The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-11-18
Original of Tarkington's 'Penrod' Lives in N. Y;
He's Middle-Aged Now and a Politician, Too
Some of Booth in Famed
Character, He Says,
In Defense
BY WILLIAM ENGLE
Tfnnes SnnciaI INrlfnr

NEW YORK, Nov. 18.-Tha stable
storeroom where Penrod Schofield
presented the big, long, ugly faced,
horrible, black ole snake to Verman,
where he and Sam Williams plotted
the nishiation of George Bassett
with ritual, is a downtown New
York law Office now.
There in the flesh is Penrod. He
is middle-aged now, good deal
more grave than when he, in the
life, and Booth Harrington were
boys together in Indianapolis, and
his name is Reyes Winter, former
Republican leader of the Fifteenth
assembly district.
Reluctantly today he acknoWl-
edged the identity, amended it by
adding that he thought there was
some of Harrington himself in
Penrod and some of Tarkington's
two nephews, and then he took a
Enthusiastically Penrodian salts
faction in pricking the soap bubble
idea that machine politics is nur-
tured by anything but patronage.
Had Great. Imagination"
Booth always had a great imag-
ination," he said-the ruddy-faced,
sandy-haired man, with the wide
eyes and quizzical smile, going back
across the years to boyhood and In
dianapolis.
when he got around to writing
those stories he touched them up.
They weren't all true.
Now he, and not 1, was the one
who used to like to sit down in the
coal bin and write about strange ad-
venture"
Adventure Right Here
Indianapolis, itself, then was pop
ping with adventure; the young
Harrington mind, if it had realized
it, would not have had to stray
further than the Reyes Winter
backyard.
Now, listen, Verman. Listen!
fixed up this good ole snake just for
you. I'm goin' to give her to you")
Those immortals, Herman and
Verman, derived from no particular
prototype, Mr.. Winter thinks.
Quite a few of us had sort of a
retainer or two" he explained. For
a long time had one called Black
Diamond. He was two-headed."
Arguments It Reluctantly
Reluctantly, Mr.. Winter aug
mented this. He preferred to speak
of district leaders patronage
His head went up like this, and
then about halfway back it took a
new start and bumped like this.
Like two mountain ranges"
Mr.. Harrington was older than
Mr.. Winter. But they lived on the
same street, and Mr.. Winter recalled
that the rich sources of amusement
for the present generation of rap
scallions were denied them in quiet
toned indianapolis. Life was sim
pier then.
What did you put in the medi-
cine?' Sam insisted. And probably
it was just as we'll that, though Mrs.
Schofield could see her son, the dis
lance was too great for her to hear
him. oh, nothin', Penrod replied
Nothin' but a little good ole mud. 4"
They're Still Pals
The old cameraderie of Mr.. Tar
kington and Mr.. Winter has stayed
robust through the years. Each
summer they got together at the
Harrington home in Maine.
The winters Mr.. Harrington
spends in the Indianapolis that he
never could be prevailed upon to
forsake.
Mr.. Winter, long and prominently
New Yorker, likes now to stir up
a mixture as unpalatable for ma
chine politicians as Penrod liked to
stir the mud cure-all.