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| Miss Amy Rennsdale |
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| At Home |
| Saturday, the twenty-third |
| from three to six |
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| R.s.v.p. Dancing |
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This little card, delicately engraved, betokened the hospitality
incidental to the ninth birthday anniversary of Baby Rennsdale, youngest
member of the Friday Afternoon Dancing Class, and, by the same token, it
represented the total social activity (during that season) of a certain
limited bachelor set consisting of Messrs. Penrod Schofield and Samuel
Williams. The truth must be faced: Penrod and Sam were seldom invited to
small parties; they were considered too imaginative. But in the case of
so large an affair as Miss Rennsdale's, the feeling that their parents
would be sensitive outweighed fears of what Penrod and Sam might do at
the party. Reputation is indeed a bubble, but sometimes it is blown of
sticky stuff.
The comrades set out for the fete in company, final maternal outpourings
upon deportment and the duty of dancing with the hostess evaporating in
their freshly cleaned ears. Both boys, however, were in a state of
mind, body, and decoration appropriate to the gala scene they were
approaching. Their collars were wide and white; inside the pockets of
their overcoats were glistening dancing-pumps, wrapped in tissue-paper;
inside their jacket pockets were pleasant-smelling new white gloves,
and inside their heads solemn timidity commingled with glittering
anticipations. Before them, like a Christmas tree glimpsed through
lace curtains, they beheld joy shimmering--music, ice-cream, macaroons,
tinsel caps, and the starched ladies of their hearts Penrod and Sam
walked demurely yet almost boundingly; their faces were shining but
grave--they were on their way to the Party!
“Look at there!” said Penrod. “There's Carlie Chitten!”
“Where?” Sam asked.
“'Cross the street. Haven't you got any eyes?”
“Well, whyn't you say he was 'cross the street in the first place?”
Sam returned plaintively. “Besides, he's so little you can't hardly
see him.” This was, of course, a violent exaggeration, though Master
Chitten, not yet eleven years old, was an inch or two short for his age.
“He's all dressed up,” Sam added. “I guess he must be invited.”
“I bet he does sumpthing,” said Penrod.
“I bet he does, too,” Sam agreed.
This was the extent of their comment upon the small person across the
street; but, in spite of its non-committal character, the manner of both
commentators seemed to indicate that they had just exchanged views upon
an interesting and even curious subject. They walked along in silence
for several minutes, staring speculatively at Master Chitten.
His appearance was pleasant and not remarkable. He was a handsome, dark
little boy, with quick eyes and a precociously reserved expression; his
air was “well-bred”; he was exquisitely neat, and he had a look of manly
competence that grown people found attractive and reassuring. In short,
he was a boy of whom a timid adult stranger would have inquired the way
with confidence. And yet Sam and Penrod had mysterious thoughts about
him--obviously there was something subterranean here.
They continued to look at him for the greater part of block, when,
their progress bringing them in sight of Miss Amy Rennsdale's place of
residence their attention was directed to a group of men bearing festal
burdens--encased violins, a shrouded harp and other beckoning shapes.
There were signs, too, that most of “those invited” intended to miss no
moment of this party; guests already indoors watched from the windows
the approach of the musicians. Washed boys in black and white, and girls
in tender colours converged from various directions, making gayly for
the thrilling gateway--and the most beautiful little girl in all the
world, Marjorie Jones, of the amber curls, jumped from a carriage step
to the curbstone as Penrod and Sam came up. She waved to them.
Sam responded heartily; but Penrod, feeling real emotion and seeking
to conceal it, muttered, “'Lo, Marjorie!” gruffly, offering no further
demonstration. Marjorie paused a moment, expectant, and then, as he did
not seize the opportunity to ask her for the first dance, she tried
not to look disappointed and ran into the house ahead of the two boys.
Penrod was scarlet; he wished to dance the first dance with Marjorie,
and the second and the third and all the other dances, and he strongly
desired to sit with her “at refreshments”; but he had been unable to ask
for a single one of these privileges. It would have been impossible for
him to state why he was thus dumb, although the reason was simple and
wholly complimentary to Marjorie: she had looked so overpoweringly
pretty that she had produced in the bosom of her admirer a severe case
of stage fright. That was “all the matter with him”; but it was the
beginning of his troubles, and he did not recover until he and Sam
reached the “gentlemen's dressing-room”, whither they were directed by a
polite coloured man.
Here they found a cloud of acquaintances getting into pumps and gloves,
and, in a few extreme cases, readjusting hair before a mirror. Some even
went so far--after removing their shoes and putting on their pumps--as
to wash traces of blacking from their hands in the adjacent bathroom
before assuming their gloves. Penrod, being in a strange mood, was one
of these, sharing the basin with little Maurice Levy.
“Carrie Chitten's here,” said Maurice, as they soaped their hands.
“I guess I know it,” Penrod returned. “I bet he does sumpthing, too.”
Maurice shook his head ominously. “Well, I'm gettin' tired of it. I know
he was the one stuck that cold fried egg in P'fesser Bartet's overcoat
pocket at dancin'-school, and ole p'fesser went and blamed it on me.
Then, Carlie, he cum up to me, th' other day, and he says, 'Smell my
buttonhole bokay.' He had some vi'lets stickin' in his buttonhole, and
I went to smell 'em and water squirted on me out of 'em. I guess I've
stood about enough, and if he does another thing I don't like, he better
look out!”
Penrod showed some interest, inquiring for details, whereupon Maurice
explained that if Master Chitten displeased him further, Master Chitten
would receive a blow upon one of his features. Maurice was simple and
homely about it, seeking rhetorical vigour rather than elegance; in
fact, what he definitely promised Master Chitten was “a bang on the
snoot.”
“Well,” said Penrod, “he never bothered ME any. I expect he knows too
much for that!”
A cry of pain was heard from the dressing-room at this juncture, and,
glancing through the doorway, Maurice and Penrod beheld Sam Williams in
the act of sucking his right thumb with vehemence, the while his brow
was contorted and his eyes watered. He came into the bathroom and held
his thumb under a faucet.
“That darn little Carlie Chitten!” he complained. “He ast me to hold a
little tin box he showed me. He told me to hold it between my thumb and
fingers and he'd show me sumpthing. Then he pushed the lid, and a big
needle came out of a hole and stuck me half through my thumb. That's a
NICE way to act, isn't it?”
Carlie Chitten's dark head showed itself cautiously beyond the casing of
the door.
“How's your thumb, Sam?” he asked.
“You wait!” Sam shouted, turning furiously; but the small
prestidigitator was gone. With a smothered laugh, Carlie dashed through
the groups of boys in the dressing-room and made his way downstairs,
his manner reverting to its usual polite gravity before he entered the
drawing-room, where his hostess waited. Music sounding at about this
time, he was followed by the other boys, who came trooping down, leaving
the dressing-room empty.
Penrod, among the tail-enders of the procession, made his dancing-school
bow to Miss Rennsdale and her grown-up supporters (two maiden aunts and
a governess) then he looked about for Marjorie, discovering her but too
easily. Her amber curls were swaying gently in time to the music; she
looked never more beautiful, and her partner was Master Chitten!
A pang of great penetrative power and equal unexpectedness found the
most vulnerable spot beneath the simple black of Penrod Schofield's
jacket. Straightway he turned his back upon the crash-covered floors
where the dancers were, and moved gloomily toward the hall. But one of
the maiden aunts Rennsdale waylaid him.
“It's Penrod Schofield, isn't it?” she asked. “Or Sammy Williams? I'm
not sure which. Is it Penrod?”
“Ma'am?” he said. “Yes'm.”
“Well, Penrod, I can find a partner for you. There are several dear
little girls over here, if you'll come with me.”
“Well--” He paused, shifted from one foot to the other, and looked
enigmatic. “I better not,” he said. He meant no offence; his trouble was
only that he had not yet learned how to do as he pleased at a party and,
at the same time, to seem polite about it. “I guess I don't want to,” he
added.
“Very well!” And Miss Rennsdale instantly left him to his own devices.
He went to lurk in the wide doorway between the hall and the
drawing-room--under such conditions the universal refuge of his sex at
all ages. There he found several boys of notorious shyness, and stood
with them in a mutually protective group. Now and then one of them would
lean upon another until repelled by action and a husky “What's matter
'th you? Get off o' me!” They all twisted their slender necks uneasily
against the inner bands of their collars, at intervals, and sometimes
exchanged facetious blows under cover. In the distance Penrod caught
glimpses of amber curls flashing to and fro, and he knew himself to be
among the derelicts.
He remained in this questionable sanctuary during the next dance; but,
edging along the wall to lean more comfortably in a corner, as the music
of the third sounded, he overheard part of a conversation that somewhat
concerned him. The participants were the governess of his hostess, Miss
Lowe, and that one of the aunts Rennsdale who had offered to provide
him with a partner. These two ladies were standing just in front of him,
unconscious of his nearness.
“I never,” Miss Rennsdale said, “never saw a more fascinating little boy
than that Carlie Chitten. There'll be some heartaches when he grows up;
I can't keep my eyes off him.”
“Yes; he's a charming boy,” Miss Lowe said. “His manners are
remarkable.”
“He's a little man of the world,” the enthusiastic Miss Rennsdale went
on, “very different from such boys as Penrod Schofield!”
“Oh, PENROD!” Miss Lowe exclaimed. “Good gracious!”
“I don't see why he came. He declines to dance--rudely, too!”
“I don't think the little girls will mind that so much!” Miss Lowe said.
“If you'd come to the dancing class some Friday with Amy and me, you'd
understand why.”
They moved away. Penrod heard his name again mentioned between them as
they went, and, though he did not catch the accompanying remark, he was
inclined to think it unfavourable. He remained where he was, brooding
morbidly.
He understood that the government was against him, nor was his judgment
at fault in this conclusion. He was affected, also, by the conduct of
Marjorie, who was now dancing gayly with Maurice Levy, a former rival
of Penrod's. The fact that Penrod had not gone near her did not make her
culpability seem the less; in his gloomy heart he resolved not to ask
her for one single dance. He would not go near her. He would not go near
ANY OF 'EM!
His eyes began to burn, and he swallowed heavily; but he was never one
to succumb piteously to such emotion, and it did not even enter his head
that he was at liberty to return to his own home. Neither he nor any
of his friends had ever left a party until it was officially concluded.
What his sufferings demanded of him now for their alleviation was not
departure but action!
Underneath the surface, nearly all children's parties contain a group
of outlaws who wait only for a leader to hoist the black flag. The group
consists mainly of boys too shy to be at ease with the girls, but
who wish to distinguish themselves in some way; and there are others,
ordinarily well behaved, whom the mere actuality of a party makes
drunken. The effect of music, too, upon children is incalculable,
especially when they do not hear it often--and both a snare-drum and a
bass drum were in the expensive orchestra at the Rennsdale party.
Nevertheless, the outlawry at any party may remain incipient unless a
chieftain appears; but in Penrod's corner were now gathering into one
anarchical mood all the necessary qualifications for leadership. Out
of that bitter corner there stepped, not a Penrod Schofield subdued
and hoping to win the lost favour of the Authorities, but a hot-hearted
rebel determined on an uprising.
Smiling a reckless and challenging smile, he returned to the cluster
of boys in the wide doorway and began to push one and another of them
about. They responded hopefully with counter-pushes, and presently there
was a tumultuous surging and eddying in that quarter, accompanied by
noises that began to compete with the music. Then Penrod allowed himself
to be shoved out among the circling dancers, so that he collided with
Marjorie and Maurice Levy, almost oversetting them.
He made a mock bow and a mock apology, being inspired to invent a jargon
phrase.
“Excuse me,” he said, at the same time making vocal his own conception
of a taunting laugh. “Excuse me, but I must 'a' got your bumpus!”
Marjorie looked grieved and turned away with Maurice; but the boys in
the doorway squealed with maniac laughter.
“Gotcher bumpus! Gotcher bumpus!” they shrilled. And they began to push
others of their number against the dancing couples, shouting, “'Scuse
me! Gotcher bumpus!”
It became a contagion and then a game. As the dances went on, strings
of boys, led by Penrod, pursued one another across the rooms, howling,
“Gotcher bumpus!” at the top of their lungs. They dodged and ducked,
and seized upon dancers as shields; they caromed from one couple into
another, and even into the musicians of the orchestra. Boys who were
dancing abandoned their partners and joined the marauders, shrieking,
“Gotcher bumpus!” Potted plants went down; a slender gilt chair refused
to support the hurled body of Master Roderick Magsworth Bitts, and the
sound of splintering wood mingled with other sounds. Dancing became
impossible; Miss Amy Rennsdale wept in the midst of the riot, and
everybody knew that Penrod Schofield had “started it”.
Under instructions, the leader of the orchestra, clapping his hands for
attention, stepped to the centre of the drawing-room, and shouted,
“A moment silence, if you bleace!”
Slowly the hubbub ceased; the virtuous and the wicked paused alike in
their courses to listen. Miss Amy Rennsdale was borne away to have her
tearful face washed, and Marjorie Jones and Carlie Chitten and Georgie
Bassett came forward consciously, escorted by Miss Lowe. The musician
waited until the return of the small hostess; then he announced in a
loud voice:
“A fency dence called 'Les Papillons', denced by Miss Amy Rennstul, Miss
Chones, Mister Chorch Passett, ant Mister Jitten. Some young chentlemen
haf mate so much noise ant confoosion Miss Lowe wish me to ask bleace no
more such a nonsense. Fency dence, 'Les Papillons'.”
Thereupon, after formal salutations, Mr. Chitten took Marjorie's hand,
Georgie Bassett took Miss Rennsdale's, and they proceeded to dance “Les
Papillons” in a manner that made up in conscientiousness whatever it
may have lacked in abandon. The outlaw leader looked on, smiling a
smile intended to represent careless contempt, but in reality he was
unpleasantly surprised. A fancy dance by Georgie Bassett and Baby
Rennsdale was customary at every party attended by members of the
Friday Afternoon Dancing Class; but Marjorie and Carlie Chitten were new
performers, and Penrod had not heard that they had learned to dance “Les
Papillons” together. He was the further embittered.
Carlie made a false step, recovering himself with some difficulty,
whereupon a loud, jeering squawk of laughter was heard from the
insurgent cluster, which had been awed to temporary quiet but still
maintained its base in the drawing-room doorway. There was a general
“SH!” followed by a shocked whispering, as well as a general turning of
eyes toward Penrod. But it was not Penrod who had laughed, though no
one would have credited him with an alibi. The laughter came from two
throats that breathed as one with such perfect simultaneousness that
only one was credited with the disturbance. These two throats belonged
respectively to Samuel Williams and Maurice Levy, who were standing in a
strikingly Rosencrantz-and-Guildenstern attitude.
“He got me with his ole tin-box needle, too,” Maurice muttered to Sam.
“He was goin' to do it to Marjorie, and I told her to look out, and he
says, 'Here, YOU take it!' all of a sudden, and he stuck it in my hand
so quick I never thought. And then, BIM! his ole needle shot out and
perty near went through my thumb-bone or sumpthing. He'll be sorry
before this day's over!”
“Well,” said Sam darkly, “he's goin' to be sorry he stuck ME, anyway!”
Neither Sam nor Maurice had even the vaguest plan for causing the
desired regret in the breast of Master Chitten; but both derived a
little consolation from these prophecies. And they, too, had aligned
themselves with the insurgents. Their motives were personal--Carlie
Chitten had wronged both of them, and Carlie was conspicuously in high
favour with the Authorities. Naturally Sam and Maurice were against the
Authorities.
“Les Papillons” came to a conclusion. Carlie and Georgie bowed; Marjorie
Jones and Baby Rennsdale curtesied, and there was loud applause. In
fact, the demonstration became so uproarious that some measure of it was
open to suspicion, especially as hisses of reptilian venomousness were
commingled with it, and also a hoarse but vociferous repetition of
the dastard words, “Carrie dances ROTTEN!” Again it was the work of
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; but the plot was attributed to another.
“SHAME, Penrod Schofield!” said both the aunts Rennsdale publicly, and
Penrod, wholly innocent, became scarlet with indignant mortification.
Carlie Chitten himself, however, marked the true offenders. A slight
flush tinted his cheeks, and then, in his quiet, self-contained way, he
slipped through the crowd of girls and boys, unnoticed, into the
hall, and ran noiselessly up the stairs and into the “gentlemen's
dressing-room”, now inhabited only by hats, caps, overcoats, and the
temporarily discarded shoes of the dancers. Most of the shoes stood in
rows against the wall, and Carlie examined these rows attentively, after
a time discovering a pair of shoes with patent leather tips. He knew
them; they belonged to Maurice Levy, and, picking them up, he went to
a corner of the room where four shoes had been left together under
a chair. Upon the chair were overcoats and caps that he was able to
identify as the property of Penrod Schofield and Samuel Williams; but,
as he was not sure which pair of shoes belonged to Penrod and which
to Sam, he added both pairs to Maurice's and carried them into the
bathroom. Here he set the plug in the tub, turned the faucets, and,
after looking about him and discovering large supplies of all sorts in a
wall cabinet, he tossed six cakes of green soap into the tub. He let
the soap remain in the water to soften a little, and, returning to the
dressing room, whiled away the time in mixing and mismating pairs of
shoes along the walls, and also in tying the strings of the mismated
shoes together in hard knots.
Throughout all this, his expression was grave and intent; his bright
eyes grew brighter, but he did not smile. Carlie Chitten was a singular
boy, though not unique: he was an “only child”, lived at a hotel, and
found life there favourable to the development of certain peculiarities
in his nature. He played a lone hand, and with what precocious diplomacy
he played that curious hand was attested by the fact that Carlie was
brilliantly esteemed by parents and guardians in general.
It must be said for Carlie that, in one way, his nature was liberal.
For instance, having come upstairs to prepare a vengeance upon Sam and
Maurice in return for their slurs upon his dancing, he did not confine
his efforts to the belongings of those two alone. He provided every boy
in the house with something to think about later, when shoes should be
resumed; and he was far from stopping at that. Casting about him for
some material that he desired, he opened a door of the dressing-room
and found himself confronting the apartment of Miss Lowe. Upon a desk he
beheld the bottle of mucilage he wanted, and, having taken possession of
it, he allowed his eye the privilege of a rapid glance into a dressing
table drawer, accidentally left open.
He returned to the dressing-room, five seconds later, carrying not only
the mucilage but a “switch” worn by Miss Lowe when her hair was dressed
in a fashion different from that which she had favoured for the party.
This “switch” he placed in the pocket of a juvenile overcoat unknown to
him, and then he took the mucilage into the bathroom. There he rescued
from the water the six cakes of soap, placed one in each of the six
shoes, pounding it down securely into the toe of the shoe with the
handle of a back brush. After that, Carlie poured mucilage into all six
shoes impartially until the bottle was empty, then took them back to
their former positions in the dressing-room. Finally, with careful
forethought, he placed his own shoes in the pockets of his overcoat, and
left the overcoat and his cap upon a chair near the outer door of the
room. Then he went quietly downstairs, having been absent from
the festivities a little less than twelve minutes. He had been
energetic--only a boy could have accomplished so much in so short a
time. In fact, Carlie had been so busy that his forgetting to turn off
the faucets in the bathroom is not at all surprising.
No one had noticed his absence. That infectious pastime, “Gotcher
bumpus”, had broken out again, and the general dancing, which had been
resumed upon the conclusion of “Les Papillons”, was once more becoming
demoralized. Despairingly the aunts Rennsdale and Miss Lowe brought
forth from the rear of the house a couple of waiters and commanded them
to arrest the ringleaders, whereupon hilarious terror spread among
the outlaw band. Shouting tauntingly at their pursuers, they fled--and
bellowing, trampling flight swept through every quarter of the house.
Refreshments quelled this outbreak for a time. The orchestra played
a march; Carlie Chitten and Georgie Bassett, with Amy Rennsdale and
Marjorie, formed the head of a procession, while all the boys who had
retained their sense of decorum immediately sought partners and fell in
behind. The outlaws, succumbing to ice cream hunger, followed suit,
one after the other, until all of the girls were provided with escorts.
Then, to the moral strains of “The Stars and Stripes Forever”, the
children paraded out to the dining-room. Two and two they marched,
except at the extreme tail end of the line, where, since there were
three more boys than girls at the party, the three left-over boys were
placed. These three were also the last three outlaws to succumb and
return to civilization from outlying portions of the house after the
pursuit by waiters. They were Messieurs Maurice Levy, Samuel Williams,
and Penrod Schofield.
They took their chairs in the capacious dining-room quietly enough,
though their expressions were eloquent of bravado, and they jostled one
another and their neighbours intentionally, even in the act of sitting.
However, it was not long before delectable foods engaged their whole
attention and Miss Amy Rennsdale's party relapsed into etiquette for
the following twenty minutes. The refection concluded with the mild
explosion of paper “crackers” that erupted bright-coloured, fantastic
headgear, and, during the snapping of the “crackers”, Penrod heard the
voice of Marjorie calling from somewhere behind him, “Carrie and Amy,
will you change chairs with Georgie Bassett and me--just for fun?” The
chairs had been placed in rows, back to back, and Penrod would not
even turn his head to see if Master Chitten and Miss Rennsdale accepted
Marjorie's proposal, though they were directly behind him and Sam; but
he grew red and breathed hard. A moment later, the liberty-cap that he
had set upon his head was softly removed, and a little crown of silver
paper put in its place.
“PENROD?”
The whisper was close to his ear, and a gentle breath cooled the back of
his neck.