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Tarkington, Booth, 1869-1946

"Penrod and Sam"

"
"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
On a fair Saturday afternoon in November Penrod's little old dog
Duke returned to the ways of his youth and had trouble with a
strange cat on the back porch. This indiscretion, so
uncharacteristic, was due to the agitation of a surprised moment,
for Duke's experience had inclined him to a peaceful pessimism,
and he had no ambition for hazardous undertakings of any sort. He
was given to musing but not to avoidable action, and he seemed
habitually to hope for something that he was pretty sure would
not happen.


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