Penrod Jashber , livre ebook

PENROD JASHBER
By
BOOTH TARKINGTON

First published in 1929



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Contents
Boot h Tarkington
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
C HAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII



Booth Tarkington
Newton Booth Tarkington was an American writer. He was born in Indianapolis, Ind., July 29 1869. After studying at Phillips Academy, Exeter, Mass., he entered Purdue University, Lafayette, Ind., but two years later transferred to Princeton, where he graduated in 1893. At first he intended to follow a business career, but after a few years devoted his time to writing. He was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives for the term 1902-3. In 1918 he received the degree of Litt.D. from Princeton. In 1920 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The same year he was engaged as a writer of photo-plays by the Goldwyn Pictures Corporation.
His first story, The Gentleman from Indiana , was published in 1899, having appeared already as a serial in McClure's Magazine . In 1900 his reputation was established by Monsieur Beaucaire , which he successfully dramatized (with E. G. Sutherla nd) in 1901.
In 1919 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize by Columbia University for his novel, The Magnificent Amber sons (1918).
His other stories include The Two Vanrevels (1902); Cherry (1903); The Conquest of Canaan (1905); Guest of Quesnay (1908); Beauty and the Jacobin: an Interlude of the French Revolution (1912); Penrod (1914); Penrod and Sam (1916); Ramsey Milholland (1919); Alice Adams (1921). His plays include Cameo Kirby (1907); Your Humble Servant (1908); Mister Antonio (1916); The Country Cousin (1917, with Julian Street); The Gibson Upright and Up From Nowhere (1919, both with Harry Leon Wilson); Clar ence (1919).
A Bi ography from 1922 Encyclopædi a Britannica



CHAPTER I
THE NEW PUP
ON a Friday in April, Penrod Schofield, having returned from school at noon promptly, on account of an earnest appetite, found lunch considerably delayed and himself (after a bit of simple technique) alone in the pantry with a large, open, metal receptacle containing about two-thirds of a peck of perfect doughnuts just come int o the world.
The history of catastrophe is merely the history of irresistible juxtapositions. When Penrod left the pantry he walked slowly. In the large metal receptacle were left a small number of untouched doughnuts; while upon the shelf beside it were two further doughnuts, each with a small bite experimentally removed—and one of these bites, itself, lay, little mangled, beside the pare nt doughnut.
Nothing having been discovered, he seated himself gently at the lunch-table, and, making no attempt to take part in the family conversation, avoided rather than sought attention. This decorum on his part was so unusual as to be the means of defeating its object, for his mother and father and his nineteen-year-old sister, Margaret, naturally began to stare at him. Nevertheless, his presence continued to be unobtrusive and his manner preoccupied. Rallied by Margaret, he offered for reply only a smile, faint, courteous and strange, followed, upon further badinage, by an almost imperceptible shake of the head, which he seemed to fear might come off if more decisive ly agitated.
“But, Penrod dear,” his mother insisted, “you must eat a little somethin g or other.”
For the sake of appearances, Penrod made a terrible effort to eat a little somethi ng or other.
When they had got him to his bed, he said, with what resentful strength remained to him, that it was all the fault of his mother, and she was indeed convinced that her insistence had been a mistake. For several hours the consequences continued to be more or less demonstrative; then they verged from physical to mental, as the thoughts of Penrod and the thoughts of his insides merged into one. Their decision was unanimous—a conclusive horror of doughnuts. Throughout ghastly durations of time there was no thought possible to him but the intolerable thought of doughnuts. There was no past but doughnuts; there was no future but doughnuts. He descended into the bottomest pit of an abyss of doughnuts; he lay suffocating in a universe of doughnuts. He looked back over his dreadful life to that time, before lunch, when he had been alone with the doughnuts in the pantry, and it seemed to him that he must have been out of his mind. How could he have endured even the noxious smell of the things? It was incredible to him that any human being could ever become hardy enough to bear the mere sight of a doughnut.
Not until the next morning did Penrod Schofield quit his bed and come out into the fair ways of mankind again, and then his step was cautious; there was upon his brow the trace of an experience. For a little while after his emergence to the air he had the look of one who has discovered something alarming in the pleasant places of life, the look of one who has found a scorpion hiding under a violet. He went out into the yard through the front door, and, even with his eyes, avoided the kitchen.
“Yay, Penrod!” a shout greeted him. “Look! Looky here! Look what I got!”
Upon the sidewalk was Sam Williams in a state of unmistakable elation. His right hand grasped one end of a taut piece of clothes-line; the other end had been tied round the neck of a pup; but, owing to the pup’s reluctance, the makeshift collar was now just behind his ears, so that his brow was furrowed, his throat elongated and his head horizontal. As a matter of fact, he was sitting down; nevertheless, Sam evidently held that the pup wa s being led.
“This good ole dog o’ mine’s not so easy to lead , I ca n tell you!”
These were Sam’s words, in spite of the pup’s seated attitude. On the other hand, to support the use of “lead”, the pup was certainly moving along at a fair rate of speed. In regard to his state of mind, any beholder must have hesitated between two guesses: his expression denoted either resignation or profound obstinacy, and, by maintaining silence throughout what could not possibly have been other than a spiritual and bodily trial, he produced an impression of reserve altogether deceptive. There do exist reserved pups, of course; but this was not one of them.
Sam brought him into the yard. “How’s that for high, Penrod ?” he cried.
Penrod forgot doughnuts temporarily. “Where’d you get him?” he asked. “Where’d you get that f ellow, Sam?”
“Yay!” shouted Master Williams. “He bel ongs to me.”
“Where’d you get him? Didn’t y ou hear me?”
“You just look him over,” Sam said importantly. “Take a good ole look at him and see what you got to say. He’s a full-blooded dog, all right! You just look this good ol e dog over.”
With warm interest, Penrod complied. He looked the good ole dog over. The pup, released from the stress of the rope, lay placidly upon the grass. He was tan-colored over most of him, though interspersed with black; and the fact that he had nearly attained his adolescence was demonstrated by the cumbersomeness of his feet and the half-knowing look of his eye. He was large; already he was much taller and heavier than Duke, Penrod’s lit tle old dog.
“How do you know he’s full-blooded?” asked Penrod cautiously, before expressing any opinion.
“My goodness!” Sam exclaimed. “Can’t you look at him? Don’t you know a full-blooded dog when y ou see one?”
Penrod frowned. “Well, who told you he was?”
“John Carmichael.”
“Who’s John Carmichael?”
“He’s the man works on my uncle’s farm. John Carmichael owns the mother o’ this dog here; and he said he took a fancy to me and he was goin’ to give me this dog’s mother and all the other pups besides this one, too, only my fam’ly wouldn’t let me. John says they were all pretty full-blooded, except the runt; but this one was the best. This one is the most full-blooded of the whole ki tamaboodle.”
For the moment Penrod’s attention was distracted from the pup. “Of the whole what?” he inquired.
“Of the whole kitamaboodle,” Sam repeated carelessly.
“Oh,” said Penrod, and he again considered the pup. “I bet he isn’t as full-blooded as Duke. I bet he isn’t anyway near as full-blood ed as Duke.”
Sam hooted. “Duke!” he cried. “Why, I bet Duke isn’t a quarter full-blooded! I bet Duke hasn’t got any full blood in him at all! All you’d haf to do’d be look at Duke and this dog together; then you’d see in a minute. I bet you, when this dog grows up, he could whip Duke four times out o’ five. I bet he could whip Duke now, only pups won’t fight. All I ast is, you go get Duke and just look which is the most fu ll-blooded.”
“All right,” said Penrod. “I’ll get him, and I guess maybe you’ll have sense enough to see yourself which is. Duke’s got more full blood in his hind feet than that dog’s got al l over him.”
He departed hotly, calling and whistling for his own, and Duke, roused from a nap on the back porch, loyally obeyed the sum