The Wrong Twin eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 454 pages of information about The Wrong Twin.

The Wrong Twin eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 454 pages of information about The Wrong Twin.

“Preposterous!” Merle again murmured.

“But kind of plausible, wasn’t it?  Sharon wasn’t any madder than the others when they found each other out.  Mrs. Harvey D. is the only one they think they can’t trust now.  They’re going to watch that woman’s funds.  Say, anything she gets through the lines to you—­won’t keep you from toiling!”

“Poor Mother Ella!” murmured Merle, his gaze remotely upon the woman.  “She has always been so fond of me.”

“They’re all fond of you, for that matter, I think they’re fonder of you than if you’d been born there.  But still they’re rank Bolsheviks right now.  They confiscated your estates.”

“I didn’t need you to tell me they’re fond of me,” retorted Merle with recovered spirit.  He sighed.  “They must have missed me horribly this last year.”  There was contrition in his tone.  “I suppose I should have taken time to think of that, but you’ll never know how my work here has engrossed me.  I suppose one always does sacrifice to ideals.  Still, I owed them something—­I should have remembered that.”  He closed on a note of regret.

“Well, you better go back with me.  They’ll be mighty glad to see you.”

“We can make that eleven-forty-eight if we hurry,” he said.  “I’ll have to change a few things.”

He bustled cheerily into a bedroom.  As he moved about there he whistled the “Marseillaise.”

Ten minutes later he emerged with bag, hat, and stick.  The last item of corduroy had vanished from his apparel.  He was quietly dressed, as an exploiter of the masses or a mechanic.  He set the bag on the desk, and going to a window peered from behind the curtain into the street.

“Some of those rowdies are still prowling about,” he said, “but there are cabs directly across the street.”

He pulled the soft hat well down over his brow.

Wilbur had sat motionless in his chair while the dressing went on.  He got up now.

“Listen!” he said.  “If you hear back home of my telling people you’re a dangerous radical, don’t be worried.  Even the Cowans have some family pride.  And don’t worry about the prowling rowdies out there.  I’ll get you across the street to a cab.  Give me the bag.”

As they crossed the street, Merle—­at his brother’s elbow—­somewhat jauntily whistled, with fair accuracy, not the “Marseillaise,” but an innocent popular ballad.  Nor did he step aside for a torn strip of red cloth lying in their way.

CHAPTER XXI

The next morning Wilbur found the Penniman household in turmoil.  The spirit of an outraged Judge Penniman pervaded it darkly, and his wife wept as she flurried noisily about the kitchen.  Neither of them would regard him until he enforced their notice.  The judge, indignantly fanning himself in the wicker porch chair, put him off with vague black mutters about Winona.  The girl had gone from bad to worse.  But his skirts were clean.  The mother was the one to blame.  He’d talked all he could.

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Project Gutenberg
The Wrong Twin from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.