Boyhood is the longest time in life for a boy. The last term of the school-year is made of decades, not of weeks, and living through them is like waiting for the millennium. But they do pass, somehow, and at last there came a day when Penrod was one of a group that capered out from the gravelled yard of "Ward School, Nomber Seventh," carolling a leave-taking of the institution, of their instructress, and not even forgetting Mr. Capps, the janitor.
"Good-bye, teacher! Good-bye, school!
Good-bye, Cappsie, dern ole fool!"
Penrod sang the loudest. For every boy, there is an age when he "finds his voice." Penrod's had not "changed," but he had found it. Inevitably that thing had come upon his family and the neighbours; and his father, a somewhat dyspeptic man, quoted frequently the expressive words of the "Lady of Shalott," but there were others whose sufferings were as poignant.
Vacation-time warmed the young of the world to pleasant languor; and a morning came that was like a brightly coloured picture in a child's fairy story. Miss Margaret Schofield, reclining in a hammock upon the front porch, was beautiful in the eyes of a newly made senior, well favoured and in fair raiment, beside her. A guitar rested lightly upon his knee, and he was trying to play--a matter of some difficulty, as the floor of the porch also seemed inclined to be musical. From directly under his feet came a voice of song, shrill, loud, incredibly piercing and incredibly flat, dwelling upon each syllable with incomprehensible reluctance to leave it.
"I have lands and earthly pow-wur.
I'd give all for a now-wur, Whi-ilst setting at MY-Y-Y dear old mother's knee-ee, So-o-o rem-mem-bur whilst you're young----"
Miss Schofield stamped heartily upon the musical floor.
"It's Penrod," she explained. "The lattice at the end of the porch is loose, and he crawls under and comes out all bugs.
He's been having a dreadful singing fit lately--running away to picture shows and vaudeville, I suppose."
Mr. Robert Williams looked upon her yearningly. He touched a thrilling chord on his guitar and leaned nearer. "But you said you have missed me," he began. I----"
The voice of Penrod drowned all other sounds.
"So-o-o rem-mem-bur, whi-i-ilst you're young, That the day-a-ys to you will come, When you're o-o-old and only in the way, Do not scoff at them BEE-cause----"
"PENROD!" Miss Schofield stamped again.
"You DID say you'd missed me," said Mr. Robert Williams, seizing hurriedly upon the silence. "Didn't you say----"
A livelier tune rose upward.
"Oh, you talk about your fascinating beauties, Of your dem-O-zells, your belles, But the littil dame I met, while in the city, She's par excellaws the queen of all the swells.
She's sweeter far----"
Margaret rose and jumped up and down repeatedly in a well-calculated area, whereupon the voice of Penrod cried chokedly, "QUIT that!" and there were subterranean coughings and sneezings.
"You want to choke a person to death?" he inquired severely, appearing at the end of the porch, a cobweb upon his brow. And, continuing, he put into practice a newly acquired phrase, "You better learn to be more considerick of other people's comfort."
Slowly and grievedly he withdrew, passed to the sunny side of the house, reclined in the warm grass beside his wistful Duke, and presently sang again.
"She's sweeter far than the flower I named her after, And the memery of her smile it haunts me YET!
When in after years the moon is soffly beamun' And at eve I smell the smell of mignonette I will re-CALL that----"
"Pen-ROD!"
Mr. Schofield appeared at an open window upstairs, a book in his hand.
"Stop it!" he commanded. "Can't I stay home with a headache ONE morning from the office without having to listen to--I never DID hear such squawking!" He retired from the window, having too impulsively called upon his Maker. Penrod, shocked and injured, entered the house, but presently his voice was again audible as far as the front porch. He was holding converse with his mother, somewhere in the interior.
"Well, what of it? Sam Williams told me his mother said if Bob ever did think of getting married to Margaret, his mother said she'd like to know what in the name o' goodness they expect to----"
Bang! Margaret thought it better to close the front door.
The next minute Penrod opened it. "I suppose you want the whole family to get a sunstroke," he said reprovingly. "Keepin' every breath of air out o' the house on a day like this!"
And he sat down implacably in the doorway.
The serious poetry of all languages has omitted the little brother; and yet he is one of the great trials of love--the immemorial burden of courtship. Tragedy should have found place for him, but he has been left to the haphazard vignettist of Grub Street. He is the grave and real menace of lovers; his head is sacred and terrible, his power illimitable. There is one way--only one--to deal with him; but Robert Williams, having a brother of Penrod's age, understood that way.
Robert had one dollar in the world. He gave it to Penrod immediately.
Enslaved forever, the new Rockefeller rose and went forth upon the highway, an overflowing heart bursting the floodgates of song.
"In her eyes the light of love was soffly gleamun', So sweetlay, So neatlay.
On the banks the moon's soff light was brightly streamun', Words of love I then spoke TO her.
She was purest of the PEW-er:
`Littil sweetheart, do not sigh, Do not weep and do not cry.
I will build a littil cottige just for yew-EW-EW and I.'"
In fairness, it must be called to mind that boys older than Penrod have these wellings of pent melody; a wife can never tell when she is to undergo a musical morning, and even the golden wedding brings her no security, a man of ninety is liable to bust-loose in song, any time.
