“Oh, my goodness!” he shouted suddenly.
“Can’t you keep still a minute?”
Miss Spence gasped. So did the pupils.
The whole room filled with a swelling conglomerate
“O-O-O-O-H!”
As for Penrod himself, the walls reeled with the shock.
He sat with his mouth open, a mere lump of stupefaction.
For the appalling words that he had hurled at the
teacher were as inexplicable to him as to any other
who heard them.
Nothing is more treacherous than the human mind; nothing
else so loves to play the Iscariot. Even when
patiently bullied into a semblance of order and training,
it may prove but a base and shifty servant. And
Penrod’s mind was not his servant; it was a master,
with the April wind’s whims; and it had just
played him a diabolical trick. The very jolt
with which he came back to the schoolroom in the midst
of his fancied flight jarred his day-dream utterly
out of him; and he sat, open-mouthed in horror at
what he had said.
The unanimous gasp of awe was protracted. Miss
Spence, however, finally recovered her breath, and,
returning deliberately to the platform, faced the
school. “And then for a little while,”
as pathetic stories sometimes recount, “everything
was very still.” It was so still, in fact,
that Penrod’s newborn notoriety could almost
be heard growing. This grisly silence was at
last broken by the teacher.
“Penrod Schofield, stand up!”
The miserable child obeyed.
“What did you mean by speaking to me in that
way?”
He hung his head, raked the floor with the side of
his shoe, swayed, swallowed, looked suddenly at his
hands with the air of never having seen them before,
then clasped them behind him. The school shivered
in ecstatic horror, every fascinated eye upon him;
yet there was not a soul in the room but was profoundly
grateful to him for the sensation—including
the offended teacher herself. Unhappily, all this
gratitude was unconscious and altogether different
from the kind which, results in testimonials and loving-cups.
On the contrary!
“Penrod Schofield!”
He gulped.
“Answer me at once! Why did you speak to
me like that?”
“I was——” He choked,
unable to continue.
“Speak out!”
“I was just—thinking,” he managed
to stammer.
“That will not do,” she returned sharply.
“I wish to know immediately why you spoke as
you did.”
The stricken Penrod answered helplessly:
“Because I was just thinking.”
Upon the very rack he could have offered no ampler
truthful explanation. It was all he knew about
it.
“Thinking what?”
“Just thinking.”
Miss Spence’s expression gave evidence that
her power of self-restraint was undergoing a remarkable
test. However, after taking counsel with herself,
she commanded:
