CHAPTER XVII
Wilbur Cowan's fear that his brother might untimely stop the war provedbaseless. The war went on despite the _New Dawn's_ monthly exposure ofits motive and sinister aims; despite its masterly paraphrase of acelebrated document declaring that this Government had been "conceivedin chicanery and dedicated to the industrial slavery of the masses." Noteven the new social democracy of Russia sufficed to inspire anynoticeable resistance. The common people of the United States hadrefused to follow the example of their brothers of Russia and destroy atyranny equally hateful, though the _New Dawn_ again and again set forththe advantages to accrue from such action. War prevailed. As theReverend Mallet said: "It gathered the vine of the earth and cast itinto the great wine press of the wrath of God."
But the little cluster of intellectuals on the staff of the _New Dawn_persevered. Monthly it isolated the causative bacteria of unrest, to setthe results before those who could profit would they but read. Merle,the modernist, at the forefront of what was known as all the newmovements, tirelessly applied the new psychology to the mind of thecommon man and proved him a creature of mean submissions. He spoke of"our ranks" and "our brave comrades of Russia," but a selective drafthad its way and an army went forward.
In Newbern, which Merle frequented between issues of the magazine, hereceived perhaps less appreciation than was his due. Sharon Whipple wasblindly disparaging. Even Gideon was becoming less attentive when themodernist expounded the new freedom. Gideon was still puzzled. Hequoted, as to war: "The sign of a mad world. God bless us out of it!"But he was beginning to wonder if perhaps this newest Whipple had not,with all his education, missed something that other Whipples hadlearned.
Harvey D. had once or twice spoken with frank impatience of the _NewDawn's_ gospel. And one Kate Brophy, cook at the Whipple New Place, saidof its apostle that he was "a sahft piece of furniture." Merle wassensitive to these little winds of captiousness. He was now convincedthat Newbern would never be a cultural centre. There was a spirit ofintolerance abroad.
Sharon Whipple, becoming less and less restrained as the months went on,spoke of the staff of the _New Dawn_ in Merle's hearing. He called it acage of every unclean and hateful bird. Merle smiled tolerantly, andcalled Sharon a besotted reactionary, warning him further that such ashe could never stem the tide of revolution now gathering for its fullsweep. Sharon retorted that it hadn't swept anything yet.
"Perhaps not yet--on the surface," said Merle. "But now we shall showour teeth."
Sharon fell to a low sort of wit in his retort.
"Better not show your teeth to the Government!" he warned. "If you doyou want to have the address of a good dentist handy."
And after another month--when the magazine of light urged resistance tothe draft--it became apparent not only that the _New Dawn_ would notstop the war, but that the war would incredibly stop the _New Dawn_. Thedespoilers of America actually plotted to destroy it, to smother itsmessage, to adjust new shackles about the limbs of labour.
Sharon Whipple was the first of the privileged class to say thatsomething had got to be done by the family--unless they wanted to havethe police do it. Gideon was the second. These two despoilers of thepeople summoned Harvey D. from Washington, and the conspiracy againstspiritual and industrial liberty ripened late one night in the libraryof the Whipple New Place. It was agreed that the last number of the_New Dawn_ went pretty far--farther than any Whipple ought to go. But itwas not felt that the time had come for extreme measures. It wasbelieved that the newest Whipple should merely be reasoned with. To thisend they began to reason among themselves, and were presently wrangling.It developed that Sharon's idea of reasoning lacked subtlety. Itdeveloped that Gideon and Harvey D. reasoned themselves into sheerbewilderment in an effort to find reasons that would commend themselvesto Merle; so that this first meeting of the conspirators was about tobreak up fruitlessly, when Sharon Whipple was inspired to a suggestionthat repelled yet pricked the other two until they desperately yieldedto it. This was that none other than Dave Cowan be called intoconsultation.
"He'll know more about his own son than we do," urged Sharon.
Harvey D.'s feeling of true fatherhood was irritated by this way ofputting it, but in the end he succumbed. He felt that his son was nowfar removed from the sphere of Dave Cowan, yet the man might retain someinfluence over the boy that would be of benefit to all concerned.
"He's in town," said Sharon. "He's a world romper, but he's here now. Iheard him to-day in the post office telling someone how many stars thereare in the sky--or something like that."
The following afternoon Dave Cowan, busy at the typesetting machine ofthe Newbern _Advance_, Daily and Weekly, was again begged to meet a fewWhipples in the dingy little office of the First National. The officewas unchanged; it had kept through the years since Dave had lastillumined its gloom an air of subdued, moneyed discretion. Nor had theWhipples changed much. Harvey D. was still neat-faced and careful ofattire, still solicitous of many little things. Gideon, gaunt and dour,was still erect. His hair was white now, but the brows shot theirquestioning glance straight. Sharon was as he had been, round-chested,plump; perhaps a trifle readier to point the ends of the grizzled browsin choleric amaze. The Whipple nose on all three still jutted forwardboldly. It was a nose never to compromise with Time.
Dave Cowan, at first glance, was much the same, even after he hadconcealed beneath the table that half of him which was never quite soscrupulously arrayed as the other. But a second glance revealed that theyellow hair was less abundant. It was now cunningly conserved from earto ear, above a forehead that had heightened. The face was thinner, andetched with new lines about the orator's mouth, but the eyes shone withthe same light as of old and the same willingness to shed its beamsthrough shadowed places such as first national banks. He no longeraccepted the cigar, to preserve in the upper left-hand waist coat pocketwith the fountain pen, the pencil, and the toothbrush. He craved ratherpermission to fill and light the calabash pipe. This was a mere bit ofform, for he was soon talking so continuously that the pipe was nolonger a going concern.
Delay was occasioned at the beginning of the interview. It proved to bedifficult to convey to Dave exactly why he had been summoned. Itappeared that he did not expect a consultation--rather a lecture byDave Cowan upon life in its larger aspects. The Whipples, strangely,were all not a little embarrassed in his presence, and the mere mentionof his son caused him to be informative for ten minutes before any ofthem dared to confine the flow of his discourse within narrower banks.He dealt volubly with the doctrines espoused by Merle, whereas theywished to be told how to deal with Merle. As he talked he consulted fromtime to time a sheaf of clippings brought from a pocket.
"A joke," began Dave, "all this socialistic talk. Get this from theirplatform: They demand that the country and its wealth be redeemed fromthe control of private interests and turned over to the people to beadministered for the equal benefit of all. See what they mean? Going tohave a law that a short man can reach as high as a tall man. Good joke,yes? Here again: 'The Socialist Party desires the workers of America totake the economic and political power from the capitalistic class.'Going to pull themselves off the ground by their boot straps, yes? Havea law to make the weak strong and the strong weak. Reads good, don't it?And here's the prize joke--one big union: Socialist Party does notinterfere in the internal affairs of labour unions, but supports them inall their struggles. In order, however, that such struggles might attainthe maximum of efficiency the socialists favour the closest organiccooperation of all unions as one organized working body.
"Get that? Lovely, ain't it? And when we're all in one big union, whoare we going to strike against? Against ourselves, of course--like we donow. Bricklayers striking against shoemakers and both striking againstcarpenters, and all of 'em striking against the honest farmer and thefarmer striking back, because every one of 'em wants all he can get forhis labour and wants to pay as little as he has to for the otherfellow's labour. One big union, my eye! Socia
lists are jokes. You neversaw two of 'em yet that could agree on anything for ten minutes--exceptthat they want something for nothing."
The speaker paused impressively. His listeners stirred with relief, butthe tide of his speech again washed in upon them.
"They lack," said he, pointing the calabash pipe at Gideon Whipple,sitting patiently across the table from him, "they lack the third eye ofwisdom." He paused again, but only as if to await applause. There was nointimation that he had done.
"Dear me!" murmured Gideon, politely. The other Whipples made littlesounds of amazement and approval.
"You want to know what the third eye of wisdom is?" continued Dave, asone who had read their secret thought. "Well, it's the simple gift ofbeing able to look at facts as they are instead of twisting 'em about asthey ain't. The most of us, savages, uneducated people, simples, andthat sort, got this third eye of wisdom without knowing it; we followthe main current without knowing or asking why. But professors andphilosophers and preachers and teachers and all holy rollers likesocialists ain't got it. They want to reduce the whole blamed cosmos toa system, and she won't reduce. I forget now just how many billion cellsin your body"--he pointed the pipe at Sharon Whipple, who stirreduneasily--"but no matter." Sharon looked relieved.
"Anyway, we fought our way up to be a fish with lungs, and then wefought on till we got legs, and here we are. And the only way we gothere was by competition--some of us always beating others. Holy rollerslike socialists would have us back to one cell and keep us there withequal rewards for all. But she don't work that way. The pot's stilla-boiling, and competition is the eternal fire under it.
"Look at all these imaginary Utopias they write about--good stories,too, about a man waking up three thousand years hence and findingeverything lovely. But every one of 'em, and I've read all, picture asociety that's froze into some certain condition--static. Nothing is!She won't freeze! They can spray the fire of competition with speechesall they like, but they can't put it out. Because why? Well, becausethis life thing is going on, and competition is the only way it can geton. Call it Nature if you want to. Nature built star dust out ofnothing, and built us out of star dust, but she ain't through; she'sstill building. Old Evolution is still evoluting, and her only tool iscompetition, the same under the earth and on the earth, the same out inthe sky as in these states.
"Of course there's bound to be flaws and injustice in any scheme ofgovernment because of this same competition you can't get away from anymore than the planets can. There's flaws in evolution itself, only theseholy rollers don't see it, because they haven't got the third eye ofwisdom; they can't see that the shoemaker is always going to want all hecan get for a pair of shoes and always going to pay as little as he canfor his suit of clothes, socialism or no socialism.
"What would their one big union be? Take these unions that are strikingnow all over the country. They think they're striking against somethingthey call capital. Well, they ain't. They're striking against eachother. Railroad men striking against bricklayers, shoemakers strikingagainst farmers, machinists striking against cabinetmakers, printersstriking against all of 'em--and the fools don't know it; think they'restriking against some common enemy, when all the time they're hittingagainst each other. Oh, she's a grand bit of cunning, this OldEvolution."
"This is all very interesting, Mr. Cowan"--Harvey D. had become uneasyin his chair, and had twice risen to put straight a photograph of theWhipple block that hung on the opposite wall--"but what we would like toget at--"
"I know, I know"--Dave silenced him with a wave of the calabash--"youwant to know what it's all about--what it's coming to, what we're herefor. Well, I can tell you a little. There used to be a catch in it thatbothered me, but I figured her out. Old Evolution is producing anorganism that will find the right balance and perpetuate itselfeternally. It's trying every way it knows to get these cells ofprotoplasm into some form that will change without dying. Simple enough,only it takes time. Think how long it took to get us this far out ofsomething you can't see without glasses! But forget about time. Our timedon't mean anything out there in the real world. Say we been produced inone second from nothing; well, think what we'll become in another tenseconds. We'll have our balance by that time. This protoplasm does whatit's told to do--that's how it made eyes for us to see, and ears tohear, and brains to think with--so by that time we'll be really living;we'll have a form that's plastic, and can change round to meet anychange of environment, so we won't have to die if it gets too cold ortoo hot. We want to live--we all want to live; by that time we'll beable to go on living.
"Of course we won't be looking much like we are now, we're pretty clumsymachines so far. I suppose, for one thing, we'll be getting ournourishment straight from the elements instead of taking it throughplants and animals. We'll be as superior to what we are now as he is toa hoptoad." The speaker indicated Sharon Whipple with the calabash.Sharon wriggled self-consciously. "And pretty soon people will forgetthat any one ever died; they won't believe it when they read it in oldbooks; they won't understand it. This time is coming, as near as I canfigure it, in seven hundred and fifty thousand years. That is, in roundnumbers, it might be an odd hundred thousand years more or less. Ofcourse I can't be precise in such a matter."
"Of course not," murmured Harvey D., sympathetically; "but what we werewanting to get at--"
"Of course," resumed the lecturer, "I know there's still a catch in it.You say, 'What does it mean after that?' Well, I'll be honest with you,I haven't been able to figure it out much farther. We'll go on and ontill this earth dries up, and then we'll move to another, or buildone--I can't tell which--and all the time we're moving round something,but I don't know what or why. I only know it's been going onforever--this life thing--and we're a little speck in the current, andit will keep going on forever.
"But you can bet this: It will always go on by competition. There won'tever be any Utopia, like these holy rollers can lay out for you in fiveminutes. I been watching union labour long enough to know that. Butshe's a grand scheme. I'm glad I got this little look at it. I wouldn'tchange it in any detail, not if you come to me with full power. Icouldn't think of any better way than competition, not if I took alife-time to it. It's a sporty proposition."
The speaker beamed modestly upon his hearers. Gideon was quick to clutchthe moment's pause.
"What about this boy Merle?" he demanded before Dave could resume.
"Oh, him?" said Dave. "Him and his holy rolling? Is that all you want toknow? Why didn't you say so? That's easy! You've raised him to be ahouse cat. So shut off his cream."
"A house cat!" echoed Harvey D., shocked.
"No education," resumed Dave. "No savvy about the world. Set him down inSpokane with three dollars in his jeans and needing to go to Atlanta.Would he know how? Would he know a simple thing like how to get thereand ride all the way in varnished cars?"
"Is it possible?" murmured Harvey D.
The Whipples had been dazed by the cosmic torrent, but here wassomething specific;--and it was astounding. They regarded the speakerwith awe. They wanted to be told how one could perform the feat, butdreaded to incur a too-wordy exposition.
"Not practical enough, I dare say," ventured Harvey D.
"You said it!" replied Dave. "That's why he's took this scarlet rash ofsocialism and holy rolling that's going the rounds. Of course there areplenty that are holy rollers through and through, but not this boy. It'sonly a skin disease with him. I know him. Shut off his cream."
"I said the same!" declared Sharon Whipple, feeling firm ground beneathhis feet for the first time.
"You said right!" approved Dave. "It would be a shock to him," saidHarvey D. "He's bound up in the magazine. What would he say? What wouldhe do?"
"Something pretty," explained Dave. "Something pretty and high-sounding.Like as not he'd cast you off."
"Cast me off!" Harvey D. was startled.
"Tell you you are no longer a father of his. Don't I know that boy?He'll half mean it, too, but o
nly half. The other half will be showingoff--showing off to himself and to you people. He likes to be noticed."
Sharon Whipple now spoke.
"I always said he wouldn't be a socialist if he couldn't be amillionaire socialist."
"You got him!" declared Dave.
"I shall hate to adopt extreme measures," protested Harvey D. "He'salways been so sensitive. But we must consider his welfare. In a timelike this he might be sent to prison for things printed in thatmagazine."
"Trust him!" said Dave. "He wouldn't like it in prison. He might getclose enough to it to be photographed with the cell door back ofhim--but not in front of him."
"He'll tell us we're suppressing free speech," said Harvey D.
"Well, you will be, won't you?" said Dave. "We ain't so fussy about freespeech here as they are in that free Russia that he writes about, butwe're beginning to take notice. Naturally it's a poor time for freespeech when the Government's got a boil on the back of its neck and isfeeling irritable. Besides, no one ever did believe in free speech, andno government on earth ever allowed it. Free speakers have always had touse judgment. Up to now we've let 'em be free-speakinger than any othercountry has, but now they better watch out until the boat quits rocking.They attack the machinery and try to take it apart, and then cry whenthey're smacked. Maybe they might get this boy the other side of a celldoor. Wouldn't hurt him any."
"Of course," protested Harvey D., "we can hardly expect you to have afather's feeling for him."
"Well, I have!" retorted Dave. "I got just as much father's feeling forhim as you have. But you people are small-towners, and I been about inthe world. I know the times and I know that boy. I'm telling you what'sbest for him. No more cream! If it had been that other boy of mine youtook, and he was believing what this one thinks he believes, I'd betelling you something different."
"Always said he had the gumption," declared Sharon Whipple.
"He's got the third eye," said Dave Cowan.
"We want to thank you for this talk," interposed Gideon Whipple. "Muchof what you have said is very, very interesting. I think my son will nowknow what course to pursue."
"Don't mention it!" said Dave, graciously. "Always glad to oblige."
The consultation seemed about to end, but even at the door of thelittle room Dave paused to acquaint them with other interesting factsabout life. He informed them that we are all brothers of the earth,being composed of carbon and a few other elements, and grow from it asdo the trees; that we are but super-vegetables. He further instructedthem as to the constitution of a balanced diet--protein for building,starches or sugar for energy, and fats for heating and also for theirvitamine content.
The Whipples, it is to be feared, were now inattentive. They appeared tolisten, but they were merely surveying with acute interest the nowrevealed lower half of Dave Cowan. The trousers were frayed, the shoeswere but wraiths of shoes. The speaker, quite unconscious of thisscrutiny, concluded by returning briefly to the problems of humanassociation.
"We'll have socialism when every man is like every other man. So farNature hasn't made even two alike. Anyway, most of us got the third eyeof wisdom too wide open to take any stock in it. We may like it when weread it in a book, but we wouldn't submit to it. We're too inquiring. Ifa god leaned out of a cloud of fire and spoke to us to-day we'd put thespectroscope on his cloud, get a moving picture of him, and take hisvoice on a phonograph record; and we wouldn't believe him if he talkedagainst experience."
Dave surveyed the obscure small-towners with a last tolerant smile andwithdrew.
"My!" said Gideon, which for him was strong speech.
"Talks like an atheist," said Sharon.
"Mustn't judge him harshly," warned Harvey D.
* * * * *
So it came that Merle Dalton Whipple, born Cowan, was ratherperemptorily summoned to meet these older Whipples at anotherconference. It was politely termed a conference by Harvey D., thoughSharon warmly urged a simpler description of the meeting, declaring thatMerle should be told he was to come home and behave himself. Harvey D.and Gideon, however, agreed upon the more tactful summons. Theydiscussed, indeed, the propriety of admitting Sharon to the conference.Each felt that he might heedlessly offend the young intellectual byputting things with a bluntness for which he had often been conspicuous.Yet they agreed at last that he might be present, for each secretlydistrusted his own firmness in the presence of one with so strong anappeal as their boy. They admonished Sharon to be gentle. But each hopedthat if the need rose he would cease to be gentle.
Merle obeyed the call, and in the library of the Whipple New Place,where once he had been chosen to bear the name of the house, he listenedwith shocked amazement while Harvey D., with much worried straighteningof pictures, rugs, and chairs, told him why Whipple money could nolonger meet the monthly deficit of the _New Dawn_. The most cogentreason that Harvey D. could advance at first was that there were toomany Liberty Bonds to be bought.
Merle, with his world-weary gesture, swept the impeding lock from hispale brow and set pained eyes upon his father by adoption. He was unableto believe this monstrous assertion. He stared his incredulity. HarveyD. winced. He felt that he had struck some defenseless child a cruelblow. Gideon shot the second gun in this unhuman warfare.
"My boy, it won't do. Harvey is glossing it a bit when he says the moneyis needed for bonds. You deserve the truth--we are not going to financeany longer a magazine that is against all our traditions and all oursincerest beliefs."
"Ah, I see," said Merle. His tone was grim. Then he broke into a dry,bitter laugh. "The interests prevail!"
"Looks like it," said Sharon, and he, too, laughed dryly.
"If you would only try to get our point of view," broke in Harvey D. "Wefeel--"
He was superbly silenced by Merle, who in his best _New Dawn_ mannerexposed the real truth. The dollar trembled on its throne, the fatbourgeoisie--he spared a withering glance for Sharon, who was the onlyfat Whipple in the world--would resort to brutal force to silence thosewho saw the truth and were brave enough to speak it out.
"It's the age-old story," he went on, again sweeping the lock of hairfrom before his flashing glance. "Privilege throttles truth where itcan. I should have expected nothing else; I have long known there was nosoil here that would nourish our ideals. I couldn't long hope forsympathy from mere exploiters of labour. But the die is cast. Godhelping me, I must follow the light."
The last was purely rhetorical, for no one on the staff of the _NewDawn_ believed that God helped any one. Indeed, it was rather felt thatGod was on the side of privilege. But the speaker glowed as he achievedhis period.
"If you would only try to get our point of view," again suggested HarveyD., as he straightened the Reading From Homer.
"I cannot turn aside."
"Meaning?" inquired Sharon Whipple.
"Meaning that we cannot accept another dollar of tainted money for ourgreat work," said Merle, crisply.
"Oh," said Sharon, "but that's what your pa just told you! You acceptedit till he shut off on you."
"Against my better judgment and with many misgivings," returned theapostle of light. "Now we can go to the bitter end with no false senseof obligation."
"But your magazine will have to stop, I fear," interposed Gideon gently.
Merle smiled wanly, shaking his head the while as one who contradictsfrom superior knowledge.
"You little know us," he retorted when the full effect of the silent,head-shaking smile had been had. "The people are at last roused. Moneywill pour in upon us. Money is the last detail we need think of. Ourmovement is solidly grounded. We have at our back"--he glanced defiantlyat each of the three Whipples--"an awakened proletariat."
"My!" said Gideon.
"You are out of the current here," explained Merle, kindly. "You don'tsuspect how close we are to revolution. Yet that glorious rising of ourcomrades in Russia might have warned you. But your class, of course,never is warned."
/> "Dear me!" broke in Harvey D. "You don't mean to say that conditions areas bad here as they were in Russia?"
"Worse--a thousand times worse," replied Merle. "We have here anautocracy more hateful, more hideous in its injustices, than ever theRomanoffs dreamed of. And how much longer do you think these serfs ofours will suffer it? I tell you they are roused this instant! They awaitonly a word!"
"Are you going to speak it?" demanded Sharon.
"Now, now!" soothed Harvey D. as Merle turned heatedly upon Sharon, whothus escaped blasting.
"I am not here to be baited," protested Merle.
"Of course not, my boy," said the distressed Harvey D.
Merle faced the latter.
"I need not say that this decision of yours--this abrupt withdrawal, ofyour cooperation--must make a profound difference in our relations. Ifeel the cause too deeply for it to be otherwise. You understand?"
"He's casting you off," said Sharon, "like the other one said he would."
"_Ssh_!" It was Gideon.
"I shall stay no longer to listen to mere buffoonery," and for the lasttime that night Merle swept back the ever-falling lock. He paused at thedoor. "The old spirit of intolerance," he said. "You are the sort whowouldn't accept truth in France in 1789, or in Russia the other day."And so he left them.
"My!" exclaimed Gideon, forcefully.
"Dear me!" exclaimed Harvey D.
"Shucks!" exclaimed Sharon.
"But the boy is goaded to desperation!" protested Harvey D.
"Listen!" urged Sharon. "Remember what his own father said! He's onlyhalf goaded. The other half is showing off--to himself and us. That manknew his own flesh and blood. And listen again! You sit tight if youwant to get him back to reason!"
"Brother, I think you're right," said Gideon.
"Dear me!" said Harvey D. He straightened an etched cathedral, and thenwith a brush from the hearth swept cigar ashes deeper into the rug aboutthe chair of Sharon. "Dear me!" he sighed again.
* * * * *
Early the following morning Merle Whipple halted before the show windowof Newbern's chief establishment purveying ready-made clothing for men.He was about to undergo a novel experience and one that would haveprofoundly shocked his New York tailors. There were suits in the window,fitted to forms with glovelike accuracy. He studied thesedisapprovingly, then entered the shop.
"I want," he told the salesman, "something in a rough, coarse,common-looking suit--something such as a day labourer might wear."
The salesman was momentarily puzzled, yet seemed to see light.
"Yes, sir--right this way, sir," and he led his customer back betweenthe lines of tables piled high with garments. He halted and spanned thechest of the customer with a tape measure. From halfway down a stack ofcoats he pulled one of the proper size.
"Here's a snappy thing, sir, fitted in at the back--belted--cuffs onthe trousers, neat check----"
But the customer waved it aside impatiently.
"No, no! I want something common--coarse cloth, roughly made, no style;it mustn't fit too well."
The salesman deliberated sympathetically.
"Ah, I see--masquerade, sir?"
The customer again manifested impatience.
"No, no! A suit such as a day labourer might wear--a factory worker, oneof the poorer class."
The salesman heightened his manifestation of sympathy.
"Well, sir"--he deliberated, tapping his brow with a pencil, scanningthe long line of garments--"I'm afraid we're not stocked with what youwish. Best go to a costumer, sir, and rent one for the night perhaps."
The customer firmly pushed back a pendent lock of hair and becameimpressive.
"I tell you it is not for a masquerade or any foolishness of that sort.I wish a plain, roughly made, common-looking suit of clothes, not toowell fitting--the sort of things working people wear, don't youunderstand?"
"But certainly, sir; I understand perfectly. This coat here is what theworking people are buying; sold a dozen suits myself this week to someof the mill workers--very natty, sir, and only sixty-five dollars. Ifyou'll look closely at the workers about town you'll see the samesuits--right dressy, you'll notice. I'm afraid the other sort of thinghas gone a little out of style; in fact, I don't believe you'll be ableto find a suit such as you describe. They're not being made. Workers arebuying this sort of garment." He picked up the snappy belted coat andfondled its nap affectionately. "Of course, for a fancy-dress party----"
"No, no, no! I tell you it isn't a masquerade!"
The salesman seemed at a loss for further suggestions. The customer'seye lighted upon a pile of coats farther down the line.
"What are those?"
"Those? Corduroy, sir. Splendid garments--suitable for the woods,camping, hunting, fishing. We're well stocked with hunting equipment.Will you look at them?"
"I suppose so," said the customer, desperately.
* * * * *
Late that afternoon the three older Whipples, on the piazza of theWhipple New Place, painfully discussed the scene of the previousevening. It was felt by two of them that some tragic event impended.Sharon alone was cheerful. From time to time he admonished the other twoto sit tight.
"He'll tell you you ain't any longer a father of his, or a grandfather,either, but sit tight!"
He had said this when Merle appeared before them as a car drew up to thedoor. There was an immediate sensation from which even Sharon was notimmune. For Merle was garbed in corduroy, and the bagging trousers werestuffed into the tops of heavy, high-laced boots. The coat was beltedbut loose fitting. The exposed shirt was of brown flannel, and the grayfelt hat was low-crowned and broad of brim. The hat was firmly set onthe wearer's head, and about his neck was a wreath of colour--a knottedhandkerchief of flaming scarlet.
The three men stared at him in silent stupefaction. He seemed about topass them on his way to the waiting car, but then paused and confrontedthem, his head back. He laughed his bitter laugh.
"Does it seem strange to see me in the dress of a common workingman?" hedemanded.
"Dress of a what?" demanded Sharon Whipple. The other ignored this.
"You have consigned me to the ranks," he continued, chiefly to Harvey D."I must work with my hands for the simple fare that my comrades are ableto gain with their own toil. I must dress as one of them. It's absurdlysimple."
"My!" exclaimed Gideon.
Harvey D. was suffering profoundly, but all at once his eyes flashedwith alarm.
"Haven't those boots nails in them?" he suddenly demanded.
"I dare say they have."
"And you've been going across the hardwood floors?" demanded Harvey D.again.
"This is too absurd!" said Merle, grimly.
Harvey D. hesitated, then smiled, his alarm vanishing.
"Of course I was absurd," he admitted, contritely. "I know you must havekept on the rugs."
"Oh, oh!" Again came the dry, bitter laugh of Merle.
"Say," broke in Sharon, "you want to take a good long look at the nextworkingman you see."
Merle swept him with a glance of scorn. He stepped into the waiting car.
"I could no longer brook this spirit of intolerance, but I'm takingnothing except the clothes I'm wearing," he reminded Harvey D. "I go tomy comrades barehanded." He adjusted the knot of crimson at his whitethroat. "But they will not be barehanded long, remember that!"
Nathan Marwick started the car along the driveway. Merle was seen toorder a halt.
"Of course, for a time, at least, I shall keep the New York apartment.My address will be the same."
The car went on.
"Did that father know his own flesh and blood--I ask you?" demandedSharon.
"Dear me, dear me!" sighed Harvey D.
"Poor young thing!" said Gideon.
Merle, on his way to the train, thought of his hat. He had not been ableto feel confidence in that hat. There was a trimness about it, anassertive
glamour, an air of success, that should not stamp one of theoppressed. He had gone to the purchase of it with vague notions that alabouring man, at least while actually labouring, wears a square cap ofpaper which he has made himself. So he was crowned in all cartoons. But,of course, this paper thing would not do for street wear, and the hat henow wore was the least wealth-suggesting he had been able to find. Henow decided that a cap would be better. He seemed to remember that thetoiling masses wore a lot of caps.
The Wrong Twin Page 17