Miss Spence gasped. So did the pupils.
The whole room filled with a swelling conglomerate "O-O-O-O-H!"
As for Penrod himself, the walls reeled with the shock. He sat with his mouth open, a mere lump of stupefaction. For the appalling words that he had hurled at the teacher were as inexplicable to him as to any other who heard them.
Nothing is more treacherous than the human mind; nothing else so loves to play the Iscariot. Even when patiently bullied into a semblance of order and training, it may prove but a base and shifty servant. And Penrod's mind was not his servant; it was a master, with the April wind's whims; and it had just played him a diabolical trick. The very jolt with which he came back to the schoolroom in the midst of his fancied flight jarred his day-dream utterly out of him; and he sat, open-mouthed in horror at what he had said.
The unanimous gasp of awe was protracted. Miss Spence, however, finally recovered her breath, and, returning deliberately to the platform, faced the school. "And then for a little while," as pathetic stories sometimes recount, "everything was very still." It was so still, in fact, that Penrod's newborn notoriety could almost be heard growing. This grisly silence was at last broken by the teacher.
"Penrod Schofield, stand up!"
The miserable child obeyed.
"What did you mean by speaking to me in that way?"
He hung his head, raked the floor with the side of his shoe, swayed, swallowed, looked suddenly at his hands with the air of never having seen them before, then clasped them behind him. The school shivered in ecstatic horror, every fascinated eye upon him; yet there was not a soul in the room but was profoundly grateful to him for the sensation--including the offended teacher herself. Unhappily, all this gratitude was unconscious and altogether different from the kind which, results in testimonials and loving-cups. On the contrary!
"Penrod Schofield!"
He gulped.
"Answer me at once! Why did you speak to me like that?"
"I was----" He choked, unable to continue.
"Speak out!"
"I was just--thinking," he managed to stammer.
"That will not do," she returned sharply. "I wish to know immediately why you spoke as you did."
The stricken Penrod answered helplessly:
"Because I was just thinking."
Upon the very rack he could have offered no ampler truthful explanation. It was all he knew about it.
"Thinking what?"
"Just thinking."
Miss Spence's expression gave evidence that her power of self-restraint was undergoing a remarkable test. However, after taking counsel with herself, she commanded:
"Come here!"
He shuffled forward, and she placed a chair upon the platform near her own.
"Sit there!"
Then (but not at all as if nothing had happened), she continued the lesson in arithmetic. Spiritually the children may have learned a lesson in very small fractions indeed as they gazed at the fragment of sin before them on the stool of penitence. They all stared at him attentively with hard and passionately interested eyes, in which there was never one trace of pity. It cannot be said with precision that he writhed; his movement was more a slow, continuous squirm, effected with a ghastly assumption of languid indifference; while his gaze, in the effort to escape the marble-hearted glare of his schoolmates, affixed itself with apparent permanence to the waistcoat button of James Russell Lowell just above the "U" in "Russell."
Classes came and classes went, grilling him with eyes.
Newcomers received the story of the crime in darkling whispers; and the outcast sat and sat and sat, and squirmed and squirmed and squirmed. (He did one or two things with his spine which a professional contortionist would have observed with real interest.) And all this while of freezing suspense was but the criminal's detention awaiting trial. A known punishment may be anticipated with some measure of equanimity; at least, the prisoner may prepare himself to undergo it; but the unknown looms more monstrous for every attempt to guess it. Penrod's crime was unique; there were no rules to aid him in estimating the vengeance to fall upon him for it. What seemed most probable was that he would be expelled from the schools in the presence of his family, the mayor, and council, and afterward whipped by his father upon the State House steps, with the entire city as audience by invitation of the authorities.
Noon came. The rows of children filed out, every head turning for a last unpleasingly speculative look at the outlaw.
Then Miss Spence closed the door into the cloakroom and that into the big hall, and came and sat at her desk, near Penrod. The tramping of feet outside, the shrill calls and shouting and the changing voices of the older boys ceased to be heard--and there was silence. Penrod, still affecting to be occupied with Lowell, was conscious that Miss Spence looked at him intently.
"Penrod," she said gravely, "what excuse have you to offer before I report your case to the principal?"
The word "principal" struck him to the vitals. Grand Inquisitor, Grand Khan, Sultan, Emperor, Tsar, Caesar Augustus--these are comparable. He stopped squirming instantly, and sat rigid.
"I want an answer. Why did you shout those words at me?"
"Well," he murmured, "I was just--thinking."
"Thinking what?" she asked sharply.
"I don't know."
"That won't do!"
He took his left ankle in his right hand and regarded it helplessly.
"That won't do, Penrod Schofield," she repeated severely. "If that is all the excuse you have to offer I shall report your case this instant!"
And she rose with fatal intent.
But Penrod was one of those whom the precipice inspires.
"Well, I HAVE got an excuse."
"Well"--she paused impatiently--"what is it?"
He had not an idea, but he felt one coming, and replied automatically, in a plaintive tone:
"I guess anybody that had been through what I had to go through, last night, would think they had an excuse."
Miss Spence resumed her seat, though with the air of being ready to leap from it instantly.
