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Henry James - "Some Short Stories"

E. Phillips Oppenheim - "The Malefactor"

R. F. Murray/Andrew Lang - "His Poems with a Memoir by Andrew Lang"

Booth Tarkington - "Penrod and Sam"

Penrod and Sam

B >> Booth Tarkington >> Penrod and Sam




"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 favourable 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 laboured 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 a 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.



CHAPTER IX. REWARD OF MERIT

"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 had to do was to--"

"But I wasn't hungry; I--"

"You can explain later," Mrs. Schofield said. "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 to a--to a poor ole man. He was starving and so were his
children and his wife. 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," Sam said. "I was
in the passageway, a minute ago, takin' a look at him. He's
standin' up again. 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!" Penrod shouted. "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." Each made 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," Penrod said, 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," Sam said.

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 subj ect 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
hunderd 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 his cache 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 labour
of practical composition. Penrod produced the briefer paragraph.
(See Fig. I.) Sam's was more ample. (See Fig. II.)

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[Transcribed from handwritten illustration for Project

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