“Going to heaven!” Georgie bellowed.
“Going to heaven! Going to heaven, my Lord!
Going to heaven, heaven, heaven!”
He tried to climb higher, but began to slip downward,
his exertions causing damage to his apparel.
A button flew into the air, and his knickerbockers
and his waistband severed relations.
“Devil’s got my coat-tails, sinners!
Old devil’s got my coat-tails!” he announced
appropriately. Then he began to slide.
He relaxed his clasp of the tree and slid to the ground.
“Going to hell!” shrieked Georgie, reaching
a high pitch of enthusiasm in this great climax.
“Going to hell! Going to hell! I’m
gone to hell, hell, hell!”
With a loud scream, Mrs. Bassett threw herself out
of the window, alighting by some miracle upon her
feet with ankles unsprained.
Mr. Kinosling, feeling that his presence as spiritual
adviser was demanded in the yard, followed with greater
dignity through the front door. At the corner
of the house a small departing figure collided with
him violently. It was Penrod, tactfully withdrawing
from what promised to be a family scene of unusual
painfulness.
Mr. Kinosling seized him by the shoulders and, giving
way to emotion, shook him viciously.
“You horrible boy!” exclaimed Mr. Kinosling.
“You ruffianly creature! Do you know what’s
going to happen to you when you grow up? Do you
realize what you’re going to be!”
With flashing eyes, the indignant boy made know his
unshaken purpose. He shouted the reply:
“A minister!”
This busy globe which spawns us is as incapable of
flattery and as intent upon its own affair, whatever
that is, as a gyroscope; it keeps steadily whirling
along its lawful track, and, thus far seeming to hold
a right of way, spins doggedly on, with no perceptible
diminution of speed to mark the most gigantic human
events—it did not pause to pant and recuperate
even when what seemed to Penrod its principal purpose
was accomplished, and an enormous shadow, vanishing
westward over its surface, marked the dawn of his
twelfth birthday.
To be twelve is an attainment worth the struggle.
A boy, just twelve, is like a Frenchman just elected
to the Academy.
Distinction and honour wait upon him. Younger
boys show deference to a person of twelve: his
experience is guaranteed, his judgment, therefore,
mellow; consequently, his influence is profound.
Eleven is not quite satisfactory: it is only
an approach. Eleven has the disadvantage of six,
of nineteen, of forty-four, and of sixty-nine.
But, like twelve, seven is an honourable age, and
the ambition to attain it is laudable. People
look forward to being seven. Similarly, twenty
is worthy, and so, arbitrarily, is twenty-one; forty-five
has great solidity; seventy is most commendable and
each year thereafter an increasing honour. Thirteen
is embarrassed by the beginnings of a new colthood;
the child becomes a youth. But twelve is the
very top of boyhood.
