at all. It's just so you won't be so nervous."
"I'm not nervous."
"You don't think so, of course, dear," she returned, and, as she spoke,she poured some of the brown liquor into a tablespoon. "People oftencan't tell when they're nervous themselves; but your Papa and I havebeen getting a little anxious about you, dear, and so I got thismedicine for you."
"WHERE'D you get it?" he demanded.
Mrs. Schofield set the bottle down and moved toward him, insinuatinglyextending the full tablespoon.
"Here, dear," she said; "just take this little spoonful, like a goo--"
"I want to know where it came from," he insisted darkly, again steppingbackward.
"Where?" she echoed absently, watching to see that nothing was spilledfrom the spoon as she continued to move toward him. "Why, I was talkingto old Mrs. Wottaw at market this morning, and she said her son Clarkused to have nervous trouble, and she told me about this medicine andhow to have it made at the drug store. She told me it cured Clark,and--"
"I don't want to be cured," Penrod said, adding inconsistently, "Ihaven't got anything to be cured of."
"Now, dear," Mrs. Schofield began, "you don't want your papa and me tokeep on worrying about--"
"I don't care whether you worry or not," the heartless boy interrupted."I don't want to take any horrable ole medicine. What's that grass andweeds in the bottle for?"
Mrs. Schofield looked grieved. "There isn't any grass and there aren'tany weeds; those are healthful herbs."
"I bet they'll make me sick."
She sighed. "Penrod, we're trying to make you well."
"But I AM well, I tell you!"
"No, dear; your papa's been very much troubled about you. Come, Penrod;swallow this down and don't make such a fuss about it. It's just foryour own good."
And she advanced upon him again, the spoon extended toward his lips. Italmost touched them, for he had retreated until his back was againstthe wall-paper. He could go no farther; but he evinced his unshakenrepugnance by averting his face.
"What's it taste like?" he demanded.
"It's not unpleasant at all," she answered, poking the spoon at hismouth. "Mrs. Wottaw said Clark used to be very fond of it. It doesn'ttaste like ordinary medicine at all,' she said."
"How often I got to take it?" Penrod mumbled, as the persistent spoonsought to enter his mouth. "Just this once?"
"No, dear; three times a day."
"I won't do it!"
"Penrod!" She spoke sharply. "You swallow this down and stop making sucha fuss. I can't be all day. Hurry."
She inserted the spoon between his lips, so that its rim touched hisclenched teeth; he was still reluctant. Moreover, is reluctance wasnatural and characteristic, for a boy's sense of taste is as simple andas peculiar as a dog's, though, of course, altogether different from adog's. A boy, passing through the experimental age, may eat and drinkastonishing things; but they must be of his own choosing. His palate istender, and, in one sense, might be called fastidious; nothing is moresensitive or more easily shocked. A boy tastes things much more thangrown people taste them: what is merely unpleasant to a man issheer broth of hell to a boy. Therefore, not knowing what might beencountered, Penrod continued to be reluctant.
"Penrod," his mother exclaimed, losing patience, "I'll call your papa tomake 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 dexterouslyelevated the handle of the spoon so that the brown liquor was depositedwithin her son.
"There!" she repeated triumphantly. "It wasn't so bad after all, wasit?"
Penrod did not reply. His expression had become odd, and the oddity ofhis manner was equal to that of his expression. Uttering no sound, heseemed to distend, as if he had suddenly become a pneumatic boy underdangerous pressure. Meanwhile, his reddening eyes, fixed awfully uponhis mother, grew unbearable.
"Now, it wasn't such a bad taste," Mrs. Schofield said rather nervously."Don't go acting THAT way, Penrod!"
But Penrod could not help himself. In truth, even a grown personhardened to all manner of flavours, and able to eat caviar or liquidCamembert, would have found the cloudy brown liquor virulentlyrepulsive. It contained in solution, with other things, the vitalelement of surprise, for it was comparatively odourless, and, unlike thechivalrous rattlesnake, gave no warning of what it was about to do. Inthe case of Penrod, the surprise was complete and its effect visiblyshocking.
The distention by which he began to express his emotion appeared tobe increasing; his slender throat swelled as his cheeks puffed. Hisshoulders rose toward his ears; he lifted his right leg in an unnaturalway and held it rigidly in the air.
"Stop that, Penrod!" Mrs. Schofield commanded.
"You stop it!"
He found his voice.
"Uff! OOOFF!" he said thickly, and collapsed--a mere, ordinary,every-day convulsion taking the place of his pneumatic symptoms. Hebegan to writhe, at the same time opening and closing his mouth rapidlyand repeatedly, waving his arms, stamping on the floor.
"Ow! Ow-ow-OW!" he vociferated.
Reassured by these normal demonstrations, of a type with which she wasfamiliar, Mrs. Schofield resumed her fond smile.
"YOU'RE all right, little boysie!" she said heartily. Then, picking upthe bottle, she replenished the tablespoon, and told Penrod somethingshe had considered it undiplomatic to mention before.
"Here's the other one," she said sweetly.
"Uuf!" he sputtered. "Other--uh--what?"
"Two tablespoons before each meal," she informed him.
Instantly Penrod made the first of a series of passionate efforts toleave the room. His determination was so intense and the manifestationsof it were so ruthless, that Mrs. Schofield, exhausted, found herselfobliged to call for the official head of the house--in fact, she foundherself obliged to shriek for him; and Mr. Schofield, hastily enteringthe room, beheld his wife apparently in the act of sawing his son backand forth across the sill of an open window.
Penrod made a frantic effort to reach the good green earth, even afterhis mother's clutch upon his ankle had been reenforced by his father's.Nor was the lad's revolt subdued when he was deposited upon the floorand the window closed. Indeed, it may be said that he actually nevergave up, though it is a fact that the second potion was successfullyplaced inside him. But by the time this feat was finally accomplished,Mr. Schofield had proved that, in spite of middle age, he was entitledto substantial claims and honours both as athlete and orator--hisoratory being founded less upon the school of Webster and more upon thatof Jeremiah.
So the thing was done, and the double dose put within the person ofPenrod Schofield. It proved not ineffective there, and presently, as itsnew owner sat morosely at table, he began to feel slightly dizzy andhis eyes refused him perfect service. This was natural, because twotablespoons of the cloudy brown liquor contained about the amount ofalcohol to be found in an ordinary cocktail. Now a boy does not enjoythe effects of intoxication; enjoyment of that kind is obtained onlyby studious application. Therefore, Penrod spoke of his symptomscomplainingly, and even showed himself so vindictive as to attributethem to the new medicine.
His mother made no reply. Instead, she nodded her head as if some innerconviction had proven well founded.
"BILIOUS, TOO," she whispered to her husband.
That evening, during the half-hour preceding dinner, the dining-room wasthe scene of another struggle, only a little less desperate than thatwhich had been the prelude to lunch, and again an appeal to the head ofthe house was found necessary. Muscular activity and a liberal imitationof the jeremiads once more subjugated the rebel--and the same rebellionand its suppression in a like manner took place the following morningbefore breakfast. But this was Saturday, and, without warning orapparent reason, a remarkable change came about at noon. However, Mr.and Mrs. Schofield were used to inexplicable changes in Penrod, and theymissed its significance.
When Mrs. Schofield, with dread in her heart, called Penrod into thehouse "to take his medicine" before lunch, he came briskly, and took itlike a lamb!
"Why, Penrod, that's splendid!" she cried "You see it isn't bad, atall."
"No'm," he said meekly. "Not when you get used to it."
"And aren't you ashamed, making all that fuss?" she went on happily.
"Yes'm, I guess so."
"And don't you feel better? Don't you see how much good it's doing youalready?"
"Yes'm, I guess so."
Upon a holiday morning, several weeks later, Penrod and Sam Williamsrevived a pastime that they called "drug store", setting up displaycounters, selling chemical, cosmetic and other compounds to imaginarycustomers, filling prescriptions and variously conducting themselves ina pharmaceutical manner. They were in the midst of affairs when Penrodinterrupted his partner and himself with a cry of recollection.
"_I_ know!" he shouted. "I got some mighty good ole stuff we want. Youwait!" And, dashing to the house, he disappeared.
Returning immediately, Penrod placed upon the principal counter of the"drug store" a large bottle. It was a quart bottle, in fact; and itcontained what appeared to be a section of grassy swamp immersed in acloudy brown liquor.
"There!" Penrod exclaimed. "How's that for some good ole medicine?"
"It's good ole stuff," Sam said approvingly. "Where'd you get it? Whoseis it, Penrod?"
"It WAS mine," said Penrod. "Up to about serreval days ago, it was. Theyquit givin' it to me. I had to take two bottles and a half of it."
"What did you haf to take it for?"
"I got nervous, or sumpthing," said Penrod.
"You all well again now?"
"I guess so. Uncle Passloe and cousin Ronald came to visit, and I expectshe got too busy to think about it, or sumpthing. Anyway, she quitmakin' me take it, and said I was lots better. She's forgot all about itby this time."
Sam was looking at the bottle with great interest.
"What's all that stuff in there, Penrod?" he asked. "What's all thatstuff in there looks like grass?"
"It IS grass," said Penrod.
"How'd it get there?"
"I stuck it in there," the candid boy replied. "First they had somehorrable ole stuff in there like to killed me. But after they got threedoses down me, I took the bottle out in the yard and cleaned her allout and pulled a lot o' good ole grass and stuffed her pretty full andpoured in a lot o' good ole hydrant water on top of it. Then, when theygot the next bottle, I did the same way, and--"
"It don't look like water," Sam objected.
Penrod laughed a superior laugh.
"Oh, that's nothin'," he said, with the slight swagger of youngand conscious genius. "Of course, I had to slip in and shake her upsometimes, 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. Shecould see him plainly, and she thought that he seemed perfectly healthy,and as happy as a boy could be. She was right.
"What DID you put in it?" Sam insisted.
And probably it was just as well that, though Mrs. Schofield could seeher son, the distance was too great for her to hear him.
"Oh, nothin'," Penrod replied. "Nothin' but a little good ole mud."
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