The Wrong Twin Part 22

"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 pa.s.sing 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 debris. 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 inst.i.tution, 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 ap.r.o.n 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 a.s.surance 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 pa.s.sed 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 sc.r.a.ps 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 circ.u.mstance.

"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 coa.r.s.e 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.