Upon a holiday morning, several weeks later, Penrod and Sam Williams revived a pastime that they called “drug store”, setting up display counters, selling chemical, cosmetic and other compounds to imaginary customers, filling prescriptions and variously conducting themselves in a pharmaceutical manner. They were in the midst of affairs when Penrod interrupted his partner and himself with a cry of recollection. “_I_ know!” he shouted. “I got some mighty good ole stuff we want. You wait!” And, dashing to the house, he disappeared. Returning immediately, Penrod placed upon the principal counter of the “drug store” a large bottle. It was a quart bottle, in fact; and it contained what appeared to be a section of grassy swamp immersed in a cloudy brown liquor. “There!” Penrod exclaimed. “How's that for some good ole medicine?” “It's good ole stuff,” Sam said approvingly. “Where'd you get it? Whose is it, Penrod?” “It WAS mine,” said Penrod. “Up to about serreval days ago, it was. They quit givin' it to me. I had to take two bottles and a half of it.” “What did you haf to take it for?” “I got nervous, or sumpthing,” said Penrod. “You all well again now?” “I guess so. Uncle Passloe and cousin Ronald came to visit, and I expect she got too busy to think about it, or sumpthing. Anyway, she quit makin' me take it, and said I was lots better. She's forgot all about it by this time.” Sam was looking at the bottle with great interest. “What's all that stuff in there, Penrod?” he asked. “What's all that stuff in there looks like grass?” “It IS grass,” said Penrod. “How'd it get there?” “I stuck it in there,” the candid boy replied. “First they had some horrable ole stuff in there like to killed me. But after they got three doses down me, I took the bottle out in the yard and cleaned her all out and pulled a lot o' good ole grass and stuffed her pretty full and poured in a lot o' good ole hydrant water on top of it. Then, when they got the next bottle, I did the same way, and--” “It don't look like water,” Sam objected. Penrod laughed a superior laugh. “Oh, that's nothin',” he said, with the slight swagger of young and conscious genius. “Of course, I had to slip in and shake her up sometimes, so's they wouldn't notice.” “But what did you put in it to make it look like that?” Penrod, upon the point of replying, happened to glance toward the house. His gaze, lifting, rested for a moment upon a window. The head of Mrs. Schofield was framed in that window. She nodded gayly to her son. She could see him plainly, and she thought that he seemed perfectly healthy, and as happy as a boy could be. She was right. “What DID you put in it?” Sam insisted. And probably it was just as well that, though Mrs. Schofield could see her son, the distance was too great for her to hear him. “Oh, nothin',” Penrod replied. “Nothin' but a little good ole mud.” CHAPTER XII. GIPSY