“I know she thinks that, because whenever you don't behave like a novice she's disappointed in you. And your father really believes that you're a decorous, well-trained young business man, and whenever you don't live up to that standard you get on his nerves and he thinks you need a walloping. I'm sure a day very seldom passes without their both saying they don't know what on earth to do with you. Does whipping do you any good, Penrod?” “Ma'am?” “Go on and finish the lemonade; there's about glassful left. Oh, take it, take it; and don't say why! Of COURSE you're a little pig.” Penrod laughed gratefully, his eyes fixed upon her over the rim of his uptilted glass. “Fill yourself up uncomfortably,” said the old lady. “You're twelve years old, and you ought to be happy--if you aren't anything else. It's taken over nineteen hundred years of Christianity and some hundreds of thousands of years of other things to produce you, and there you sit!” “Ma'am?” “It'll be your turn to struggle and muss things up, for the betterment of posterity, soon enough,” said Aunt Sarah Crim. “Drink your lemonade!” CHAPTER XXIX FANCHON “Aunt Sarah's a funny old lady,” Penrod observed, on the way back to the town. “What's she want me to give papa this old sling for? Last thing she said was to be sure not to forget to give it to him. HE don't want it; and she said, herself, it ain't any good. She's older than you or papa, isn't she?” “About fifty years older,” answered Mrs. Schofield, turning upon him a stare of perplexity. “Don't cut into the leather with your new knife, dear; the livery man might ask us to pay if----No. I wouldn't scrape the paint off, either--nor whittle your shoe with it. COULDN'T you put it up until we get home?” “We goin' straight home?” “No. We're going to stop at Mrs. Gelbraith's and ask a strange little girl to come to your party, this afternoon.” “Who?” “Her name is Fanchon. She's Mrs. Gelbraith's little niece.” “What makes her so queer?” “I didn't say she's queer.” “You said----” “No; I mean that she is a stranger. She lives in New York and has come to visit here.” “What's she live in New York for?” “Because her parents live there. You must be very nice to her, Penrod; she has been very carefully brought up. Besides, she doesn't know the children here, and you must help to keep her from feeling lonely at your party.” “Yes'm.” When they reached Mrs. Gelbraith's, Penrod sat patiently humped upon a gilt chair during the lengthy exchange of greetings between his mother. and Mrs. Gelbraith. That is one of the things a boy must learn to bear: when his mother meets a compeer there is always a long and dreary wait for him, while the two appear to be using strange symbols of speech, talking for the greater part, it seems to him, simultaneously, and employing a wholly incomprehensible system of emphasis at other times not in vogue. Penrod twisted his legs, his cap and his nose.