News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1915-06-16


the stockings. Yhe inventive genius o
woman triumphantly bridged it, but i
manner which imposes upon histor
almost insuperable delicacies of nal
ration. Penrod's father was an oil
fashioned man. The twentieth Ger
fury had failed to shake his faith il
red flannel for cold weather, and
was while Mrs. Schofeld was putin,
away her husbands winter underwea
that she perceived how hopelessly on,
of the elder specimens had dwindled
and simultaneously she received tn,
inspiration which resulted in a pair o.
trunks for the Child Sir Lancelot ant
added an earnest bit of color, as wei
as genuine touch of the middle ages
to his costume. Reversed, fore to aft
with the greater part of the legs cut
off and strips of silver braid covering
the seams, this garment, she felt, was
not traceable to its original source.
When it had been placed upon Pen
rod the stockings were attached to it
by a system of safety pins, not very
perceptible at Il distance. Next, after
being severely warned against stoop-
ing, Penrod got his feet into the slip
pers he wore to dancing school-"pat-
ent leather pumps" now decorated
with large pink rosettes.
eff l can't stoOp,' he began smolder-
hgly, I'D like to know how'm l goin
to kneel in the pag''-
"You must manager This, uttered
through pins, was evidently thought
to be sufficient.
They fastened some ruching about
his slender neck. pinned ribbons at
random all over him, and then Mar
garet thickiy powdered his hair.
ooh, yes; that's all right" she said,
replying to d question put by her
mother. "They always powdered their
hair in colonial times"
at doesn't seem right to me-exact.
w." objected Mrs. Schofeld gently.
"Sir Lancelot must have been ever so
long before colonial tines
THAT doesn't NATTER Margaret re-
assured her. "Nobody'll know the
difference, Mrs. Lora Rewbush least Of
ALL l don't think she knows a thing
about it, though, of course, she does
write splendidly and the words of the
pageant are just beautiful Stand
still, Penrodr' CThe author of 'Har-
old RamOrez" had moved convulsiyely)
Besides, powdered hairs always be-
coming. Look at him. You'd hardly
know it was Penrod"
The pride and admiration with which
she pronounced this undeniable truth
might have been thought tactless, but
Penrod, not analytical, found his spir-
its somewhat elevated. No mirror
was in his range of vision, and, though
he had submitted to cursory measure
ments of his person a week earlier, he
had no previous acquaintance with the
costume He began to form not I'M
pleasing mental picture of his appear
ance, something somewhere between
the portraits of George Washington
and a vivid memory of Miss Julia
Marlowe at a matinee of Twelfth
Night"
He was additionally cheered by a
sword which had been borrowed from
neighbor who was a Knight of Pyth-
ias. Finally there was a mantle, an
old golf cape of Margaret's. Fluffy
polka dots of white cotton had been
sewed to it generously; also it was or
namented with a large cross Of red
flannel, suggested by the picture of a
crusader in a newspaper advertise |
ment. The mantle was fastened to
Periods shoulder-that lis, to the |
shoulder of Mrs. Schofield'S eX-bodice-
by means of large safety pins and ar
ranged to hang down behind him, |
touching his heels, but obscuring no I
wise the glory of his facade. Then at
last he was allowed TO step before a
mirror.
1t was a full length glass and the
worst Immediately happened. 1t might
have been little less violent, perhaps,
If Penrod's expectations had not been
SO richly and POLITICALLY idealized, but
as things were the revolt was volcanic.
Victor Hugo's account of the fight
with the devilfish, in "Toilers of the
Sea-" encourages a belief that, had
Hugo lived and increased in power, he
might have been equal to a proper
recital of the half hour which followed
Periods first sight of himself as the
Child Sir Lancelot. But Mr.. Wilson /
himself, bastard but eloquent foe of
Harold Ramorez, could net have eX-
pressed, with all the vile dashes at his
the sentiments which ami
mated Periods bosom when the in
and unalterable conviction
descended upon him that he was in
tended by his loved ones to make pub
lie spectacle of himself in his sisters
and part of an old dress of
his mothers.
To him these familiar things were
not disguised at all. There seemed no
possibility that the whole world would
not know them at glance. The stock
ngs were worse than the bodice. He I
had been assured that these could not
be recognized, but. seeing them i'm the
mirror, he was sure that no human !