The next day a new ambition entered into Penrod Schofield; it was heralded by a flourish of trumpets and set up a great noise within his being.
On his way home from Sunday-school he had paused at a corner to listen to a brass band, which was returning from a funeral, playing a medley of airs from "The Merry Widow," and as the musicians came down the street, walking so gracefully, the sun picked out the gold braid upon their uniforms and splashed fire from their polished instruments. Penrod marked the shapes of the great bass horns, the suave sculpture of their brazen coils, and the grand, sensational flare of their mouths. And he saw plainly that these noble things, to be mastered, needed no more than some breath blown into them during the fingering of a few ****** keys.
Then obediently they gave forth those vast but dulcet sounds which stirred his spirit as no other sounds could stir it quite.
The leader of the band, walking ahead, was a pleasing figure, nothing more. Penrod supposed him to be a mere decoration, and had never sympathized with Sam Williams' deep feeling about drum-majors. The cornets, the trombones, the smaller horns were rather interesting, of course; and the drums had charm, especially the bass drum, which must be partially supported by a youth in front; but, immeasurably above all these, what fascinated Penrod was the little man with the monster horn. There Penrod's widening eyes remained transfixed--upon the horn, so dazzling, with its broad spaces of brassy highlights, and so overwhelming, with its mouth as wide as a tub; that there was something almost threatening about it.
The little, elderly band-musician walked manfully as he blew his great horn; and in that pompous engine of sound, the boy beheld a spectacle of huge forces under human control. To Penrod, the horn meant power, and the musician meant mastery over power, though, of course, Penrod did not know that this was how he really felt about the matter.
Grandiloquent sketches were passing and interchanging before his mind's eye--Penrod, in noble raiment, marching down the staring street, his shoulders swaying professionally, the roar of the horn he bore submerging all other sounds; Penrod on horseback, blowing the enormous horn and leading wild hordes to battle, while Marjorie Jones looked on from the sidewalk; Penrod astounding his mother and father and sister by suddenly serenading them in the library. "Why, Penrod, where DID you learn to play like this?"
These were vague and shimmering glories of vision rather than definite plans for his life work, yet he did with all his will determine to own and play upon some roaring instrument of brass.
And, after all, this was no new desire of his; it was only an old one inflamed to take a new form. Nor was music the root of it, for the identical desire is often uproarious among them that hate music. What stirred in Penrod was new neither in him nor in the world, but old--old as old Adam, old as the childishness of man.
All children have it, of course: they are all anxious to Make a Noise in the World.
While the band approached, Penrod marked the time with his feet; then he fell into step and accompanied the musicians down the street, keeping as near as possible to the little man with the big horn. There were four or five other boys, strangers, also marching with the band, but these were light spirits, their flushed faces and prancing legs proving that they were merely in a state of emotional reaction to music. Penrod, on the contrary, was grave. He kept his eyes upon the big horn, and, now and then, he gave an imitation of it. His fingers moved upon invisible keys, his cheeks puffed out, and, from far down in his throat, he produced strange sounds: "Taw, p'taw-p'taw! Taw, p'taw-p'taw!
PAW!"
The other boys turned back when the musicians ceased to play, but Penrod marched on, still keeping close to what so inspired him.
He stayed with the band till the last member of it disappeared up a staircase in an office-building, down at the business end of the street; and even after that he lingered a while, looking at the staircase.
Finally, however, he set his face toward home, whither he marched in a procession, the visible part of which consisted of himself alone. All the way the rhythmic movements of his head kept time with his marching feet and, also, with a slight rise and fall of his fingers at about the median line of his abdomen. And pedestrians who encountered him in this preoccupation were not surprised to hear, as he passed, a few explosive little vocalizations: "Taw, p'taw-p'taw! TAW! Taw-aw-HAW!"
These were the outward symptoms of no fleeting impulse, but of steadfast desire; therefore they were persistent. The likeness of the great bass horn remained upon the retina of his mind's eye, losing nothing of its brazen enormity with the passing of hours, nor abating, in his mind's ear, one whit of its fascinating blatancy. Penrod might have forgotten almost anything else more readily; for such a horn has this double compulsion: people cannot possibly keep themselves from looking at its possessor--and they certainly have GOT to listen to him!
Penrod was preoccupied at dinner and during the evening, now and then causing his father some irritation by croaking, "Taw, p'taw-p'taw!" while the latter was talking. And when bedtime came for the son of the house, he mounted the stairs in a rhythmic manner, and p'tawed himself through the upper hall as far as his own chamber.
Even after he had gone to bed, there came a revival of these manifestations. His mother had put out his light for him and had returned to the library downstairs; three-quarters of an hour had elapsed since then, and Margaret was in her room, next to his, when a continuous low croaking (which she was just able to bear) suddenly broke out into loud, triumphal blattings:
"TAW, p'taw-p'taw-aw-HAW! P'taw-WAW-aw! Aw-PAW!"
