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Kw^sspaws^ws f^'::'^?^^pfi0§i'i'0^fi-)^P^^^S^yi: "?SJA': THE LAKE SHORE NEWS/THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 1918 mmm Hi' I We Young Zoologists Pernod and Sam Have a Three Weeks* Thriller With a Horae Hair Snake Br BOOTH TARKINGTON (Copyright. 1917, Wheeler Syndicate. Inc.) (Penroae Schofield and hl» friend, Sam William*, nave bottled a black aalr from the tail of a home, belonging; to Jacob R. Kvinh, they now are waiting patiently for the hair to turn Into a real wlggly anake. Both of the boya nre watching- their treaaurea cloaely and laaulna; bulletin* na to the proffreaa of the change. Thla atory la continued from laat week.) Twenty-one slow days must pass before the rapturous event; twelve had gone when Sam reported that symptoms of the great change were appearing in his "snake," which he had taken to his home. (They had discarded the term hair on the sec- ond day.) "Yes, sir," said Sam, "he's turned all round in the bottle from the way he was layin' yesterday; kind of looks like he was restless, to me. And there's sumphting like little bubbles on him up at the end where his head's goin' to be." The hair in Penrod's bottle had no such accomplishment for its owner to vaunt; he looked coldly at Sam, and began to whistle. "Yes, sir," Sam went on, with per- haps too much unction, "that snake of mine looks to me like it was goin' to make a mighty fine snake!" "Well, I don't know," Penrod said, slighting. "I like 'em kind of quieter." Nor did the fact that his treasure exhibit no tokens of the transition disturb him in any way, except thus to rouse his championage. No slight- est doubt ever shadowed his ardent confidence; never for one instant! Tadpoles became frogs; caterpillars make themselves into cocoons; and cocoons are really butterflies; he had owned cocoons that showed no change in appearance until the very hour of the butterflies' emergence. The hair in the bottle looked every day more and more like an attractive 1 young snake, and by the time Penrod " discovered that the thirty-second of July would really be the first of August, it seemed to him that it al- most was a snake, already. The final week of the three was one of internal excitement, heighten- ing almost unbearably as the climax approached. Then, the first of Au- gust dawned fair and cool; no sweeter birthday could have been selected in all the year. Penrod woke with the joyous feeling that riches had come t6 him in his snake. As his eyes opened and fell upon the bottle, bathed in morning sun- shine on the chair by his bed, he stared with joy. The hair had altered its position in the water during the night; the miracle had begun to work, and 15 minutes of 11 would see it consummated. He dressed slowly and tremulously, wondering what he would name it. Then, instead of descending to breakfast, he sat upon his bed to gaze upon the marvel, and continued to sit—and sit—and sit. Meanwhile, urgent requests for his presence in the dining room went wholly un- heeded, until finally Margaret, his pretty nineteen-year-old sister, ap- peared in the doorway, "Penrod!" Instinctively, he leaped between her and the sacred bottle, that she might not see it. He trusted no woman in any weighty affair—least of all a sister! "Papa sent me up to see what you are doing?" "Nothing." "Then why in the world don't you come to breakfast?" "Well, I am coming, ain't I?" His tone was that of a person unjustly attacked. "What you all dressed up for this morning?" "I never did see such a boy!" Mar- garet exclaimed. "You say that every day," Penrod retorted plaintively. "Penrod! Arc you coming?" "Yes. I'm ready," he announced unexpectedly, having managed, with his hands behind him, to conceal the bottle beneath his pillow. but retreated, hearing his mother be- low, in conversation with the cook. Proceeding to the top of the front stairs, he heard the voice of Mar- garet and Mr. Robert Williams. Sam's brother, a senior on vacation. A glance over the railing revealed the collegian, beautifully attired, con- fronting Margaret, who leaned against the newel post in a way very irritating to a brother who wished to get out to the stable without being stopped or questioned. When Mar- garet got her back to the newel post like that, Penrod knew she might stay there "hours and hours!" "Margaret," said Mr. Williams, in a voice wholly inexplicable to Pen- rod, "I believe you care more for the bowl of gold fish, in yonder, than you do for me." Penrod retired from the hallway into Margaret's room, and feeling satisfied that she would no: come there for a long time, withdrew the treasure from beneath his coat, set it upon her dressing table, and,seated himself beside it. Gold fish! With the prospect before him of what was going to happen at. or be- fore, 16 minutes of 11, the lives of other people—who had no hope of owning pet snakes, hatched in the bottle—seemed pitifully vacant. He felt sorry for Robert Williams. He pitied the young man for having nothing better to do than to talk to an uninteresting girl about whether she liked him as well as she did some gold fish in a glass bowl! A motor whizzed in the street, and, glancing out of the window at his elbow, Penrod found occasion to be sorry for another young man, evi- dently coming to interview the un- interesting girl; and from various overhearings of late, Penrod had little doubt that this one, too, would be discussing at the first opportunity, I what Margaret liked. He was a dainty, ancL exquisite young man, more than well-to-do, much encouraged by Mrs. Schofield; and it was he who had given Mar- garet the bowl of gold fish—which lends some flavor to Robert Williams' dismal comparison. Mr. Ethelbert Magsworth Bitts was generally be- lieved to be a very happy and for- tunate youth; he had a j'acht some- where ; he had a motor car, then at the curb; he had money enough to buy all the candy in town if he chose; yet Penrod pitied him. Sixteen min- utes of eleven that morning would find Mr. Bitts utterly snakeless. There are some things money cannot buy. "What time is it getting to be?" Penrose suddenly inquired aloud. There was a little clock on Mar- garet's dressing table, but it had stopped. Upon an impulse, he jump- ed up and ran downstairs to the kitchen. There, the noisy eld wall- clock reassured him soothingly. It marlced fifteen mmutes after ten. "Yay, Penrod !" This was a shout from the yard, and going to the door, Penrod beheld Sam Williams, radiant with excite- ment. "Come on over to our stable," shouted Sam. "Come on! Come on and look at him!" Penrod did not stop for his hat; a jealous fear, suddenly roused, added fear to his feet. And when they reached Sam's stable he was pro- foundly resolved to find Sam's "snake" no more advanced toward the great transformation than his own. He expressed the opinion, in- ' deed, that this was much further ! along. j "Why, how could it be?" demanded Sam resentfully. "I've been sittin' here lookin' at mine ever since break- fast, and never took my eyes off him. Well, sir, I saw him breathe—he did it lots of times! You can't tell it just lookin' at him this way. You got to keep lookin' at him and lookin' at him; you bet I saw him do it, "all stay here and wait till he's all good and changed, then we'll go and see if yours—" '■v'j- "No, sir!" shouted Penrod over his shoulder, as he started home on the trot. "I'm goin' back to watch a good snake!" He passed through the kitchen of his own home at the same gait, dis- regarding a request by Katie, the housemaid, for a hearing. "Mister Penrod," she began, "I'd like to know what fer you want—" "Cat fur-!" facetiously shouted Pen- rod, already ascending the back stairs. "Cat fur, to make kitten britches with!" Next moment, a fearful howl is- sued from Margaret's room. Mrs. Schofield. hurrying thither from her own apartment, encountered her son in the passageway. "Penrod, what's the matter?" "Where's my snake?" "Where's what?" "My snake!" he bellowed. "I want my snake! Where's my sna-a-ke?" "Penrod, are you crazy?" she cried. "What on earth are you—" "My snake! I left it on Margaret's bureau and it's gone! Who's took it? Who's been in there? Who's got my snake?" Mrs. Schofield began to be alarmed in earnest, her son's manner and look were frantic, and his words, to her, incomprehensible, "Penrod," she said nervously, "you must take ome castor oil. There wasn't any snake in Margaret's room. I heard her come upstairs for some- thing a minute ago, and go in there. If there'd been a snake there she'd have screamed, but she went down- stairs again, and—" So did Penrod go downstairs again. He piunged, three steps at a time, and exploded himself into the parlor, where Margaret sat (looking faintly embarrassed) with Mr. Ethelbert Magsworth Bitts (who had come to take her to drive and was frowning) and Mr. Robert Williams (who had come to take her for a walk, and was scowling), and the gold fish (who were swimming). "Where's my snake?" Margaret jumped. "Good gracious! What in the world—" "I want my sna-a-ke! I left it in a bottle on your—" "Oh!" Margaret laughed relieved. "There was a bottle on my dressing table, and noticed your name pasted on it; but I don't think there was anything inside except water." Penrod jumped up and down. "What did you do with it?" he roared. "I gave it to Katie, and told her to ask you if you wanted it, and if you didn't—" Penrod left an overturned chair to blaze his trail. He burst into the kitchen, and Katie was there, bending over the sink. "Where's my snake?" "Oh, Lord!" wailed Katie, clutching at her heart. "What'd you do with my sna-a-ke?" "What did I what?" "In a bottle!" he bellowed. "Mar- garet gave you my bottle with my sna-ake in it) I want my snake!" "There wasn't any snr.sc in it," said Katie. "There wasn't noihm' in it. Miss Marg'rut says the bottle had your name on it, and I should ask you did you want it, and I showed it to Delia and she says she wants it to put some sirup in it, and I wouldn't let her have it till I asked you, and you come in, and I started to ask you what fer you wanted it, and you says 'Cat fur to make kitten britches with,' and went on upstairs, and so—" "Where is it?" shouted Penrod hoarsely; and even in his agony of suspense marked that the clock stood at 20 minutes of 11. "What did you do with my snake?" "I never saw no snake. Do you think I'd. 'a' touched it if there'd 'a' been any sn—" "Where's my bottle?" demanded the frenzied boy. "Here," said Katie, disengaging the empty bottle from the towel with which she was drying it. "You didn't seem to care enough about it to * answer me, and I poured the water out, so Delia could use it. There wasn't nothing in it at all—except a hair that must 'a' fell in it somehow, and went down the sink when I poured the water out." ; Penrod ran amuck. With a maniacal yell he struck the bottle from her hand and fled toward the front part of the house. In the library he encountered a young cat which had recently been adopted by his mother for "good luck," having' followed her on the street. A really intelligent cat would have fled from Penrod's path at highest speed, bv.t this one came running to him, hope- fully. It proved to be the most itrt- I portant mistake of the young cat's 1 life. To one maddened with outrage and injustice, and suffering with the agony of having just had his heart's idol poured down the kitchen sink, the sight of another person's pet—safe, pampered, and wearing a pink ribhoni —was merely crazing. With a glad- cry, Penrod plunged to meet the ad- vance of the young cat, who turned too lat«, but precisely in time to leave his extended tail in the feverish clutch t of the maddened boy. Once, twice, thrice, Penrod swung1 that electrified cat in a great circle. with the radius of a full arm and half a tail. The cat swept the air, shriek- ing inconceivably with horror, and at the top of its third orbit went sT> high, and so heartily, it brought down a glass globe from the chandejier Startled exclamations came fro-i».~ the parlor, and, following them, the projectors thereof: Margaret, Mr.' Ethelbert Magsworth Bitts and Mr- Robert Williams. They reached the library in time to see the young, cat become aviator, and, released from a hurtling hand, mount upward and up- ward upon invisible currents till it disappeared through the upper sec- (Continued on page six) Speeding from the table at the first possible moment, he returned to his own room. and. in the doorway, was struck with an unnamed fear. Katie, the housemaid was putting the room in order; but she had not touched the bed. Once more able to breathe, he secured the bottle and departed, carrying it under his jacket, in front, without Katie's noticing anything un- usual in his manner or bosom. He started down the back stairs, THE CONVENIENT NORTH SHORELINE The all-steel Limited 8:24 A. M. North Shore train affords Wilmette residents the most con- venient morning train to MILWAUKEE It takes you to the heart of the city, arriving at 10:15 A. M. No taxi or street car necessary. Fare $1.35, Including War Tax. Limited service hourly to Milwaukee from I'M A. M. to 10:24 P. M. Running time one hour fifty-one minutes. Parlor Cars 9:24 A. M. and 2-24 P. M. Dining Cars 12:24 P. ML and 5:24 P. M. 1 lllll!, JUU UCl l SclVV 111111 UU XL, «ill t^SS right! And once he almost vviir!T"f'-" i {§§ "Almost wiggled!! Mine did wig i||K gle!" Penrod said—and thereafter he-! ^ lieved it. "Well, so'd mine." said Sam. "Well, who said he didn't? I didn't | JS^) say he didn't, did I?" ! ||$ "Well, who said you did say—" ; t^| "Come on!" interrupted Penro<!. £||j "Let's go back and look^ at mine.' Jp3 "No, sir! I want to watch my ov. n |S§i snake change, don't I? You hrt~'* NORTH SHORE