“Aunt Sarah's a funny old lady,” Penrod observed, on the way back to the
town. “What's she want me to give papa this old sling for? Last thing
she said was to be sure not to forget to give it to him. HE don't want
it; and she said, herself, it ain't any good. She's older than you or
papa, isn't she?”
“About fifty years older,” answered Mrs. Schofield, turning upon him a
stare of perplexity. “Don't cut into the leather with your new knife,
dear; the livery man might ask us to pay if----No. I wouldn't scrape
the paint off, either--nor whittle your shoe with it. COULDN'T you put
it up until we get home?”
“We goin' straight home?”
“No. We're going to stop at Mrs. Gelbraith's and ask a strange little
girl to come to your party, this afternoon.”
“Who?”
“Her name is Fanchon. She's Mrs. Gelbraith's little niece.”
“What makes her so queer?”
“I didn't say she's queer.”
“You said----”
“No; I mean that she is a stranger. She lives in New York and has come
to visit here.”
“What's she live in New York for?”
“Because her parents live there. You must be very nice to her, Penrod;
she has been very carefully brought up. Besides, she doesn't know the
children here, and you must help to keep her from feeling lonely at your
party.”
“Yes'm.”
When they reached Mrs. Gelbraith's, Penrod sat patiently humped upon a
gilt chair during the lengthy exchange of greetings between his mother.
and Mrs. Gelbraith. That is one of the things a boy must learn to bear:
when his mother meets a compeer there is always a long and dreary wait
for him, while the two appear to be using strange symbols of speech,
talking for the greater part, it seems to him, simultaneously, and
employing a wholly incomprehensible system of emphasis at other times
not in vogue. Penrod twisted his legs, his cap and his nose.
“Here she is!” Mrs. Gelbraith cried, unexpectedly, and a dark-haired,
demure person entered the room wearing a look of gracious social
expectancy. In years she was eleven, in manner about sixty-five,
and evidently had lived much at court. She performed a curtsey in
acknowledgment of Mrs. Schofield's greeting, and bestowed her hand
upon Penrod, who had entertained no hope of such an honour, showed his
surprise that it should come to him, and was plainly unable to decide
what to do about it.
“Fanchon, dear,” said Mrs. Gelbraith, “take Penrod out in the yard for a
while, and play.”
“Let go the little girl's hand, Penrod,” Mrs. Schofield laughed, as the
children turned toward the door.
Penrod hastily dropped the small hand, and exclaiming, with simple
honesty, “Why, _I_ don't want it!” followed Fanchon out into the
sunshiny yard, where they came to a halt and surveyed each other.
Penrod stared awkwardly at Fanchon, no other occupation suggesting
itself to him, while Fanchon, with the utmost coolness, made a very
thorough visual examination of Penrod, favouring him with an estimating
scrutiny which lasted until he literally wiggled. Finally, she spoke.
“Where do you buy your ties?” she asked.
“What?”
“Where do you buy your neckties? Papa gets his at Skoone's. You ought to
get yours there. I'm sure the one you're wearing isn't from Skoone's.”
“Skoone's?” Penrod repeated. “Skoone's?”
“On Fifth Avenue,” said Fanchon. “It's a very smart shop, the men say.”
“Men?” echoed Penrod, in a hazy whisper. “Men?”
“Where do your people go in summer?” inquired the lady. “WE go to Long
Shore, but so many middle-class people have begun coming there, mamma
thinks of leaving. The middle classes are simply awful, don't you
think?”
“What?”
“They're so boorjaw. You speak French, of course?”
“Me?”
“We ran over to Paris last year. It's lovely, don't you think? Don't you
LOVE the Rue de la Paix?”
Penrod wandered in a labyrinth. This girl seemed to be talking, but her
words were dumfounding, and of course there was no way for him to know
that he was really listening to her mother. It was his first meeting
with one of those grown-up little girls, wonderful product of the winter
apartment and summer hotel; and Fanchon, an only child, was a star of
the brand. He began to feel resentful.
“I suppose,” she went on, “I'll find everything here fearfully Western.
Some nice people called yesterday, though. Do you know the Magsworth
Bittses? Auntie says they're charming. Will Roddy be at your party?”
“I guess he will,” returned Penrod, finding this intelligible. “The
mutt!”
“Really!” Fanchon exclaimed airily. “Aren't you great pals with him?”
“What's 'pals'?”
“Good heavens! Don't you know what it means to say you're 'great pals'
with any one? You ARE an odd child!”
It was too much.
“Oh, Bugs!” said Penrod.
This bit of ruffianism had a curious effect. Fanchon looked upon him
with sudden favour.
“I like you, Penrod!” she said, in an odd way, and, whatever else there
may have been in her manner, there certainly was no shyness.
“Oh, Bugs!” This repetition may have lacked gallantry, but it was
uttered in no very decided tone. Penrod was shaken.
“Yes, I do!” She stepped closer to him, smiling. “Your hair is ever so
pretty.”
Sailors' parrots swear like mariners, they say; and gay mothers ought to
realize that all children are imitative, for, as the precocious Fanchon
leaned toward Penrod, the manner in which she looked into his eyes might
have made a thoughtful observer wonder where she had learned her pretty
ways.
Penrod was even more confused than he had been by her previous
mysteries: but his confusion was of a distinctly pleasant and alluring
nature: he wanted more of it. Looking intentionally into another
person's eyes is an act unknown to childhood; and Penrod's discovery
that it could be done was sensational. He had never thought of looking
into the eyes of Marjorie Jones.
Despite all anguish, contumely, tar, and Maurice Levy, he still secretly
thought of Marjorie, with pathetic constancy, as his “beau”--though that
is not how he would have spelled it. Marjorie was beautiful; her
curls were long and the colour of amber; her nose was straight and
her freckles were honest; she was much prettier than this accomplished
visitor. But beauty is not all.
“I do!” breathed Fanchon, softly.
She seemed to him a fairy creature from some rosier world than this. So
humble is the human heart, it glorifies and makes glamorous almost any
poor thing that says to it: “I like you!”
Penrod was enslaved. He swallowed, coughed, scratched the back of his
neck, and said, disjointedly:
“Well--I don't care if you want to. I just as soon.”
“We'll dance together,” said Fanchon, “at your party.”
“I guess so. I just as soon.”
“Don't you want to, Penrod?”
“Well, I'm willing to.”
“No. Say you WANT to!”
“Well----”
He used his toe as a gimlet, boring into the ground, his wide open eyes
staring with intense vacancy at a button on his sleeve.
His mother appeared upon the porch in departure, calling farewells over
her shoulder to Mrs. Gelbraith, who stood in the doorway.
“Say it!” whispered Fanchon.
“Well, I just as SOON.”
She seemed satisfied.