Two years had gone by since that passing; an interregnum in transportation during which Penrod's father was "thinking" (he explained sometimes) of an automobile.

Meanwhile, the gifted and generous sawdust-box had served brilliantly in war and peace: it was Penrod's stronghold.
There was a partially defaced sign upon the front wall of the box; the donjon-keep had known mercantile impulses: The O.K.RaBiT Co.
PENROD ScHoFiELD AND CO.
iNQuiRE FOR PRicEs This was a venture of the preceding vacation, and had netted, at one time, an accrued and owed profit of $1.38.

Prospects had been brightest on the very eve of cataclysm.

The storeroom was locked and guarded, but twenty-seven rabbits and Belgian hares, old and young, had perished here on a single night--through no human agency, but in a foray of cats, the besiegers treacherously tunnelling up through the sawdust from the small aperture which opened into the stall beyond the partition.

Commerce has its martyrs.
Penrod climbed upon a barrel, stood on tiptoe, grasped the rim of the box; then, using a knot-hole as a stirrup, threw one leg over the top, drew himself up, and dropped within.