ddle-aged people might discern Nature's real intentions in the
matter of pain if they would examine a boy's punishments and sorrows,
for he prolongs neither beyond their actual duration. With a boy,
trouble must be of Homeric dimensions to last overnight. To him, every
next day is really a new day. Thus, Penrod woke, next morning, with
neither the unspared rod, nor Mr. Kinosling in his mind. Tar, itself,
so far as his consideration of it went, might have been an undiscovered
substance. His mood was cheerful and mercantile; some process having
worked mysteriously within him, during the night, to the result that
his first waking thought was of profits connected with the sale of old
iron--or perhaps a ragman had passed the house, just before he woke.

By ten o'clock he had formed a partnership with the indeed amiable Sam,
and the firm of Schofield and Williams plunged headlong into commerce.
Heavy dealings in rags, paper, old iron and lead gave the firm a balance
of twenty-two cents on the evening of the third day; but a venture in
glassware, following, proved disappointing on account of the scepticism
of all the druggists in that part of town, even after seven laborious
hours had been spent in cleansing a wheelbarrow-load of old medicine
bottles with hydrant water and ashes. Likewise, the partners were
disheartened by their failure to dispose of a crop of "greens," although
they had uprooted specimens of that decorative and unappreciated flower,
the dandelion, with such persistence and energy that the Schofields' and
Williams' lawns looked curiously haggard for the rest of that summer.

The fit passed: business languished; became extinct. The dog-days had
set in.

One August afternoon was so hot that even boys sought indoor shade. In
the dimness of the vacant carriage-house of the stable, lounged Masters
Penrod Schofield, Samuel Williams, Maurice Levy, Georgie Bassett, and
Herman. They sat still and talked. It is a hot day, in rare truth, when
boys devote themselves principally to conversation, and this day was
that hot.

Their elders should beware such days. Peril hovers near when the
fierceness of weather forces inaction and boys in groups are quiet.
The more closely volcanoes, Western rivers, nitroglycerin, and boys
are pent, the deadlier is their action at the point of outbreak. Thus,
parents and guardians should look for outrages of the most singular
violence and of the most peculiar nature during the confining we