“That won’t do, Penrod Schofield,” she repeated severely.  “If that is all the excuse you have to offer I shall report your case this instant!”

And she rose with fatal intent.

But Penrod was one of those whom the precipice inspires.  “Well, I have got an excuse.”

“Well”—­she paused impatiently—­“what is it?”

He had not an idea, but he felt one coming, and replied automatically, in a plaintive tone: 

“I guess anybody that had been through what I had to go through, last night, would think they had an excuse.”

Miss Spence resumed her seat, though with the air of being ready to leap from it instantly.

“What has last night to do with your insolence to me this morning?”

“Well, I guess you’d see,” he returned, emphasizing the plaintive note, “if you knew what I know.”

“Now, Penrod,” she said, in a kinder voice, “I have a high regard for your mother and father, and it would hurt me to distress them, but you must either tell me what was the matter with you or I’ll have to take you to Mrs. Houston.”

“Well, ain’t I going to?” he cried, spurred by the dread name.  “It’s because I didn’t sleep last night.”

“Were you ill?” The question was put with some dryness.

He felt the dryness.  “No’m; I wasn’t.”

“Then if someone in your family was so ill that even you were kept up all night, how does it happen they let you come to school this morning?”

“It wasn’t illness,” he returned, shaking his head mournfully.  “It was lots worse’n anybody’s being sick.  It was—­it was—­well, it was jest awful.”

“What was?” He remarked with anxiety the incredulity in her tone.

“It was about Aunt Clara,” he said.

“Your Aunt Clara!” she repeated.  “Do you mean your mother’s sister who married Mr. Farry of Dayton, Illinois?”

“Yes—­Uncle John,” returned Penrod sorrowfully.  “The trouble was about him.”

Miss Spence frowned a frown which he rightly interpreted as one of continued suspicion.  “She and I were in school together,” she said.  “I used to know her very well, and I’ve always heard her married life was entirely happy.  I don’t——­”

“Yes, it was,” he interrupted, “until last year when Uncle John took to running with travelling men——­”

“What?”

“Yes’m.”  He nodded solemnly.  “That was what started it.  At first he was a good, kind husband, but these travelling men would coax him into a saloon on his way home from work, and they got him to drinking beer and then ales, wines, liquors, and cigars——­”

“Penrod!”

“Ma’am?”

“I’m not inquiring into your Aunt Clara’s private affairs; I’m asking you if you have anything to say which would palliate——­”

“That’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you about, Miss Spence,” he pleaded,—­“if you’d jest only let me.  When Aunt Clara and her little baby daughter got to our house last night——­”