At the steps, he instinctively lifted his hand to
remove his hat, but did not do so, and, saying “Goodnight,”
again in a frigid voice, departed with visible stiffness
from that house, to return no more.
“Well, of all——!” cried
Mrs. Schofield, astounded. “What was the
matter? He just went—like that!”
She made a flurried gesture. “In heaven’s
name, Margaret, what did you say to him?”
“I!” exclaimed Margaret indignantly.
“Nothing! He just went!”
“Why, he didn’t even take off his hat
when he said good-night!” said Mrs. Schofield.
Margaret, who had crossed to the doorway, caught the
ghost of a whisper behind her, where stood Penrod.
“You bet he didn’t!”
He knew not that he was overheard.
A frightful suspicion flashed through Margaret’s
mind—a suspicion that Mr. Kinosling’s
hat would have to be either boiled off or shaved off.
With growing horror she recalled Penrod’s long
absence when he went to bring the hat.
“Penrod,” she cried, “let me see
your hands!”
She had toiled at those hands herself late that afternoon,
nearly scalding her own, but at last achieving a lily
purity.
“Let me see your hands!”
She seized them.
Again they were tarred!
Perhaps middle-aged people might discern Nature’s
real intentions in the matter of pain if they would
examine a boy’s punishments and sorrows, for
he prolongs neither beyond their actual duration.
With a boy, trouble must be of Homeric dimensions
to last overnight. To him, every next day is
really a new day. Thus, Penrod woke, next morning,
with neither the unspared rod, nor Mr. Kinosling in
his mind. Tar, itself, so far as his consideration
of it went, might have been an undiscovered substance.
His mood was cheerful and mercantile; some process
having worked mysteriously within him, during the
night, to the result that his first waking thought
was of profits connected with the sale of old iron—or
perhaps a ragman had passed the house, just before
he woke.
By ten o’clock he had formed a partnership with
the indeed amiable Sam, and the firm of Schofield
and Williams plunged headlong into commerce.
Heavy dealings in rags, paper, old iron and lead gave
the firm a balance of twenty-two cents on the evening
of the third day; but a venture in glassware, following,
proved disappointing on account of the scepticism
of all the druggists in that part of town, even after
seven laborious hours had been spent in cleansing
a wheelbarrow-load of old medicine bottles with hydrant
water and ashes. Likewise, the partners were
disheartened by their failure to dispose of a crop
of “greens,” although they had uprooted
specimens of that decorative and unappreciated flower,
the dandelion, with such persistence and energy that
the Schofields’ and Williams’ lawns looked
curiously haggard for the rest of that summer.
