BOOTH TARKINGTONA Reward of Merit
I
Penrod and Sam made a gloomy discovery one morning in mid-October. All the
week had seen amiable breezes and fair skies until Saturday, when, about
breakfast-time, the dome of heaven filled solidly with gray vapor and began
to drip. The boys' discovery was that there is no justiceabout the weather.
They sat in the carriage-house of the Schofields' empty stable; the doors upon
the alley were open, and Sam and Penrod stared torpidly at the thin but implacable
drizzle which was the more irritating because there was barely enough of it to
interfere with a number of things they had planned to do.
"Yes; this is _nice_!" Sam said, in a tone of plaintive sarcasm. "This is a _perty
_ way to do!" (He was alluding to the personal spitefulness of the elements.)
"I'd like to know what's the sense of it--ole sun pourin' down every day in the
week when nobody needs it, then cloud up and rain all Saturday! My father said
it's goin' to be a three days' rain."
"Well, nobody with any sense cares if it rains Sunday and Monday," said Penrod.
"I wouldn't care if it rained every Sunday as long as I lived; but I just like to know
what's the reason it had to go and rain to-day.Got all the days o' the week to choose
from and goes and picks on Saturday. That's a fine biz'nuss!"
"Well, in vacation----" Sam began, but at a sound from a source invisible to him
he paused. "What's that?" he said, somewhat startled.
It was a curious sound, loud and hollow and unhuman, yet it seemed to be a cough.
Both boys rose, and Penrod asked uneasily, "Where'd that noise come from?"
"It's in the alley," said Sam.
Perhaps if the day had been bright, both of them would have stepped immediately
to the alley doors to investigate; but their actual procedure was to move a little
distance in the opposite direction. The strange cough sounded again.
"_Say!_" Penrod quavered. "What _is_ that?"
Then both boys uttered smothered exclamations and jumped, for the long, gaunt
head which appeared in the doorway was entirely unexpected. It was the cavernous
and melancholy head of an incredibly thin, old, whitish horse. This head waggled
slowly from side to side; the nostrils vibrated; the mouth opened, and the hollow
cough sounded again.
Recovering themselves, Penrod and Sam underwent the customary human
reaction from alarm to indignation.
"What you want, you ole horse, you?" Penrod shouted. "Don't you come coughin'
around _me_!"
And Sam, seizing a stick, hurled it at the intruder.
"Get out o' here!" he roared.
The aged horse nervously withdrew his head, turned tail, and made a rickety
flight up the alley, while Sam and Penrod, perfectly obedient to inherited impulse,
ran out into the drizzle and uproariously pursued. They were but automatons of
instinct, meaning no evil. Certainly they did not know the singular and pathetic
history of the old horse who had wandered into the alley and ventured to look
through the open door.
This horse, about twice the age of either Penrod or Sam, had lived to find himself
in a unique position. He was nude, possessing neither harness nor halter; all he
had was a name, Whitey, and he would have answered to it by a slight change of
expression if any one had thus properly addressed him. So forlorn was Whitey's
case, he was actually an independent horse; he had not even an owner. For two
days and a half he had been his own master.
Previous to that period he had been the property of one Abalene Morris, a person
of color, who would have explained himself as engaged in the hauling business.
On the contrary, the hauling business was an insignificant side line with Mr. Morris,
for he had long ago given himself, as utterly as fortune permitted, to that talent
which, early in youth, he had recognized as the greatest of all those surging in his
bosom. In his waking thoughts and in his dreams, in health and in sickness, Abalene
Morris was the dashing and emotional practitioner of an art probably more than
Roman in antiquity. Abalene was a crap-shooter. The hauling business was a disguise.
A concentration of events had brought it about that, at one and the same time,
Abalene, after a dazzling run of the dice, found the hauling business an actual danger
to the preservation of his liberty. He won seventeen dollars and sixty cents, and within
the hour found himself in trouble with an officer of the Humane Society on account of an altercation with Whitey. Abalene had been offered four dollars for Whitey some ten
days earlier; wherefore he at once drove to the shop of the junk-dealer who had made
the offer and announced his acquiescence in the sacrifice.
"_No_, suh!" said the junk-dealer, with emphasis. "I awready done got me a good
mule fer my deliv'ry-hoss, 'n'at ole Whitey hoss ain' wuff nofo' dollah nohow! I 'uz
a fool when I talk 'bout th'owin' money roun'that a-way. I know what _you_ up to,
Abalene. Man come by here li'l bitago tole me all 'bout white man try to 'rest you,
ovah on the avvynoo.Yessuh; he say white man goin' to git you yit an' th'ow you in
jail 'count o' Whitey. White man tryin' to fine out who you _is_. He say,nemmine,
he'll know Whitey ag'in, even if he don' know you! He say he ketch you by the hoss;
so you come roun' tryin' fix me up with Whitey so white man grab me,
th'ow _me_ in 'at jail. G'on 'way f'um hyuh, you Abalene! You cain' sell an' you
cain' give Whitey to no cullud man 'in'is town. You go an' drowned 'at ole hoss,
'cause you sutny goin' to jail if you git ketched drivin' him."
The substance of this advice seemed good to Abalene, especially as the seventeen
dollars and sixty cents in his pocket lent sweet colors to life out of jail at this time.
At dusk he led Whitey to a broad common at the edge of town, and spoke to him finally.
"G'on 'bout you biz'nis," said Abalene; "you ain' _my_ hoss. Don' look roun' at me,
'cause _I_ ain' got no 'quaintance wif you. I'm a man o'money, an' I got my own
frien's; I'm a-lookin' fer bigger cities, hoss.You got you' biz'nis an' I got mine.
Mista' Hoss, good-night!"
Whitey found a little frosted grass upon the common and remained there all night.
In the morning he sought the shed where Abalene had kept him, but that was across
the large and busy town, and Whitey was hopelessly lost. He had but one eye;
a feeble one; and his legs were not to be depended upon; but he managed to cover
a great deal of ground, to have many painful little adventures, and to get monstrously
hungry and thirsty before he happened to look in upon Penrod and Sam.
When the two boys chased him up the alley, they had no intention to cause pain;
they had no intention at all. They were no more cruel than Duke, Penrod's little old
dog, who followed his own instincts, and, making his appearance hastily through
a hole in the back fence, joined the pursuit with sound and fury. A boy will nearly
always run after anything that is running, and his first impulse is to throw a stone
at it. This is a survival of primeval man, who must take every chance to get his dinner.
So, when Penrod and Sam drove the hapless Whitey up the alley, they were really
responding to an impulse thousands and thousands of years old--an impulse founded
upon the primordial observation that whatever runs is likely to prove edible. Penrod
and Sam were not "bad"; they were never that. They were something which was not
their fault; they were historic.
At the next corner Whitey turned to the right into the cross-street; thence, turning
to the right again and still warmly pursued, he zigzagged down a main thoroughfare
until he reached another cross-street, which ran alongside the Schofields' yard and
brought him to the foot of the alley he had left behind in his flight. He entered the
alley, and there his dim eye fell upon the open door he had previously investigated.
No memory of it remained, but the place had a look associated in his mind with hay,
and as Sam and Penrod turned the corner of the alley in panting yet still vociferous
pursuit, Whitey stumbled up the inclined platform before the open doors, staggered thunderously across the carriage-house and through another open door into a stall,
an apartment vacant since the occupancy of Mr. Schofield's last horse, now severa
years deceased.
II
The two boys shrieked with excitement as they beheld the coincidence of this strange
return. They burst into the stable, making almost as much noise as Duke, who had
become frantic at the invasion. Sam laid hands upon a rake.
"You get out o' there, you ole horse, you!" he bellowed. "I ain't afraid to drive him out.
I----"
"_Wait_ a minute!" shouted Penrod. "Wait till I----"
Sam was manfully preparing to enter the stall.
"You hold the doors open," he commanded, "so's they won't blow shut and keep him
in here. I'm goin' to hit him with----"
"Quee-_yut_!" Penrod shouted, grasping the handle of the rake so that Sam could
not use it.
"Wait a _minute_, can't you?" He turned with ferocious voice and gestures upon
Duke. "_Duke!_" And Duke, in spite of his excitement, was so impressed that he
prostrated himself in silence, and then unobtrusively withdrew from the stable.
Penrod ran to the alley doors and closed them.
"My gracious!" Sam protested. "What you goin' to do?"
"I'm goin' to keep this horse," said Penrod, whose face showed the strain of a great idea.
"What _for_?"
"For the reward," said Penrod simply.
Sam sat down in the wheelbarrow and stared at his friend almost with awe.
"My gracious," he said, "I never thought o' that! How--how much do you think we'll
get, Penrod?"
Sam's thus admitting himself to a full partnership in the enterprise met no objection
from Penrod, who was absorbed in the contemplation of Whitey.
"Well," he said judicially, "we might get more and we might get less."
Sam rose and joined his friend in the doorway opening upon the two stalls. Whitey had preempted the nearer, and was hungrily nuzzling the old frayed hollows in the manger.
"May be a hundred dollars--or sumpthing?" Sam asked in a low voice.
Penrod maintained his composure and repeated the new-found expression which had
sounded well to him a moment before. He recognized it as a symbol of the
non-committal attitude that makes people looked up to.
"Well"--he made it slow, and frowned--"we might get more and we mightget less."
"More'n a hundred _dollars_?" Sam gasped.
"Well," said Penrod, "we might get more and we might get less." This time, however,
he felt the need of adding something. He put a question in an indulgent tone, as
though he were inquiring, not to add to his own information but to discover the
extent of Sam's.
"How much do youthink horses are worth, anyway?"
"I don't know," said Sam frankly, and, unconsciously, he added, "They might be
more and they might be less."
"Well, when our ole horse died," said Penrod, "papa said he wouldn't taken five
hundred dollars for him. That's how much _horses_ are worth!"
"My gracious!" Sam exclaimed. Then he had a practical afterthought."But maybe
he was a better horse than this'n. What color was he?"
"He was bay. Looky here, Sam"--and now Penrod's manner changed from the
superior to the eager--"you look what kind of horses they have in a circus, and you
bet a circus has the _best_ horses, don't it? Well, what kind of horses do they
have in a circus? They have some black and white ones, but the best they have are
white all over. Well, what kind of a horse is this we got here? He's perty near white
right now, and I bet if we washed him off and got him fixed up nice he _would_ be
white. Well, a bay horse is worth five hundred dollars, because that's what papa
said, and this horse----"
Sam interrupted rather timidly.
"He--he's awful bony, Penrod. You don't guess that'd make any----"
Penrod laughed contemptuously.
"Bony! All he needs is a little food and he'll fill right up and look good as ever. You
don't know much about horses, Sam, I expect. Why,_our_ ole horse----"
"Do you expect he's hungry now?" asked Sam, staring at Whitey.
"Let's try him," said Penrod. "Horses like hay and oats the best, but they'll
eat most anything."
"I guess they will. He's tryin' to eat that manger up right now, and I bet it ain't
good for him."
"Come on," said Penrod, closing the door that gave entrance to the stalls. "We got
to get this horse some drinkin'-water and some good food."
They tried Whitey's appetite first with an autumnal branch which they wrenched
from a hardy maple in the yard. They had seen horses nibble leaves, and they
expected Whitey to nibble the leaves of this branch, but his ravenous condition
did not allow him time for cool discriminations. Sam poked the branch at him from
the passageway, and Whitey, after one backward movement of alarm, seized it venomously."Here! You stop that!" Sam shouted. "You stop that, you ole horse, you!"
"What's the matter?" called Penrod from the hydrant, where he was filling a bucket.
"What's he doin' now?"
"Doin'! He's eatin' the wood part, too! He's chewin' up sticks as bigas baseball bats!
He's crazy!"
Penrod rushed to see this sight, and stood aghast. "Take it away from him, Sam!" he commanded sharply.
"Go on, take it away from him yourself!" was the prompt retort of his comrade.
"You had no biz'nuss to give it to him," said Penrod. "Anybody with any sense ought
to know it'd make him sick. What'd you want to go and give it to him for?"
"Well, you didn't say not to."
"Well, what if I didn't? I never said I did, did I? You go on in that stall and take it away from him."
"_Yes_, I will!" Sam returned bitterly. Then, as Whitey had dragged the remains
of the branch from the manger to the floor of the stall, Sam scrambled to the top of
the manger and looked over. "There ain't muchleft to _take_ away! He's swallered
it all except some splinters. Better give him the water to try and wash it down with."
And, as Penrod complied, "My gracious, look at that horse _drink_!"
They gave Whitey four buckets of water, and then debated the questionof nourishment. Obviously, this horse could not be trusted with branches, and, after getting their
knees black and their backs sodden, they gave up trying to pull enough grass to
sustain him. Then Penrod remembered that horses like apples, both "cooking-apples" and "eating-apples," and Sam mentioned the fact that every autumn his father received
a barrel of "cooking-apples" from a cousin who owned a farm. That barrel was in the
Williams' cellar now, and the cellar was providentially supplied with "outside doors,"
so that it could bevisited without going through the house. Sam and Penrod set forth
for the cellar.
They returned to the stable bulging, and, after a discussion of Whitey's digestion
(Sam claiming that eating the core and seeds, as Whitey did, would grow trees in
his inside), they went back to the cellar for supplies again--and again. They made
six trips, carrying each time a capacity cargo of apples, and still Whitey ate in
a famished manner. They were afraid to take more apples from the barrel, which
began to show conspicuously the result of their raids, wherefore Penrod made an
unostentatious visit to the cellar of his own house. From the inside he opened a window
and passed vegetables out to Sam, who placed them in a bucket and carried them
hurriedly to the stable, while Penrod returned in a casual manner through the house.
Of his_sang-froid_[30-1] under a great strain it is sufficient to relate that, in the
kitchen, he said suddenly to Della, the cook, "Oh, look behind you!" and by the time
Della discovered that there was nothing unusual behind her, Penrod was gone, and
a loaf of bread from thekitchen table was gone with him.
Whitey now ate nine turnips, two heads of lettuce, one cabbage, eleven raw potatoes,
and the loaf of bread. He ate the loaf of bread last and he was a long time about it;
so the boys came to a not unreasonable conclusion.
"Well, sir, I guess we got him filled up at last!" said Penrod. "I bet he wouldn't eat a
saucer of ice-cream now, if we'd give it to him!"
"He looks better to me," said Sam, staring critically at Whitey. "I think he's kind of
begun to fill out some. I expect he must like us, Penrod; we been doin' a good deal
for this horse."
"Well, we got to keep it up," Penrod insisted rather pompously. "Longas _I_ got
charge o' this horse, he's goin' to get good treatment."
"What we better do now, Penrod?"
Penrod took on the outward signs of deep thought.
"Well, there's plenty to _do_, all right. I got to think."
Sam made several suggestions, which Penrod--maintaining his air of preoccupation
--dismissed with mere gestures.
"Oh, _I_ know!" Sam cried finally. "We ought to wash him so's he'll look whiter'n what
he does now. We can turn the hose on him acrost the manger."
"No; not yet," said Penrod. "It's too soon after his meal. You ought to know that
yourself. What we got to do is to make up a bed for him--if he wants to lay down
or anything."
"Make up a what for him?" Sam echoed, dumfounded. "What you talkin' about?
How can----"
"Sawdust," said Penrod. "That's the way the horse we used to have used to have it.
We'll make this horse's bed in the other stall, and then he can go in there and lay down whenever he wants to."
"How we goin' to do it?"
"Look, Sam; there's the hole into the sawdust-box! All you got to do is walk in there
with the shovel, stick the shovel in the hole till it gets full of sawdust, and then
sprinkle it around on the empty stall."
"All _I_ got to do!" Sam cried. "What are you goin' to do?"
"I'm goin' to be right here," Penrod answered reassuringly. "He won't kick or anything,
and it isn't goin' to take you half a second to slip around behind him to the other stall."
"What makes you think he won't kick?"
"Well, I _know_ he won't, and, besides, you could hit him with the shovel if he tried
to. Anyhow, I'll be right here, won't I?"
"I don't care where you are," Sam said earnestly. "What difference would that make
if he ki----"
"Why, you were goin' right in the stall," Penrod reminded him. "When he first came in,
you were goin' to take the rake and----"
"I don't care if I was," Sam declared. "I was excited then."
"Well, you can get excited now, can't you?" his friend urged. "You can just as easy get----"
He was interrupted by a shout from Sam, who was keeping his eye upon Whitey
throughout the discussion.
"Look! Looky there!" And undoubtedly renewing his excitement, Sam pointed at
the long, gaunt head beyond the manger. It was disappearing from view. "Look!"
Sam shouted. "He's layin' down!"
"Well, then," said Penrod, "I guess he's goin' to take a nap. If he wants to lay down
without waitin' for us to get the sawdust fixed for him, that's his lookout, not ours."
On the contrary, Sam perceived a favorable opportunity for action.
"I just as soon go and make his bed up while he's layin' down," he volunteered. "You
climb up on the manger and watch him, Penrod, and I'll sneak in the other stall
and fix it all up nice for him, so's he can go in there any time when he wakes up, and
lay down again, or anything; and if he starts to get up, you holler and I'll jump out
over the other manger."
Accordingly, Penrod established himself in a position to observe the recumbent
figure. Whitey's breathing was rather labored but regular, and, as Sam remarked,
he looked "better," even in his slumber. It is not to be doubted that, although Whitey
was suffering from a light attack of colic, his feelings were in the main those of
contentment. After trouble, he was solaced; after exposure, he was sheltered; after
hunger and thirst, he was fed and watered. He slept.
The noon whistles blew before Sam's task was finished, but by the time he departed
for lunch there was made a bed of such quality that Whitey must needs have been
born fault finder if he complained of it. The friends parted, each urging the other to
be prompt in returning, but Penrod got into threatening difficulties as soon as he
entered the house.
III
"Penrod," said his mother, "what did you do with that loaf of bread Della says you
took from the table?"
"Ma'am? _What_ loaf o' bread?"
"I believe I can't let you go outdoors this afternoon," Mrs. Schofield said severely. "If
you were hungry, you know perfectly well all you hadto do was to----"
"But I wasn't hungry; I----"
"You can explain later," said Mrs. Schofield. "You'll have all afternoon."
Penrod's heart grew cold.
"I _can't_ stay in," he protested. "I've asked Sam Williams to come over."
"I'll telephone Mrs. Williams."
"Mamma!" Penrod's voice became agonized. "I _had_ to give that bread toa--to a
poor ole man. He was starving and so were his children and hiswife. They were all
just _starving_--and they couldn't wait while I took time to come and ask you,
mamma. I _got_ to go outdoors this afternoon. I _got_ to! Sam's----"
She relented.
In the carriage-house, half an hour later, Penrod gave an account of the episode.
"Where'd we been, I'd just like to know," he concluded, "if I hadn't got out here
this afternoon?"
"Well, I guess I could managed him all right," said Sam. "I was in the passageway,
a minute ago, takin' a look at him. He's standin' up agin. I expect he wants more to eat."
"Well, we got to fix about that," said Penrod. "But what I mean--if I'd had to stay
in the house, where would we been about the most important thing in the whole
biz'nuss?"
"What you talkin' about?"
"Well, why can't you wait till I tell you?" Penrod's tone had become peevish.
For that matter, so had Sam's; they were developing one of the little differences,
or quarrels, that composed the very texture of their friendship.
"Well, why don't you tell me, then?"
"Well, how can I?" Penrod demanded. "You keep talkin' every minute."
"I'm not talkin' _now_, am I?" Sam protested. "You can tell me _now_,can't you?
I'm not talk----"
"You are, too!" shouted Penrod. "You talk all the time! You----"
He was interrupted by Whitey's peculiar cough. Both boys jumped and forgot
their argument.
"He means he wants some more to eat, I bet," said Sam.
"Well, if he does, he's got to wait," Penrod declared. "We got to get the most
important thing of all fixed up first."
"What's that, Penrod?"
"The reward," said Penrod mildly. "That's what I was tryin' to tell you about, Sam,
if you'd ever give me half a chance."
"Well, I _did_ give you a chance. I kept _tellin'_ you to tell me, but----"
"You never! You kept sayin'----"
They renewed this discussion, protracting it indefinitely; but as each persisted in
clinging to his own interpretation of the facts, the question still remains unsettled.
It was abandoned, or rather, it merged into another during the later stages of the
debate, this other being concerned with which of the debaters had the least "sense."
Eachmade the plain statement that if he were more deficient than his opponent
in that regard, self-destruction would be his only refuge. Each declared that he
would "rather die than be talked to death"; and then, as the two approached a point
bluntly recriminative, Whitey coughed again, whereupon they were miraculously
silent, and went into the passageway in a perfectly amiable manner.
"I got to have a good look at him, for once," said Penrod, as he stared frowningly
at Whitey. "We got to fix up about that reward."
"I want to take a good ole look at him myself," said Sam.
After supplying Whitey with another bucket of water, they returned to the
carriage-house and seated themselves thoughtfully. In truth, they were something
a shade more than thoughtful; the adventure to which they had committed themselves
was beginning to be a little overpowering. If Whitey had been a dog, a goat, a fowl,
or even a stray calf, they would have felt equal to him; but now that the earlier glow
of their wild daring had disappeared, vague apprehensions stirred. Their "good look"
at Whitey had not reassured them--he seemed large, Gothic, and unusual.
Whisperings within them began to urge that for boys to undertake an enterprise
connected with so huge an animal as an actual horse was perilous. Beneath the surface
of their musings, dim but ominous prophecies moved; both boys began to have the
feeling that, somehow, this affair was going to get beyond them and that they would
be in heavy trouble before it was over--they knew not why. They knew why no more
than they knew why they felt it imperative to keep the fact of Whitey's presence in
the stable a secret from their respective families, but they did begin to realize that
keeping a secret of that size was going to be attended with some difficulty.
In brief, their sensations were becoming comparable to those of the man who stole
a house. Nevertheless, after a short period given to unspoken misgivings, they
returned to the subject of the reward. The money-value of bay horses, as compared
to white, was again discussed, and each announced his certainty that nothing less
than "a good ole hundred dollars" would be offered for the return of Whitey.
But immediately after so speaking they fell into another silence, due to sinking
feelings. They had spoken loudly and confidently, and yet they knew, somehow,
that such things were not to be. According to their knowledge, it was perfectly
reasonable to suppose that they would receive this fortune, but they frightened
themselves in speaking of it; they knew that they _could_ not have a hundred
dollars for their own. An oppression, as from something awful and criminal,
descended upon them at intervals.
Presently, however, they were warmed to a little cheerfulness again by Penrod's
suggestion that they should put a notice in the paper. Neither of them had the
slightest idea how to get it there, but such details as that were beyond the horizon;
they occupied themselves with the question of what their advertisement ought
to "say." Finding that they differed irreconcilably, Penrod went to a cache of his in
the sawdust-box and brought two pencils and a supply of paper. He gave one of the
pencils and several sheets to Sam; then both boys bent themselves in silence to the
labor of practical composition. Penrod produced the briefer paragraph.
Sam's was more ample.
[Illustration: FIG I missing]
[Illustration: FIG II missing]
Neither Sam nor Penrod showed any interest in what the other had written,
but both felt that something praiseworthy had beenaccomplished. Penrod exhaled
a sigh, as of relief, and, in a manner he had observed his father use sometimes, he said:
"Thank goodness, _that's_ off my mind, anyway!"
"What we goin' do next, Penrod?" Sam asked deferentially, the borrowed manner
having some effect upon him.
"I don't know what _you're_ goin' to do," Penrod returned, picking up the old cigar
box which had contained the paper and pencils. _"I'm_goin' to put mine in here,
so's it'll come in handy when I haf to get at it."
"Well, I guess I'll keep mine there, too," said Sam. There upon he deposited his scribbled
slip beside Penrod's in the cigar box, and the box was solemnly returned to the secret
place whence it had been taken.
"There, _that's_ 'tended to!" said Sam, and, unconsciously imitating his friend's
imitation, he gave forth audibly a breath of satisfaction and relief. Both boys felt that
the financial side of their great affair had been conscientiously looked to, that the
question of the reward was settled, and that everything was proceeding in a
businesslike manner.
Therefore, they were able to turn their attentionto another matter. This was the
question of Whitey's next meal. After their exploits of the morning, and the
consequent imperilment of Penrod, they decided that nothing more was to be done
in apples, vegetables, or bread; it was evident that Whitey must be fed from the
bosom of nature.
"We couldn't pull enough o' that frostbit ole grass in the yard to feed him," Penrod
said gloomily. "We could work a week and not get enough to make him swaller
more'n about twice. All we got this morning, he blew most of it away. He'd try to
scoop it in toward his teeth with his lip, and then he'd haf to kind of blow out his
breath, and after that all the grass that'd be left was just some wet pieces stickin'
to the outsides of his face. Well, and you know how he acted about that maple branch.
We can't trust him with branches."
Sam jumped up.
"_I_ know!" he cried. "There's lots of leaves left on the branches. We can give them to him."
"I just said----"
"I don't mean the branches," Sam explained. "We'll leave the branches on the trees,
but just pull the leaves off the branches and put 'em in the bucket and feed 'em to him
out the bucket."
Penrod thought this plan worth trying, and for three-quarters of an hour the two boys
were busy with the lower branches of various trees in the yard. Thus they managed
to supply Whitey with a fair quantity of wet leaves, which he ate in a perfunctory
way, displaying little of his earlier enthusiasm. And the work of his purveyors might
have been more tedious if it had been less damp, for a boy is seldom bored by anything
that involves his staying-out in the rain without protection. The drizzle had thickened;
the leaves were heavy with water, and at every jerk the branches sent fat drops over
the two collectors. They attained a noteworthy state of sogginess.
Finally, they were brought to the attention of the authorities indoors, and Della
appeared upon the back porch.
"Musther Penrod," she called, "y'r mamma says ye'll c'm in the house this minute an'
change y'r shoes an' stockin's an' everythun' else ye got on! D'ye hear me?"
Penrod, taken by surprise and unpleasantly alarmed, darted away from the tree he
was depleting and ran for the stable.
"You tell her I'm dry as toast!" he shouted over his shoulder.
Della withdrew, wearing the air of a person gratuitously insulted; and a moment
later she issued from the kitchen, carrying an umbrella. She opened it and walked
resolutely to the stable.
"She says I'm to bring ye in the house," said Della, "an' I'm goin' to bring ye!"
Sam had joined Penrod in the carriage-house, and, with the beginnings of an
unnamed terror, the two beheld this grim advance. But they did not stay for its
culmination. Without a word to each other they hurriedly tiptoed up the stairs to
the gloomy loft, and there they paused, listening.
They heard Della's steps upon the carriage-house floor.
"Ah, there's plenty places t'hide in," they heard her say; "but I'll show ye! She tole
me to bring ye, and I'm----"
She was interrupted by a peculiar sound--loud, chilling, dismal, and unmistakably
not of human origin. The boys knew it for Whitey's cough, but Della had not their
experience. A smothered shriek reached their ears; there was a scurrying noise,
nd then, with horror, they heard Della's footsteps in the passageway that ran by
Whitey's manger. Immediately there came a louder shriek, and even in the anguish
of knowing their secret discovered, they were shocked to hear distinctly the words,
"O Lard in hivvin!" in the well-known voice of Della. She shrieked again, and they
heard the rush of her footfalls across the carriage-house floor. Wild words came from
the outer air, and the kitchen door slammed violently.
It was all over. She had gone to"tell."
Penrod and Sam plunged down the stairs and out of the stable. They climbed the
back fence and fled up the alley. They turned into Sam's yard, and, without consultation,
headed for the cellar doors, nor paused till they found themselves in the farthest, darkest,
and gloomiest recess of the cellar. There, perspiring, stricken with fear, they sank down
upon the earthen floor, with their moist backs against the stone wall.
Thus with boys. The vague apprehensions that had been creeping uponPenrod and
Sam all afternoon had become monstrous; the unknown was before them. How great
their crime would turn out to be (now that it was in the hands of grown people), they
did not know, but, since it concerned a horse, it would undoubtedly be considered of
terrible dimensions.
Their plans for a reward, and all the things that had seemed both innocent and practical
in the morning, now staggered their minds as manifestations of criminal folly. A new
and terrible light seemed to play upon the day's exploits; they had chased a horse
belonging to strangers, and it would be said that they deliberately drove him into the
stable and there concealed him. They had, in truth, virtually stolen him, and they had
stolen food for him. The waning light through the small window above them warned
Penrod that his inroads upon the vegetables in his own cellar must soon be discovered.
Della, that Nemesis, would seek them in order to prepare them for dinner, and she
would find them not. But she would recall his excursion to the cellar, for she had seen
him when he came up; and also the truth would b known concerning the loaf of bread. Altogether, Penrod felt that his ase was worse than Sam's--until Sam offered a
suggestion which roused uch horrible possibilitites concerning the principal item of
their ffense that all thought of the smaller indictments disappeared.
"Listen, Penrod," Sam quavered: "What--what if that--what if that ole horse maybe
b'longed to a--policeman!" Sam's imagination was not of the comforting kind.
"What'd they--do to us, Penrod, if it turned out he was some policeman's horse?"
Penrod was able only to shake his head. He did not reply in words, but both boys
thenceforth considered it almost inevitable that Whitey _had_belonged to a
policeman, and in their sense of so ultimate a disaster, they ceased for a time to
brood upon what their parents would probably do to them. The penalty for stealing
a policeman's horse would be only a step short of capital, they were sure. They
would not be hanged; but vague, looming sketches of something called the
penitentiary began to flicker before them.
It grew darker in the cellar, so that finally they could not see each other.
"I guess they're huntin' for us by now," Sam said huskily. "I don't--I don't like it
much down here, Penrod."
Penrod's hoarse whisper came from the profound gloom:
"Well, who ever said you did?"
"Well----" Sam paused; then he said plaintively, "I wish we'd never_seen_ that
dern ole horse."
"It was every bit his fault," said Penrod. "_We_ didn't do anything. If he hadn't
come stickin' his ole head in our stable, it'd never happened at all. Ole fool!"
He rose. "I'm goin' to get out of here; I guess I've stood about enough for one day."
"Where--where you goin', Penrod? You aren't goin' _home_, are you?"
"No; I'm not! What do you take me for? You think I'm crazy?"
"Well, where _can_ you go?"
How far Penrod's desperation actually would have led him is doubtful, but he made
this statement:
"I don't know where _you're_ goin', but _I'm_ goin' to walk straight out in the
country till I come to a farm-house and say my name's George and live there!"
"I'll do it, too," Sam whispered eagerly. "I'll say my name's Henry."
"Well, we better get started," said the executive Penrod. "We got to get away
from here, anyway."
But when they came to ascend the steps leading to the "outside doors," they
found that those doors had been closed and locked for the night.
"It's no use," Sam lamented, "and we can't bust 'em, cause I tried to, once before.
Fanny always locks 'em about five o'clock--I forgot. We got to go up the stairway
and try to sneak out through the house."
They tiptoed back, and up the inner stairs. They paused at the top, then breathlessly
stepped out into a hall which was entirely dark. Sam touched Penrod's sleeve in
warning, and bent to listen at a door.
Immediately that door opened, revealing the bright library, where sat Penrod's
mother and Sam's father. It was Sam's mother who had opened the door.
"Come into the library, boys," she said. "Mrs. Schofield is just telling us about it."
And as the two comrades moved dumbly into the lighted room, Penrod's mother
rose, and, taking him by the shoulder, urged him close to the fire.
"You stand there and try to dry off a little, while I finish telling Mr. and Mrs.
Williams about you and Sam," she said. "You'd better make Sam keep near the
fire, too, Mrs. Williams, because they both got wringing wet. Think of their
running off just when most people would have wanted to stay! Well, I'll go on
with the story, then. Della told me all about it, and what the cook next door said
she'd_ seen, how they'd been trying to pull grass and leaves for the poor old thing
all day--and all about the apples they carried from _your_ cellar, and getting wet
and working in the rain as hard as they could--and they'd given him a loaf of bread!
Shame on you, Penrod!" She paused to laugh, but there was a little moisture round
her eyes, even before she laughed.
"And they'd fed him on potatoes and lettuce and cabbage and turnips out of _our
cellar! And I wish you'd see the sawdust bed theymade for him! Well, when I'd
telephoned, and the Humane Society man got there, he said it was the most
touching thing he ever knew. It seems he_knew this horse, and had been looking
for him. He said ninety-nine boys out of a hundred would have chased the poor
old thing away, and he was going to see to it that this case didn't go unnoticed,
because the local branch of the society gives little silver medals for special acts
like this. And the last thing he said before he led the poor old horse away was
that he was sure Penrod and Sam each would be awarded one at the meeting of
the society next Thursday night."
... On the following Saturday morning a yodel sounded from the sunny sidewalk
in front of the Schofields' house, and Penrod, issuing forth, beheld the familiar
figure of Samuel Williams in waiting.
Upon Sam's breast there glittered a round bit of silver suspended by a white
ribbon from a bar of the same metal. Upon the breast of Penrod was a decoration
precisely similar.
"'Lo, Penrod," said Sam. "What you goin' to do?"
"Nothin'."
"I got mine on," said Sam.
"I have, too," said Penrod. "I wouldn't take a hundred dollars for mine."
Each glanced pleasantly at the other's medal. They faced each other without shame.
Neither had the slightest sense of hypocrisy either in himself or in his comrade.
On the contrary!
Penrod's eyes went from Sam's medal back to his own; thence they wandered,
with perhaps a little disappointment, to the lifeless street and to the empty yards
and spectatorless windows of the neighborhood. Then he looked southward toward
the busy heart of the town, where multitudes were.
"Let's go down and see what time it is by the court-house clock," said Penrod.
by
Booth Tarkington
