The Wrong Twin Read online

  CHAPTER III

  The Penniman house, white, with green blinds, is set back from themaple-and-elm-shaded street, guarded by a white picket fence. Betweenthe house and gate a green lawn was crossed by a gravelled walk, withborders of phlox; beyond the borders, on either side, were floweringshrubs, and at equal distances from the walk, circular beds of scarlettulips and yellow daffodils. Detached from the Penniman house, but stillin the same yard, was a smaller, one-storied house, also white, withgreen blinds, tenanted by Dave Cowan and his twins, who--in Newbernvernacular--mealed with Mrs. Penniman. It had been the Cowan home whenDave married the Penniman cousin who had borne the twins. There was apath worn in the grass between the two houses.

  On the Penniman front porch the judge was throned in a wicker chair. Hewas a nobly fronted old gentleman, with imposing head, bald at the topbut tastefully hung with pale, fluffy side curls. His face was wide andfull, smoothly shaven, his cheeks pink, his eyes a pure, pale blue. Hewas clad in a rumpled linen suit the trousers of which were drawn wellup his plump legs above white socks and low black shoes, broad and loosefitting. As the shadows had lengthened and the day cooled he abandoned apalm-leaf fan he had been languidly waving. His face at the momentglowed with animation, for he played over the deciding game in thatday's match at checkers by which, at the harness shop, he had vanquishedan acclaimed rival from over Higgston way. The fellow had been skilledbeyond the average, but supremacy was still with the Newbern champion.So absorbed was he, achieving again that last bit of strategy by whichhe had gained the place to capture two men and reach the enemy's kingrow, that his soft-stepping daughter, who had come from the house, hadto address him twice.

  "Have you had a good day, father?"

  The judge was momentarily confused. He had to recall that hisinvalidism, not his checker prowess, was in question. He regained hispresence of mind; he coughed feebly, reaching a hand tenderly back to apoint between his shoulder blades.

  "Not one of my real bad days, Winona. I can't really say I've suffered.Stuff that other cushion in back of me, will you? I got a new pain kindof in this left shoulder--neuralgia, mebbe. But my sciatica ain'ttroubled me--not too much."

  Winona adjusted the cushion.

  "You're so patient, father!"

  "I try to be, Winona," which was simple truth.

  A sufferer for years, debarred by obscure ailments from activeparticipation in our industrial strife, the judge, often for days at atime, would not complain unless pressed to--quite as if he had forgottenhis pains. The best doctors disagreed about his case, none of them ableto say precisely what his maladies were. True, one city doctor, avisiting friend of the Pennimans' family physician, had once gonecarefully over him, punching, prodding, listening, to announce thatnothing ailed the invalid; which showed, as the judge had said to hisface, that he was nothing but an impudent young squirt. He had neverrevealed this parody of a diagnosis to his anxious family, who alwaysbelieved the city doctor had found something deadly that might at anytime carry off the patient sufferer.

  The judge was also bitter about Christian Science, and could easily beled to expose its falsity. He would wittily say it wasn't Christian andwasn't science; merely the chuckleheadedness of a lot of women. Thisbecause a local adept of the cult had told him, and--what wasworse--told Mrs. Penniman and Winona, that if he didn't quit thinkinghe was an invalid pretty soon he would really have something the matterwith him.

  And he had incurred another offensive diagnosis: Old Doc Purdy, themedical examiner, whose sworn testimony had years before procured thejudge his pension as a Civil War veteran, became brutal about it. SaidPurdy: "I had to think up some things that would get the old cuss hismoney and dummed if he didn't take it all serious and think he did have'em!"

  The judge had been obliged to abandon all thoughts of a career. Yearsbefore he had been Newbern's justice of the peace, until a gang ofpolitical tricksters defeated the sovereign will of the people. Andperhaps he would again have accepted political honours, but none hadbeen offered him. Still, the family was prosperous. For in addition tothe pension, Mrs. Penniman kept a neat card in one of the front windowspromising "Plain and Fancy Dressmaking Done Here," and Winona now taughtschool.

  Having adjusted the cushion, Winona paused before the cage of a parroton a stand at the end of the porch. The bird sidled over to her on stifflegs, cocked upon her a leering, yellow eye and said in wheedling tones,"Pretty girl, pretty girl!" But then it harshly screeched, "Ha, ha, ha,ha, ha!" This laughter was discordant, cynical, derisive, as if the birdrelished a tasteless jest.

  Winona went to the hammock and resumed an open book. Its title was"Matthew Arnold--How to Know Him." She was getting up in Matthew Arnoldfor a paper. Winona at twenty was old before she should have been. Shewas small and dark, with a thin nose and pinched features. Her darkhair, wound close to her small head, was pretty enough, and her darkeyes were good, but she seemed to carry almost the years of her mother.She was an earnest girl, severe in thought, concerned about her culture,seeking to subdue a nature which she profoundly distrusted to an idealshe would have described as one of elegance and refinement. The dressshe wore was one of her best--for an exemplary young man would callthat evening, bringing his choice silver flute upon which he would playjustly if not brilliantly to Winona's piano accompaniment--but it wasdull of tint, one of her mother's plain, not fancy, creations. StillWinona felt it was daring, because the collar was low and sported afichu of lace. This troubled her, even as she renewed the earnest effortto know Matthew Arnold. She doubtfully fingered at her throat a tinychain that supported a tiny pendant. She slipped the thing under theneck of her waist. She feared that with her low neck--she thought of itas low--the bauble would be flashy.

  Mrs. Penniman came from the kitchen and sat on the porch steps. She wasmuch like Winona, except that certain professional touches of colour atwaist, neck, and wrists made her appear, in spirit at least, the youngerwoman. There were times when Winona suffered herself to doubt hermother's seriousness; times when the woman appeared a slave to levity.She would laugh at things Winona considered no laughing matters, and hersympathy with her ailing husband had come to be callous and matter offact, almost perfunctory. She longed, moreover, to do fancy dressmakingfor her child; and there was the matter of the silk stockings. TheChristmas before the too downright Dave Cowan, in a low spirit ofbanter, had gifted Winona with these. They were of tan silk, and Davehad challenged her to wear them for the good of her soul.

  Winona had been quite unpleasantly shocked at Dave's indelicacy, but hermother had been frivolous throughout the affair. Her mother said, too,that she would like to wear silk stockings at all times. But Winona--shespoke of the gift as hose--put the sinister things away at the bottom ofher third bureau drawer. Once, indeed, she had nearly nerved herself toa public appearance in them, knowing that perfectly good women often didthis. That had been the day she was to read her paper on Early GreekSculpture at the Entre Nous Club. She had put them on with her new tanpumps, but the effect had been too daring. She felt the ogling eyes.The stockings had gone back to the third bureau drawer--to thebottom--and never had her ankles flashed a silken challenge to a publicthat might misunderstand.

  Yet--and this it was that was making Winona old before her time--alwaysin her secret heart of hearts she did long abjectly to wear silkstockings--all manner of sinful silken trifles. Evil yearnings like thiswould sweep her. But she took them to be fruits of a natural depravitythat good women must fight. Thus far she had triumphed.

  Mrs. Penniman now wielded the palm-leaf fan. She eyed her husband withan almost hardened glance, then ran a professional eye over the lines ofWinona. Her head moved with quick little birdlike turnings. Her darkhair was less orderly than Winona's, and--from her kitchen work--twospots of colour burned high on her cheeks.

  "Your locket's slipped inside your waist," she said, not dreaming thatWinona had in shame brought this about.

  Winona, who would have been shamed again to explain this, withdrew thebauble. The
fond mother now observed the book above which her daughterbent, twisting her neck to follow the title.

  "Is it interesting?" she asked; and then: "The way to know a man--cookfor him."

  Her daughter winced, suffering a swift picture of her too-light mother,cooking for Mr. Arnold.

  "I should think you'd pick out a good novel to read," went on hermother. "That last one I got from the library--it's about a beautifulwoman that counted the world well lost for love."

  Winona murmured indistinctly.

  "She didn't--she didn't stop at anything," added the mother, brightly.

  "Oh, Mother!"

  "I don't care! The Reverend Mallett himself said that novels should beread for an understanding of life--ever novels with a wholesome sexinterest. The very words he said!"

  "Mother, Mother!" protested Winona with a quick glance at her father.

  She doubted if any sex interest could be wholesome; and surely, withboth sexes present, the less said about such things the better. To herrelief the perilous topic was abandoned.

  "I suppose you both heard the big news today."

  Mrs. Penniman spoke ingenuously, but it was downright lying--no less.She supposed they had not heard the big news. She was certain they hadnot. Winona was attentive. Her mother's business of plain and fancydressmaking did not a little to make the acoustics of Newbern superior.From her clients she gleaned the freshest chronicles of Newbern's sociallife, many being such as one might safely repeat; many more, Winonauncomfortably recalled, the sort no good woman would let go any further.She hoped the imminent disclosure would not be of the latter class, yetsuddenly she wished to hear it even if it were. She affected to turnwith reluctance from her budding acquaintanceship with Matthew Arnold.

  "It's the twins," began her mother with a look of pleased horror. "Youcouldn't guess in all day what they've been up to."

  "You may be sure Wilbur was the one to blame," put in Winona, quick todefend the one most responsive to her lessons in faith, morals,etiquette.

  "Ought to be soundly trounced," declared the judge. "That's what Ialways say."

  "This is the worst yet," continued Mrs. Penniman.

  She liked the suspense she had created. With an unerring gift for oralnarrative, she toyed with this. She must first tell how she got it.

  "You know that georgette waist Mrs. Ed Seaver is having?"

  "Have they done something awful?" Winona demanded. "I perfectly wellknow it wasn't Merle's fault."

  "Well, Mrs. Seaver came in about four o'clock for her final fitting,and what do you think?"

  "For mercy's sake!" pleaded Winona.

  "And Ed Seaver had been to the barber shop to have his hair cut--healways gets it cut the fifteenth of each month--well, he found out allabout it from Don Paley, that they'd had to send for to come to theWhipple New Place to cut it neatly off after the way it had been sawedoff rough, and she told me word for word. Well, it's unbelievable, andevery one saying something ought to be done about it--you just neverwould be able to guess!"

  Winona snapped shut the volume so rich in promise and leaned forward toface her mother desperately. Mrs. Penniman here coughed in a refined andartificial manner as a final preliminary. The parrot instantly coughedin the same manner, and--seeming to like it--again became Mrs. Pennimanin a series of mild, throaty preliminary coughs, as if it wouldpresently begin to tell something almost too good. The real tale had tobe suspended again for this.

  "Well," resumed Mrs. Penniman, feeling that the last value had beenextracted from mere suspense, "anyway, it seems that this morning poorlittle Patricia Whipple was going by the old graveyard, and the twinsjumped out and knocked her down and dragged her in there away from theroad and simply tore every stitch of clothes off her back and made herdress up in Wilbur's clothes----"

  "There!" gasped the horrified Winona. "Didn't I say it would be Wilbur?"

  "And then what did they do but cut off her braid with a knife!"

  "Wilbur's knife--Merle hasn't any."

  "And the Lord knows what the little fiends would have done next, butJuliana Whipple happened to be passing, and heard the poor child'sscreams and took her away from them."

  "That dreadful, dreadful Wilbur!" cried Winona.

  "Reform school," spoke the judge, as if he uttered it from the bench.

  "But something queer," went on Mrs. Penniman. "Juliana took the twinshome in the pony cart, with Wilbur wearing Patricia's dress--it's aplaid gingham I made myself--and someone gave him a lot of money and lethim go, and they didn't give Merle any because Ed Seaver saw them onRiver Street, and Wilbur had it all. And what did Patricia Whipple sayto Don Paley but that she was going to have one of the twins for herbrother, because no one else would get her a brother, and so she must.But what would she want one of those little cutthroats for? That's whatpuzzles me."

  "Merle is not a cutthroat," said Winona with tightening lips. "He neverwill be a cutthroat." She left all manner of permissible suspicionsabout his brother.

  "Well, it just beat me!" confessed her mother. "Maybe they've beenreading Wild West stories."

  "Wilbur, perhaps," insisted Winona. "Merle is already very choice in hisreading."

  "A puzzle, anyway--why, there they come!"

  And the manner of their coming brought more bewilderment to the house ofPenniman. For the criminal Wilbur did not come shamed and slinking, butwith rather an uplift. Behind him gloomily trod the Merle twin. Even ata distance he was disapproving, accusatory, put upon. It was to be seenthat he washed his hands of the evil.

  "Whatever in the world--" began Mrs. Penniman, for Wilbur in the hollowof his arm bore a forked branch upon which seemed to perch in allconfidence a free bird of the wilds.

  "A stuffed bird!" said the peering Winona, and dispelled this illusion.

  The twins entered the gate. Midway up the gravelled walk Wilbur Cowanbegan a gurgling oration.

  "I bet nobody can guess what I brought! Yes, sir--a beautiful presentfor every one--that will make a new man of poor old Judge Penniman, andthis lovely orange--that's for Mrs. Penniman--and I bet Winona can'tguess what's wrapped up in this box for her--it's the most beautifulalbum, and this first-class animal for my father, and it'll last alifetime if he takes care of it good; and I got me a dog to watch thehouse." Breathless he paused.

  "Spent all his money!" intoned Merle. "And he bought me this knife,too."

  He displayed it, but merely as a count in the indictment for criminalextravagance. He had gone to the hammock to sit by Winona. He neededher. He had been too long unconsidered.

  The sputtering gift-bringer bestowed the orange upon Mrs. Penniman, thealbum upon Winona, and the invigorator upon the now embarrassed judge.

  "Thank you, Wilbur, dear!" Mrs. Penniman was first to recover her poise.

  "Thanks ever so much," echoed Winona, doubtfully.

  She must first know that he had come by this money righteously. Thejudge adjusted spectacles to read the label on his gift.

  "Thank you, my boy. The stuff may give me temporary relief."

  He had felt affronted that any one could suppose one bottle of anythingwould make a new man of him; and--inconsistently enough--affronted thatany one should suppose he needed to be made a new man of. He had notliked the phrase at all.

  "And now perhaps you will tell us----" began Winona, her lips againtightening. But the Wilbur twin could not yet be brought down to merehistory.

  "This is an awful fighting dog," he was saying. "He's called Frank, andhe eats them up. Yes, sir, he nearly et up that old Boodles dog justnow. He would of if I hadn't stopped him. He minds awful well."

  "Spent all _our_ money!" declaimed Merle in a public-school voice, using"our" for the first time since his defeat of the morning. Certain ofWinona's support, it had again become their money. "And cursing,swearing, fighting, smoking!"

  "Oh, Wilbur!" exclaimed the shocked Winona; yet there was dismay morethan rebuke in her tone, for she had brought the album to view. "Ifyou've been a bad boy perhaps I should not
accept this lovely gift fromyou. Remember--we don't yet know how you obtained all this money."

  "Ho! I earned that money good! That old fat Mr. Whipple said I earned itgood. He said he wouldn't of done what I done----"

  "Did, dear!"

  "--wouldn't of did what I did for twice the money."

  "And what was it you did?"

  Winona spoke gently, as a friend. But Wilbur rubbed one bare footagainst and over the other. He was not going to tell that shamefulthing, even to these people.

  "Oh, I didn't do much of anything," he muttered.

  "But what was it?"

  The judge interrupted.

  "It says half a wineglassful before meals. Daughter, will you bring methe wineglass?"

  The Pennimans kept a wineglass. The judge found a corkscrew attached tothe bottle, and sipped his draft under the absorbed regard of the group."It feels like it might give some temporary relief," he admitted,savoring the last drops.

  "You go right down to the drug store and look at that picture; you'llsee then what it'll do for you," urged the donor.

  "What else did the Whipples say to you?" wheedled Winona.

  The Wilbur twin again hung embarrassed.

  "Well--well, there's a cruel stepmother, but now she wasn't cruel to me.She said I was a nice boy, and gave me back my pants."

  "Gave you back--"

  Winona enacted surprise.

  "I had to have my pants, didn't I? I couldn't go out without any, couldI? And she took me to a pantry and give me a big hunk of cake withraisins in it, and a big slice of apple pie, and a big glass of milk."

  "I must say! And she never gave me a thing!" Merle's bitterness grew.

  "And she kissed me twice, and--and said I was a nice boy."

  "You already said that," reminded the injured brother.

  "And she didn't act cruel to me once, even if she is a stepmother."

  "But how did you come to be without your----"

  Wilbur was again reprieved from her grilling. The Penniman cat, Mouser,a tawny, tigerish beast, had leaped to the porch. With set eyes andquivering tail it advanced crouchingly, one slow step at a time,noiseless, sinister. Only when poised for its final spring upon thehelpless prey was it seen that Mouser stalked the blue jay on its perch.Wilbur, with a cry of alarm, snatched the treasure from peril. Mouserleaped to the porch railing to lick her lips in an evil manner.

  "You will, will you?" Wilbur stormed at her. Yet he was pleased, too,for Mouser's attempt was testimony to the bird's merit. "She thought itwas real," he said, proudly.

  "But how did you come to have your clothes----" began Winona sweetlyonce more, and again the twin was saved from shuffling answers.

  The dog, Frank, sniffing up timidly at Mouser on the porch rail,displeased her. From her perch she leaned down to curse him hissingly,with arched back and swollen tail, a potent forearm with drawn clawscurving forward in menace.

  "You will, will you?" demanded Wilbur again, freeing his legs from theleash in which the dismayed dog had entwined them.

  Frank now fell on his back with limp paws in air and simpered girlishlyup at his envenomed critic on the railing.

  "We got to keep that old cat out the way. He eats 'em up--that's all hedoes, eats 'em! It's a good thing I was here to make him mind me."

  "But how did you come to have your clothes----" resumed Winona.

  This time it was Dave Cowan who thwarted her with a blithe hail fromthe gate. Winona gave it up. Merle had been striving to tell her whatshe wished to know. Later she would let him.

  * * * * *

  Dave swaggered up the walk, a gay and gallant figure in his blue cutawaycoat, his waistcoat of most legible plaid, fit ground for the watchchain of heavy golden links. He wore a derby hat and a fuming calabashpipe, removing both for a courtly bow to the ladies. His yellow hair hadbeen plastered low on his brow, to be swept back each side of the partin a gracious curve; his thick yellow moustache curled jauntily upward,to show white teeth as he smiled. At first glance he was smartlyapparelled, but below the waist Dave always diminished rapidly inelegance. His trousers were of another pattern from the coat, not tooaccurate of fit, and could have been pressed to advantage, while theonce superb yellow shoes were tarnished and sadly worn. The man wasrichly and variously scented. There were the basic and permanent aromasof printer's ink and pipe tobacco; above these like a mist were the rareunguents lately applied by Don Paley, the barber, and a spicy odour ofstrong drink. As was not unusual on a Saturday night, Dave would havepassed some relaxing moments at the liquor saloon of Herman Vielhaber.

  "I hope I see you well, duchess!"

  This was for Mrs. Penniman, and caused her to bridle as she fancied asaluted duchess might. It was the humour of Dave to suppose this lady apeeress of the old regime, one who had led far too gay a life and, comenow to a dishonoured old age, was yet cynical and unrepentant. Winonaalso he affected to believe an ornament of the old noblesse, a creatureof maddening beauty, but without heart, so that despairing suitors slewthemselves for her. His debased fancy would at times further have itthat Judge Penniman was Louis XVIII, though at this moment, observingthat the ladies were preoccupied with one of his sons, he paused by theinvalid and expertly from a corner of his mouth whispered the coarsewords, "Hello, Old Flapdoodle!" From some remnant of sex loyalty hewould not address the sufferer thus when his womenfolk could overhear,but the judge could never be sure of the jester's discretion. Besides,Dave was from day to day earnestly tutoring the parrot to say the basewords, and the judge knew that Polly, once master of them, would use nodiscretion whatever. He glared at Dave Cowan in hearty but silent rage.Dave turned from him to kneel at the feet of Winona.

  "'A book of verses underneath the bow--'" he began.

  Winona shuddered. She knew what was coming; dreadful, licentious stufffrom a so-called poet--far, far different from dear Tennyson, thoughtWinona--who sang the joys of profligacy. Winona turned from therecitationist.

  "What? Repulsed again? Ah, well, there's always the river! Duchess, bearwitness, 'twas her coldness drove me to the rash act--she with herbeauty that maddens all be-holders!"

  Winona was shocked, yet not unpleasantly, at these monstrousimplications. She dreaded to have him begin--and yet she would have him.She tried to sign to him now that matters were to the fore too grave forclumsy fooling, but he only took the book from her hand to read itstitle.

  "'Matthew Arnold--How to Know Him,'" he read. "Ah, yes! Ah, yes! But ishe worth knowing?"

  "Oh!" exclaimed Winona, wincing.

  "No respect for God or man," mumbled the judge, meaning that a creaturecapable of calling him Old Flapdoodle could be expected to ask ifMatthew Arnold were worth knowing.

  The Wilbur twin here thrust the blue jay upon his father with cordialwords. Dave professed to be entranced with the gift. It appeared that hehad always longed for a stuffed blue jay. He curled a finger to it andcalled, "Tweet! Tweet!" a bit of comedy poignantly relished by the donorof the bird.

  His father now ceremoniously conducted Mrs. Penniman to what he spokeof as the banqueting hall. He made almost a minuet of their progress.Under one arm he carried his bird to place it on the table, where laterduring the meal he would convulse the Wilbur twin by affecting to feedit bits of bread. Winona still hungered for details of the day'stragedy, but Dave must talk of other things. He talked far too much, thejudge believed. He had just made the invalid uncomfortable by disclosingthat the Ajax Invigorator had an alcoholic content of at leastfifty-five per cent. He said that for this reason it would affordtemporary relief to almost any one. He added that it would be cheapstuff, and harmful, and that if a man wished to drink he ought to gostraight to Vielhaber's, where they kept an excellent line of AjaxInvigorators and sold them under their right names. The judge said"Stuff and nonsense" to this, but the ladies believed, for despite hislevity Dave Cowan knew things. He read books and saw the world. Only theWilbur twin still had faith in the invigorator. He had seen the picture.You cou
ldn't get round that picture.

  Having made the judge uncomfortable, Dave rendered Winona so by a brieflecture upon organic evolution, with the blue jay as his text. He saidit had taken four hundred and fifty million years for man to progressthus far from the blue-jay stage--if you could call it progress, thesuperiority of man's brain to the jay's being still inconsiderable.

  Winona was uncomfortable, because she had never been able to persuadeherself that we had come up from the animals, and in any event it wasnot talk for the ears of innocent children. She was relieved when thespeaker strayed into the comparatively blameless field of astronomy,telling of suns so vast that our own sun became to them but a pin pointof light, and of other worlds out in space peopled with beings like Mrs.Penniman and Winona and the judge, though even here Winona felt that thelecturer was too daring. The Bible said nothing about these other worldsout in space. But then Dave had once, in the post office, argued againstreligion itself in the most daring manner, with none other than theReverend Mallett.

  It was not until the meal ended and they were again on the porch in thesummer dusk that Winona made any progress in her criminalinvestigations. There, while Dave Cowan played his guitar and sangsentimental ballads to Mrs. Penniman--these being among the supposedinfirmities of the profligate duchess--Winona drew the twins aside andmanaged to gain a blurred impression of the day's tremendous events. Shenever did have the thing clearly. The Merle twin was eager to tell toomuch, the other determined to tell too little. But the affair hadplainly been less nefarious than reported by Don Paley to Ed Seaver. Thetwins persisted in ignoring the social aspects of their adventure. Tothem it was a thing of pure finance.

  Winona had to give it up at last, for Lyman Teaford came with his flutein its black case. Dave Cowan finished "In the Gloaming," brazenly,though it was not thought music by either Lyman or Winona, who wouldpresently dash into the "Poet and Peasant" overture. The twins begged tobe let to see Lyman assemble his flute, and Dave overlooked the processwith them. Lyman deftly joined the various sections of shining metal.

  "He looks like a plumber," said Dave. The twins giggled, but Winonafrowned.

  "No respect for God or man," mumbled the judge from his wicker chair.