Penrod | Page 7

the box, and also, as she knew he was
there anyhow, her question must have been put for oratorical purposes
only. "Because if you are," she continued promptly, "I'm going to ask
your papa not to let you play there any----"
Penrod's forehead, his eyes, the tops of his ears, and most of his hair,
became visible to her at the top of the box. "I ain't `playing!'" he said
indignantly.
"Well, what ARE you doing?"
"Just coming down," he replied, in a grieved but patient tone.
"Then why don't you COME?"
"I got Duke here. I got to get him DOWN, haven't I? You don't suppose
I want to leave a poor dog in here to starve, do you?"
"Well, hand him down over the side to me. Let me----"
"I'll get him down all right," said Penrod. "I got him up here, and I
guess I can get him down!"
"Well then, DO it!"
"I will if you'll let me alone. If you'll go on back to the house I promise
to be there inside of two minutes. Honest!"
He put extreme urgency into this, and his mother turned toward the
house. "If you're not there in two minutes----"
"I will be!"
After her departure, Penrod expended some finalities of eloquence
upon Duke, then disgustedly gathered him up in his arms, dumped him
into the basket and, shouting sternly, "All in for the ground floor--step

back there, madam--all ready, Jim!" lowered dog and basket to the
floor of the storeroom. Duke sprang out in tumultuous relief, and
bestowed frantic affection upon his master as the latter slid down from
the box.
Penrod dusted himself sketchily, experiencing a sense of satisfaction,
dulled by the overhanging afternoon, perhaps, but perceptible: he had
the feeling of one who has been true to a cause. The operation of the
elevator was unsinful and, save for the shock to Duke's nervous system,
it was harmless; but Penrod could not possibly have brought himself to
exhibit it in the presence of his mother or any other grown person in the
world. The reasons for secrecy were undefined; at least, Penrod did not
define them.

CHAPTER III
THE COSTUME
After lunch his mother and his sister Margaret, a pretty girl of nineteen,
dressed him for the sacrifice. They stood him near his mother's
bedroom window and did what they would to him.
During the earlier anguishes of the process he was mute, exceeding the
pathos of the stricken calf in the shambles; but a student of eyes might
have perceived in his soul the premonitory symptoms of a sinister
uprising. At a rehearsal (in citizens' clothes) attended by mothers and
grown-up sisters, Mrs. Lora Rewbush had announced that she wished
the costuming to be "as medieval and artistic as possible." Otherwise,
and as to details, she said, she would leave the costumes entirely to the
good taste of the children's parents. Mrs. Schofield and Margaret were
no archeologists, but they knew that their taste was as good as that of
other mothers and sisters concerned; so with perfect confidence they
had planned and executed a costume for Penrod; and the only
misgiving they felt was connected with the tractability of the Child Sir
Lancelot himself.
Stripped to his underwear, he had been made to wash himself
vehemently; then they began by shrouding his legs in a pair of silk
stockings, once blue but now mostly whitish. Upon Penrod they visibly
surpassed mere ampleness; but they were long, and it required only a
rather loose imagination to assume that they were tights.

The upper part of his body was next concealed from view by a garment
so peculiar that its description becomes difficult. In 1886, Mrs.
Schofield, then unmarried, had worn at her "coming-out party" a dress
of vivid salmon silk which had been remodelled after her marriage to
accord with various epochs of fashion until a final, unskilful campaign
at a dye-house had left it in a condition certain to attract much attention
to the wearer. Mrs. Schofield had considered giving it to Della, the
cook; but had decided not to do so, because you never could tell how
Della was going to take things, and cooks were scarce.
It may have been the word "medieval" (in Mrs. Lora Rewbush's rich
phrase) which had inspired the idea for a last conspicuous usefulness; at
all events, the bodice of that once salmon dress, somewhat modified
and moderated, now took a position, for its farewell appearance in
society, upon the back, breast, and arms of the Child Sir Lancelot.
The area thus costumed ceased at the waist, leaving a Jaeger- like and
unmedieval gap thence to the tops of the stockings. The inventive
genius of woman triumphantly bridged it, but in a manner which
imposes upon history almost