Boyhood is the longest time in life for a boy.

The last term of the school-year is made of decades, not of weeks, and living through them is like waiting for the millennium.

But they do pass, somehow, and at last there came a day when Penrod was one of a group that capered out from the gravelled yard of "Ward School, Nomber Seventh," carolling a leave-taking of the institution, of their instructress, and not even forgetting Mr.Capps, the janitor.
"Good-bye, teacher! Good-bye, school! Good-bye, Cappsie, dern ole fool!" Penrod sang the loudest.

For every boy, there is an age when he "finds his voice." Penrod's had not "changed," but he had found it.

Inevitably that thing had come upon his family and the neighbours; and his father, a somewhat dyspeptic man, quoted frequently the expressive words of the "Lady of Shalott," but there were others whose sufferings were as poignant.
Vacation-time warmed the young of the world to pleasant languor; and a morning came that was like a brightly coloured picture in a child's fairy story.