His eyes fell slowly and inimically from the brow
of Whittier to the braid of reddish hair belonging
to Victorine Riordan, the little octoroon girl who
sat directly in front of him. Victorine’s
back was as familiar to Penrod as the necktie of Oliver
Wendell Holmes. So was her gayly coloured plaid
waist. He hated the waist as he hated Victorine
herself, without knowing why. Enforced companionship
in large quantities and on an equal basis between
the sexes appears to sterilize the affections, and
schoolroom romances are few.
Victorine’s hair was thick, and the brickish
glints in it were beautiful, but Penrod was very tired
of it. A tiny knot of green ribbon finished off
the braid and kept it from unravelling; and beneath
the ribbon there was a final wisp of hair which was
just long enough to repose upon Penrod’s desk
when Victorine leaned back in her seat. It was
there now. Thoughtfully, he took the braid between
thumb and forefinger, and, without disturbing Victorine,
dipped the end of it and the green ribbon into the
inkwell of his desk. He brought hair and ribbon
forth dripping purple ink, and partially dried them
on a blotter, though, a moment later when Victorine
leaned forward, they were still able to add a few
picturesque touches to the plaid waist.
Rudolph Krauss, across the aisle from Penrod, watched
the operation with protuberant eyes, fascinated.
Inspired to imitation, he took a piece of chalk from
his pocket and wrote “Rats” across
the shoulder-blades of the boy in front of him, then
looked across appealingly to Penrod for tokens of
congratulation. Penrod yawned. It may not
be denied that at times he appeared to be a very self-centred
boy.
CHAPTER IX SOARING
Half the members of the class passed out to a recitation-room,
the empurpled Victorine among them, and Miss Spence
started the remaining half through the ordeal of trial
by mathematics. Several boys and girls were sent
to the blackboard, and Penrod, spared for the moment,
followed their operations a little while with his
eyes, but not with his mind; then, sinking deeper
in his seat, limply abandoned the effort. His
eyes remained open, but saw nothing; the routine of
the arithmetic lesson reached his ears in familiar,
meaningless sounds, but he heard nothing; and yet,
this time, he was profoundly occupied. He had
drifted away from the painful land of facts, and floated
now in a new sea of fancy which he had just discovered.
Maturity forgets the marvellous realness of a boy’s
day-dreams, how colourful they glow, rosy and living,
and how opaque the curtain closing down between the
dreamer and the actual world. That curtain is
almost sound-proof, too, and causes more throat-trouble
among parents than is suspected.
