Penrod and Sam | Page 9

a portion of what he
detached, not being hungry at that time. The soul-fabric of Verman was
of a fortunate weave; he was not a seeker and questioner. When it
happened to him that he was at rest in a shady corner, he did not even
think about a place in the sun. Verman took life as it came.
Naturally, he fell asleep. And toward the conclusion of his slumbers, he
had this singular adventure: a lady set her foot down within less than

half an inch of his nose--and neither of them knew it. Verman slept on,
without being wakened by either the closing or the opening of the door.
What did rouse him was something ample and soft falling upon
him--Margaret's cape, which slid from the hook after she had gone.
Enveloped in its folds, Verman sat up, corkscrewing his knuckles into
the corners of his eyes. Slowly he became aware of two important
vacuums--one in time and one in his stomach. Hours had vanished
strangely into nowhere; the game of bonded prisoner was something
cloudy and remote of the long, long ago, and, although Verman knew
where he was, he had partially forgotten how he came there. He
perceived, however, that something had gone wrong, for he was certain
that he ought not to be where he found himself.
WHITE-FOLKS' HOUSE! The fact that Verman could not have
pronounced these words rendered them no less clear in his mind; they
began to stir his apprehension, and nothing becomes more rapidly
tumultuous than apprehension once it is stirred. That he might possibly
obtain release by making a noise was too daring a thought and not even
conceived, much less entertained, by the little and humble Verman. For,
with the bewildering gap of his slumber between him and previous
events, he did not place the responsibility for his being in White-Folks'
House upon the white folks who had put him there. His state of mind
was that of the stable-puppy who knows he MUST not be found in the
parlour. Not thrice in his life had Verman been within the doors of
White-Folks' House, and, above all things, he felt that it was in some
undefined way vital to him to get out of White-Folks' House
unobserved and unknown. It was in his very blood to be sure of that.
Further than this point, the processes of Verman's mind become
mysterious to the observer. It appears, however, that he had a definite
(though somewhat primitive) conception of the usefulness of disguise;
and he must have begun his preparations before he heard footsteps in
the room outside his closed door.
These footsteps were Margaret's. Just as Mr. Schofield's coffee was
brought, and just after Penrod had been baffled in another attempt to
leave the table, Margaret rose and patted her father impertinently upon
the head.
"You can't bully ME that way!" she said. "I got home too late to dress,
and I'm going to a dance. 'Scuse!"

And she began her dancing on the spot, pirouetting herself swiftly out
of the room, and was immediately heard running up the stairs.
"Penrod!" Mr. Schofield shouted. "Sit down! How many times am I
going to tell you? What IS the matter with you to-night?"
"I GOT to go," Penrod gasped. "I got to tell Margaret sumpthing."
"What have you 'got' to tell her?"
"It's--it's sumpthing I forgot to tell her."
"Well, it will keep till she comes downstairs," Mr. Schofield said
grimly. "You sit down till this meal is finished."
Penrod was becoming frantic.
"I got to tell her--it's sumpthing Sam's mother told me to tell her," he
babbled. "Didn't she, Sam? You heard her tell me to tell her; didn't you,
Sam?"
Sam offered prompt corroboration.
"Yes, sir; she did. She said for us both to tell her. I better go, too, I
guess, because she said--"
He was interrupted. Startlingly upon their ears rang shriek on shriek.
Mrs. Schofield, recognizing Margaret's voice, likewise shrieked, and
Mr. Schofield uttered various sounds; but Penrod and Sam were
incapable of doing anything vocally. All rushed from the table.
Margaret continued to shriek, and it is not to be denied that there was
some cause for her agitation. When she opened the closet door, her
light-blue military cape, instead of hanging on the hook where she had
left it, came out into the room in a manner that she afterward described
as "a kind of horrible creep, but faster than a creep." Nothing was to be
seen except the creeping cape, she said, but, of course, she could tell
there was some awful thing inside of it. It was too large to be a cat, and
too small to be a boy; it was too large to be Duke, Penrod's little old
dog, and, besides, Duke