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WINNETKA WEEKLY TALK, FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 1918 mm Em mR @e Young Zoologists Penrod and Sam Have a Three Weeks' Thriller With a Horse Hair Snake Br BOOTH TARKINGTON OoRveret, , Wheeler Svndinty Inc.) (Penrose Schofield and his friend, Sam 'Williams, have bottled a black hair from the tail of a horse, belonging to Jacob R. Krish, they now are waiting patiently for the hair to turn into a real wiggly snake. Both of the boys are watching their treasures closely and issuing bulletins as to the progress of the change. This story is continued from last week.) Twenty-one siow 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 young snake, and by the time Penrod that the thirty-second of d to oy thal i al- nal excit nent, heighten- ing almost unbearably as the climax approached. Then, the first of Au- gust dawned fair and cool; no sweeter birthday could have béen selected in all the year. Penrod woke with the joyous feeling that riches had come to 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, retorted plaintively. "Penrod! Are you coming?" "Yes. I'm ready," he announced unexpectedly, having managed, with his hands behind him, to conceal the bottle beneath his pillow. * * ¥ * * 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, but retreated, hearing his mother be- » Penrod * * low, in conversation with the cook.if yours--" bé the first of | him; Proceeding to the top of the front stairs, he heard the voice of Mar- garet and Mr. Robert Williams, Sam's A brother, a senior on vacation. glance over the railing revealed the collegian, beautifully attired, fronting Margaret, who 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. a voice wholly inexplicable to Pen- rod, "I believe you care more for the than bowl of gold fish, in you do for me." Yonder, Penrod retired from the hallway and feeling she would not come there for a long time, withdrew the set it upon her dressing table, and seated into Margaret's room, satisfied that treasure from beneath his coat, himself beside it. Gold fish! With the prospect before him of what was going to happen at, or be- the lives of other people--who had no hope of owning pet snakes, hatched in the He 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 fore, 16 minutes of 11, bottle--seemed pitifully vacant. felt sorry for Robert Williams. gold fish in a glass bowl! A motor whizzed in the street, and, glancing out of the window at his Penrod found occasion to be evi- dently coming to interview the un- and from various overhearings of late, Penrod had little doubt that this one, too, would be elbow, sorry for another young man, interesting girl; discussing at the first opportunity what Margaret liked. He was a dainty,. and 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' Ethelbert Magsworth Bitts was generally be- lieved to be a very happy and for- tunate youth; he had a yacht some- where; he had a motor car, then at he had money enough to buy all the candy in town if he chose; Sixteen min- that morning would snakeless. There are some things money cannot Mr. dismal comparison. the curb; yet Penrod pitied him. utes of eleven find Mr. Bitts utterly buy. "What, time is it getting to be?' Penrose suddenly inquired aloud. © There was a little clock on garet's dressing table, but it ed up and ran downstairs to kitchen. clock reassured him soothingly. marked fifteen minutes after ten. "Yay, Penrod!" This was a shout from the Sam Williams, radiant with ment. "Come on over to our shouted Sam. "Come on! and look at him!" Penrod did not stop for his hat; jealous fear, fear to his reached feet. And when Sam's stable he was foundly resolved to "snake" no the great transformation than own. He expressed the opinion, deed, that this was much along. "Why, how could it be? 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 You can't tell it just lookin' at him this way. You got to at you bet I saw him do it, all And once he almost wiggled." Mine did wig- Penrod said--and thereafter be- it lots of times! keep lookin' at him and lookin' right! "Almost wiggled!! gle!" lieved it. "Well, so'd mine," said Sam. "Well, who said he giant}; say he didn't, did 1?" "Well, who said ey "Come on!" intergu fed "Let's go back and fo "No, sir! 1 wed yg snake change, don't I? stay here and x he' and changed, the con- leaned against the newel post in a way very Williams, in Mar- had stopped. . Upon an impulse, he jump- the There, the noisy old wall- It yard, jand going to the door, Penrod beheld excite- stable," Come on a suddenly roused, added they pro- find Sam's more advanced toward his in- further demanded 1 didn' t SI or Nps "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 some 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 plunged, 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! 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 left it in | ask you if you wanted it, and if you didn' tr 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 snake in it,' said Katie. "There wasn't nothin' 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 Della and she says she wants it to Hl] let her have it till T 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 Della could use it. There wasn't nothing in it at all--except a hair that must 'a' fell in it somehow. jand went down the sink when 1 poured the water out." Penrod ran amuck. With a maniacal yell he struck se Jbottle 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, but this one came running to him, hope- fully. It proved to be the most im- ortant mistake of the young. cat's one maddened with outrage and tice, and suffering with the agony ving just had his heart's idol d down the kitchen sink, the 'of another person's pet--safe, ered, and wearing a pink ribbon s merely crazing. With a glad put some sirup in it, and IT wouldn't "I gave it to Katie, and told her to} "0 =o = | cry, Penrod plunged to meet the ad- vance of the young cat, who turned too late, but precisely in time to leave his extended tail in the feverish clutch of the maddened boy. Once, twice, thrice, Penrod swung 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 so high, and so heartily, it brought down a glass globe from the chandelier. Startled exclamations came from 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- tion of a window, which was "down from the top." Crimson, infuriated, Penrod turned upon his dumbfounded sister. "You ruined my snake!" he bleated. "You watch what I do to your old gold fish!" He darted out of her detaining fingers, and though she pursued, and Robert Williams pursued, and Ethel- bert Magsworth Bitts pursued, he had seized upon the bowl of gold fish | and was out in the hall with it before the hand of man--or girl--could be laid upon him. On the hall table reposed two straw hats; one was Robert's; the other, which bore the mark of a London maker, was the hat of Ethelbert Magsworth Bitts. Margaret, rushing through the doorway, uttered a lamentable outcry. But Penrod discriminated nothing between these hats. With a mighty effort he heaved the bowl of gold fish upside down and poured water and fish as equally as he could into the two hats. Then he threw the empty bowl boldly into the stomach of Ethelbert Magsworth Bitts, his nearest pur- suer, and with a great and demented roaring, dashed out of the open door and cometed away into space. "Ugh!" said Mr. Bitts, and remained where he was, two hands upon the area of contact. But Robert Williams ran swiitly vut upon the front porch where a colored boy, with a bucket of soapy water in one hand, and a scrubbing brush in the other, stood gazing in the direction of Penrod's Robert seized upon the bucket and was back in the hall, and had the gold-fish in the soapy water almost instantly, flopping rather feebly, but alive. "Quick!" he said to Margaret. "Get a pail of clear water. I don't know if they can live in these suds more than a minute. Don't stand there! Hurry!" And when she returned with the pail he whispered to her: "I'll bring you another glass bowl for them this afternoon. Don't fret!" "My hat!" said Mr, Bitts. "I be- lieve that little brute has ruined it. I declare it's too bad." That was why Margaret went walk- ing. a little later, instead of driving. And yet Ethelbert had given her the gold-fish, in the first place! A week later, this ypung man came forth melancholic from an interview with Miss Schofield. He had received the information from her--in a gen- eral way--there were times in a girl's life when the man who appeals to her must be of the general type of a senior in college; and that--generally speaking--if a girl feels that way, the | best thing she can do may be--in ceneral--to "wait" for that senior. Generally speaking, she added, she believed so. As Mr. Bitts walked gloomily down the street he passed a grocer's wagon which bore the title, "Jacob R. Krish & Co." Attached to the wagon was an elderly bay horse, and attached to the elderly bay horse was a black tail. And on the other side of the horse, concealed from the view of Mr. Bitts, stood two boys, staring morbidly at the black tail. "Yes, sir," said Sam Williams, "a nigger told me that the reason mine never turned to a snake was because you have to keep it three weeks with- out ever lookin' at it. If you look at it even once, just to see how it's gettin' along, it's spoiled. Well, we kept lookin' at 'em--a hundred times a day, I bet--and that's what was the matter with 'em! That's why they didn't turn." "Mine wouldd!" laterly. "There wrong with mine. turned, any way!" Mr. Ethelbert Magsworth Bitts did not overhear this conversation. And if he had, he could not have under- stood it. Much less could he have traced any connection between a hair from the tail of Jacob R. Kirsh's elderly horse and the fact that Ethel- bert Magsworth Bitts was destined insisted Penrod wasn't anything Mine woulda to remain unwillingly a bachelor. | Classified Ads | FOR SALE FOR SALE --USED SEWING MA- chines taken in trade on our new Singer. We guarantee every used machine. See our new electric Singer, $35.00. Open Tuesday, Thurs- day and Saturday evenings. Patter- son Bros. 1522 Sherman-av., Evans- ton. We do repairing on all ma- chines. §-123tfe FOR SALE--USED TALKING MA- chines. Different makes taken in trade on our new machines. We carry the new Sonora, Victrola and Graphonola. Try them all before buying. See which you like best. We give free service. Patterson Bros., 1522 Sherman-av., Evanston. 8-123tfe USED PIANO OVERHAULED, GUAR-~ anteed, $70.00; Lyon & Healy, $50.00; Yeoman & Son, $60.00; Wellington, $95.00; Kimball make, $95.00. Other bargains. Patterson Bros, 1522 Sherman-av.,, Evanston. 8-123tfe AEN'S READY-MADE SUITS FOR sale. We also buy and sell second- hand clothes. Tel. 1128. 603 Demp- ster; 4274, 1321 Emerson, Evanston, 31-12-52tc FOR SALE OR EXCHANGE --1917 Chalmers six cylinder, 5 passenger auto; used less than one year; run only 5000 miles, with seat covers and A-1 tire equipment; bargain for some- one desiring good family car, or might trade for equity in small Win- netka house. Address Weekly Talk A-490. T44-1tc FOR SALE--TWO FULL SIZE ENAMEL beds with springs; one single enamel bed; price reasonable. Phone Win- netka 1510. T44-1tc FOR SALE--BRASS BED, MAHOG- any library table, blue silk and panne velvet dress, size 36. 429 Linden street, Winnetka. T44-1te FOR RENT FOR RENT--HOT WATER HEATED rooms. Phone Winnetka 513-W. T38-tfo FOR RENT--STEAM HEATED FLAT; 4 rooms and bath, water free, at 520 Linden street. P. W. Bradstreet, owner. T44-1tc SITUATIONS WANTED CET MISS CARLSTEN DO YOUR dressmaking and alterations. Phone Winnetka 911 before 8 a. m. T29-tfo PRACTICAL NURSE DESIRES POSI- tion by week or day. Best refer- ences. Reasonable. Tel. Winnetka 513-W. T38-12tc WANTED -- LAUNDRY WORK AT home. 992 Ash-st., Winnetka... T41-4tp TO LOOK Tel. Winn. T44-1tc WANTED -- FURNACES after, west of the tracks. 183. MISCELLANEOUS RAZOR BLADES--ALL KINDS OF razor blades sharpened while you wait, Satisfaction guaranteed. Chandlers, oo 630 Davis-st., Evanston. .6-123-tfc LOST--RACCOON MUFF JANUARY eighth. on Ridge or Linden avenues reward paid for return. Telephone Winnetka 729. T44-1ta (Continued from page 1) termined it would be best to pool the supplies for all the municipalitie that come under the jurisdiction of Administrator Bartlett. Final actio on this plan will be taken tonight when the committee meets with Mr, Bartlett. The merchants last night decided to place a limit of one ton for each delivery to those in need, and one half a ton wherever it is possible to carry the people through for a few days. In delivering in this manner, the dealers said they would have snouc hh coal to last for seven days. The apartment buildings were pliced as an exception to this order and a limit on deliveries was placed at'five tons. ; ARCH «The local fuel administrator' will have enough coal under the control of his Evanston office to supply deal- ers of the towns in case they 'are unable to obtain coal to supply their customers. The coal order issued last week will be enforced in Winnetka in 'the fol- lowing manner: Stores-- Will remain open during the five-day period beginning tomor- row, but on Mondays declared legal holidays will be closed except that fcr the purpose of selling food only they may maintain heat until noon, and for the sale of drugs may remain open through the day and evening. Office buildings--On the prohibited Mondays only enough fuel must be used to prevent damage from freez- ing, with the exception of those occu- pied by the banks or physicians and dentists. Amusements -- Moving picture houses, private and public dance halls must close on Mondays. Schools and churches--Not affected by the order. Street car and train service--The train service on Mondays must not be in excess of that of the preceding Sundays. Newspapers--Not required to sus- pend publication. Not affected by the five-day holiday order except next Monday. The Winnetka Weekly Talk will not be affected by this order. The job printing department of the l.ake Shore Publishing Com- pany will be closed on Friday, Satur- day, Sunday. Monday and Tuesday. January 18, 19, 20, 21 and 22, inclusive, and every Monday thereafter up to and including March 25. The offices of the company will be closed om Mondays. rE a --