第33章 CHAPTER XI. THE TONIC(3)

So the thing was done, and the double dose put within the person of Penrod Schofield. It proved not ineffective there, and presently, as its new owner sat morosely at table, he began to feel slightly dizzy and his eyes refused him perfect service.

This was natural, because two tablespoons of the cloudy brown liquor contained about the amount of alcohol to be found in an ordinary cocktail. Now a boy does not enjoy the effects of intoxication; enjoyment of that kind is obtained only by studious application. Therefore, Penrod spoke of his symptoms complainingly, and even showed himself so vindictive as to attribute them to the new medicine.

His mother made no reply. Instead, she nodded her head as if some inner conviction had proven well founded.

"BILIOUS, TOO," she whispered to her husband.

That evening, during the half-hour preceding dinner, the dining-room was the scene of another struggle, only a little less desperate than that which had been the prelude to lunch, and again an appeal to the head of the house was found necessary.

Muscular activity and a 1iberal imitation of the jeremiads once more subjugated the rebel--and the same rebellion and its suppression in a like manner took place the following morning before breakfast. But this was Saturday, and, without warning or apparent reason, a remarkable change came about at noon. However, Mr. and Mrs. Schofield were used to inexplicable changes in Penrod, and they missed its significance.

When Mrs. Schofield, with dread in her heart, called Penrod into the house "to take his medicine" before lunch, he came briskly, and took it like a lamb!

"Why, Penrod, that's splendid!" she cried "You see it isn't bad, at all."

"No'm," he said meekly. "Not when you get used to it."

"And aren't you ashamed, making all that fuss?" she went on happily.

"Yes'm, I guess so."

"And don't you feel better? Don't you see how much good it's doing you already?"

"Yes.m, I guess so."

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."