On Monday morning Penrod's faith in the coming of another Saturday
was flaccid and lustreless. Those Japanese lovers who were promised a
reunion after ten thousand years in separate hells were brighter with
hope than he was. On Monday Penrod was virtually an agnostic.
Nowhere upon his shining morning face could have been read any eager
anticipation of useful knowledge. Of course he had been told that school
was for his own good; in fact, he had been told and told and told, but
the words conveying this information, meaningless at first, assumed,
with each repetition, more and more the character of dull and
unsolicited insult.
He was wholly unable to imagine circumstances, present or future, under
which any of the instruction and training he was now receiving could
be of the slightest possible use or benefit to himself; and when he was
informed that such circumstances would frequently arise in his later
life, he but felt the slur upon his coming manhood and its power to
prevent any such unpleasantness.
If it were possible to place a romantic young Broadway actor and athlete
under hushing supervision for six hours a day, compelling him to
bend his unremittent attention upon the city directory of Sheboygan,
Wisconsin, he could scarce be expected to respond genially to frequent
statements that the compulsion was all for his own good. On the
contrary, it might be reasonable to conceive his response as taking the
form of action, which is precisely the form that Penrod's smouldering
impulse yearned to take.
To Penrod school was merely a state of confinement, envenomed by
mathematics. For interminable periods he was forced to listen to
information concerning matters about which he had no curiosity whatever;
and he had to read over and over the dullest passages in books that
bored him into stupors, while always there overhung the preposterous
task of improvising plausible evasions to conceal the fact that he
did not know what he had no wish to know. Likewise, he must always be
prepared to avoid incriminating replies to questions that he felt nobody
had a real and natural right to ask him. And when his gorge rose and his
inwards revolted, the hours became a series of ignoble misadventures and
petty disgraces strikingly lacking in privacy.
It was usually upon Wednesday that his sufferings culminated; the
nervous strength accumulated during the holiday hours at the end of the
week would carry him through Monday and Tuesday; but by Wednesday it
seemed ultimately proven that the next Saturday actually never was
coming, “this time”, and the strained spirit gave way. Wednesday was the
day averaging highest in Penrod's list of absences; but the time came
when he felt that the advantages attendant upon his Wednesday “sick
headache” did not compensate for its inconveniences.
For one thing, this illness had become so symmetrically recurrent that
even the cook felt that he was pushing it too far, and the liveliness of
her expression, when he was able to leave his couch and take the air in
the backyard at about ten o'clock, became more disagreeable to him
with each convalescence. There visibly increased, too, about the whole
household, an atmosphere of uncongeniality and suspicion so pronounced
that every successive illness was necessarily more severe, and at last
the patient felt obliged to remain bedded until almost eleven, from
time to time giving forth pathetic little sounds eloquent of anguish
triumphing over Stoic endurance, yet lacking a certain conviction of
utterance.
Finally, his father enacted, and his mother applied, a new and
distinctly special bit of legislation, explaining it with simple candour
to the prospective beneficiary.
“Whenever you really ARE sick,” they said, “you can go out and play as
soon as you're well--that is, if it happens on Saturday. But when you're
sick on a school-day, you'll stay in bed till the next morning. This is
going to do you good, Penrod.”
Physically, their opinion appeared to be affirmed, for Wednesday after
Wednesday passed without any recurrence of the attack; but the spiritual
strain may have been damaging. And it should be added that if Penrod's
higher nature did suffer from the strain, he was not unique. For,
confirming the effect of Wednesday upon boys in general, it is probable
that, if full statistics concerning cats were available, they would
show that cats dread Wednesdays, and that their fear is shared by
other animals, and would be shared, to an extent by windows, if windows
possessed nervous systems. Nor must this probable apprehension on
the part of cats and the like be thought mere superstition. Cats have
superstitions, it is true; but certain actions inspired by the sight of
a boy with a missile in his hand are better evidence of the workings of
logic upon a practical nature than of faith in the supernatural.
Moreover, the attention of family physicians and specialists should be
drawn to these significant though obscure phenomena; for the suffering
of cats is a barometer of the nerve-pressure of boys, and it may
be accepted as sufficiently established that Wednesday--after
school-hours--is the worst time for cats.
After the promulgation of that parental edict, “You'll stay in bed till
the next morning”, four weeks went by unflawed by a single absence from
the field of duty; but, when the fifth Wednesday came, Penrod held sore
debate within himself before he finally rose. In fact, after rising,
and while actually engaged with his toilet, he tentatively emitted
the series of little moans that was his wonted preliminary to a quiet
holiday at home; and the sound was heard (as intended) by Mr. Schofield,
who was passing Penrod's door on his way to breakfast.
“ALL right!” the father said, making use of peculiar and unnecessary
emphasis. “Stay in bed till to-morrow morning. Castor-oil, this time,
too.”
Penrod had not hoped much for his experiment; nevertheless his
rebellious blood was sensibly inflamed by the failure, and he
accompanied his dressing with a low murmuring--apparently a bitter
dialogue between himself and some unknown but powerful patron.
Thus he muttered:
“Well, they better NOT!” “Well, what can I DO about it?” “Well, I'D show
'em!” “Well, I WILL show 'em!” “Well, you OUGHT to show 'em; that's the
way _I_ do! I just shake 'em around, and say, 'Here! I guess you don't
know who you're talkin' to like that! You better look out!'” “Well,
that's the way _I_'m goin' to do!” “Well, go on and DO it, then!” “Well,
I AM goin'--”
The door of the next room was slightly ajar; now it swung wide, and
Margaret appeared.
“Penrod, what on earth are you talking about?”
“Nothin'. None o' your--”
“Well, hurry to breakfast, then; it's getting late.”
Lightly she went, humming a tune, leaving the door of her room open, and
the eyes of Penrod, as he donned his jacket, chanced to fall upon her
desk, where she had thoughtlessly left a letter--a private missive just
begun, and intended solely for the eyes of Mr. Robert Williams, a senior
at a far university.
In such a fashion is coincidence the architect of misfortune. Penrod's
class in English composition had been instructed, the previous day, to
concoct at home and bring to class on Wednesday morning, “a model letter
to a friend on some subject of general interest.” Penalty for omission
to perform this simple task was definite; whosoever brought no letter
would inevitably be “kept in” after school, that afternoon, until
the letter was written, and it was precisely a premonition of this
misfortune that had prompted Penrod to attempt his experimental moaning
upon his father, for, alas! he had equipped himself with no model
letter, nor any letter whatever.
In stress of this kind, a boy's creed is that anything is worth a try;
but his eye for details is poor. 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!
From below rose the voice of his mother urging him to the
breakfast-table, warning him that he stood in danger of tardiness at
school; he was pressed for time, and acted upon an inspiration that
failed to prompt him even to read the letter.
Hurriedly he wrote “Dear freind” at the top of the page Margaret had
partially filled. Then he signed himself “Yours respectfuly, Penrod
Schofield” at the bottom, and enclosed the missive within a battered
volume entitled, “Principles of English Composition.” With that and
other books compacted by a strap, he descended to a breakfast somewhat
oppressive but undarkened by any misgivings concerning a “letter to a
friend on some subject of general interest.” He felt that a difficulty
had been encountered and satisfactorily disposed of; the matter could
now be dismissed from his mind. He had plenty of other difficulties to
take its place.
No; he had no misgivings, nor was he assailed by anything unpleasant
in that line, even when the hour struck for the class in English
composition. If he had been two or three years older, experience might
have warned him to take at least the precaution of copying his offering,
so that it would appear in his own handwriting when he “handed it in”;
but Penrod had not even glanced at it.
“I think,” Miss Spence said, “I will ask several of you to read your
letters aloud before you hand them in. Clara Raypole, you may read
yours.”
Penrod was bored but otherwise comfortable; he had no apprehension
that he might be included in the “several,” especially as Miss Spence's
beginning with Clara Raypole, a star performer, indicated that her
selection of readers would be made from the conscientious and proficient
division at the head of the class. He listened stoically to the
beginning of the first letter, though he was conscious of a dull
resentment, inspired mainly by the perfect complacency of Miss Raypole's
voice.
“'Dear Cousin Sadie,'” she began smoothly, “'I thought I would write
you to-day on some subject of general interest, and so I thought I
would tell you about the subject of our court-house. It is a very fine
building situated in the centre of the city, and a visit to the building
after school hours well repays for the visit. Upon entrance we find upon
our left the office of the county clerk and upon our right a number of
windows affording a view of the street. And so we proceed, finding on
both sides much of general interest. The building was begun in 1886
A.D. and it was through in 1887 A.D. It is four stories high and made
of stone, pressed brick, wood, and tiles, with a tower, or cupola, one
hundred and twenty-seven feet seven inches from the ground. Among other
subjects of general interest told by the janitor, we learn that the
architect of the building was a man named Flanner, and the foundations
extend fifteen feet five inches under the ground.'”
Penrod was unable to fix his attention upon these statistics; he began
moodily to twist a button of his jacket and to concentrate a new-born
and obscure but lasting hatred upon the court-house. Miss Raypole's glib
voice continued to press upon his ears; but, by keeping his eyes fixed
upon the twisting button he had accomplished a kind of self-hypnosis, or
mental anaesthesia, and was but dimly aware of what went on about him.
The court-house was finally exhausted by its visitor, who resumed her
seat and submitted with beamish grace to praise. Then Miss Spence said,
in a favourable manner:
“Georgie Bassett, you may read your letter next.”
The neat Georgie rose, nothing loath, and began: “'Dear Teacher--'”
There was a slight titter, which Miss Spence suppressed. Georgie was not
at all discomfited.
“'My mother says,'” he continued, reading his manuscript, “'we should
treat our teacher as a friend, and so _I_ will write YOU a letter.'”
This penetrated Penrod's trance, and he lifted his eyes to fix them upon
the back of Georgie Bassett's head in a long and inscrutable stare. It
was inscrutable, and yet if Georgie had been sensitive to thought waves,
it is probable that he would have uttered a loud shriek; but he remained
placidly unaware, continuing:
“'I thought I would write you about a subject of general interest, and
so I will write you about the flowers. There are many kinds of flowers,
spring flowers, and summer flowers, and autumn flowers, but no winter
flowers. Wild flowers grow in the woods, and it is nice to hunt them in
springtime, and we must remember to give some to the poor and hospitals,
also. Flowers can be made to grow in flower-beds and placed in vases in
houses. There are many names for flowers, but _I_ call them “nature's
ornaments.--'”
Penrod's gaze had relaxed, drooped to his button again, and his lethargy
was renewed. The outer world grew vaguer; voices seemed to drone at a
distance; sluggish time passed heavily--but some of it did pass.
“Penrod!”
Miss Spence's searching eye had taken note of the bent head and the
twisting button. She found it necessary to speak again.
“Penrod Schofield!”
He came languidly to life.
“Ma'am?”
“You may read your letter.”
“Yes'm.”
And he began to paw clumsily among his books, whereupon Miss Spence's
glance fired with suspicion.
“Have you prepared one?” she demanded.
“Yes'm,” said Penrod dreamily.
“But you're going to find you forgot to bring it, aren't you?”
“I got it,” said Penrod, discovering the paper in his “Principles of
English Composition.”
“Well, we'll listen to what you've found time to prepare,” she said,
adding coldly, “for once!”
The frankest pessimism concerning Penrod permeated the whole room; even
the eyes of those whose letters had not met with favour turned upon him
with obvious assurance that here was every prospect of a performance
that would, by comparison, lend a measure of credit to the worst
preceding it. But Penrod was unaffected by the general gaze; he rose,
still blinking from his lethargy, and in no true sense wholly alive.
He had one idea: to read as rapidly as possible, so as to be done with
the task, and he began in a high-pitched monotone, reading with a blind
mind and no sense of the significance of the words.
“'Dear friend,”' he declaimed. “'You call me beautiful, but I am not
really beautiful, and there are times when I doubt if I am even pretty,
though perhaps my hair is beautiful, and if it is true that my eyes are
like blue stars in heaven--'”
Simultaneously he lost his breath and there burst upon him a perception
of the results to which he was being committed by this calamitous
reading. And also simultaneous the outbreak of the class into
cachinnations of delight, severely repressed by the perplexed but
indignant Miss Spence.
“Go on!” she commanded grimly, when she had restored order.
“Ma'am?” he gulped, looking wretchedly upon the rosy faces all about
him.
“Go on with the description of yourself,” she said. “We'd like to hear
some more about your eyes being like blue stars in heaven.”
Here many of Penrod's little comrades were forced to clasp their faces
tightly in both hands; and his dismayed gaze, in refuge, sought the
treacherous paper in his hand.
What it beheld there was horrible.
“Proceed!” Miss Spence said.
“'I--often think,'” he faltered, “'and a-a tree-more th-thrills my bein'
when I REcall your last words to me--that last--that last--that--'”
“GO ON!”
“'That last evening in the moonlight when you--you--you--'”
“Penrod,” Miss Spence said dangerously, “you go on, and stop that
stammering.”
“'You--you said you would wait for--for years to--to--to--to--”
“PENROD!”
“'To win me!'” the miserable Penrod managed to gasp. “'I should not
have pre--premitted--permitted you to speak so until we have our--our
parents' con-consent; but oh, how sweet it--'” He exhaled a sigh
of agony, and then concluded briskly, “'Yours respectfully, Penrod
Schofield.'”
But Miss Spence had at last divined something, for she knew the
Schofield family.
“Bring me that letter!” she said.
And the scarlet boy passed forward between rows of mystified but
immoderately uplifted children.
Miss Spence herself grew rather pink as she examined the missive, and
the intensity with which she afterward extended her examination to
cover the complete field of Penrod Schofield caused him to find a remote
centre of interest whereon to rest his embarrassed gaze. She let him
stand before her throughout a silence, equalled, perhaps, by the tenser
pauses during trials for murder, and then, containing herself, she
sweepingly gestured him to the pillory--a chair upon the platform,
facing the school.
Here he suffered for the unusual term of an hour, with many jocular and
cunning eyes constantly upon him; and, when he was released at noon,
horrid shouts and shrieks pursued him every step of his homeward way.
For his laughter-loving little schoolmates spared him not--neither boy
nor girl.
“Yay, Penrod!” they shouted. “How's your beautiful hair?” And, “Hi,
Penrod! When you goin' to get your parents' consent?” And, “Say, blue
stars in heaven, how's your beautiful eyes?” And, “Say, Penrod, how's
your tree-mores?” “Does your tree-mores thrill your bein', Penrod?” And
many other facetious inquiries, hard to bear in public.
And when he reached the temporary shelter of his home, he experienced
no relief upon finding that Margaret was out for lunch. He was as deeply
embittered toward her as toward any other, and, considering her largely
responsible for his misfortune, he would have welcomed an opportunity to
show her what he thought of her.