The Wrong Twin Page 16

  CHAPTER XVI

  The next day Wilbur Cowan sought Sharon Whipple with the news that hemeant to do a bit of plain fighting overseas. He found the old man inthe stable, in troubled controversy with a rebellious car. He satstonily at the wheel and at intervals pressed a determined heel upon aself-starter that would whir but an impotent protest. He glared up atWilbur as the latter came to rest beside the car.

  "Well, what now?" He spoke impatiently.

  "I'm going to enlist; I thought I would tell you."

  Sharon pointed the heavy brows at him with a thumb and uttered adisparaging "Humph!" Then he appeared to forget the announcement, andpressed again on the self-starter, listening above its shrill song forthe deeper rumble of the engine. This did not ensue, and he shifted hisheel, turning a plaintive eye upon the young man.

  "She don't seem to excite," he said. "I've tried and tried, and I can'texcite her."

  It was an old, old story to Wilbur Cowan.

  "Press her again," he directed. Sharon pressed and the other raptlylistened. "Ignition," he said.

  He lifted the hood on one side and with a pair of pliers manipulatedwhat Sharon was never to know as anything but her gizzard, though thesurgeon, as he delicately wrought, murmured something about platinumpoints.

  "Try her!" Sharon tried her.

  "Now she excites!" he exploded, gleefully, as the hum of the motor tookup the shrill whir of the self-starter. He stopped the thing and bent areproachful gaze upon Wilbur.

  "Every one else leaving me--even that Elihu Titus. I never thought youwould, after the way we've stood together in this town. I had a right toexpect something better from you. I'd like to know how I'm goin' to getalong without you. You show a lot of gratitude, I must say."

  "Well, I thought--"

  "Oh, I knew you'd go--I expected that!"

  "Yes, sir," said Wilbur.

  "You wouldn't been any good if you hadn't. Even that Elihu Titus went."

  "Yes, sir," said Wilbur. He had been waiting to ask Sharon's opinionabout the only troubling element in his decision. This seemed themoment. "You don't suppose--you don't think perhaps the war will bestopped or anything, just as I get over there?"

  Sharon laboured with a choice bit of sarcasm.

  "No, I guess it'll take more'n you to stop it, even with that ElihuTitus going along. Of course, some spy may get the news to 'em thatyou've started, and they may say, 'Why keep up the struggle if thisCowan boy's goin' in against us?' But my guess is they'll brazen it outfor a month or so longer. Of course they'll be scared stiff."

  Wilbur grinned at him, then spoke gravely.

  "You know what I mean--Merle. He says the plain people will never allowthis war to go on, because they've been tricked into it by Wall Streetor something. I read it in his magazine. They're working against the warnight and day, he says. Well, all I mean, I'd hate to go over there andbe seasick and everything and then find they had stopped it."

  Intently, grimly, Sharon climbed from his car. His short, fat leg wentback and he accurately kicked an empty sprinkling can across the floor.It was a satisfying object to kick; it made a good noise and came to aclattering rest on its dented side. It was so satisfying that withanother kick he sent the can bounding through an open door.

  "Gave it the second barrel, didn't you?" said Wilbur. Sharon grinnednow.

  "Just a letter to your brother," he explained. Then he became profanelyimpassioned. "Fudge! Fudge and double fudge! Scissors and white aprons!Prunes and apricots! No! That war won't be stopped by any magazine! Goon--fight your fool head off! Don't let any magazine keep you back!"

  "Yes, sir," said Wilbur.

  "They can't stop the war, because there are too many boys like you allover this land. Trick or no trick, that's what they're up against.You'll all fight--while they're writing their magazines. Your reactionsare different. That's a word I got from the dirty thing--and from thatbrother of yours. He gets a lot of use out of that word--always talkingabout his reactions. Just yesterday I said to him: 'Take care of youractions and your reactions will take care of themselves.' He don'tcotton to me. I guess I never buttered him up with praise any too much.His languageousness gets on me. He's got Gideon and Harvey D. on a hotgriddle, too, though they ain't lettin' on. Here the Whipples havealways gone to war for their country--Revolutionary War and 1812,Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish-American--Harvey D. was in that. Didn'tdo much fighting, but he was belligerent enough. And now this son of hissets back and talks about his reactions! What I say--he's a Whipple inname only."

  "He's educated," protested Wilbur, quick to defend this brother, evenshould he cheat him out of the good plain fighting he meant to do.

  "Educated!" Sharon imitated a porpoise without knowing it. "Educated outof books! All any of that rabble rout of his knows is what they readsecondhand. They don't know people. Don't know capitalists. Don't evenknow these wage slaves they write about. That's why they can't stop thewar. They may be educated, but you're enlightened. They know more books,but you know more life in a minute than they'll ever know--you got abetter idea of the what-for in this world. Let 'em write! You fight! Ifit rests on that hairy bunch to stop the war you'll get a bellyful offighting. They're just a noisy fringe of buzzers round the real folks ofthis country."

  "Yes, sir," said Wilbur. "I thought I'd ask."

  "Well, now you know. Shove off!"

  "Yes, sir." Sharon's tone changed to petulance.

  "That's right, and leave me here to farm twenty-five hundred acres allby myself, just when I was going to put in tractors. That's the kind youare--just a fool country-town boy, with a head full of grand notions.Well, somebody's got to raise food for the world. She's goin' shortpretty soon or I miss my guess. Somebody's got to raise bread and meat.All right, leave me here to do the dirty work while you flourish roundover there seein' the world and havin' a good time. I'm sick of thesight of you and your airs. Get out!"

  "Yes, sir."

  "When you leaving?"

  "To-morrow night--six-fifty-eight."

  "Sooner the better!"

  "Yes, sir."

  Sharon turned back to the car, grumbling incoherent phrases. He affectedto busy himself with the mechanism that had just been readjusted,looking at it wisely, thumbing a valve, though with a care to leavethings precisely as they were.

  * * * * *

  That afternoon as Sharon made an absorbed progress along River Street hejostled Winona Penniman, who with even a surpassing absorption had beenstaring into the window of one of those smart shops marking Newbern'slater growth. Whereas boots and shoes had been purchased from anestablishment advertising simple Boots and Shoes, they were now soughtby people of the right sort from this new shop which was labelled theElite Bootery.

  Winona had halted with assumed carelessness before its attractivelydressed window displaying a colourful array of satin dancing slipperswith high heels and bejewelled toes. Winona's assumption of carelessnesshad been meant to deceive passers-by into believing that she looked uponthese gauds with a censorious eye, and not as one meaning flagrantly topurchase of them. Her actual dire intention was nothing to flaunt in thepublic gaze. Nor did she mean to voice her wishes before a shopful ofpeople who might consider them ambiguous.

  Four times she had passed the door of the shop, waiting for a dullmoment in its traffic. Now but two women were left, and they seemed tobe waiting only for change. Her resolution did not falter; she wasmerely practising a trained discretion. She was going to buy a pair ofsatin dancing slippers though the whole world should look upon her aslost. Too long, she felt, had she dwelt among the untrodden ways. As shehad confided to her journal, the placid serenity of her life had becomea sea of mad unrest. Old moorings had been wrenched loose; she floatedwith strange tides. And Wilbur Cowan, who was going to war, had invitedher to be present that evening at the opening of Newbern's new andgorgeous restaurant, where the diners, between courses and until lateafter dinner, would dance to the strains of exotic and jerky mus
ic,precisely as they did in the awful city.

  Winona had not even debated a refusal. The boy should be gratified. Nordid she try to convince herself that her motive was wholly altruistic.She had suddenly wished to mingle in what she was persuaded would be ascene of mad revelry. She had definitely abandoned the untrodden ways.She thought that reading about war might have unsettled her ideals.Anyway, they were unsettled. She was going to this place of the gaynight life--and she was going right!

  It was while she still waited, perturbed but outwardly cool, that theabsorbed Sharon Whipple brushed her shoulder. She wondered if her secretpurpose had been divined. But Sharon apparently was engrossed by othermatters than the descent into frivolity of one who had long beenaustere.

  "Well," he said, beaming on her, "our boy is going over."

  Winona was relieved.

  "Yes, he's off, but he'll come back safe."

  "Oh, I know that! Nothing could hurt him, but I'll miss the skeesicks."He ruminated, then said pridefully: "That boy is what my son would havebeen if I'd had one. You can't tell me any son of my get and raisingwould have talked about his reactions when this time come!"

  Winona winced ever so slightly at this way of putting it, but smiledvaliantly.

  "Publishing magazines full of slander about George Washington, and thisnew kind of stubby-ended poetry!"

  "It is very different from Tennyson," said Winona.

  "The other one's a man," went on Sharon. "You remember when you wasworried because he wouldn't settle down to anything? Well, you watch himfrom now on! He hasn't got the book knowledge, but he's got a fineoutdoors education, and that's the kind we need most. Don't you see thatfine look in his eye--afraid of nothing, knowing how to do mostanything? His is the kind makes us a great country--outdoor boys fromthe little towns and farms. They're the real folks. I'm awful proud ofhim, though I ain't wanting that to get out on me. I been watching himsince he was in short pants. He's dependable--knows how. Say, I'm gladhe took to the outdoors and didn't want to dress up every day and be aclerk in a store or a bank or some place like that. Wasn't it good?"

  "Wasn't it?" said Winona, bravely.

  "We need this kind in war, and we'll need it even more when the war isover--when he comes back."

  "When he comes back," echoed Winona. And then with an irrelevance shecould not control: "I'm going to a dance with him to-night." Her owneyes were dancing strangely as she declared it.

  "Good thing!" said Sharon. He looked her over shrewdly. "Seems to meyou're looking younger than you ought to," he said.

  Winona pouted consciously for the first time in her hitherto honestlife.

  "You're looking almighty girlish," added Sharon with almost a leer, andWinona suffered a fearful apprehension that her ribs were menaced by hisalert thumb. She positively could not be nudged in public. She must drawthe line somewhere, even if she had led him on by pouting. She steppedquickly to the door of the Elite Bootery.

  "He'll come back all right," said Sharon. "Say, did I ever tell you howhe got me to shootin' a good round of golf? I tried it first with thewooden bludgeons, and couldn't ever make the little round lawns underseven or eight--parties snickering their fool heads off at me. So I saysI can never make the bludgeons hit right. I don't seem to do more'nharass the ball into 'em, so he says try an iron all the way. So I triedthe iron utensils, and now I get on the lawn every time in good shape, Ican tell you. Parties soon begun to snicker sour all at once, I want youto know. It ain't anything for me to make that course in ninety-eightor"--Sharon's conscience called aloud--"or a hundred and ten or fifteenor thereabouts, in round numbers."

  "I'm so glad," said Winona.

  "I give him all the credit. And"--he turned after starting on--"he'llcome back--he'll come back to us!"

  Winona drew a fortifying breath and plunged into the Elite Bootery. Shewas perhaps more tight-lipped than usual, but to the not-too-acuteobserver this would have betokened mere businesslike determinationinstead of the panic it was. She walked grimly to a long bench, seatedherself, and placed her right foot firmly upon a pedestal, full in thegaze of a clerk who was far too young, she instantly perceived, fornegotiations of this delicacy.

  "I wish to purchase," she began through slightly relaxed lips, "a pairof satin dancing slippers like those in your window--high-heeled, onestrap, and possibly with those jewelled buckles." She here paused foranother breath, then continued tremendously: "Something in a shade togo with--with these!"

  With dainty brazenness the small hand at her knee obeyed an amazingcommand from her disordered brain and raised the neat brown skirt ofWinona a full two inches, to reveal a slim ankle between which and anogling world there gleamed but the thinnest veneer of tan silk.

  Winona waited breathless. She had tortured herself with the possibleconsequences of this adventure. She had even conceived a clerk offorbidding aspect who would now austerely reply: "Woman, how dare youcome in here and talk that way? You who have never worn anything butblack cotton stockings, or lisle at the worst, and whose most daringfootwear has been a neat Oxford tie with low heels, such as respectablewomen wear? Full well you know that a love for the sort of finery younow describe--and reveal--is why girls go wrong. And yet you comeshamelessly in here--no, it is too much! You forget yourself! Leave theplace at once!"

  Sometimes this improvisation had concluded with a homily in kinderwords, in which she would be entreated to go forth and try to be abetter woman. And sometimes, but not often, she had decided that a shoeclerk, no matter his age, would take her request as a mere incident inthe day's trade. Other women wore such things, and perforce must buythem in a public manner. She had steeled her nerve to the ordeal, andnow she flushed with a fine new confidence, for the clerk merely said,"Certainly, madam"--in the later shops of Newbern they briefly calledyou madam--and with a kind of weary, professional politeness fell to thework of equipping her. A joyous relief succeeded her panic. She not onlydeclared a moment later that her instep was far too high, but fitted atlast in a slipper of suitable shade she raised her skirt again as sheposed before a mirror that reached the floor. Winona was coming on. Hadcome!

  * * * * *

  Late that afternoon, while a last bit of chiffon was being tacked to adancing frock which her mother had been told to make as fancy as shepleased, Winona hastily scribbled in her journal: "Am I of a gaydisposition? Too gay, too volatile? No matter! It is an agreeable defectwhere one retains discretion sufficient for its regulation. This verynight I am one of a party avowedly formed for pleasure, something myreflective mind would once have viewed with disapprobation. But again nomatter. Perhaps I have been too analytical, too introspective. Perhapsthe war has confused my sense of spiritual values. War is such amistake!"

  It was a flushed and sparkling Winona who later fluttered down the dullold stairs of the respectable Penniman home at the call of the waitingWilbur Cowan. Her dark hair was still plainly, though rathereffectively, drawn about her small head--she had definitely rebuffed thesuggestion of her mother that it be marcelled--but her wisp of a frockof bronze gossamer was revolutionary in the extreme. Mrs. Penniman hadat last been fancy in her dressmaking for her child, and now stood by toexclaim at her handiwork. Winona, with surprising _aplomb_, bore thescrutiny of the family while she pulled long white gloves along her barearms. A feathered fan dangled from one of them.

  "Now, I guess you believe me," said Mrs. Penniman. "Haven't I alwayssaid what a few little touches would do for you?" Proudly she adjusted afilmy flounce to a better line. "And such lovely, lovely slippers!"

  The slippers were indeed to be observed by one and all. The shortdancing frock was in that year.

  Wilbur Cowan was appreciative.

  "Some kid!" he cried; "an eyeful!"

  Winona pouted for the second time that day, instead of rebuking him forthese low phrases of the street. Only Judge Penniman caviled.

  "Well, I'd like to know what we're coming to," he grumbled. "The idee ofa mere chit like her goin' out to a
place that's no better than asaloon, even if you do guzzle your drinks at a table--and in a dug-outdress!"

  Winona, instead of feeling rebuked, was gratified to be called a merechit. She pouted at the invalid.

  "Poor father!" she loftily murmured, and stood while her mother threwthe evening cloak about her acceptable shoulders.

  It was true that at the La Boheme alcoholic stimulant would be served tothose who desired it, but this was not compulsory, and the place was inno sense a common saloon. Her father was old-fashioned, as he had shownhimself to be about the lawless new dance steps that Wilbur had beenteaching her. He had declared that if people performed such antics inpublic without music they'd mighty soon find themselves in the lockup,and Winona had not even shuddered. Now, as he continued to grumble atthis degeneracy, she gracefully tapped his arm with her fan. She hadread of this device being effectively employed by certain conquerors ofmen, and coolly she tried it upon her father. She performed the triflegracefully, and it seemed of value audacious and yet nothing to bemisunderstood by a really clean-minded man. She tapped the judge againas they left, with a minor variation of the technic. The judge littleknew that he but served as a dummy at target practice.

  The car in which Wilbur conveyed his guest to the scene of revelry wasnot of an elegance commensurate with Winona's. It was a mongrel of manymakes, small, battered, and of a complaining habit. He had acquired itas a gift from one who considered that he bestowed trash, and hadtransformed it into a thing of noisy life, knowing, as a mother knows ofher infant, what each of its squeaks and rattles implied. It wasdistressing, in truth, to look upon, but it went. Indeed, the proudowner had won a race with it from a too-outspoken critic who drove amuch superior car. It was Wilbur Cowan who first in Newbern discoveredthat you could speed up a car by dropping a few moth balls into thegasoline tank. He called his car the Can, but, unreasonably, was not toocordial to others using the name.

  The Can bore the pair to a fretful halt under the newest electriclights on River Street. "The La Boheme" read the dazzling sign. AndWinona passed into her new life. She was feeling strangely young as sherelinquished her cloak to a uniformed maid. She stood amid exoticsplendour, and was no longer herself but some regal creature in theSunday supplement of a great city paper. She had always wanted to be agirl, but had not known how--and now at thirty-five how easy it seemed!She preceded Wilbur to a table for two, impressive with crystal anddamask, and was seated by an obsequious foreigner who brought to the acta manner that had never before in Newbern distinguished thisservice--when it had been performed at all.

  Other tables about them were already filled with Newbern's elect,thrilled as was Winona, concealing it as ably as she, with the town'snew distinction. Hardly had food been ordered when a hidden orchestrablared and the oblong polished space of which their own table formedpart of the border was thronged with dancing couples. Winona glowinglysurrendered to the evil spell. Wilbur merely looked an invitation andshe was dancing as one who had always danced. She tapped him with herfan as he led her back to the table where their first course hadarrived. She trifled daintily with strange food, composing a sentencefor her journal: "The whole scene was of a gayety hitherto unparalleledin the annals of our little town."

  There was more food, interspersed with more dancing. Later Winona, aftermany sidewise perkings of her brown head, discovered Merle and PatriciaWhipple at a neighbouring table. She nodded and smiled effusively tothem. Patricia returned her greeting gayly; Merle removed a shiningcigarette holder of remarkable length and bowed, but did not smile. Heseemed to be aloof and gloomy.

  "He's got a lot on his mind," said Wilbur, studying his brotherrespectfully.

  Merle's plenteous hair, like his cigarette holder, was longer than iscommonly worn by his sex, and marked by a certain not infelicitousdisorder. He had trouble with a luxuriant lock of it that persistentlyfell across his pale brow. With a weary, world-worn gesture he absentlybrushed this back into place from moment to moment. His thick eyeglasseswere suspended by a narrow ribbon of black satin. His collar was low andhis loosely tied cravat was flowing of line.

  "Out of condition," said Wilbur, expertly. "Looks pasty."

  "But very, very distinguished," supplemented Winona.

  Patricia Whipple now came to their table with something like a dancestep, though the music was stilled. She had been away from Newbern fortwo years.

  "Europe and Washington," she hurriedly explained as Wilbur held a chairfor her, "and glad to get back--but I'm off again. Nurse! Begin thecourse next week in New York--learning how to soothe the bed of pain. Iknow I'm a rattlepate, but that's what I'm going to do. All of us madabout the war."

  Wilbur studied her as he had studied Merle. She was in better condition,he thought. She came only to his shoulder as he stood to seat her, butshe was no longer bony. Her bones were neatly submerged. Her hair wasstill rusty, the stain being deeper than he remembered, and the freckleswere but piquant memories. Here and there one shone faintly, like thefew faint stars showing widely apart through cloud crevices on a murkynight. Her nose, though no longer precisely trivial, would never be theWhipple nose. Its lines were now irrevocably set in a design far lessnoble. Her gown was shining, of an elusive shade that made Wilbur thinkof ripe fruits--chiefly apricots, he decided. She was unquestionablywhat she had confessed herself to be--a rattlepate. She rattled now,with a little waiting, half-tremulous smile to mark her pauses, as ifshe knew people would weigh and find her wanting, but hoped forjudgments tempered with mercy.

  "Mad about the war? I should think so! Grandpa Gideon mad, and HarveyD.--that dear thing's going to do something at Washington for a dollar ayear. You'd think it was the only honest money he'd ever earned if youheard Merle talk about bankers sucking the life blood of the people.Juliana taking charge of something and Mother Ella mad aboutknitting--always tangled in yarn. She'll be found strangled in her ownwork some day. And Uncle Sharon mad about the war, and fifty timesmadder about Merle.

  "D'you see Merle's picture in that New York paper yesterday?--all hairand eyeglasses, and leaning one temple on the two first fingers of theright hand--and guess what it said--'Young millionaire socialist whodenounces country's entrance into war!' Watch him--he's trying to looklike the picture now! Uncle Sharon read the 'millionaire socialist,' andbarked like a mad dog. He says: 'Yes, he'd be a millionaire socialist ifhe was going to be any kind, and if he was going to be a burglar he'dhave to be one of these dress-suit burglars you always read about.'

  "Of course he's awfully severe on Merle for not going to fight, but howcould he with his bad eyes? He couldn't see to shoot at people, poorthing; and besides, he's too clever to be wasted like a common soldier.He starts people to thinking--worth-while people. He says so himself.Mixed up with all sorts of clever things with the most wonderfulnames--garment workers and poet radicals and vorticists and new-artersand everything like that, who are working to lift us up so nobody willown anything and everybody can have what he wants. Of course I don'tunderstand everything they say, but it sounds good, so sympathetic,don't you think?"

  She had paused often with the little smile that implored pity for herrattlepatedness. Now it prolonged itself as the orchestra became wildlyalive.

  Winona had but half listened to Patricia's chatter. She had been staringinstead at the girl's hair--staring and wondering lawlessly. She hadseen advertisements. Might her own hair be like that--"like tarnishedgold," she put it? Of course you had to keep putting the stuff on at theroots as it grew out. But would her colour blend with that shade?Patricia's skin had the warm fairness of new milk, but Winona wasdusky. Perhaps a deeper tint of auburn----

  She was recalled from this perilous musing by Rapp, Senior, who camepressing his handkerchief to a brow damp from the last dance. He bowedto Winona.

  "May I have this pleasure?" he said. Winona rose like a woman of theworld.

  "We're on the map at last," said Rapp, Senior, referring to Newbern'snewest big-town feature.

  "I know I'm on the map at last,"
said Winona, coyly, and tapped the armof Rapp, Senior, with her feathered trifle of a fan.

  "Dance?" said Wilbur to Patricia.

  "Thanks a heap! Merle won't. He says how can he dance when thinking offree Russia? But did you see those stunning Russian dancers? It doesn'tkeep them from dancing, does it? Poor old Merle is balmy--mice in hiswainscoting."

  They danced, and Patricia was still the rattlepate.

  "You're going over, Uncle Sharon told us. Merle says you're a victim ofmob reaction--what does that mean? No matter. Pretty soon he said you'dbe only a private. Grandpa Gideon looked as if he had bitten into alemon. He says, 'I believe privates form a very important arm of theservice'--just like that. He's not so keen on Merle, but he won't admitit. With him it's once a Whipple always a Whipple! When he saw Merle'spicture, leaning the beautiful head on the two long fingers and the hairkind of scrambly, he just said, 'Ah, you young scamp of a socialist!' asif he were saying, 'Oh, fie on you!' Merle can talk the whole bunch downwhen he gets to shooting on all six--sounds good, but I've no doubt it'sjust wise twaddle.

  "What a stunning dancer you are! Ask me quick again so I won't have togo back to free Russia. I'll promise to nurse you when you get woundedover there. I'll have learned to do everything by that time. Wouldn't itbe funny if you were brought in some day with a lot of wounds and I'dsay, 'Why, dear me, that's someone I know! You must let me nurse himback to health,' and of course they would. Anyway, the family's keenabout my going. They think I ought to do my bit, especially as Merlecan't, because of his eyes. Be sure you ask me again."

  He asked her again and yet again. He liked dancing with her. Sometimeswhen she talked her eyes were like green flames. But she talked ofnothing long and the flames would die and her little waiting smile comeentreating consideration for her infirmities.

  "Now you be sure to come straight to me directly you're wounded," sheagain cautioned him as they parted.

  He shook hands warmly with her. He liked the girl, but he hoped therewould be other nurses at hand if this thing occurred; that is, if itproved to be anything serious.

  "Anyway, I hope I'll see you," he said. "I guess home faces will bescarce over there."

  She looked him over approvingly.

  "Be a good soldier," she said.

  Again they shook hands. Then she fluttered off under the gloomy chargeof Merle, who had remained austerely aloof from the night's gayety.Wilbur had had but a few words with him, for Patricia claimed his time.

  "You seem a lot older than I do now," he said, and Merle, brushing backthe errant lock, had replied: "Poor chap, you're a victim of the mobreaction. Of course I'm older now. I'm face to face with age-longproblems that you've never divined the existence of. It does age one."

  "I suppose so," agreed Wilbur.

  He felt shamed, apologetic for his course. Still he would have someplain fighting, Wall Street or no Wall Street.

  He wrested a chattering Winona from Mrs. Henrietta Plunkett at the doorof the ladies' cloakroom. Mrs. Plunkett was Newbern's ablest exponent ofthe cause of woman, and she had been disquieted this night at observingsigns of an unaccustomed frivolity in one of her hitherto stanchestdisciples.

  "I can't think what has come over you!" she had complained to Winona."You seem like a different girl!"

  "I am a different girl!" boasted Winona.

  "You do look different--your gown is wonderfully becoming, and whatlovely slippers!" Mrs. Plunkett inspected the aged debutante with kindlyeyes. "But remember, my dear, we mustn't let frivolities like thisdivert our attention from the cause. A bit more of the good fight and weshall have come into our own."

  "All this wonderful mad evening I have forgotten the cause," confessedWinona.

  "Mercy!" said Mrs. Plunkett. "Forgotten the cause? One hardly does that,does one, without a reason?"

  "I have reasons enough," said Winona, thinking of the new dancingslippers and the frock.

  "Surely, my dear, you who are so free and independent are not thinkingof marriage?"

  Winona had not been thinking of marriage. But now she did.

  "Well"--she began--"of course, I----"

  "Mercy! Not really! Why, Winona Penniman, would you barter yourindependence for a union that must be demeaning, at least politically,until our cause is won?"

  "Well, of course----" Winona again faltered, tapping one minute toe of adancing slipper on the floor.

  "Do you actually wish," continued Henrietta Plunkett, rising to thefoothills of her platform manner, "to become a parasite, a man's bondslave, his creature? Do you wish to be his toy, his plaything?"

  "I do!" said Winona low and fervently, as if she had spoken the wordsunder far more solemn auspices.

  "Mercy me! Winona Penniman!"

  And Wilbur Cowan had then come to bear her off to her room, that echoedwith strange broken music and light voices and the rhythmic scuffing offeet on a floor--and to the privacy of her journal.

  "I seem," she wrote, "to have flung wisdom and prudence to the winds.Though well I know the fading nature of all sublunary enjoyments, yetwhen I retire shortly it will be but to protract the fierce pleasure ofthis night by recollection. Full well I know that Morpheus will wave hisebon wand in vain."

  Morpheus did just that. Long after Winona had protracted the fierceenjoyment of the night to a vanishing point she lay wakeful, revolvingher now fixed determination to take the nursing course that PatriciaWhipple would take, and go far overseas, where she could do a woman'swork; or, as she phrased it again and again, be a girl of some use in avexed world.

  In the morning she learned for the first time that Wilbur was to go towar in company with a common prize fighter. It chilled her for themoment, but she sought to make the best of it.

  "I hope," she told Wilbur, "that war will make a better man of yourfriend."

  "What do you mean--a better man?" he quickly wanted to know. "Let metell you, Spike's a pretty good man right now for his weight. You oughtto see him in action once! Don't let any one fool you about that boy!What do you expect at a hundred and thirty-three--a heavyweight?"

  After he had gone, late that afternoon, after she had said a solemnfarewell to him in the little room of the little house in the side yard,Winona became reckless. She picked up and scanned with shrewd eyes thephotograph of Spike that had been left: "To my friend Kid Cowan from hisfriend Eddie--Spike--Brennon, 133 lbs. ringside."

  She studied without wincing the crouched figure of hostile eye, eventhough the costume was not such as she would have selected for a youngman.

  "After all, he's only a boy," she murmured. She studied again the intentface. "And he looks as if he had an abundance of pepper."

  She hoped she would be there to nurse them both if anything happened.She had told Wilbur this, but he had not been encouraging. He seemed tobelieve that nothing would happen to either of them.

  "Of course we'll be shot at," he admitted, "but like as not they'll missus."

  Winona sighed and replaced the photograph. Now they would be a couple ofheads clustered with other heads at a car window; smiling, small-townboys going lightly out to their ordeal. She must hurry and be over!

  * * * * *

  Wilbur, with his wicker suitcase, paused last to say goodbye to Frank,the dog. Frank was now a very old dog, having reached a stage of yappingsenility, where he found his sole comfort in following the sun about thehouse and dozing in it, sometimes noisily dreaming of past adventures.These had been exclusively of a sentimental character, for Frank hadnever been the fighting dog his first owner had promised he would be. Hewas an arch sentimentalist and had followed a career of determinedmotherhood, bringing into the world litter after litter of puppies,exhibiting all the strains then current in Newbern. He had surveyed eachnew family with pride--families revealing tinges of setter, Airedale,Newfoundland, pointer, collie--with the hopeful air of saying that a dognever knew what he could do until he tried. Now he could only dream ofpast conquests, and merely complained when his master rous
ed him.

  "I hope you'll be here when I get back--and I hope I'll be here, too,"said his master, and went on, sauntering up to the station a bit lateras nonchalantly as ever Dave Cowan himself had gone there to begin along journey on the six-fifty-eight. Spike Brennon lounged against abaggage truck. Spike's only token of departure was a small bundlecovered with that day's _Advance_. They waited in silence until thedingy way train rattled in. Then Sharon Whipple appeared from thefreight room of the station. He affected to be impatient with therailway company because of a delayed shipment which he took no troubleto specify definitely, and he affected to be surprised at the sight ofWilbur and Spike.

  "Hello! I thought you two boys went on the noon train," he lied,carelessly. "Well, long as you're here you might as well take these--incase you get short." He pressed a bill into the hand of each. "Good-byeand good luck! I had to come down about that shipment should have beenhere last Monday--it beats time what these railroads do with stuffnowadays. Five days between here and Buffalo!"

  He continued to grumble as the train moved on, even as the two waved tohim from a platform.

  "A hundred berries!" breathed Spike, examining his bill. "Say, he shedsit easy, don't he?"

  They watched him where he stood facing the train. He seemed to have quitgrumbling; his face was still.

  "Well, kid, here we go! Now it's up to the guy what examines us. You'llbreeze through--not a nick in you. Me--well, they're fussy about teeth,I'm told, and, of course, I had to have a swift poke in the mush thatdented my beak. They may try to put the smother on me."

  "Cheer up! You'll make the grade," said Wilbur.

  Through the night he sat cramped and wakeful in the seat of a crowdedday coach, while Spike beside him slept noisily, perhaps owing to thedented beak. His head back, he looked out and up to a bow moon thatraced madly with the train, and to far, pale stars that were still. Hewondered if any one out there noted the big new adventure down here.