“What are they doing?” gasped Mrs. Williams,
blushing deeply. “What is it? What
is it?”
“What is it?” Mrs. Gelbraith
echoed in a frightened whisper. “What——”
“They’re Tangoing!” cried Margaret
Schofield. “Or Bunny Hugging or Grizzly
Bearing, or——”
“They’re only Turkey Trotting,”
said Robert Williams.
With fearful outcries the mothers, aunts, and sisters
rushed upon the pavilion.
“Of course it was dreadful,” said Mrs.
Schofield, an hour later, rendering her lord an account
of the day, “but it was every bit the fault
of that one extraordinary child. And of all the
quiet, demur little things—that is, I mean,
when she first came. We all spoke of how exquisite
she seemed—so well trained, so finished!
Eleven years old! I never saw anything like her
in my life!”
“I suppose it’s the New Child,”
her husband grunted.
“And to think of her saying there ought to have
been champagne in the lemonade!”
“Probably she’d forgotten to bring her
pocket flask,” he suggested musingly.
“But aren’t you proud of Penrod?”
cried Penrod’s mother. “It was just
as I told you: he was standing clear outside
the pavilion——”
“I never thought to see the day! And Penrod
was the only boy not doing it, the only one to refuse?
All the others were——”
“Every one!” she returned triumphantly.
“Even Georgie Bassett!”
“Well,” said Mr. Schofield, patting her
on the shoulder. “I guess we can hold up
our heads at last.”
Penrod was out in the yard, staring at the empty marquee.
The sun was on the horizon line, so far behind the
back fence, and a western window of the house blazed
in gold unbearable to the eye: his day was nearly
over. He sighed, and took from the inside pocket
of his new jacket the “sling-shot” aunt
Sarah Crim had given him that morning.
He snapped the rubbers absently. They held fast;
and his next impulse was entirely irresistible.
He found a shapely stone, fitted it to the leather,
and drew back the ancient catapult for a shot.
A sparrow hopped upon a branch between him and the
house, and he aimed at the sparrow, but the reflection
from the dazzling window struck in his eyes as he
loosed the leather.
He missed the sparrow, but not the window. There
was a loud crash, and to his horror he caught a glimpse
of his father, stricken in mid-shaving, ducking a
shower of broken glass, glittering razor flourishing
wildly. Words crashed with the glass, stentorian
words, fragmentary but collossal.
Penrod stood petrified, a broken sling in his hand.
He could hear his parent’s booming descent of
the back stairs, instant and furious; and then, red-hot
above white lather, Mr. Schofield burst out of the
kitchen door and hurtled forth upon his son.
