"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 circ.u.mstances, 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 Sat.u.r.day. They would come for Merle Sat.u.r.day 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 ragam.u.f.fin.
It came to the Wilbur twin that these days until Sat.u.r.day 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 pa.s.sed on, as they said, his mortal remains to be disposed of on Sat.u.r.day 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 Sat.u.r.day afternoon the tension was at its highest. Merle, dressed in his Sunday clothes, trod squeakily in the new shoes, which were b.u.t.ton shoes surpa.s.sing 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 antic.i.p.ation. 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 Finkb.o.n.e.r 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 Finkb.o.n.e.r 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 Finkb.o.n.e.r 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 Finkb.o.n.e.rs. 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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.
CHAPTER VIII
Midsummer faded into late summer, and Dave Cowan was still small-towning it. To the uninformed he might have seemed a staff, fixed and permanent, to Sam Pickering and the Newbern Center _Advance_. But Sam was not uninformed. He was wise in Dave"s ways; he knew the longer Dave stayed the more casually would he flit; an hour"s warning and the _Advance_ would be needing a printer. So Sam became aware on a day in early September that he would be wise to have a subst.i.tute ready. He knew the signs. Dave would become abstracted, stand longer and oftener at the window overlooking the slow life of Newbern. His mind would already be off and away. Then on an afternoon he would tell Sam that he must see a man in Seattle, and if Sam had taken forethought there would be a new printer at the case next day. The present sojourn of Dave"s had been longer than any Sam Pickering could remember, for the reason, it seemed, that Dave had been interested in teaching his remaining son a good loose trade.
Directly after the apotheosis of Merle his brother had been taken to the _Advance_ office where, perched upon a high stool, his bare legs intricately entwined among its rungs, he had been taught the surface mysteries of typesetting. At first he was merely let to set up quads in his stick, though putting leads between the lines and learning the use of his steel rule. Then he was taught the location of the boxes in the case and was allowed to set real type. By the time Sam Pickering noted the moving signs in Dave the boy was struggling with copy and winning his father"s praise for his apt.i.tude. True, he too often neglected to reach to the upper case for capital letters, and the galley proofs of his takes were not as clean as they should have been, but he was learning. His father said so.
Every Wednesday he earned a real quarter by sitting against the wall back of the hand press and inking the forms while his father ran off the edition. This was better fun than typesetting. Before you was a long roller on two other long rollers, and at your right hand was a small roller with which you picked up ink from a stone, rolling it across and across with a spirited crackle; then you ran the small roller the length of the long roller; then you turned a crank that revolved the two lower rollers, thus distributing the ink evenly over the upper one. After that you ran the upper roller out over the two forms of type on the press bed.
Dave Cowan, across the press, the sleeves of his pink-striped shirt rolled to his elbows, then let down a frame in which he had fixed a virgin sheet of paper, ran the bed of the press back under a weighted shelf, and pulled a mighty lever to make the imprint. Wilbur had heard the phrase "power of the press." He conceived that this was what the phrase meant--this pulling of the lever. Surmounting the framework of the press was a bronze eagle with wings out-spread for flight. His father told him, the first day of his service, that this bird would flap its wings and scream three times when the last paper was run off. This would be the signal for Terry Stamper, the devil, to go across to Vielhaber"s and fetch a pail of beer. Wilbur had waited for this phenomenon, only to believe, after repeated disappointments, that it was one of his father"s jokes, though it was true that Terry Stamper brought the beer, which was drunk by Dave and Terry and Sam Pickering. Sam had been folding the printed papers, while Terry Stamper operated a machine that left upon each the name of a subscriber, dropping them into a clothes basket, which he later conveyed to the post office. Wilbur enjoyed this work, running the long roller across the forms after each impression, spotting himself and his clothes with ink. After he had learned some more he would be a printer"s devil like Terry, and fetch the beer and run the job press and do other interesting things. There was a little thrill for him in knowing you could say devil in this connection without having people think you were using a bad word.