Penrod moved uneasily in his chair; he was conscious
that he was her topic but unable to make out whether
or not her observations were complimentary; he inclined
to think they were not. Mrs. Crim settled the
question for him.
“I suppose Penrod is regarded as the neighbourhood
curse?”
“Oh, no,” cried Mrs. Schofield. “He——”
“I dare say the neighbours are right,”
continued the old lady placidly. “He’s
had to repeat the history of the race and go through
all the stages from the primordial to barbarism.
You don’t expect boys to be civilized, do you?”
“Well, I——”
“You might as well expect eggs to crow.
No; you’ve got to take boys as they are, and
learn to know them as they are.”
“Naturally, Aunt Sarah,” said Mrs. Schofield,
“I know Penrod.”
Aunt Sarah laughed heartily. “Do you think
his father knows him, too?”
“Of course, men are different,” Mrs. Schofield
returned, apologetically. “But a mother
knows——”
“Penrod,” said Aunt Sarah, solemnly, “does
your father understand you?”
“Ma’am?”
“About as much as he’d understand Sitting
Bull!” she laughed.
“And I’ll tell you what your mother thinks
you are, Penrod. Her real belief is that you’re
a novice in a convent.”
“Ma’am?”
“Aunt Sarah!”
“I know she thinks that, because whenever you
don’t behave like a novice she’s disappointed
in you. And your father really believes that you’re
a decorous, well-trained young business man, and whenever
you don’t live up to that standard you get on
his nerves and he thinks you need a walloping.
I’m sure a day very seldom passes without their
both saying they don’t know what on earth to
do with you. Does whipping do you any good, Penrod?”
“Ma’am?”
“Go on and finish the lemonade; there’s
about glassful left. Oh, take it, take it; and
don’t say why! Of course you’re
a little pig.”
Penrod laughed gratefully, his eyes fixed upon her
over the rim of his uptilted glass.
“Fill yourself up uncomfortably,” said
the old lady. “You’re twelve years
old, and you ought to be happy—if you aren’t
anything else. It’s taken over nineteen
hundred years of Christianity and some hundreds of
thousands of years of other things to produce you,
and there you sit!”
“Ma’am?”
“It’ll be your turn to struggle and muss
things up, for the betterment of posterity, soon enough,”
said Aunt Sarah Crim. “Drink your lemonade!”
“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?”
