The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

TS'^THE"LAKE 'sffiREfIfcWS, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1918 « laMUMMMMUMaaAMM MaaaaMafBaUaaVMMaa ■it Intefnecl-^A Near Tragedy? Military Necessity Lead Penrod and Sam Into Strategy ®gpf§s?':f;; Which Almost Acts as a Boomerang By BOOTH TARKINGTON WWM^WVWVVWMWMWI (Copyright, 1317, Wheeler Syndicate, Inc.) »a*jaaa«jaaaaai After such rigorous events, every- one comprehended that the game of bonded prisoner was over, and there was no suggestion that it should or might be resumed. The fashion of its conclusion had been so consummately enjoyed by all parties (with the nat- ural exception of Roddy Bitts) that a renewal would have been tame; hence, the various minds of the com- pany turned to other matters and became restless. Georgie Bassett withdrew first, remembering that if he expected to be as wonderful as usual, tomorrow, in Sunday-school, it was time to prepare himself, though this was not included in the state- ment he made alleging the cause of his departure. Being detained bodily and pressed for explanation, he des- perately said that he had to go home to tease the cook—which had the rakehelly air he though would insure his release, but was not considered plausible. However, he was finally allowed to go, and, as first hints of evening were already cooling and darkening the air, the party broke up, its members setting forth, whis- tling, toward their several homes, though Penrod lingered with Sam. Herman was the last to go from them. "Well, I got git 'at stove-wood f suppuh," he said, rising and stretch- ing himself. "I got git 'at lil' soap- box wagon, an' go on ovuh wheres 'at new house buil'in on Secon' street; pick up few shingles an' blocks layin' roun'." He went through the yard toward the alley, and, at the alley gate, re- membering something, he paused and called to them. The lot was a deep one, and they were too far away to catch his meaning. Sam shouted, "Can't hear you," and Herman replied, but still unintelligibly; then, upon Sam's repetition of "Can't hear you," Herman waved his arm in farewell, implying that the matter was of little significance, and vanished. But if they had understood him, Penrod and Sam might have considered his in- quiry of instant importance, for Her- man's last shout was to ask if either of them had noticed "where Verman went." . Verman and Verman's whereabouts were, at this hour, of no more con- cern to Sam and Penrod than was •the other side of the moon. That un- fortunate bonded prisoner had been long since utterly effaced from their fields of consciousness, and the dark secret of their Bastille troubled them not—for the main and simple reason that they had forgotten it. They drifted indoors, and found Sam's mother's white cat drowsing on a desk in the library, the which coin- cidence obviously inspired the experi- ment of ascertaining how successfully ink could be used in making a clean white cat look like a coach-dog. There was neither malice nor mischief in their idea; simply a problem present- ed itself to the biological and artistic questionings beginning to stir within .them. They did not mean to do the cat the. slightest injury or to cause her any pain. They were above teas- ing cats, and they merely detained this one and made her feel a little wet—at considerable cost to them- selves from both the ink and the cat. However, at the conclusion of their efforts, it was thought safer to drop the cat out of the window before anybody came, and, after some hasty work with blotters, the desk was moved to cover certain sections of the rug, and the boys repaired to the bathroom for hot water and soap. They knew they had done nothing wrong, but they felt easier when the only traces remaining upon them were the less prominent ones upon their garments. These precautions taken, it was time for them to make their appear- ance at Penrod's house for dinner, for it had been arranged, upon pe- tition., earlier in the day, that Sam should be his friend's guest for the evening meal. Clean to the elbows and with light hearts, they set forth, producing a distinctly musical effect, They marched, whistling—though not since neither had any particular air in mind—and they found nothing wrong with the world; they had not a care. Arrived at their adjacent destination, they found Miss Mar- garet Schofield just entering the front door. "Hurry, boys I" she said. "Mamma came home long before I did, and I'm to the dining room and tell them I'll be right down." And, as they obeyed, she mounted the stairs, humming a little tune and unfastening the clasp of the long, light-blue military cape she wore. She went to her own quiet room, lit the gas, removed her hat, and placed it and the cape upon the bed; after which she gave her hair a push, sub- sequent to her scrutiny of a mirror; then, turning out the light, she went as far as the door. Being an orderly girl, she returned to the bed and took the cape and the hat to her clothes closet. She opened the door of this sanctuary, and, in the dark, hung her cape upon a hook and placed her hat upon the shelf. Then she closed the door again, having noted nothing un- usual, though she had an impression that the place needed airing* She descended to the dinner table. The other members of the family were already occupied with the meal, and the visitor was replying politely, in his nonmasticatory intervals, to inquiries concerning the health of his relatives. So sweet and assured was the condition of Sam and Penrod, that Margaret's arrival from her room meant nothing to them. Their mem- ories were not stirred, and they con- inued eating, their expressions bright- ly placid. But from out of doors there came the sound of a calling and questioning voice, at first in the distance, then growing louder—coming nearer. "Oh, Ver-er-man! O-o-o-oh, Ver- er-ma-an!" It was the voice of Herman "Oo-o-o-o-oh,Ver-er-er-ma-a-a-an!" And then two boys sat stricken at that cheerful table and ceased to cat. Recollection awoke with a bang! "Oh, my!" Sam Gasped. "What's the matter?" said Mr. Schofield. "Swallow something the wrong way Sam?" "Ye-es, sir." "Oo-o-oh, Ver-er-er-ma-a-an!" And now the voice was near the windows of the dining room. "What's the matter with you?" his father demanded. "Sit down!" "It's Herman—that colored boy lives in the alley," said Penrod hoarsely. 'T—expect—I think—" "Well, what's the matter?" "I think his little brother's maybe got lost, and Sam and I better go help look—" "You'll do nothing of the kind," said Mr. Schofield sharply. "Sit down and eat your dinner." In a palsy, the miserable boy re- sumed his seat. He and Sam ex- changed a single dumb glance; then the eyes of both swung fearfully to Margaret. Her appearance was one of sprightly content, and, from a cer- tain point of view, nothing could have been more alarming. If she had opened her closet door without dis- covering Verman, that must have been because Verman was dead and Mar- garet had failed to notice the body. (Such were the thoughts of Penrod and Sam.) But she might not have opened the closet door And whether she had or not, Verman must still be there, alive or dead, for if he had escaped he would have gone home, and their ears would not be ringing with the sinister and melancholy cry that now came from the distance, "Oo-o-oh, Ver-er-ma-an!" Verman, in his seclusion, did not hear that appeal from his brother; there were too many walls between them. But he was becoming im- patient for release, though, all in all, he had not found the confinement slept on, without being awakened by either the closing or the opening of the door. What did rouse him was something ample and soft falling up- on 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 be- came aware of two important vacu- ums—one in time and one in his stomach. Hours had vanished strange- ly 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 be- comes 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 be- wildering 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 parlor. 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 un- observed and unknown. It was in his very blood to be sure of that. Further than this point, the pro- cesses of Verman's mind became mys- terious to the observer. It appears, however, that he had a definite (though somewhat primitive) concep- tion of the usefulness of disguise; and he must have begun his prepara- tions 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 3ier dancing on the spot, pirouetting herself swiftly from 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 mat- ter with you tonight?" "I got to go," gasped Penrod. "I got to tell Margaret sumpthing." "What have you 'got' to tell her?" "It's—it's sumpthing I for got to tell her." "Well, it will keep till she comes downstairs," said Mr. Schofield grim- ly. "You sit down till this meal is finished." "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. Startling upon their ears rang shriek on shriek. Mrs. Schofield, recognizing Mar- garet'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 hang- ing on the hook where she had left it, came out into the room in a man- ner which she afterward described as "a kind of horrible creep, but faster than a creep." Nothing was to be It was at this moment that Sam Williams displayed the presence of mind which was his most eminent characteristic. Sam's wonderful in- stinct for the right action almost never failed him in a crisis, and it did not fail him now. Leaping to the door at the very instant when the rolling cape touched it, Sam flung the door open—and the caped rolled on. With incredible rapidity and intelli- gence, it rolled, indeed, out into the night. Penrod jumped after it, and the next second reappeared in the door- way holding the cape. He shook out its folds, breathing hard but acquir- ing confidence. In fact, he was able to look up in his father's face and say, with bright ingenuousness. "It was just laying there. Do you know what I think? Well, it couldn't have acted that way itself. I think there must have been sumpthing kind of inside of it!" Mr. Schofield shook his head slow- ly, in marveling admiration. "Brilliant—oh, brilliant!" he mur- mured, while Mrs. Schofield ran to support the enfeebled form of Mar- garet at the top of the stairs. ... In the library, after Mar- garet's departure to her dance, Mr. and Mrs. Schofield were still discuss- ing the visitation, Penrod having ac- companied his homeward-bound guest as far as the front gate. "No; you're wrong," said Mrs. Scho- field, upholding a theory, earlier de- veloped by Margaret, that the ani- mated behavior of the cape could be satisfactorily explained on no other ground than the supernatural. "You see, the boys saying they couldn't remember what Mrs. Williams wanted them to tell Margaret, and that prob- ably she hadn't told them anything |^Sv to tell her, because most likely they'd |t§f§is^ misunderstood something she said— Sl||l|||| well, of course, all that does sound l|t||ll mixed up and peculiar, but they sound ||f§tll| that way about half the time any- |§f|l|§| how. No; it couldn't possibly have |||ll§f|f had a thing to do with it. They were |lpt§§| right there at the table with us all |l§||||§| the time, and they came right straight |||§||||| to the table the minute they entered t||fi§§| the house. Before that, they'd been $|||||§f§ over at Sam's all afternoon. So, it i|i|!S| couldn't have been the boys." Mrs. §||ftl|||g Schofield paused to ruminate with a,£||§fl|: little air of pride, then added: "Mar-%|f§|ff| garet has often thought—oh, long be- :;?K!%£:; fore this!—that she was a medium. ^|:;:0 I mean—if she would let herself. So 4; %If it wasn't anything the boys did." ^V *S^ Mr. Schofield grunted. K ": C "I'll admit this much," he said, "ril;;^ admit it wasn't anything we'll ever? get out of 'em." And the remarks of Sam and Pen-- rod, taking leave of each other, one on each side of the gate, appeared to corroborate Mr. Schofield's opinion. "Well, g'-night, Penrod," Sam said, "It was a pretty good Saturday, wasn't it?" "Fine!" said Penrod casually, "G'-night, Sam." W£ SAVINGS AVES •TAMPS >ERVES Scott Jordaa. Cady M. Jordaa. Wllmot Whltaker C. H. JORDAN & CO. FUNERAL DIRECTORS Established 1864 Pkaae 44» 612 Davla Street, Bvaaatoa 164 N. MICHIGAN AVEWVB 1522 E. 63RD STREET, HYDE PARK intolerable or even very irksome. His character was philosophic, his imag-(sefn except the creeping cape, she ination calm; no bugaboos came to [ sa^> but, °* course, she could tell trouble him. When the boys closed there was some awful thing inside of the door upon him, he made himself comfortable upon the floor and, for a time, thoughtfully chewed a patent- leather slipper that had come under his hand. He found the patent leather not unpleasant to his palate, though he swallowed only a portion of what he detached, not being hungry at that time. The soul-fabric of Ver- man 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 to- ward the conclusion of his slumbers, he had this singular adventure: a lady set her foot down within less than half an inch^f his nose—and sure dinner is waiting. Run on out ' neither of them knew it. Verman 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 wouldn't act like that. It crept rapidly out into the upper hall, and then, as she recovered 'the use of her voice and began to scream, the animated cape abandoned its creeping for a quicker gait—"a weird, heaving flop." she defined it. The thing then decided upon a third style of locomotion, evidently, for when Sam and Penrod reached the front hall, a few steps in advance of Mr. and Mrs. Schofield, it was rolling grandly down the stairs. Mr. Schofield had only a hurried glimpse of it as it reached the bottom, close by the front door. "Grab that thing!" he shouted, dashing forward. "Stop it! Hit it!" I ^yj^f^y^^^J^^^J^^y t^«>y ia«aj lvs>«j tA«>y tv«>y tvawj t>«A3 t>JB^-Jt>st>j t>s^J LAJe>J t^5^t>^^ t>«^^ lv«^j t>«iM lx»aj uvs^ i^s^j l>«^ t^5i^ I Tax Payers! Attention! I desire to announce to the tax payers? of New Trier Township that the tax books! have been received from the County Treas-j urer and that I have established my head- quarters in the -s:^ :■:..^jvl-:v;/...:;,;;,v,;S'p^ggp| •■'■■'■ IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllinillllllllllllllllMiniMIIIIIIIIHIIIIIIMIIIIIMimMIIHIIIIIIIIIMIHM •'.- First National Bank of Wilmette | IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMIIIIIIIHIIIIIIIIIIIHIIIIIIIHIIIIIIIIIIIIIinilllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllinillllllllltllllllllllllfl where I am now ready to receive taxes due on Real Estate and Personal property? Respectfully, ! HOYTKING, Township Collector. ir^r^r^r^nwrtdr^r^ir^r^r^^ What the Bell System ft Is Doing if ABOUT 2,500 practical telephone men have been /A temporarily released by the Bell System for service as officers and privates for The Signal Corps, and Coast-Defense Reserve. Two thousand employ&s are members of The National Guard or Naval Militia, or are otherwise ; under oath to present themselves when called for. iVbout 150 employes have joined the Officers' Training-Camps. More man-power may have to be appropriated to the service of our Country. The Bell System takes great pride in the brav- ■ ery and loyalty of its employes, whose absence makes strenuous effort necessary, on the part of those who remain behind, in order that the tele- phone service may be maintained at its high standard of excellence. ? " - - : CHICAGO TELEPHONE COMPANY ;li»'l*5,5)