The ensuing week was marked for the Cowan-Penniman household by
sensational developments. To Dave Cowan on Monday morning, standing at
his case in the _Advance_ office, nimbly filling his stick with type,
following the loosely written copy turned in by Sam Pickering, the
editor, had portentously come a messenger from the First National Bank
to know if Mr. Cowan could find it convenient that day to give Harvey D.
Whipple a few moments of his time. Dave's business life had hitherto not
included any contact with bankers; he had simply never been in a bank.
The message left him not a little disturbed.
The messenger, Julius Farrow, a bookkeeper, could answer no questions.
He knew only that Harvey D. had been very polite about it, and if Dave
couldn't find it convenient to-day he was to say when he might find it
convenient to have a conference. Dave felt relieved at hearing the word
"conference." A mere summons to a strange place like a bank might be
sinister, but a polite invitation to a conference at his convenience was
different. He put down his half-filled stick. He had been at work on the
_Advance_ locals for the Wednesday paper, two and three-line items to
tell of the trivial going and coming of nobodies which he was wont to
set up with an accompaniment of satirical comment on small-town
activities. He had broken off in the midst of perpetuating in brevier
type the circumstance that Adelia May Simsbury was home from normal
school over Sunday to visit her parents, Rufus G. Simsbury and wife,
north of town.
"I'll go with you," Dave told Julius Farrow. "I can always find a little
time for bankers. I never kept one waiting yet, and I won't begin now.
Ask any of em--they'll tell you I come when called."
Julius looked puzzled, but offered no comment. Dave doffed his green
eye-shade and his apron of striped ticking, hastily dampened his hands
in the tin washbasin and wiped them on a roller towel rich in historic
associations. He spent a moment upon his hair before a small, wavy, and
diagonally cracked mirror, put on his blue cutaway coat and his derby
hat and called, "Back in five minutes, Sam," casually into the open door
of another room, where Sam Pickering wrestled with a fearless editorial
on the need of better street lighting. It seemed to Dave that five
minutes would amply suffice for any talk a banker might be needing with
him.
In the back office of the First National Bank he was presently ensconced
at a shining table of mahogany across from Harvey D. Whipple and his
father--the dubious trousers and worn shoes hidden beneath the table so
that visibly he was all but well dressed.
"Smoke?" asked Gideon, and proffered an open cigar case.
"Thanks," said Dave, "I'll smoke it later."
He placed a cigar in the upper left-hand pocket of the eminently plaid
waistcoat from whence already protruded the handle of a toothbrush and a
fountain pen. He preened his moustache, smoothed his hair, waited.
Harvey D. coughed in a promising manner, set a wire basket of papers
square with the corners of the table, and began.
"We have been thinking, Mr. Cowan, my father and I--you see--"
He talked on, but without appeasing Dave's curiosity. Something about
Dave's having boys, he gathered, and about the Whipples not having them;
but it occurred to Dave again and again as Harvey wandered on that this
was a discrepancy not in his power to correct. Once a monstrous
suspicion startled him--this conference, so called, was shaping into
nothing less than a proposal on behalf of the person he had so
carelessly saluted the day before. It was terrifying; he grew cold with
pure fright. But that was like some women--once show them a little
attention, they expected everything!
Gideon Whipple mercifully broke in while Harvey D. floundered upon an
inconclusive period. Gideon was not nervous, and saw little need for
strategy with this rather vagabondish fellow.
"In short, Mr. Cowan, my son offers to adopt that boy of yours--make him
his own son in name--and opportunities and advantages--his own son."
So it was only that! Dave drew a long, pleasant breath and wiped his
brow. Then he took a pencil from the table and began to draw squares and
triangles and diamond patterns upon a pad of soft paper that lay at
hand.
"Well--I don't know." His eyes followed the pencil point. Nor did he
know until it presently developed that the desired adoption was of the
Merle twin. He had supposed, without debate, that they would be meaning
the other. "You mean Merle," he said at last on some leading of
Gideon's.
"To be sure!" said Harvey D., as if there could have been no question of
another.
"Oh, him!" said Dave--there was relief in his tone. "You're sure you
mean him?"
"But of course!" said Harvey D., brightening.
"All right," said Dave. He felt they were taking the wrong twin, but he
felt also that he must not let them see this--they might then want the
other. "All right, I'll agree to that. He's a bright boy; it ought to be
a good thing for him."
"Ought to be!" quoted Harvey D. with humorous warmth. "But, of course,
it will be! You realize what it will mean for him--advantages,
opportunities, education, travel, family, a future!--the Whipple
estate--but, of course, we feel that under our training he will be a
credit to us. He will be one of us--a Whipple in name and in fact."
Dave Cowan ceased to draw angled designs on his pad; he now drew
circles, ovals, ellipses, things fluent with curves.
"All right," he said, "I'm willing, I want to do the best I can for the
boy. I'm glad you feel he's the right one for you. Of course the other
boy--well, they're twins, but he's different."
"We are certain you will never regret it," said Harvey D., warmly.
"We feel that you are wise to agree," said Gideon. "So then--"
"Papers to sign?" said Dave.
"Our lawyer will have them to-morrow," said Harvey D.
"Good!" said Dave.
He was presently back at his case, embalming for posterity the knowledge
that Grandma Milledge was able to be out again these sunny days after a
hard tussle with her old enemy sciatica. But before passing to the next
item he took Gideon's choice cigar from the upper waistcoat pocket,
crumpled it, rubbed it to fine bits between the palms of his hands, and
filled the calabash pipe with its débris. As he smoked he looked out the
window that gave on River Street. Across the way was the yellow brick
structure of the bank he had just left. He was seeing a future president
of that sound institution, Merle Whipple, born Cowan. He was glad they
hadn't wanted the other one. The other one would want to be something
more interesting surely than a small-town bank president. Have him learn
a good loose trade and see the world--get into real life! But they'd had
him going for a minute--when the only meaning he could get from Harvey
D.'s roundabout talk was that the old girl of yesterday had
misunderstood his attentions. That would have been a nice fix to find
himself in! But Merle was off his mind; he would become a real Whipple
and some day be the head of the family. Funny thing for a Cowan to fall
into! He turned to his dusty case and set up the next item on his yellow
copy paper.
"Rumour hath it that Sandy Seaver's Sunday trips out of town mean
business, and that a certain bright resident of Geneseo will shortly
become Mrs. Sandy."
He paused again. All at once it seemed to him that the Whipples had been
hasty. They would get to thinking the thing over and drop it; never
mention it to him again. Well, he was willing to let it drop. He
wouldn't mention it again if they didn't. He would tell no one.
* * * * *
Nor did he speak of it until the following evening, after the Whipples
had surprisingly not only mentioned it again but had operated in the
little bank office, under the supervision of Squire Culbreth, a simple
mechanism of the law which left him the legal father of but one son.
Then he went to astonish the Pennimans with his news, only to find that
Winona had secretively nursed it even longer than he had. Mrs. Penniman
had also been told of the probability of this great event, but,
nevertheless, wept gently when Dave certified to her its irrevocable
consummation. Only Judge Penniman remained to be startled; and he, being
irritated that others had enjoyed a foreknowledge guiltily withheld from
him, chose to pretend that he, too, had been mysteriously enlightened.
He had, he said, seen the thing coming. He became at the supper table a
creature of gnawing and baffled curiosity which he must hide by boasting
an intimate acquaintance with Whipple motives and intentions. He
intimated that but for his advice and counsel the great event might not
have come about. The initiative had been his, though certain other
people might claim the credit. Of course he hadn't wanted to talk about
it before. He guessed he could keep a close mouth as well as the next
one.
The Merle twin at this momentous meal sat as one enthroned, receiving
tribute from fawning subjects. His name was already Merle Whipple, and
he was going to have a pony to ride, and he would come sometimes to see
them. His cordial tolerance of them quite overcame Mrs. Penniman again.
She had to feign an errand to the kitchen stove, and came back dropping
the edge of her apron from her eyes. Winona was exalted; she felt that
her careful training of the child had raised him to this eminence, and
she rejoiced in it as a tribute to her capacity. Her labours had been
richly rewarded. Dave Cowan alone seemed not to be enough impressed by
the honours heaped upon his son. He jestingly spoke of him as a crown
prince. He said if you really had to stay in a small town you might as
well be adopted by the Whipples as any one else.
The Wilbur twin was abashed and puzzled. The detail most impressing him
seemed to be that, having no longer a brother, he would cease to be a
twin. His life long he had been made intensely conscious of being a
twin--he was one of a pair--and now suddenly, he gathered, he was
something whole and complete in himself. He demanded assurance on this
point.
"Then I'm not going to be a twin any longer? I mean, I'm not going to be
one of a twins? It won't change my name, too, will it?"
His father enlightened him.
"No, there's still a couple of Cowans left to keep the name going. We
won't have to be small-towners unless we want to," he added.
He suspected that the Wilbur twin felt slighted and hurt at being passed
over, and would be needing comfort. But it appeared that the severed
twin felt nothing of that sort. He was merely curious--not wounded or
envious.
"I wouldn't want to change to a new name," he declared. "I'd forget and
go back to the old one."
He wanted to add that maybe his new dog would not know him under another
name, but he was afraid of being laughed at for that.
"Merle never forgets," said Winona. "He will be a shining credit to his
new name." She helped the chosen one to more jelly, which he accepted
amiably. "And he will be a lovely little brother to Patricia Whipple,"
she fondly added.
This left the Wilbur twin cold. He would like to have a pony, but he
would not wish to be Patricia Whipple's brother. He now recalled her
unpleasantly. She was a difficult person.
"Give Merle another bit of the steak, Mother," urged Judge Penniman.
The judge had begun to dwell upon his own new importance. This thing
made him by law a connection of the Whipple family, didn't it? He, Rufus
Tyler Penniman, had become at least a partial Whipple. He reflected
pleasantly upon the consequences.
"Will he go home to-night?" suddenly demanded the Wilbur twin, pointing
at his brother so there should be no mistake. The Merle twin seemed
already a stranger to him.
"Not to-night, dear, but in a few days, I would suppose." It sent Mrs.
Penniman to the stove again.
"I don't just know when I will go," said the Merle twin, surveying a
replenished plate. "But I guess I'll give you back that knife you bought
me; I probably won't need it up there. I'll probably have plenty of
better knives than that knife."
The Wilbur twin questioned this, but hid his doubt. Surely there could
be few better knives in the whole world than one with a thing to dig
stones out of horses' feet. Anyway, he would be glad to have it, and was
glad the promise had been made before witnesses.
After supper on the porch Dave Cowan in the hammock picked chords and
scraps of melody from his guitar, quite as if nothing had happened.
Judge Penniman, in his wicker chair, continued to muse upon certain
pleasant contingencies of this new situation. It had occurred to him
that Dave Cowan himself would be even more a Whipple than any Penniman,
and would enjoy superior advantages inevitably rising from this
circumstance.
"That family will naturally want to do something for you, too, Dave," he
said at last.
"Do something for me?" Dave's fingers hung waiting above the strings.
"Why not? You're the boy's father, ain't you? Facts is facts, no matter
what the law says. You're his absolute progenitor, ain't you? Well, you
living here in the same town, they'll naturally want you to be somebody,
won't they?"
"Oh!" Dave struck the waiting chord. "Well, I am somebody, ain't I?"
The judge waved this aside with a fat, deprecating hand.
"Oh, in that way! Of course, everybody's somebody--every living,
breathing soul. But what I'm getting at--they'll naturally try to make
something out of you, instead of just being kind of a no-account tramp
printer."
"Ha! Is that so, old small-towner?"
"Shouldn't wonder if they'd want to take you into the bank,
mebbe--cashier or something, or manage one of the farms or factories, or
set you up in business of some kind. You might git to be president of
the First National."
"They might make you a director, too, I suppose."
"Well, you can snicker, but stranger things have happened."
The judge reflected, seeing himself truly a bank director, wearing his
silk hat and frock coat every day--perhaps playing checkers with Harvey
D. in the back office at quiet moments. Bank directing would surely be a
suitable occupation for an invalid. Dave muted the vibrant strings with
a hand.
"Listen, Old Flapdoodle! I wouldn't tie myself up in this one-horse
bunch of hovels, not if they'd give me the bank and all the money in it
and all the Whipple farms and throw in the post office and the jail and
the depot. Get that?"
"Ho! Sour grapes!" returned the judge, stung to a biting wit by the
coarse form of address. But Dave played music above the taunt.
* * * * *
Nevertheless, he was not wholly surprised the following day when,
politely invited to another conference at the bank, old Gideon Whipple,
alone there, put the matter of his future somewhat after the manner of
Judge Penniman, though far less crudely. Old Gideon sat across the
table from him, and after Dave had put a cigar in his upper left-hand
waistcoat pocket he became considerate but pointed.
"My son and I have been talking, Mr. Cowan, and we agree that something
is due you as the boy's father. We want to show you every
consideration--show it liberally. You seem to have led rather an--shall
we say an unsettled life up to this time? Not that it's anything to be
criticised; you follow your own tastes, as every man should. But it
occurred to us that you might care to feel more settled in some stable
occupation where you could look forward to a solid future--all that sort
of thing."
Dave nodded, waiting, trying to word the talk the old man and his son
would have had about him. Harvey Whipple would have been troubled at the
near presence of the father of his new son as a mere journeyman printer.
Undoubtedly the two would have used the phrase the judge had used--they
would want him to make something of himself.
"So we've felt," went on Gideon, "that you might care to engage in some
business here in Newbern--establish yourself, soundly and prosperously,
as it were, so that your son, though maturing under different
circumstances, would yet feel a pride in your standing in the community.
Of course, this is tentative--I'm sounding you, only. You may have quite
other ideas. You may have laid out an entirely different future for
yourself in some other field. But I wanted to let you know that we stand
ready to finance liberally any business you would care to engage in,
either here or elsewhere. It isn't that we are crudely offering you
money. I wish you to understand that. But we offer you help, both in
money and counsel and influence. In the event of your caring to
establish yourself here, we would see that your foundation was
substantial. I think that says what I wanted to say."
During much of this Dave Cowan had been musing in a lively manner upon
the other's supposition that he should have laid out a future for
himself. He was amused at the notion. Of course he had laid out a
future, but not the sort a Whipple would lay out. He was already living
his future and found it good. Yet he felt the genuine good will of the
old man, and sought words to reject his offer gracefully. He must not
put it so bluntly as he had to Judge Penniman. The old man would not be
able to understand that no bribe within human reach would tempt him to
remain in Newbern Center; nor did he wish to be established on a sound
basis anywhere else. He did not wish to be established at all.
"I'm much obliged," he said at last, "but I guess I won't trouble you
and your son in any way. You see, I kind of like to live round and see
things and go places--I don't know that I can explain it exactly."
"We have even thought you might like to acquire the journal on which you
are now employed," said Gideon. "We understand it can be bought; we
stand ready to purchase it and make it over to you."
"Any country newspaper can always be bought any time," said Dave. "Their
owners always want to sell, and it's mighty kind of you and your son,
but--well, I just couldn't settle down to be a country editor. I'd go
crazy," he confessed in a sudden burst of frankness, and beaming upon
Gideon; "I'd as soon be shut in jail."
"Or anything else you might think of," said Gideon, cordially, "not
necessarily in this town."
"Well, I'd rather not; I guess I'm not one to have responsibilities; I
wouldn't have an easy minute spending your money. I wouldn't ever be
able to feel free with it, not the way I feel with my own. I guess I
just better kind of go my own way; I like to work when I want to and
stop when I want to, and no one having any right to ask me what I quit
for and why don't I keep on and make something of myself. I guess it's
no good your trying to help me in any way. Of course I appreciate it and
all that. It was kindly thought of by you. But--I hope my boy will be a
credit to you just the same."
The conference closed upon this. Dave left it feeling that he had eased
his refusal into soft, ambiguous phrases; but old Gideon, reporting to
Harvey D., said: "That chap hates a small town. What he really wanted to
tell me was that he wouldn't settle down here for all the money in the
world. He really laughed at me inside for offering him the chance. He
pities us for having to stay here, I do believe. And he wouldn't talk of
taking money for any enterprise elsewhere, either. He's either
independent or shiftless--both, maybe. He said," Gideon laughed
noiselessly, "he said he wouldn't ever be able to feel free with our
money the way he does with his own."
* * * * *
The Whipples, it proved, would be in no indecent haste to remove their
new member from his humbler environment. On Wednesday it was conveyed to
Winona that they would come for Merle in a few days, which left the
Penniman household and the twins variously concerned as to the precise
meaning of this phrase. It sounded elastic. But on Thursday Winona was
able to announce that the day would be Saturday. They would come for
Merle Saturday afternoon. She had been told this distinctly by Mrs.
Harvey D. Though her informant had set no hour, Winona thought it would
be three o'clock. She believed the importance of the affair demanded the
setting of an exact hour, and there was something about three o'clock
that commended itself to her. From this moment the atmosphere of the
Penniman house was increasingly strained. There were preparations. The
slender wardrobe of the crown prince of the Whipple dynasty was put in
perfect order, and two items newly added to it by the direction of Dave
Cowan. The boy must have a new hat and new shoes. The judge pointed out
to the prodigal father that these purchases should rightly be made with
Whipple money. Dave needn't buy shoes and hats for Merle Whipple any
more than he need buy them for any other Whipple, but Dave had
stubbornly squandered his own money. His boy wasn't going up to the big
house like a ragamuffin.
It came to the Wilbur twin that these days until Saturday were like the
days intervening in a house of death until the funeral. He became
increasingly shy and uncomfortable. It seemed to him that his brother
had passed on, as they said, his mortal remains to be disposed of on
Saturday at three o'clock. Having led a good life he would go to heaven,
where he would have a pony and a thousand knives if he wanted them. The
strain in the house, the excitement of Winona, the periodic, furtive
weeping of Mrs. Penniman, the detached, uplifted manner of the chief
figure, all confirmed him in this impression. Even Judge Penniman, who
had been wont to speak of "them twins," now spoke of "that boy," meaning
but the Wilbur twin.
By two o'clock of the momentous Saturday afternoon the tension was at
its highest. Merle, dressed in his Sunday clothes, trod squeakily in the
new shoes, which were button shoes surpassing in elegance any he had
hitherto worn. As Dave Cowan had remarked, they were as good shoes as
Whipple money would ever buy him. And the new hat, firm of line and rich
in texture, a hat such as no boy could possibly wear except on Sunday,
unless he were a very rich boy, reposed on the centre table in the
parlour. Winona, flushed and tightly dressed, nervously altered the
arrangement of chairs in the parlour, or remembered some belonging of
the deceased that should go into the suitcase containing his freshly
starched blouses. Mrs. Penniman, also flushed and tightly dressed,
affected to busy herself likewise with minor preparations for the
departure, but this chiefly afforded her opportunities for quiet weeping
in secluded corners. After these moments of relief she would become
elaborately cheerful, as if the occasion were festal. Even the judge
grew nervous with anticipation. In his frock coat and striped gray
trousers he walked heavily from room to room, comparing the clock with
his watch, forgetting that he was not supposed to walk freely except
with acute suffering. Merle chattered blithely about how he would come
back to see them, with unfortunate effects upon Mrs. Penniman.
The Wilbur twin knew this atmosphere. When little Georgie Finkboner had
died a few months before, had he not been taken to the house of mourning
and compelled to stay through a distressing funeral? It was like that
now, and he was uncomfortable beyond endurance. Twice Winona had
reminded him that he must go and put on his own Sunday clothes--nothing
less than this would be thought suitable. He had said he would, but had
dawdled skillfully and was still unfitly in bare feet and the shabby
garments of a weekday. He knew definitely now that he was not going to
be present at this terrible ceremony.
He had no doubt there would be a ceremony--all the Whipples arriving in
their own Sunday clothes, maybe the preacher coming with them; and they
would sit silently in the parlour the way they did at the Finkboner
house, and maybe the preacher would talk, and maybe they would sing or
pray or something, and then they would take Merle away. He was not to be
blamed for this happily inaccurate picture; he was justified by the
behaviour of Winona and her mother. And he was not going to be there! He
wouldn't exactly run away; he felt a morbid wish to watch the thing if
he could be apart from it; but he was going to be apart. He remembered
too well the scene at the Finkboner house--and the smell of tuberoses.
Winona had unaccustomed flowers in the parlour now--not tuberoses, but
almost as bad. Until a quarter to three he expertly shuffled and dawdled
and evaded. Then Winona took a stand with him.
"Wilbur Cowan, go at once and dress yourself properly! Do you expect to
appear before the Whipples that way?"
He vanished in a flurry of seeming obedience. He went openly through the
front door of the little house into the side yard, but paused not until
he reached its back door, where he stood waiting. When he guessed he had
been there fifteen minutes he prepared to change his lurking place.
Winona would be coming for him. He stepped out and looked round the
corner of the little house, feeling inconsequently the thrill of a
scout among hostile red Indians as described in a favoured romance.
The lawn between the little house and the big house was free of
searchers. He drew a long breath and made a swift dash to further
obscurity in the lee of the Penniman woodshed. He skirted the end of
this structure and peered about its corner, estimating the distance to
the side door. But this was risky; it would bring him in view of a
kitchen window whence some busybody might observe him. But there was an
open window above him giving entrance to the woodshed. He leaped to
catch its sill and clambered up to look in. The woodshed was vacant of
Pennimans, and its shadowy silence promised security. He dropped from
the window ledge. There was no floor beneath, so that the drop was
greater than he had counted on. He fell among loose kindling wood with
more noise than he would have desired, quickly rose, stumbled in the
dusk against a bucket half filled with whitewash, and sprawled again
into a pile of soft coal.
"Gee, gosh!" he muttered, heartily, as he rose a second time.
Both the well-spread pallor of the whitewash and the sable sprinkling of
coal dust put him beyond any chance of a felicitous public appearance.
But he was safe in a dusky corner. He remained there, breathing heavily.
At last he heard Winona call him from the Penniman porch. Twice she
called; then he knew she would be crossing to the little house to know
what detained him. He heard her call again--knew that she would be
searching the four rooms over there. She wouldn't think of the woodshed.
He sat there a long while, steadily regarding the closed screen door
that led to the kitchen, ready to mingle deceptively with the coal
should any one appear.
At last he heard a bustle within the house. There were hurried steppings
to and fro by Winona and her mother, the heavy tread of the judge, a
murmur of high voices. The Whipples must have come, and every one would
be at the front of the house. He crept from his corner, climbed to the
floor from where it had been opened for wood and coal, and went softly
to the kitchen door. He listened a moment through the screen, then
entered and went noiselessly up the back stairs. Coming to the head of
the front stairway, he listened again. There were other voices in front,
and he shrank to the wall. He gathered that only the Whipple stepmother
and Patricia had come--no other Whipples, no preacher. It might not have
been so bad. Still he didn't want to be there.
They were at the front door now, headed for the parlour. Someone paused
at the foot of the stairs, and in quick alarm he darted along the hall
and into an open door. He was in the neat bedroom of Winona,
shortbreathed, made doubly nervous by boards that had creaked under his
tread. He stood listening. They were in the parlour, a babble of voices
coming up to him; excited voices, but not funeral voices. His eyes roved
the chamber of Winona, where everything was precisely in its place. He
mapped out a dive under her bed if steps came up the stairs. He heard
now the piping voice of Patricia Whipple.
"It's like in the book about Ben Blunt that was adopted by a kind old
gentleman and went up from rags to riches."
This for some reason seemed to cause laughter below.
He heard, from Winona: "Do try a piece of Mother's cake. Merle, dear,
give Mrs. Whipple a plate and napkin."
Cake! Certainly nothing like cake for this occasion had been intimated
to him! They hadn't had cake at the Finkboners. Things might have been
different, but they had kept still about cake. He listened intently,
hearing laughing references to Merle in his new home. Then once more
Winona came to the front door and called him.
"Wilbur--Wil-bur-r-r! Where can that child be!" he heard her demand. She
went to the back of the house and more faintly he heard her again call
his name--"Wilbur, Wil-bur-r-r!" Then, with discernible impatience, more
shortly, "Wilbur Cowan!" He was intently regarding a printed placard
that hung on the wall beside Winona's bureau. It read:
A gentleman makes no noise; a lady is serene.--Emerson.
He remained silent. He was not going to make any noise. At length he
could hear preparations for departure.
"Merle, dear, your hat is on the piano--Mother, hand him his hat--I'll
bring his suitcase."
"Well, I'll be sure to come back to see you all some day."
"Yes, now don't forget us--no, we mustn't let him do that."
They were out on the porch, going down the walk. The listener stepped
lightly to a window and became also a watcher. Ahead walked Patricia
Whipple and her new brother. The stepmother and Mrs. Penniman followed.
Then came Winona with the suitcase, which was of wicker. Judge Penniman
lumbered ponderously behind. At the hitching post in front was the pony
cart and the fat pony of sickening memory. Merle was politely helping
the step-mother to the driver's seat. It was over. But the watcher
suddenly recalled something.
In swift silence, descending the stairs, he entered the parlour. On a
stand beneath the powerful picture of the lion behind real bars was a
frosted cake of rare beauty. Three pieces were gone and two more were
cut. On top of each piece was the half of a walnut meat. He tenderly
seized one of these and stole through the deserted house, through
kitchen and woodshed, out to the free air again. Back of the woodshed he
sat down on the hard bare ground, his back to its wall, looking into the
garden where Judge Penniman, in the intervals of his suffering, raised a
few vegetables. It was safe seclusion for the pleasant task in hand. He
gloated rapturously over the cake, eating first the half of the walnut
meat, which he carefully removed. But he thought it didn't taste right.
He now regarded the cake itself uncertainly. It was surely perfect
cake. He broke a fragment from the thin edge and tasted it almost
fearfully. It wasn't going right. He persisted with a larger fragment,
but upon this he was like to choke; his mouth was dry and curiously no
place for even the choicest cake. He wondered about it in something like
panic, staring at it in puzzled consternation. There was the choice
thing and he couldn't eat it. Then he became aware that his eyes were
hot, the lids burning; and there came a choking, even though he no
longer had any cake in his mouth. Suddenly he knew that he couldn't eat
the cake because he had lost his brother--his brother who had passed on.
He gulped alarmingly as the full knowledge overwhelmed him. He was
wishing that Merle had kept the knife, even if it wasn't such a good
knife, so he would have something to remember him by. Now he would have
nothing. He, Wilbur, would always remember Merle, even if he was no
longer a twin, but Merle would surely forget him. He had passed on.
Over by the little house he heard the bark of Frank, the dog. Frank's
voice was changing, and his bark was now a promising baritone. His owner
tried to whistle, but made poor work of this, so he called, "Here,
Frank! Here, Frank!" reckless of betraying his own whereabouts. His
voice was not clear, it still choked, but it carried; Frank came
bounding to him. He had a dog left, anyway--a good fighting dog. His
eyes still burned, but they were no longer dry, and his gulps were
periodic, threatening a catastrophe of the most dreadful sort.
Frank, the dog, swallowed the cake hungrily, eating it with a terrible
ease, as he was wont to eat enemy dogs.