Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 272, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1917 — The Young Zoologists [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Young Zoologists

J< , A Penrod and Sam Have a Three Weeks’ Thriller With a Horae Hair Snake

By BOOTH TARKINGTON

i (Sopyright, 1917, Wheeler Syndicate, Inc.)

FOR a boy, summer-time is the period of highest -scientific interest; it is the bug season. Penrose Schofield and his friend, Sam Williams, stood enthralled, In Penrose’s back fard, staring at a maghificent creature they had discovered upon the stalk of a lush bush in the fence corner. The thing was so still, it might have been a pixie’s concertina. painted dusty green and ornamented with brilliant pool balls* from a pixie pool table. To Penrod and Sam it was* known as a “tobacco worm,” and it was the largest and fattest they had ever seen. The two boys stared in silence for a long time; finally Penrod spoke in a hushed voice. “I wonder what he’s thinkin’ about," “Thinkin’ about how fat he is, maybe,” Sam suggested. “I bet you don’t know which end his head is,” said Penrod. ,“I bet you don’t, either.” “Well, whoever said I did?” Penrod retorted crossly. “Well, did I say I did?” “Well, whoever said you did say you did?” A movement on the part of the green creature distracted the attention of both boys momentarily. “Look!” Penrod cried. “He’s movin’!” “Climbin’ up the bush,” observed Sam.* “That shows which end his head is; it*s on top." “It doesn’t have to be on top jusf because he’s climbin', up the bush,” Penrod remarked scornfully. “I guess he could back up, just as well as climb up, couldn’t he?” “Well, he wouldn’t,” Sam argued. “What would he want to back up for, when he could just as easy climb up? His head’s on top of him, and that proves it.” Penrod laughed pityingly. “Suppose sumpthing was after him; he’d want to have his head on the bottom end so’s he could keep watchin’ out to see if it was comln’ after him up the stalk, wouldn’t he? That proves it, I guess!” So it did —so far as Sam Williams was concerned. Sam was overwhelm- . ed; he had nothing to say. He dug the ground with the toe of his shoe, despondently, then brightened all at once. “I bet I know sumpin’ about grasshoppers that you don’t.” “Go ahead and prove it!” % bet you don’t know grasshoppers chew tobacco.” - , At this Penrod yelled in consuming tscorn.

“Yon wait!” Sam began to browse tn the grass searching. • “Grasshoppers chew tobacco!” howl; ,ed Penrod. “Grasshoppers chew tobacco! Grasshop—oh, ho, ho!” “Here,” said Sam, bringing a grasshopper for his inspection. “You watch now.” - He gave the grasshopper a command, squeezed him slightly about the middle, and proved the case absolutely. “Look there!” he cried, flourishing Exhibit A upon his thumbnail. “Now, say grasshoppers don’t chew tobacco I” Penrod was beside himself, but not (as would have been proper} with confusion; ecstasy was his emotion —and there followed a bad-quarter of an hour for the grasshoppers in that portion of the yard. " “Pshaw!” said Sam. “I’ve known grasshoppers chewed tobacco ever since I was five years old.” Penrod paused to seek further knowledge at its fountaln-ftfiad. “Sam, do you know anything else?” he inquired hopefully. “Yes, I do!” replied Mr. Williams with justified resentment. “Lemme see. Oh,r yes I I bet you don’t know if you put d black hair from a horse’s tall in a bottle and put water in it, and leave it there for three weeks, it’ll turn into a snake.” “I do, too,” said Penrod. “I knew that, ever since I was —" Penrod paused; a sudden light in his eyes. “Sam, did you ever try it?” “No,” said Sam, thoughtfully. “I guess when I heard it we didn’t have any horse, and I was too little to get one from any other people’s horse —or sumpthing.” Penrod jumped up eagerly. “Well, we aren’t too little now!” he shouted. “Yay!" This jubilant outcry from Sam demonstrated what reciprocal fires of enthusiasm Were kindled in his bosom on the instant “Where’s a horse?” their eyes fell upon what they sought In a. side street stood a grocer’s wagon, and the grocer had just gone into the kitchen. Attached to the wagon was an elderly bay* horse. Attached to the elderly bay horse was a black tail. Tfie prospective snake manufacturers drew neay the raw material. The elderly bay hor&e switched his black tail at a fly, a gesture unfortuJnate for Penrod, upon whose eager countenance it culminated. “Oof!” He jumped back, sputtering; and the horse looked around inquiringly; then, seeing boys, assumed an expression at Implacable fury. “Go on,” Sam urged. “Pull ’em out Two’s enough." > Penrod glanced uneasily at the horse’s horizontal ears. You pull ’em.

Sam,” he suggested, edging away. “I’ll go and be getting the bottles ready to put ’em in. I —” “No, sir 1” Sam insisted. “You started to pull ’em and you ought to do it I didn’t start to pull ’em, did I?” “Now, see here—” Penrod became argumentative. . “You better quit talkin’ so much,” Sam Interrupted doggedly. “Go ahead and pull those two hairs out of his old tail or pretty, soon the man’ll come out and drive him away, and then where’ll we be? You started to do it, and so it’s your business to.” “Well, I am goin’ to, ain’t I?” “Now!” Sam exclaimed. “He’squit lookin’ at us. Quick!” Seizing this, opportunity, Penrod ventured the deed and was rewarded. The elderly horse seemed to have forgotten his animosity in a-fit of depression ; he hung his head, and marked the ravishment by nothing more than a slight shudder. Preliminaries to the great experiment were worked out with grave care. The largest empty bottles obtainable were selected, cleaned, and filled with fair, water. Then, with befitting solicitude, the two long black hairs were lowered into the water, and the bottles were corked. After that, a label was pasted upon each,; exhibiting the owner’s name and address. The fascinating work was not complete, however. Penrod paid a visit to the kitchen clock, and, after some exercise in computation, the following note was inscribed in precise duplicate upon the labels: “Hair from Jacop R. Krish and cos horse tall put in sixteen minutes of evelen o’clock July 11 Snak comes sixteen minutes of evelen oclock July 32.” Penrod took his bottle to his room that night; it stood close by his bedside throughout the long dark hours; and once, waking suddenly, he groped for lt“ feverishly, in fear. His fingers found the smooth, cool curves of its neck, and, reassured, he slept again, a smile upon his face. And in the morning, his waking eyes anxiously sought the bottle and its tenant; all was safe, and Penrod rose in joy. Never was treasure more closely guarded or more steadfastly watched; and, as the days passed, there developed in Penrod’s mind a somewhat' definite picture of the little companion soon to be his; he was sure it would have brown eyes—admiring eyes, obedient and faithful, like a dog’s. And, while these thoughts floated within him, he would sit by the half-hour, gazing at the bottle, a gentle and warming affection emanating toward it from him. j Twenty-one slow days must pass before the rapturous event; twelve had gone when Sam reported that symptoms of the great change were appearing in his “snake,” which he had taken to his home. (They had dis-, carded the term hair on the second day.)

“Yes, sir,” said Sam, “he’s turned all round in the bottle from the way he was layin’ yesterday; kind of looks like he was restless, to me. And there’s sumpthing like little bubbles on him up at the end where his head’s goln* to be.” The hair in Penrod’s bottle had no such accomplishment for its owner to vaunt; he looked coldly- at Sam, and began to whistle. “Yes, sir,” Sam went on, with perhaps too much -unction, “that snake of mine looks to me like it was goln’ to make a mighty fine snake!” “Well, I don’t know,” Penrod said, slighting. ‘1 like ’em kind of quieter.” Nor did the fact that his treasure exhibit no tokens of the transition disturb him In any way, except thus to rouse his championage. No slightest doubt ever shadowed his ardent confidence; never for one instant! Tadpoles became frogs; caterpillars make themselves Into cocoons; and cocoons are really -butterflies; he had owned cocoons that showed no change In appearance until the very hour of the butterflies’ emergence. The hair In the bottle looked evd-y day more and more like an attractive young snake, and' by the time •Penrod discovered that the thirty-second of July would really be the first of August, it seemed to him that it almost was a snake, already. The final week of the three was one of internal excitement, heightening almost unbearably as the climax approached. Then, the first of August dawned fair and cool; nd sweeter birthday could have been selected in all the year. Penrod woke with the joyous feeling that riches had come to him in his snake. As his eyes opened and fell upon the bottle, bathed in morning sunshine on the chair by his bed, he stared with joy. The hair had altered Its position in the water during the night; the miracle had begun to .work, and 15 minutes of 11 would see It consummated. He dressed slowly and tremulously, wondering what he would name it. Then, Instead of descending to breakfast, he sat upon his bed to gaze upon the marvel, and continued to sit —and sit—and sit. Meanwhile, urgent requests for Ids presence In the dining room went wholly unheeded, until. finally Margaret, his pretty nlneteen-

year-old slstd, appeared In the doorway. , , *■ - “Penrod!” - ? A . Instinctively, he leaped between her and the sacred bottle, that she (night not see it He trusted »o yoman ffi any weighty affair —least, qf all a sister! < "Papa* sent me up to see. what you are doing?” “Nothing.” “Then why in the world don’t you come to breakfast?” * “Well, lam coming, ain’t I?” His tone was that of a person unjustly attacked. “What you all dressed up for this morning?” “I never did see such a boy!” Margaret exclaimed. “You say that every day,” Penrod retorted plaintively. - “Penrod! Are you coming?” - “Yes. Tm ready,” he announced unexpectedly, having managed, with his hands behind him, to conceal the bottle beneath his pillow. Speeding from the table at the first possible moment, he relurned to his own room, and, in the doorway, was struck with an unnamed fear. Katie, the housemaid was putting the room in order; but she had not touched the bed. Once more able to breathe, he secured the bottle and departed, carrying it under his jacket, iir front, without Katie’s noticing anything unusual in his manner or bosom. He started down the back stairs, but retreated, hearing his mother below, in conversation with the cook.

Proceeding to the top of the front stairs, he heard the voice of Margaret and Mr. Robert Williams, Sam’s brother, a senior on vacation. A glance over the railing revealed the collegian, beautifully attired, confronting Margaret, who leaned against the newel post in a way very irritating to a brother who wished to get out to the stable without being stepped or questioned. When Margaret got her back to the newel post like that, Penrod knew she might stay there “hours and hours!” “Margaret,” said Mr. Williams, In a voice wholly Inexplicable to Penrod, “I believe you care more for the bowl of gold fish, in yonder, than you do for me.” Penrod retired from the hallway into Margaret’s room, and feeling satisfied that she would not come there for a long time, withdrew the treasure from beneath his coat, set it upon her dressing table, and seated himself beside it Gold fish I With the prospect before him of what was going to happen at or before, 16 minutes of 11, the lives of other people—Who had no hope of owning pet snakes, hatched in the bottle—seethed pitifully vacant He felt sorry foT Robert Williams. He pitied the young manfor having nothing better to do than to talk to an uninteresting girl about Whether she liked film as well as she did some' gold fish in a glass bowl! A motor whizzed in the street, and, glancing out of the window at his elbow, Penrod found occasion to be sorry for another young man, evidently coming to interview the unintefesting girl; and from various overhearings of late, Penrod had little doubt that this one, £OO, would- be discussing at the first opportunity, what Margaret liked? He was a dainty, and* exquisite young man, more than well-to-do, nuuch encouraged by Mrs. Schofield; and It was he who had given Margaret t|»e bowl of gold sish —which lends some flavor to Robert Williams’ dismal comparison. Mr. Ethelbert Magsworth Bitts was generally believed to be a very happy and fortunate youth; he had a yacht somewhere; he had a motor car, then at the curb; he had money enough to buy all the candy in town if he chose; yet Penrod pitied him. Sixteen minutes of eleven that morning would find Mr. Bitts utterly

snnkeless. There are some things money cannot buy. . •?. “What time is l,t getting to be?” Penrose'suddenly inquired aloud. * : Thert was a little (dock on Margaret’s dressing table, but it had popped. Upon an impulse, he Jump«l up and ran downstairs to the kitchen. u There, the noisy old wall-clock reassured him soothingly. It marked fifteen minutes after ten. “Yay, Penrod!” i This was a shout from the yard, and going to the door, Penrod beheld Sam Williams, radiant with excitement “Come on over to our stable,” shouted Sam. “Come on!-Come on and look at him!” Penrod did not stop for his hat; a jealous fear, suddenly roused, added fear to his feet. And when they reached Sam’s stable he was profoundly resolved to find Sam’s “snake” no more advanced toward the great transformation than his own. He expressed the opinion, indeed, that this was much further along. “Why, how could it be?” demanded Sam resentfully. “I’ve been sittln’ here lookin’ at mine ever since breakfast and never took my eyes off him. Well, sir, I, saw him breathe —he did it lots of times! You can’t tell it just lookin’ at him this way. You got to keep lookin’ at him and lookin’ at him; you bet I saw him do it, all right! And once he almost wiggled.” “ ‘Almost wiggled I Mine did wiggle!” Penrod said —and thereafter believed it “Well, so’d mine,” said Sam.

“Well, who said he didn’t? I didn’t say he didn’t, did I?” “Well, who said you did say—” “Come on I” interrupted Penrod. “Let’s go back and look at mine.” “No, sir! I want to watch my own snake change, don’t I? You better stay here and wait till he’s all good and changed, then we’ll-go and see if yours—•” “No, sir!” shouted Penrod over his shoulder, as he started home on the trot. “I’m goin’ back to watch a good snake!” He passed through the kitchen of his own home at the same gait, disregarding a request by Katie, the housemaid, for a hearing. “Mister J’enrod,” she began, “I’d like to know what fer you want —” “Cat fur!” facetiously shouted Penrod, already ascending the back stairs. “Cat fur, to make kitten britches with!” . Next moment, a fearful howl issued from Margaret’s room. Mrs. Schofield, hurrying thither from her own apartment, encountered her son in the passageway. “Penrod, what's the matter?” “Where’s my snake F> . “Where’s what?” * “My snake!” he bellowed. “I want my snake! Where’s my sna-a-ke?” “Penrod, are you crazy?” she cried. “What on earth are you—” "My snake! I left it on Margaret’s bureau and it’s gone! Who’s took it? Who’s been in there? Who’s got my snake?” Mrs. Schofield began to be alarmed in earnest, her son’s manner and look were frantic, and his words, to her, incomprehensible. . . ' • “Penrod,” she said nervously, "you must take some castor oil. There wasn’t any snake in Margaret’s room. I heard her comg upstairs for something a minute ago, and go in there. If there’d been a snake there she’d have screamed, but she went downstairs again, and —” So did Penrod go downstairs again. He plunged, three steps at a time, and exploded himself into the parlor, where Margaret sat {looking faintly embarrassed) with Mr. Ethelbert Magsworth Bitts (who had come to take her to drive and was frowning) and Mr. Robert Williams (who £ad come to take her for a walk, and was scowling), and the gold fish (who were swimming). . “Where’s my snakeF

Margaret jumped. “Good gracious I What in the world — “I want my sna-a-ke! I left it In a bottle on your—” “Oh 1” Margaret laughed relieved. "There was a bottle on my dressing table, and noticed your name pasted on Itbut I don’t think there was anything inside except water.” Penrod jumped up and down. "What did you do with it?” he roared. “I gave it to Katie, and told her to ask you if you wanted it, and if you didn’t —•* ♦ Penrod left an overturned chair to blaze his trail. He burst into the kitchen, and Katie was there, bending over the sink. Where’s my snake?” “Oh, Lord!” wailed Katie, clutching at her heart. “What’d you do with my sna-a-ke?” “What did I what?” . ‘Tn a bottle!” he bellowed., “Margaret gave you my bottle with ray sna-a-ake in it! I want my snake!” “There wasn’t any snake In it,” said Katie. “There wasn’t nothin’ in it Miss Marg*rut says the bottle had your name on It and I should ask you did you want it, and I showed it to Della and she says she wants it to put some sirup in it, and I wouldn’t let her have it till I asked'you, and you come in, and I started to ask you what fer you wanted it, and you says ‘Cat fur to make kitten britches with,’ and went on upstairs, and so—” "Where is it?” shouted Penrod hoarsely; and even in this agony of suspense marked that the clock stood at 20 minutes of 11. “What did you do with my snake?” “I never saw no snake. Do you think Fd ’a’ touched it if there’d ’a’ been any sn— ■” “Where’s my bottle?” demanded the frenzied boy. “Here,” said Katie, disengaging the empty bottle from the towel with which she was drying it “You didn’t seem to care enough about it to answer me, and I poured the water out, so Della could use it. There wasn’t nothing in it at all—except a hair that must ’a’ fell in it somehow, and went down the sink when I poured the water out.” Penrod ran amuck. With a maniacal yell he struck the bottle from her hand and fled toward the front part of the house. In the library he encountered a young cat which had recently been adopted by his mother for “good luck,” having followed her on the street. A really intelligent cat would have fled from Penrod’s path at highest speed, but this one came running to him, hopefully. It proved to be the most Important mistake of the young cat’s life. To one maddened with outrage and injustice, and suffering with the agony of having just had his heart’s idol poured down the kitchen sink, the sight of another person’s pet—safe, pampered, and wearing a pink ribbon —was merely cipzing. With a glad cry, Penrod plunged to meet the advance of the young cat, who turned too late, but precisely in time to leave his extended tall in the feverish clutch of the maddened boy.

Once, twice, thrice, Penrod swung that electrified cat in a great circle, with the radius of a full arm and half a tail. The cat swept the air, shriekiftg inconceivably with horror, and at the top of Its third orbit went so high, and so heartily, it brought down a glass globe from the chandelier. Startled exclamations came from the parlor, and, following them, the projectors thereof: Margaret, Mr. Ethelbert Magsworth Bitts and Mr. Robert Williams. They reached the library in time to see the young cat become aviator, and, released from a hurtling hand, mount upward and upward upon invisible currents till it disappeared through the Upper section of a window, which was “down from the top.” Crimson, infuriated, Penrod turned upon his dumfounded sister. “You ruined my snake!” he bleated. “You watch what I do to. your old gold fish!” He darted out of het detaining fingers, and though she pursued, and Robert Williams pursued, and Ethelbert Magsworth Bitts pursued, he had seized upon the bowl of gold fish and was out in the hall with it before the hand of man—or girl—could be laid upon him. On the hall table deposed two straw hats; one was Robert’s; the other, which bore the mark of a London maker, was the hat of Ethelbert Magsworth Bitts. Margaret, rushing through the doorway, uttered a lamentable outcry. But Penrod discriminated nothing between these hats. With a mighty effort he heaved the bowl of gold fish upside down and poured water and fish as equally as he could into the two hats. Then he threw the empty bowl boldly into the stomach of Ethelbert Magsworth Bitts, his nearest pursuer, and. with a great and demented roaring, dashed out of the open door and cometed away into space. “Ugh!” said Mr. Bitts, and remained where he was, two hands upon the area of contact. But Robert Williams ran swiftly out upon the front porch where a colored boy, with a bucket of soapy water in one hand, and a scrubbing brush in the other, stood gazing in the direction of Penrod’s evanishment Robert seized upon the bucket, and was back in the hall, and had the gold-fish in the soapy water almost instantly, flopping rather feebly, but alive. t. ‘ “Quick!” he said to Margaret "Get a pail of clear water. I don’t know if they can live in these suds more than a minute. Don’t stand there! Hurry!” And when she returned with the pail he whispered to her: “I’ll bring you another glass bowFfor them this afternoon. Don’t fret I”

“My hat!” said Mr. Bitts. T believe that little brute has ruined it. 1 declare it’s too bad.” That was vfhy Margaret went walking, a little later, Instead of driving. And yet Ethelbert had given her the gold-fish, in the first plaee! A week later, this young man came forth'melancholic from an interview with Miss Schofield. He had received the information from her—-in a general way—there w f ere times In a girl's life when the man who appeals to her must be of the generhl type of a senior in college; and that —generally speaking—if a girl feels that way, the best thing she can do may be —in general—to “wait” for that senior. Generally speaking, she added, she believed so. As Mr. Bitts walked gloomily down the street he passed a grocer's wagon which bore the title, “Jacob R. Krish & Co.” Attached to the wagon was an elderly bay horse, and attached to the elderly bay horse was a black' tail. And on the other side of the horse, concealed from the view of Mr. Bitts, stood two boys, staring morbidly at the black tail. “Yes, sir,” said Sam Williams, “a nigger told me that the reason mine never turned to a snake was because you have 'to keep it three weeks without ever lookin’ at it If you look at it even once, just to see how it’s gettin’ along, it’s spoiled. Well, we kept lookin’ at ’em —a hundred times a day, I bet —and that’s what was the matter with ’em I That’s why they didn’t turn.” “Mine woulda!” insisted Penrod latterly. “There wasn’t anything wrong with mine. Mine woulda turned, any way I” Mr. Ethelbert Magsworth Bitts did not overhear this conversation. And if he had. he could not have understood it. Much less could he hav,e traced any connection between a hair from the tail of Jacob R. Klrsh’s elderly horse and the fact that Ethelbert Mags* worth Bitts was destined to remain unwillingly a bachelor.

“You Started to Pull ’Em, and You Ought to Do It.”