it you wanted?" she asked, rather impatiently.

"I was just lookin' for some pins."

"Very well," she said, and handed him two from the shoulder of her
blouse.

"I ought to have more," he said. "I want about forty."

"What for?"

"I just want to MAKE sumpthing, Mamma," he said plaintively. "My
goodness! Can't I even want to have a few pins without everybody makin'
such a fuss about it you'd think I was doin' a srime!"

"Doing a what, Penrod?"

"A SRIME!" he repeated, with emphasis; and a moment's reflection
enlightened his mother.

"Oh, a crime!" she exclaimed. "You MUST quit reading the murder trials
in the newspapers, Penrod. And when you read words you don't know how to
pronounce you ought to ask either your papa or me."

"Well, I am askin' you about sumpthing now," Penrod said. "Can't I
even have a few PINS without stoppin' to talk about everything in the
newspapers, Mamma?"

"Yes," she said, laughing at his seriousness; and she took him to her
room, and bestowed upon him five or six rows torn from a paper of pins.
"That ought to be plenty," she said, "for whatever you want to make."

And she smiled after his retreating figure, not noting that he looked
softly bulky around the body, and held his elbows unnaturally tight to
his sides. She was assured of the innocence of anything to be made with
pins, and forbore to press investigation. For Penrod to be playing with
pins seemed almost girlish. Unhappy woman, it pleased her to have her
son seem girlish!

Penrod went out to the stable, tossed his pins into the wheelbarrow,
then took from his pocket and unfolded six pairs of long black
stockings, indubitably the property of his sister. (Evidently Mrs.
Schofield had been a little late in making her appearance at the door of
Margaret's room.)

Penrod worked systematically; he hung the twelve stockings over the
sides of the wheelbarrow, and placed the wheelbarrow beside a large
packing-box that was half full of excelsior. One after another, he
stuffed the stockings with excelsior, till they looked like twelve long
black sausages. Then he pinned the top of one stocking securely over the
stuffed foot of another, pinning the top of a third to the foot of the
second, the top of a fourth to the foot of the third--and continued
operations in this fashion until the twelve stockings were the semblance
of one long and sinuous black body, sufficiently suggestive to any
normal eye.

He tied a string to one end of t