The next day a new ambition entered into Penrod Schofield; it was
heralded by a flourish of trumpets and set up a great noise within his
being.
On his way home from Sunday-school he had paused at a corner to listen
to a brass band, which was returning from a funeral, playing a medley of
airs from “The Merry Widow,” and as the musicians came down the street,
walking so gracefully, the sun picked out the gold braid upon their
uniforms and splashed fire from their polished instruments. Penrod
marked the shapes of the great bass horns, the suave sculpture of their
brazen coils, and the grand, sensational flare of their mouths. And he
saw plainly that these noble things, to be mastered, needed no more than
some breath blown into them during the fingering of a few simple keys.
Then obediently they gave forth those vast but dulcet sounds which
stirred his spirit as no other sounds could stir it quite.
The leader of the band, walking ahead, was a pleasing figure, nothing
more. Penrod supposed him to be a mere decoration, and had never
sympathized with Sam Williams' deep feeling about drum-majors. The
cornets, the trombones, the smaller horns were rather interesting, of
course; and the drums had charm, especially the bass drum, which must
be partially supported by a youth in front; but, immeasurably above all
these, what fascinated Penrod was the little man with the monster horn.
There Penrod's widening eyes remained transfixed--upon the horn,
so dazzling, with its broad spaces of brassy highlights, and so
overwhelming, with its mouth as wide as a tub; that there was something
almost threatening about it.
The little, elderly band-musician walked manfully as he blew his great
horn; and in that pompous engine of sound, the boy beheld a spectacle
of huge forces under human control. To Penrod, the horn meant power, and
the musician meant mastery over power, though, of course, Penrod did not
know that this was how he really felt about the matter.
Grandiloquent sketches were passing and interchanging before his mind's
eye--Penrod, in noble raiment, marching down the staring street,
his shoulders swaying professionally, the roar of the horn he bore
submerging all other sounds; Penrod on horseback, blowing the enormous
horn and leading wild hordes to battle, while Marjorie Jones looked on
from the sidewalk; Penrod astounding his mother and father and sister
by suddenly serenading them in the library. “Why, Penrod, where DID you
learn to play like this?”
These were vague and shimmering glories of vision rather than definite
plans for his life work, yet he did with all his will determine to own
and play upon some roaring instrument of brass. And, after all, this
was no new desire of his; it was only an old one inflamed to take a new
form. 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. There were four or
five other boys, strangers, also marching with the band, but these were
light spirits, their flushed faces and prancing legs proving that they
were merely in a state of emotional reaction to music. Penrod, on the
contrary, was grave. He kept his eyes upon the big horn, and, now and
then, he gave an imitation of it. His fingers moved upon invisible keys,
his cheeks puffed out, and, from far down in his throat, he produced
strange sounds: “Taw, p'taw-p'taw! Taw, p'taw-p'taw! PAW!”
The other boys turned back when the musicians ceased to play, but Penrod
marched on, still keeping close to what so inspired him. He stayed with
the band till the last member of it disappeared up a staircase in an
office-building, down at the business end of the street; and even after
that he lingered a while, looking at the staircase.
Finally, however, he set his face toward home, whither he marched in a
procession, the visible part of which consisted of himself alone. All
the way the rhythmic movements of his head kept time with his marching
feet and, also, with a slight rise and fall of his fingers at about the
median line of his abdomen. And pedestrians who encountered him in this
preoccupation were not surprised to hear, as he passed, a few explosive
little vocalizations: “Taw, p'taw-p'taw! TAW! Taw-aw-HAW!”
These were the outward symptoms of no fleeting impulse, but of steadfast
desire; therefore they were persistent. The likeness of the great bass
horn remained upon the retina of his mind's eye, losing nothing of its
brazen enormity with the passing of hours, nor abating, in his mind's
ear, one whit of its fascinating blatancy. Penrod might have forgotten
almost anything else more readily; for such a horn has this double
compulsion: people cannot possibly keep themselves from looking at its
possessor--and they certainly have GOT to listen to him!
Penrod was preoccupied at dinner and during the evening, now and then
causing his father some irritation by croaking, “Taw, p'taw-p'taw!”
while the latter was talking. And when bedtime came for the son of the
house, he mounted the stairs in a rhythmic manner, and p'tawed himself
through the upper hall as far as his own chamber.
Even after he had gone to bed, there came a revival of these
manifestations. His mother had put out his light for him and had
returned to the library downstairs; three-quarters of an hour had
elapsed since then, and Margaret was in her room, next to his, when a
continuous low croaking (which she was just able to hear) suddenly broke
out into loud, triumphal blattings:
“TAW, p'taw-p'taw-aw-HAW! P'taw-WAW-aw! Aw-PAW!”
“Penrod,” Margaret called, “stop that! I'm trying to write letters. If
you don't quit and go to sleep, I'll call papa up, and you'll SEE!”
The noise ceased, or, rather, it tapered down to a desultory faint
croaking which finally died out; but there can be little doubt that
Penrod's last waking thoughts were of instrumental music. And in
the morning, when he woke to face the gloomy day's scholastic tasks,
something unusual and eager fawned in his face with the return of
memory. “Taw-p'taw!” he began. “PAW!”
All day, in school and out, his mind was busy with computations--not
such as are prescribed by mathematical pedants, but estimates of how
much old rags and old iron would sell for enough money to buy a horn.
Happily, the next day, at lunch, he was able to dismiss this problem
from his mind: he learned that his Uncle Joe would be passing through
town, on his way from Nevada, the following afternoon, and all the
Schofield family were to go to the station to see him. Penrod would be
excused from school.
At this news his cheeks became pink, and for a moment he was breathless.
Uncle Joe and Penrod did not meet often, but when they did, Uncle Joe
invariably gave Penrod money. Moreover, he always managed to do it
privately so that later there was no bothersome supervision. Last time
he had given Penrod a silver dollar.
At thirty-five minutes after two, Wednesday afternoon, Uncle Joe's
train came into the station, and Uncle Joe got out and shouted among his
relatives. At eighteen minutes before three he was waving to them from
the platform of the last car, having just slipped a two-dollar bill into
Penrod's breast-pocket. And, at seven minutes after three, Penrod opened
the door of the largest “music store” in town.
A tall, exquisite, fair man, evidently a musical earl, stood before
him, leaning whimsically upon a piano of the highest polish. The sight
abashed Penrod not a bit--his remarkable financial condition even made
him rather peremptory.
“See here,” he said brusquely: “I want to look at that big horn in the
window.”
“Very well,” said the earl; “look at it.” And leaned more luxuriously
upon the polished piano.
“I meant--” Penrod began, but paused, something daunted, while an
unnamed fear brought greater mildness into his voice, as he continued,
“I meant--I--How much IS that big horn?”
“How much?” the earl repeated.
“I mean,” said Penrod, “how much is it worth?”
“I don't know,” the earl returned. “Its price is eighty-five dollars.”
“Eighty-fi--” Penrod began mechanically, but was forced to pause and
swallow a little air that obstructed his throat, as the difference
between eighty-five and two became more and more startling. He
had entered the store, rich; in the last ten seconds he had become
poverty-stricken. Eighty-five dollars was the same as eighty-five
millions.
“Shall I put it aside for you,” asked the salesman-earl, “while you look
around the other stores to see if there's anything you like better?”
“I guess--I guess not,” said Penrod, whose face had grown red. He
swallowed again, scraped the floor with the side of his right shoe,
scratched the back of his neck, and then, trying to make his manner
casual and easy, “Well I can't stand around here all day,” he said. “I
got to be gettin' on up the street.”
“Business, I suppose?”
Penrod, turning to the door, suspected jocularity, but he found himself
without recourse; he was nonplussed.
“Sure you won't let me have that horn tied up in nice wrapping-paper in
case you decide to take it?”
Penrod was almost positive that the spirit of this question was
satirical; but he was unable to reply, except by a feeble shake of the
head--though ten minutes later, as he plodded forlornly his homeward
way, he looked over his shoulder and sent backward a few words of morose
repartee:
“Oh, I am, am I?” he muttered, evidently concluding a conversation
which he had continued mentally with the salesman. “Well, you're double
anything you call me, so that makes you a smart Aleck twice! Ole double
smart Aleck!”
After that, he walked with the least bit more briskness, but not much.
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. He
inserted the funnel into one end of the garden hose, and made it fast by
wrappings of cord. Then he arranged the hose in a double, circular coil,
tied it so that it would remain coiled, and blew into the other end.
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.
It would not sound like a horn, and, when Penrod finally gave up, he had
to admit piteously that it did not look like a horn. No boy over nine
could have pretended that it was a horn.
He tossed the thing upon the floor, and leaned back in the wheelbarrow,
inert.
“Yay, Penrod!”
Sam Williams appeared in the doorway, and, behind Sam, Master Roderick
Magsworth Bitts, Junior.
“Yay, there!”
Penrod made no response.
The two came in, and Sam picked up the poor contrivance Penrod had
tossed upon the floor.
“What's this ole dingus?” Sam asked.
“Nothin'.”
“Well, what's it for?”
“Nothin',” said Penrod. “It's a kind of a horn.”
“What kind?”
“For music,” said Penrod simply.
Master Bitts laughed loud and long; he was derisive. “Music!” he yipped.
“I thought you meant a cow's horn! He says it's a music-horn, Sam? What
you think o' that?”
Sam blew into the thing industriously.
“It won't work,” he announced.
“Course it won't!” Roddy Bitts shouted. “You can't make it go without
you got a REAL horn. I'm goin' to get me a real horn some day before
long, and then you'll see me goin' up and down here playin' it like
sixty! I'll--”
“'Some day before long!'” Sam mocked. “Yes, we will! Why'n't you get it
to-day, if you're goin' to?”
“I would,” said Roddy. “I'd go get the money from my father right now,
only he wouldn't give it to me.”
Sam whooped, and Penrod, in spite of his great depression, uttered a few
jibing sounds.
“I'd get MY father to buy me a fire-engine and team o' HORSES,” Sam
bellowed, “only he wouldn't!”
“Listen, can't you?” cried Roddy. “I mean he would most any time,
but not this month. I can't have any money for a month beginning last
Saturday, because I got paint on one of our dogs, and he came in the
house with it on him, and got some on pretty near everything. If it
hadn't 'a' been for that--”
“Oh, yes!” said Sam. “If it hadn't 'a' been for that! It's always
SUMPTHING!”
“It is not!”
“Well, then, why'n't you go GET a real horn?”
Roddy's face had flushed with irritation.
“Well, didn't I just TELL you--” he began, but paused, while the renewal
of some interesting recollection became visible in his expression. “Why,
I COULD, if I wanted to,” he said more calmly. “It wouldn't be a new
one, maybe. I guess it would be kind of an old one, but--”
“Oh, a toy horn!” said Sam. “I expect one you had when you were three
years old, and your mother stuck it up in the attic to keep till you're
dead, or sumpthing!”
“It's not either any toy horn,” Roddy insisted. “It's a reg'lar horn for
a band, and I could have it as easy as anything.”
The tone of this declaration was so sincere that it roused the lethargic
Penrod.
“Roddy, is that true?” he sat up to inquire piercingly.
“Of course it is!” Master Bitts returned. “What you take me for? I could
go get that horn this minute if I wanted to.”
“A real one--honest?”
“Well, didn't I say it was a real one?”
“Like in the BAND?”
“I said so, didn't I?”
“I guess you mean one of those little ones,” said Penrod.
“No, sir!” Roddy insisted stoutly; “it's a big one! It winds around in a
big circle that would go all the way around a pretty fat man.”
“What store is it in?”
“It's not in any store,” said Roddy. “It's at my Uncle Ethelbert's. He's
got this horn and three or four pianos and a couple o' harps and--”
“Does he keep a music store?”
“No. These harps and pianos and all such are old ones--awful old.”
“Oh,” said Sam, “he runs a second-hand store!”
“He does not!” Master Bitts returned angrily. “He doesn't do anything.
He's just got 'em. He's got forty-one guitars.”
“Yay!” Sam whooped, and jumped up and down. “Listen to Roddy Bitts
makin' up lies!”
“You look out, Sam Williams!” said Roddy threateningly. “You look out
how you call me names!”
“What name'd I call you?”
“You just the same as said I told lies. That's just as good as callin'
me a liar, isn't it?”
“No,” said Sam; “but I got a right to, if I want to. Haven't I, Penrod?”
“How?” Roddy demanded hotly. “How you got a right to?”
“Because you can't prove what you said.”
“Well,” said Roddy, “you'd be just as much of one if you can't prove
what I said WASN'T true.”
“No, sir! You either got to prove it or be a liar. Isn't that so,
Penrod.
“Yes, sir,” Penrod ruled, with a little importance, “that's the way it
is, Roddy.”
“Well, then,” said Roddy, “come on over to my Uncle Ethelbert's, and
I'll show you!”
“No,” said Sam. “I wouldn't walk over there just to find out sumpthing
I already know isn't so. Outside of a music store there isn't anybody in
the world got forty-one guitars! I've heard lots o' people TALK, but I
never heard such a big l--”
“You shut up!” shouted Roddy. “You ole--”
Penrod interposed.
“Why'n't you show us the horn, Roddy?” he asked. “You said you could get
it. You show us the horn and we'll believe you. If you show us the horn,
Sam'll haf to take what he said back; won't you, Sam?”
“Yes,” said Sam, and added. “He hasn't got any. He went and told a--”
Roddy's eyes were bright with rage; he breathed noisily.
“I haven't?” he cried. “You just wait here, and I'll show you!”
And he ran furiously from the stable.